Foundations of Geopolitics

Based on Wikipedia: Foundations of Geopolitics

In 1997, a book appeared in Russia that read less like political theory and more like a battle plan for reshaping the entire world. It proposed breaking apart China, absorbing Finland, cutting Britain loose from Europe, and stoking racial conflict inside America. Most chillingly, it declared that Ukraine "as a state has no geopolitical meaning" and must be absorbed into Russia.

That book was The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia, written by Aleksandr Dugin. And if you've been watching world events unfold over the past decade, you might find its prescriptions disturbingly familiar.

A Textbook for Empire

Aleksandr Dugin is what happens when an ultra-nationalist intellectual with occult interests gets taken seriously by a military establishment hungry for ideological direction. His book landed at a particular moment in Russian history: the chaotic late Yeltsin years, when the country was reeling from the Soviet collapse and searching for a new sense of purpose.

The Russian military loved it.

Foundations of Geopolitics became a textbook at the Academy of the General Staff, the institution responsible for training Russia's top military commanders. General Nikolai Klokotov of the Academy is credited by Dugin as a co-author and primary inspiration, though Klokotov himself denies this. Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, who headed the International Department of the Russian Ministry of Defence, helped draft portions of the text.

Klokotov made a remarkable prediction about the book's future: it would "serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new military command." Gennadiy Seleznyov, who served as Speaker of the Russian State Duma and employed Dugin as an adviser on geopolitics, pushed for Dugin's doctrine to become mandatory in Russian schools.

This wasn't fringe thinking confined to academic seminars. This was being absorbed into the bloodstream of Russian strategic thought.

The Eurasian Vision

To understand Dugin's worldview, you need to grasp one central idea: the fundamental conflict between what he calls "Atlantic" and "Eurasian" civilizations.

Atlantic societies are the coastal nations, particularly the United States and Britain. Their geography made them seafaring, trading, cosmopolitan. In Dugin's telling, they became liberal, individualistic, and ultimately corrupting. America sits at the apex of this Atlantic world, spreading what Dugin views as a corrosive ideology of liberal democracy and market capitalism.

Eurasian societies are the landlocked heartland powers, oriented toward land rather than sea, toward tradition rather than commerce, toward collective identity rather than individual freedom. Russia, in this framework, isn't just another European country. It's the natural leader of a vast Eurasian civilization stretching across the world's largest landmass.

The book is blunt about what this means in practice. "The battle for the world rule of Russians" has not ended, Dugin writes. Russia remains "the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution." The coming Eurasian Empire will be built on "the fundamental principle of the common enemy: the rejection of Atlanticism, strategic control of the U.S., and the refusal to allow liberal values to dominate us."

A Country Convinced

Here's what's remarkable: Russian society has actually moved in the direction Dugin charted.

In a 2021 poll by the Levada Center, Russia's most respected independent polling organization, sixty-four percent of Russian citizens said they view Russia as a non-European country. Only twenty-nine percent considered Russia part of Europe. This represents a profound shift in national identity, a deliberate turning away from the West that Dugin had advocated for decades.

By 2023, this sentiment had crystallized into official policy. Russia adopted a foreign policy document called "The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation," personally approved by Vladimir Putin. The language could have been lifted directly from Dugin's book.

The document defines Russia as "a unique country-civilization and a vast Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power." It calls for creating a "Greater Eurasian Partnership" through close ties with China, India, Islamic nations, and the Global South. It identifies the United States and "other Anglo-Saxon countries" as "the main inspirer, organizer, and executor of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the collective West."

Even the Soviet nostalgia is there. The 2023 document positions Russia as the successor state to the Soviet Union and calls for spreading "accurate information" about the Soviet Union's "decisive contribution" to shaping the post-World War Two international order.

The European Blueprint

Dugin's plans for Europe read like a hostile takeover bid disguised as geopolitical theory.

Germany should be offered dominance over Central and Eastern European states, both Protestant and Catholic. Russia might even return the Kaliningrad Oblast, that strange Russian exclave sandwiched between Poland and Lithuania, as a sweetener. Dugin envisions a "Moscow-Berlin axis" as a pillar of Eurasian power.

France should be encouraged to form a bloc with Germany. Both countries, Dugin notes, have "a firm anti-Atlanticist tradition," a reference to France's occasional friction with American foreign policy and its history of pursuing an independent European voice.

Britain gets perhaps the most dismissive treatment. It's described merely as "an extraterritorial floating base of the U.S." and should be cut off from the European Union. When Britain actually voted for Brexit in 2016, some observers noted the curious alignment with Dugin's prescription, though causation is impossible to prove.

The ultimate goal for Europe? The book states it plainly: "the 'Finlandization' of all of Europe." That term comes from Cold War history, when Finland maintained nominal independence but carefully avoided antagonizing the Soviet Union. Dugin wants the entire continent reduced to that status: technically sovereign but strategically neutered.

The Nordic Absorption

Finland itself faces a harsher fate in Dugin's vision. It should be absorbed entirely into Russia. Southern Finland would merge with the Republic of Karelia, a region that Russia acquired from Finland after the brutal Winter War of 1939-1940. Northern Finland would be "donated" to Murmansk Oblast.

Estonia, with its significant Russian-speaking minority and strategic Baltic Sea position, should be transferred to Germany's sphere of influence. Latvia and Lithuania should receive "special status" within the Eurasian-Russian sphere, though Dugin later clarified that this really means integration into Russia rather than any meaningful independence.

These aren't abstract geopolitical musings. They describe the elimination of sovereign nations.

The Ukraine Problem

No section of Dugin's book has proven more consequential than his treatment of Ukraine.

His language is worth quoting at length because it reveals the ideological foundation for what would later become actual Russian military policy:

Ukraine as a state has no geopolitical meaning, no particular cultural import or universal significance, no geographic uniqueness, no ethnic exclusiveness, its certain territorial ambitions represents an enormous danger for all of Eurasia and, without resolving the Ukrainian problem, it is in general senseless to speak about continental politics.

Ukraine should not be allowed to remain independent, Dugin argues, unless it serves as a cordon sanitaire, a buffer zone, and even that would be "inadmissible according to Western political standards."

The one exception? Western Ukraine, the regions of Volynia, Galicia, and Transcarpathia, which have Catholic majorities rather than Orthodox ones. These areas could form an independent federation. But the rest of Ukraine, the vast majority of the country, must be absorbed into Russia.

When Russia annexed Crimea in 2014, when Russian-backed separatists carved out territories in eastern Ukraine that same year, when Russia launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022, the echoes of Dugin's 1997 blueprint were unmistakable.

Foreign Policy magazine noted in 2022: "The recent invasion of Ukraine is a continuation of a Dugin-promoted strategy for weakening the international liberal order."

The Caucasus and Central Asia

Georgia should be dismembered, according to Dugin. The regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia should be incorporated into Russia, along with the Republic of North Ossetia to form a "United Ossetia." Georgia's pursuit of independent policies is simply "unacceptable."

In August 2008, Russia went to war with Georgia and recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states, though almost no other country followed suit. Russian troops remain there to this day.

Belarus and Moldova should become part of Russia outright, not independent states. Belarus under Alexander Lukashenko has moved steadily in this direction, becoming almost indistinguishable from a Russian satellite state. Moldova, with its breakaway region of Transnistria already occupied by Russian troops since the early 1990s, continues to resist.

Azerbaijan presents interesting options. It could be "split up" or simply given to Iran, Russia's proposed key ally in the region.

The entire Caucasus, Dugin writes, should be considered Russian territory. This includes "the eastern and northern shores of the Caspian," meaning portions of Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, plus the Central Asian states of Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan.

The Islamic Alliance

One of the more surprising elements of Dugin's strategy involves the Islamic world. Despite Russia's brutal wars in Chechnya and its complicated history with Muslim populations, Dugin calls for a "continental Russian-Islamic alliance" as the foundation of anti-Atlanticist strategy.

This alliance is based on what Dugin calls "the traditional character of Russian and Islamic civilization," both supposedly resistant to Western liberal values.

Iran is the key ally. Dugin proposes a "Moscow-Tehran axis" as a counterweight to American influence in the Middle East. Given Iran's isolation from the West due to its nuclear program and human rights record, this alignment has indeed materialized in recent years, particularly visible in Russian and Iranian coordination in the Syrian civil war.

Armenia occupies a special role as a "strategic base," forming one leg of a Moscow-Yerevan-Tehran axis. Dugin notes approvingly that Armenians "are an Aryan people ... like the Iranians and the Kurds," a curious bit of racial categorization that hints at the ethno-nationalist currents running through his thinking.

Turkey, by contrast, should be destabilized. Russia should create "geopolitical shocks" within Turkey by "employing Kurds, Armenians, and other minorities" to attack the Turkish government. Turkey's membership in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, NATO, makes it an Atlanticist outpost that must be weakened.

The China Question

Dugin's original position on China was hostile. He saw the People's Republic as "an extreme geopolitical danger" to Russia, an ideological enemy that "must, to the maximum degree possible, be dismantled."

His proposed solution was breathtaking in its ambition. Russia should take Tibet, Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, and Manchuria as a "security belt." In exchange, Russia would offer China expansion opportunities to the south: Indochina (except Vietnam, which Dugin considered already pro-Russian), the Philippines, Indonesia, and even Australia.

This was essentially a plan to partition the most populous country on Earth.

But Dugin's views have evolved. In recent years, as China has grown more powerful and more willing to challenge American hegemony, Dugin has come to admire Beijing. A 2022 article in the South China Morning Post quoted analysts explaining this shift: Dugin "became fascinated with China when he saw that Beijing, unlike Moscow, does not even think about living in a Western-dominated world."

Temur Umarov of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace explained further: "Dugin claims that the Chinese political regime takes from the West only those features that strengthen the regime and allows its power to grow, and that it hasn't fallen into Western influence, becoming another centre in the geopolitical arena contrary to the West."

In other words, China proved it was serious about resisting Atlantic civilization. That earned Dugin's respect.

The Japan Gambit

Japan presents an opportunity for manipulation rather than conquest. Russia should offer to return the Kuril Islands, a chain of territories that the Soviet Union seized from Japan at the end of World War Two and that Japan still claims. This territorial dispute has prevented Russia and Japan from ever signing a formal peace treaty.

The goal isn't generosity. By offering this concession while simultaneously stoking anti-American sentiment, Russia could potentially detach Japan from its alliance with the United States, the cornerstone of American power projection in Asia.

Mongolia, meanwhile, should simply be absorbed into the Eurasian sphere. No elaborate strategy needed; its geographic position between Russia and China makes its fate a matter for those two powers to decide.

The American Target

For all its focus on Europe and Asia, the book's ultimate target is the United States.

"The main 'scapegoat' will be precisely the U.S.," Dugin writes. Russia must spread "geopolitical anti-Americanism everywhere."

The methods proposed for attacking America are particularly striking. Russia should "use its special services within the borders of the United States and Canada to fuel instability and separatism." The book specifically mentions provoking "Afro-American racists" to create backlash against the American political system.

The prescription continues: Russia should "introduce geopolitical disorder into internal American activity, encouraging all kinds of separatism and ethnic, social, and racial conflicts, actively supporting all dissident movements – extremist, racist, and sectarian groups, thus destabilizing internal political processes in the U.S."

It would also "make sense simultaneously to support isolationist tendencies in American politics."

Reading this in 2024, after years of documented Russian interference in American elections, social media manipulation, and support for divisive political movements across the ideological spectrum, these passages feel less like theoretical proposals and more like operational directives.

The Eurasian project, Dugin adds, could eventually expand to Central and South America, bringing the entire Western Hemisphere into the anti-Atlanticist coalition.

Subversion Over Invasion

Outside of Ukraine and Georgia, military operations play a relatively minor role in Dugin's strategy. The real weapons are subtler.

The book advocates "a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian secret services." These operations should be supplemented by "tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries."

This is the playbook of hybrid warfare, using every tool short of conventional military force to achieve strategic objectives. Information warfare, economic coercion, support for extremist movements, exploitation of social divisions. The goal isn't necessarily to conquer territory but to weaken adversaries from within while building coalitions of the resentful and the revisionist.

The Orthodox Coalition

Religion plays a significant role in Dugin's vision. Romania, North Macedonia, Serbia, "Serbian Bosnia," and Greece are grouped together as the "Orthodox Christian collectivist East." They should unite with "Moscow the Third Rome" and reject the "rational-individualistic West."

That phrase, "Moscow the Third Rome," carries centuries of historical weight. It originated in the sixteenth century when a Russian monk declared that after Rome fell and Constantinople fell, Moscow had become the third and final Rome, the center of true Christianity. It's a claim of civilizational and spiritual leadership that still resonates in Russian nationalist circles.

Poland presents a more complicated case. It should be granted "special status" in the Eurasian sphere. This may involve splitting Poland between German and Russian spheres of influence, a grimly familiar scenario that Poland experienced in 1939 and during the eighteenth-century partitions that erased the country from the map entirely.

Reception and Influence

How should we assess this book's actual impact on Russian policy?

John B. Dunlop of the Hoover Institution, one of the most respected Western analysts of Russian politics, issued a stark warning: "The impact of this intended 'Eurasianist' textbook on key Russian elites testifies to the worrisome rise of neo-fascist ideas and sentiments during the late Yeltsin and the Putin period."

Historian Timothy D. Snyder, writing in The New York Review of Books, traced Dugin's intellectual lineage to Carl Schmitt, a German legal theorist who advocated for a conservative international order and whose work influenced Nazi ideology. Snyder emphasized Dugin's role in promoting both Eurasianism and National Bolshevism, a bizarre hybrid ideology that combines elements of nationalism and communism.

Foreign Policy magazine called Foundations of Geopolitics "one of the most curious, impressive, and terrifying books to come out of Russia during the entire post-Soviet era." Notably, it was "more sober than Dugin's previous books, better argued, and shorn of occult references, numerology, traditionalism and other eccentric metaphysics."

That last point is worth pausing on. Dugin's earlier and later work is peppered with references to the occult, chaos magic, and esoteric traditions. The book's cover features a Chaos Star, a symbol associated with chaos magic in modern occult movements. Dugin later adopted this symbol as the logo for his Eurasia Party.

He stripped most of this out for Foundations of Geopolitics, making it palatable for military academy curricula. The mysticism was still there, underneath, but it was dressed in the respectable clothes of strategic theory.

The Question of Causation

Did Dugin cause Russian foreign policy to take the shape it has? Or did he simply articulate ideas that were already circulating among Russian nationalists and military thinkers, giving them a coherent framework and academic credibility?

The honest answer is: probably both, and it's impossible to fully untangle.

Dugin himself has had periods of influence and periods of relative marginalization within Russian power structures. He's not a government official. He doesn't command troops or sign decrees. His relationship with Putin is debated; some analysts see him as a significant influence, others as a useful propagandist who provides intellectual cover for decisions made on other grounds.

What's undeniable is the alignment between his prescriptions and Russian actions. The annexation of Crimea. The intervention in Georgia. The support for separatists in eastern Ukraine. The information warfare campaigns targeting Western democracies. The cultivation of far-right movements in Europe. The alliance with Iran. The efforts to divide NATO and the European Union.

Whether Dugin is the architect or merely the prophet, his book reads today less like political theory and more like a dispatch from the future, written a quarter century before that future arrived.

A World Reshaped

We live now in the world that Foundations of Geopolitics sought to create. Not entirely, not yet, but the trajectory is unmistakable.

Russia has positioned itself as the leader of an anti-Western coalition. China, once marked for dismemberment in Dugin's original vision, has become a partner in challenging American hegemony. The "Russian-Islamic alliance" manifests in coordination with Iran and outreach to other nations alienated from the West. Information warfare has become a constant feature of international relations. Liberal democracy faces challenges not seen since the 1930s.

Ukraine burns.

Whether we understand this as the implementation of a plan or the convergence of interests around a shared hostility to the post-Cold War order, the book remains essential reading for anyone trying to understand where the world is headed. It tells us what at least some influential people in Russia want that future to look like.

It's not a comforting vision. But ignoring it won't make it go away.