The Neglected Dimension of Ideology in Russia ’ s Political Warfare Against the West
known and most controversial Russian political philosophers . Anton Barbashin and Hannah Thoburn called Dugin “ Putin ’ s Brain ” and suggested that Dugin ’ s ultra-conservative ideas have become very popular in Putin ’ s Russia ( Barbashin and Thoburn 2014 ). Similarly , John Dunlop claimed that “[ b ] y summer 2001 , Aleksandr Dugin , a neo-fascist ideologue , had managed to approach the center of power in Moscow , having formed close ties with elements in the presidential administration , the secret services , the Russian military , and the leadership of the state Duma ” ( Dunlop 2004 ). Although Dugin was never the official ideologue of the Kremlin , “[ t ] he worldview he advocates has become part of mainstream thinking , both in the Russian political establishment and among the general public ” ( Ligerant 2009 ). Dugin may have lost his influence on the Kremlin since his outrageous comments regarding the Ukraine crisis of 2014 , which had cost him his job at Moscow State University , but Dugin ’ s ideas remain influential .
Dugin ’ s philosophy is largely a repudiation of Western liberalism and an attempt to provide Russia with a national identity and a historical mission after the collapse of the Soviet Union . Dugin ’ s Neo-Eurasianism is a strange mixture of various “ intellectual traditions , such as theories of conservative revolution , the German geopolitics of the 1920s and 1930s , René Guénon ’ s Traditionalism and the Western New Right ” ( Laruelle 2006 , 5 ). Although Dugin is a critic of Marxism and may be considered a dissident during the Soviet period , he is a firm collectivist with socialist leanings . “ Inspired by philosophers closely associated with fascism and Nazism , Dugin is an outspoken critic of capitalism , liberal democracy , and the bourgeois social order ,” suggests Yigal Ligerant ( Ligerant 2009 ). It is not easy to sum up his political theory , but there are some core ideas that have seemingly influenced the rhetoric and foreign policy of the Russian government .
Geopolitics and World Order
Russian ideology is often mischaracterized as “ geopolitics ” because Russian theorists and strategists frequently invoke the term when explaining the conflict with the West . Indeed , there was a great revival of geopolitical thought in the Russia of the 1990s . However , geopolitics is a fuzzy concept . It largely explores the relationship between geography and politics , often in relation to natural borders , “ large spaces ,” trade routes , influence over other states , and access to natural resources . Geopolitics emerged as an intellectual school of thought in the early twentieth century and has been associated with both imperialism and Nazism . The main thinkers of geopolitics were Halford Mackinder , Thomas Mahan , Rudolf Kjellen , Frederick Ratzel , and Karl Haushofer .
Dugin borrowed from these thinkers when he published his first major work The Foundations of Geopolitics in 1997 . The book was used as a textbook in many Russian educational institutions , including ( presumably ) the Russian General Staff Academy ( Dunlop 2004 ). Dugin claims , in line with geopolitical thinkers
33