Eurasianism: The struggle for the multi-polar world
Shahzada Rahim
Three decades ago, American pragmatic commentator Francis Fukuyama wrote The end of History and the Last man, proclaiming the end of ideological war and celebrating the victory of the liberal order.
The proclaimed words were no different from General George Marshall’s famous speech at Harvard University, in which he said:
the world situation is very serious…with foresight, and a willingness on the part of our people to face up to the vast responsibility, which history has clearly placed upon our country. The difficulties can and will be overcome”.
Both proclamations have something in common, the role of American leadership in maintaining world affairs.
Whereas George Marshall explained the responsibility of American leadership in the context of the cold war, Fukuyama attempted to presume the unilateral role of American leadership in the post-cold war, especially in the absence any major adversary on the global scale.
But within a decade, after Fukuyama’s open proclamation of America’s liberal ascendance, American leadership began suffering from the disorder of doublethink that originates from the contradiction between theory and practice in the promotion of liberal values.
Indeed, the proclamation led by the United States and Europe was frenzied with the selective vision of creating a liberal world order.
Consequently, the west tried to execute this vision through Think Tanks, NGO’s, Supply-side Economic reforms, and humanitarian intervention that finally ended up in the apocalypse and exposed the failure of unipolar American leadership.
In the wake of the so-called humanitarian interventions, and failure of supply-side economic reforms in the form of 2008 financial collapse, the leaders of Russia, China, India, Turkey and other major powers began perceiving the west’s promotion of liberal values as a cynical ploy to subvert their rule and their ambitions.
This dissent vertical thinking was similar to the German school of thought about French revolutionary cries of liberty, fraternity and equality as a camouflage for the conquest back in the 19th century.
The failure of post-cold war socio-economic order stagnated the global economy and widened the gap between rich and poor, which fomented Identity crisis.
The birth of a new identity crisis was harried with moral guilt and hatred for the liberal centric world order that ignited the strong wave of popular nationalism across the globe.
In Moscow, Eurasianist scholar Alexander Dugin influenced the policy of President Vladimir Putin and diverted Russian policy towards Eurasianism. The ultimate purpose of this diversion was aimed at Russian revisionism in order to bolster Russia’s role for the creation of a multi-polar, and multi-stakeholder, world.
According to Dugin, European civilization has degenerated and it must be destroyed. However, to fight the European civilization, Dugin suggests the Eurasianist Federation based on the strategic unity and ethnic plurality with a principle judicial element of the rights of people.
For Dugin and other Eurasianists, the federation will be accompanied by the cob-web of connectivity ranges from ethnocultural to territorial level. What Dugin says:
The crisis of identity has scrapped all the previous identities—Civilizational, historical, national, political, ethnic, religion, and culture in favor of the universal planetary western style identity, with the concept of individualism, secularism, representative democracy, economic liberalism, cosmopolitanism, and the ideology of human rights”.
For Alan de Benoist;:
the existing west is an alien to European culture that is, in fact, the enemy of the Europe—Atlanticism, liberalism, and individualism are all forms of absolute evil for the indo-European identity, since they are totally incompatible with it”.
Today, there are three different policies that revolve around the Russian geopolitical thinking: the soviet, the pro-western, and the Eurasianist.
For Dugin, in order to revive the multi-polarity, Russia must uphold and pursue the Eurasianist policy with a vast responsibility of safeguarding the collective identities across the Eurasian continent. In this regard, Eurasianist policy is the only practical way of curing the ills created by the dystopian liberal world order.
Hence, it is this interconnection between the concept of multi-polarity and Eurasianism, which Dugin calls his “Fourth political theory” that envisions the new project for the Eurasian century.
Likewise, through his Fourth political theory, Dugin attacks Western civilization with the broader vision of creating a multi-polar world by resurrecting liberal Europe.
In contrast, Dugin perceived the concept of multi-polarity through the Oswald Spengler’s, “Decline of the west” together with the dissent philosophy of Fredrich Nietzsche and Martin Heidegger.
Therefore, by using their nihilist approach, Dugin wants to overcome liberal centric Europe and its modernity, whose destruction he deems as necessary to create the multi-polar world.
Thence, the central theme of the Eurasianism transcends from the context of values of the traditional society and advocates the technical and social modernization without abandoning the cultural roots.
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Africa kisses butt again?
Eurasianism is not an isolatable reductionist ‘thing’: it is an element and sub-class within a larger set of dialectics …the dialectics of ‘Atlantic Integrationism’ and ‘Eurasian Sovereigntism’ (Eurasianism). This is obviously the Saker’s conceptual framework: but I feel that it is well worth establishing the historical context in order to understand Eurasionism within the global historical dialectic.
1991: the collapse of the former Soviet Union (FSU). Too complex to go into: but important to note that it was more to do with internal contradictions than anything the Cold War or the ‘Mighty Wurlitzer’ could do. One of those contradictions was that the Nomeklatura wanted to convert power to wealth [Sources: Aleksandr Zinoviev; Aleksandr Buzghalin; Sergey Kurginyan].
1993: the Yeltsin Years – important to note that this was an internal ‘civil war’ in which 26.5mn people died. The Oligarchs emerged from a period dubbed “Jurassic Park Capitalism” by Aleksandr Buzgalin. The ‘Harvard Boys’ merely cemented their power base by making Russian institutionally and constitutionally neoliberal – aligning with the ‘Washington Consensus’ (a neoliberal euphemism). The Oligarchs and their apparatchiks and administrators are the Atlantic Integrationists. And yes, they are politically aligned with Zionism. After a period of carnivore culture: some of the Nomenklatura got their wealth …only, not enough of it.
1999: The incipient Russian Federation (RF) was in danger of atomising into multiple statelets. According to the Saker – something had to be done:
1999 – to date: this is broadly the internal power struggle going on today. Importantly, VVP bit the hand that put him in power – largely curbing the overarching power of the Atlanticists. But also: as even the Saker concedes: “Putin is a neoliberal”. He walks a tightrope and holds an uneasy balance of power. Whoever his successor may be: they may not be so ‘Zen’.
Eurasianism is one part of that uneasy internal political dialectics (trialectics if you include Zionism) of the RF …with neither side being totally dominant. But even this is isolationist and reductionism. There is the bigger dialectics of neoliberal globalisation.
First: Dugin is a globalist – he is just not that type of globalist …contra his twin nemeses Kissinger and Brzezinski. He’s not a liberal globalists globalist – a ‘first wave globalist’. He’s a reconstructed orthodox, conservative, family values, sovereigntist globalist …a ‘second wave globalist’. And so is VVP and Xi.
If I refer to VVP’s various statements from SPIEF 2019: he mentioned “globalisation with respect to sovereignty” – which is pure Dugin. So yes, Jen, he looks like he is still quite close.
If anyone is interested: I recapped the history of globalisation – to accommodate the engine of globalisation …the trans-national euromarkets (Euro$) – on a recent forum (“From Dollar Hegemony …”). If you understand the financialisation of globalisation is an unregulated ‘offshore’ phenomena – supra-national and supra-sovereign from inception – then you will see why globalisation and sovereignty are an irresolute contradiction …you either have one or the other.
A further distinction has to be made to contextualise Eurasionism. That is between political and economic neoliberal globalisation. Neither the RF or China can be said to be politically neoliberal – in the way the West is. They have not opened their internal economies totally to market forces – or marketised the populations. Yet.
They both joined the WTO (2001 for China, and 2012 accession for RF) …which is the key structural institution of neoliberal globalisation …and lynchpin of the corporatist TNC global governance model. I’m not going to recapitulate: but I have made the case that both are strongly aligned to, and actually extend the Washington Consensus. They are sub-imperial – with revisionist tendencies (toward the longterm replacement of the dollar reserve with the SDR) and toward the “enhanced efficiency” of the WTO. If you understand voluntarist opt-in, opt-out ‘corporate social responsibility’ code of the global governance model of the TNCs – mediated by the WTO and the “enhanced” ‘rules based global order’ …those words of VVP’s can only mean one thing.
And as Xi has been saying since the WEF 2017: “China wants globalisation”. Which he reiterated at SPIEF. He, VVP, and Dugin just don’t want that type of globalisation. They are creating their own branded model – whilst still within and loyal to the framework of the WTO/IMF/WB/UN/WEF/BIS post-Washington Consensus. Understanding the SDG Agenda 2030 sustainable growth nature of this ‘alter-globalisation’ 2.0 model is key to understanding the greenwashing of the neoliberal Zeitgeist.
If you understand the rebranding: you will see that is old wine in new bottles – the core of capitalist accumulation remains unchanging …the “Ecological Civilisation” is a masking marketisation ploy. Of which Eurasianism is a key play.
Globalisation is a function of capitalism, it follows inevitably from international trade on a massive scale.
But US hegemony-unipolarism-is something different a particular form of globalism with the vicious object of subordinating humanity to the rule of the US oligarchy and its collaborating compradors, such as Merkel, Macron and Hunt-Johnson.
There is a considerable difference of the type that Richard Neville once explained, between a world run according to the Monroe Doctrine, in which Washington, ripe with corruption, dictates and a balance of power involving various blocs, states and aggregated interests including class movements.
There is no need to labour under illusions as to the essential natures of the governments of these various blocs, they check each other and, in doing so, afford humanity the possibility of liberating itself not just from the Empire but from capitalism and the suicidal folly of large scale international trade in commodities.
The differences, Neville said, may not be great but the gap between the two is the space in which we live and act.
Exactly: imperialism, monopoly/oligopolisation, and globalisation are the highest forms of capitalism. Mercantalism developed from pre-capitalist, to capitalist, to world capitalist, to globalist forms in distinct phases …colonising and then re-colonisising the same populations in colonialist, post-colonialist and imperialist waves.
The globalisation phase started in the early 60s; and rose in lockstep with the burgeoning of the offshore euromarkets (unregulated markets denominated in dollars/euro$; yen/euro-yen; and confusingly – euro-euros. The yuan/RMB failed as an offshore form. It’s share of the reserve is >2%.)
The mythology of ‘de-dollarisation’ is wildly exaggerated. Like it or not – and most don’t – the dollar is still king with investors/capitalists. Even VVP endorsed the dollar in his keynote speech at SPIEF – whilst maligning the “weaponisation” of the reserve status.
But, and it is a big but – the dollars reputation has taken a nosedive with the GWT and the 2007 Global Financial Crisis (GFC). The dollar’s days are numbered: for reasons I explained on the other forum. Particularly, the euro$ multiplies the mass of dollars in circulation by …? No one knows, because it is done ‘offshore’ with no reserve ratio, capital requirements, or fractional multiplication factors. However many dollars/euro$ are in circulation – on and offshore: the Fed is responsible for all of them. Which makes the global economy systemically weak and crisis prone.
Also, as you note: the particularly exceptional and exclusionary form of the first tide of globalism – which was, and still is, centred on London, not Washington – was a unipolar hegemonic form. Which led to neoliberal globalisation stalling and stagnating – even before the 2001 GWT – from the 90s. The first major euro$ crisis was actually ’87 – ‘Black Monday’, followed by the ‘Asian Flu’ in ’97. The contagion effects showed the flaws in the global dollar/euro$ based system. But there is no way of replacing it, yet. China would have to invert its balance of trade to become in import economy – which is decades away.
So yes, the dollars weaknesses, variable mass and velocity of the offshore money supply (the Triffin Paradox): and the exceptional and indispensable violence of (Anglo-)American imperialism characterise a distinct and particular form of globalisation.
As everyone knows: neoliberal globalisation has empowered and afforded a tiny minority of humanity their own privatised hegemony over the rest. These ‘shadow sovereigns’ form the Inner Party of the Trans-National Suprastate (TNS) …a virtual, unregulated ‘offshore’ dominium. These are the real ultra-imperialists.
And they were never going to let globalisation collapse – just because >7bn people hated it …so they rebranded it as a multipolar, multistakeholder, sovereigntist, fair and mutually beneficial trade-based, humanitarian sustainable development; SDG Agenda 2030 sustainable growth; low-carbon ‘net zero’; utopian capitalist ‘Ecological Civilisation’ …developing into a harmonious coexistence of humanity and nature. Which is the new greenwashed neoliberal Zeitgeist.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss. The fintech financialisation; the corporate global governance architecture under the WTO; the IMF/WB centralised finance – their credit lines extended by the likes of the AIIB, CRA, NDB, and dollarised BRI lending; the open market trans-national economy – favouring the TNCs; the trans-national financial institutions – hedge funds, banks and shadow banks; etc all remain the same. As do the major benefactors – the TNS shadow sovereign Inner Party. It’s a globalist ersatz eco-paradise.
Which, from a humanist’s POV: is barely any real qualitative difference between being bombed to death …or slowly starved to death by overfinancialised dark green terrorism. The global imperial heirarchy of capital accumulation is maintained. The excluded majority pay tributes to the peripheralised sub-majority; the periphery pays tribute to the sub-imperial semi-periphery; the semi-periphery pays tribute to the imperialist core; the core pays tribute to TNS ultra-imperialist minority. The old boss is the green imperialist new boss. Everyone is a dyed-green eco-warrior: “plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose” …
One phenomenon; several phenomena. Surely anyone over thirty can still remember this?
Also ‘sustainable growth’ will prove to be a geo-physically impossible oxymoron, in any version of globalism; or indeed in any other economic-moonshine theory. The Limits are here now, and they’re already beginning to press…
Ah, so Africa does kiss butt again. As I thought.
The biggest contributor to creating a multi-polar world and bust the US monopoly was Obama/the Obama administration.
Did they really think that sanctions on Russia would NOT bring the neighbours Russia and China closer together? They complement each other in a close to perfect way.
Obama talked about peace in the ME; instead he brought more wars and in the process wrecked Europe through refugee waves which spawned Brexit. Before Obama there was Bush II, not all that bright and he lied of course with WMD in Iraq.
But Obama lied constantly and lacked good judgement so his 8 years did the damage and the slide started. Anybody who believed that the US monopoly would be there forever was dreaming. Dethroning the Greenback is in motion and is slowly eating away to the point that Trump seems to think in terms of Dollar devaluation.
One problem … suppose Alexander Dugin is not at all close to Vladimir Putin as Shahzada Rahim seems to think he is?
Let us give credit where it is due: the eurasian bloc that will finally bury the maritime European empire, now centred on Washington was born of geography and sired by imperialist ineptitude. And Fukuyama’s obsequious triumphalism was partly responsible for the arrogance and sense of invulnerability that led to the Empire’s blind, drunken ineptitude.
None of the major constituents of Eurasia today actually wanted to leave the comforts of the imperial mainstream and go into opposition. Russia certainly did not, in the face off rebuffs, insults, sanctions and military provocations it kept turning the other cheek until the blood was dripping from its face. China was even more invested in the system that it took them so long to penetrate-the system of alliances designed to marginalise and impoverish them.
Eurasia consists largely of US allies spurned and driven together for survival. Iran being the perfect example of a state that the US, in its determination to conquer, has strengthened with alliances which make it virtually impossible to defeat.
For the past twenty years whenever it looked as if fissures might open up between Russia and China, Iran and Pakistan and the Central Asian former Soviet republics the US has stepped in and herded them back together, as if it wanted all its rivals and potential opponents not just to enter into defensive military alliances but to integrate economically and form a massive economic bloc comprised of the majority of humanity and the largest part of the planet’s landmass.
Our author might credit Dugin with this but my credit goes to imperialism’s ‘statesmen’. It took real genius to separate Turkey from NATO, after seventy years and push it close to Iran, Russia and China but Obama- a sort of Bismark in reverse- managed the trick, which Trump is completing.
Ir was not long ago that Russia and China treated Iran with distant hauteur, Russia refusing to fulfil its S300 contracts and China going along with UN sanctions, demanded by the US. Now while the US threatens Iran it has made things more interesting by forcing Russia into publicly calling itself an ally, while Iran is close to full membership in the Shanghai CO, the anti-NATO.
Inexorably Eurasia comes together, with the EU teetering on the brink of succumbing to the temptations of surviving economically. Whenever Europe, led for the most part by agents, actual or informal, of the USA, attempts to distance itself from the eastern 9/10ths of the world island, the US steps in to threaten it with trade sanctions, tariffs, demands for Danegeld. Just as Iran’s elected ‘reformers’ under Rouhani were transformed quickly into militant sovereigntists no different from Ahmedinejad so Washington’s friends in Berlin, Paris and Brussels are forced to distance themselves from a power which not only insists on dictating Europe’s diet but must rub their faces in it too.
I am sure that Mr Dugin, who I gather is a pious man, will agree that what has accelerated the inevitable consummation of the geopolitics of Eurasia has been a process foretold in the observation that “Whom the Gods wish to destroy they first make mad.” And no more graphic illustration of such madness can be imagined than the coming together on the Bridge of USS Empire of Captains Pompeo, Bolton and Pence and Admiral Donald.
The three Daffy Ducks…