Not as entertaining as his Rolling Stone column, but anyway. (I've seen Dugin on TV like three times in the last month -- the guy is huge.)
Foreign Policy
Izvestia December 19, 2005 Article by Aleksandr Dugin, chairman of Geopolitical Analysis Center and leader of International Eurasian Movement: "Putin Is Hacking Through the Window to Asia" --
Vladimir Putin's trip to the capital of Malaysia to attend the ASEAN summit underscores Russia's consistent and serious efforts to focus on the eastern foreign policy sector. We have suffered numerous failures in the western sector in the last two years: the conflict with America in the post-Soviet zone, the problems with Europe (the replacement of our friend Schroeder in Germany with Angela Merkel, who has never concealed her hostility toward Russia, for example), and the collapse of the Paris-Berlin-Moscow "Iraq axis."
Now Russia has chosen to turn its face to the South and the East. Oddly enough, we have been increasingly successful in these areas, and President Putin is constantly consolidating this success. The elements of this success include Russia's participation in the Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC); Russia's more active involvement in the resolution of diplomatic problems connected with the unification of Korea and with North Korea's nuclear weapons; and our convergence with India. Now the list of these elements has been augmented by participation in the ASEAN summit and by an even more important element: the participation of our president, still as a guest, in the East Asian summit. This summit, initiated by Malaysia and China, is aimed against U.S. domination of the Asia-Pacific region (APR) -- one of the key geopolitical zones on our planet. (This is where most of the world's population lives, and it is now the source of most of the world's products.) Furthermore, the fact that Putin was invited to present a brief speech at this gathering adds immeasurably to Russia's geopolitical role as a planetary player. Whereas this role is questioned and constantly denigrated in the West, we have seen that the East is starting to see Russia as a winner.
Russian foreign policy once suffered from an excessive Western bias. We never even studied the East in depth. Putin is not only studying the East now, he is also adding new strategic rails to the new Russia's geopolitical track. We have seen the astounding results of this. In the last six months, Russia's position in the world has grown stronger simply by virtue of this shift toward the South and the East. Putin does not even have to do anything: He simply says yes, nods his head, remains silent, and smiles, but all of the world's respected analysts know what these smiles and nods mean.
If Russia starts acting like a fully fledged Eurasian power, acting against American domination or for the multipolar world, all of these regions -- Far Eastern, Pacific, and Southeastern, all the way down to the Arabian Sea -- will acquire a colossal ally, an ally capable of changing the balance of power in their global alignment.
Furthermore, Russia's present weakness in comparison with the Soviet Union and our lack of a common ideology are advantages rather than drawbacks, because we inspire less fear now. Everyone knows we will not come to those regions and colonize them, because we do not have the strength -- demographic, economic, military, or volitional -- to do this. We have no ideology to call upon as a rallying force. That is why we have to communicate calmly with the democratic countries, the socialist countries like China and Korea, and the Islamic countries -- with every country without exception.
Consequently, Russia now has an unprecedented opportunity for vigorous geopolitical actions, and Putin seems to be developing a taste for them. More vigorous action on the eastern front will multiply our geopolitical potential. Of course, our relations with the countries of the APR have not been developed to any extent, and our volume of trade with them is negligible. If we give some thought to the market Russia could acquire for the sale of its products (especially energy resources, because all of these countries are suffering from a serious energy crisis), we can see that we could play almost the deciding role in many regional disputes, such as the conflicts between China and India, India and Pakistan, Indonesia and China, and Malaysia and the United States. We will be playing on a colossal field where our potential will be highly appreciated, especially in view of our lack of claims on any of the ATR countries. We are in an ideal position. In this context, Putin's visit proves that this is not merely an official diplomatic trip, but a sign that Russia has awakened to the East, and the East has revealed its relevance to Russia.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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