BACKGROUND: In “The Grand Chessboard”, Zbigniew Brzezinski classifies the Russian post-Cold War schools of geopolitical thought into three: the “Zapadnik” (pro-Western) approach; the Slavophile, nationalistic and imperialist approach; and the Eurasianist approach, a counter-alliance involving some sort of Eurasian anti-American coalition designed to reduce the United States’ preponderance in Eurasia. The West always supported the Zapadnik approach. But in Russia, it has increasingly lost influence. A good example of developing thought in Russia is Vladimir Maksimenko, member of the Russian Academy of Sciences and senior researcher of the Moscow Institute of Oriental Studies. Maksimenko criticizes Brzezinski’s geostrategic construction called ‘the Eurasian Balkans’, which covers the Middle East, the Caucasus and Central Asia, as well as those areas within the present Russian Federation which used to belong to the Crimean and Astrakhan Khanates, branding it an imperialist plot targeting the areas that used to be Russian imperial dominions during the late czarist and Cold War periods. Logically, Maksimenko suggests that Russia have a ‘legitimate’ interest there and that these areas are subject to reconquest. He utterly rejects an eventual repetition of the ‘Buffer State Strategy’ introduced by Sir Halford Mackinder in 1918. No doubt this position testifies a Russian imperial mission and the renaissance of Eurasianist ideology. Eurasianism’s early 20th century concepts – advocating the cultural and political struggle between the West and a distinct ‘Eurasian’ subcontinent led by Russia were championed by prominent figures such as Nikolay Trubetskoi and later Lev Gumilev. But in fact, they have been given increasing attention by the rightward shift in Russian policy discourse in recent years. The growing emphasis on geopolitics from all corners of the political spectrum is in the process of elevating Eurasianism to the level of a mainstream ideology. Whether the issue is NATO expansion, an ‘Islamic threat’, or Russia’s security more broadly, these issues are framed in the context of the future rebirth of a Greater Russia, termed the ‘Russian idea’ by those endorsing the Eurasianist approach in Russian foreign policy.

IMPLICATIONS: Brzezinski calls for a U.S. strategy aimed at ‘the consolidation of geopolitical pluralism within the former Soviet Union’, which the Eurasianists consider a threat to the Russian Federation, countering with stressing the need for the construction of a multipolar paradigm to be applied in world affairs. To them the Euro-Atlantic alliance’s aims in Eurasia amount to ‘total geopolitical control over the world’s largest continental space, rather than testifying an ideological or humanitarian goal’. In foreign policy practice, these views were mirrored more or less by President Vladimir Putin’s search for an ideological basis for the direction of rising Russian imperialism since Autumn 2000, and analytically expressed through the thoughts of well-known Russian nationalist and dissident, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. Putin is clearly attracted to the Russian ultra-nationalist geopolitician Aleksandr Dugin’s visions for an empire of all Eurasia, dominated by Russia, advocated by his ‘Eurasianist Movement’ . Dugin has expressed his opinions through speeches and writing in which he presents himself as a passionate agitator of a crusader mentality against the ‘Islamic threat’. Dugin’s leading work, ‘Osnovi Gepopolitiki: Geopolitichiskoye Budushiye Rossiyi’ (The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia), serves as the cornerstone of the new Eurasianism. He adopts a revised balance-of-power politics approach, and concepts such as ‘Land’ versus ‘Sea’ powers, based on strategic traditional theories of Alfred Thayer Mahan and Sir Halford Mackinder. He stresses the need for the creation of a Russian-dominated Eurasian space, and the alliance-building mechanism (a Moscow-Teheran axis, a Moscow-Berlin pivot, and a Moscow-Tokyo axis), in order to accomplish the ambitious innovation of ‘Derzhavnost’, the idea of Russia as a Great Power, so popular now among Russians who barely stand their country’s diminished international status. Concomitant to this is the ideology for ‘Russia’s mission’ in the post-Soviet Empire’s era. This mission is embodied in Eurasianism, described as a suitable answer against the supporters of Wahhabism who have penetrated Russia. In this mission Russia is about to have its entire people united against Wahhabism, Christians and Muslims together, for the pro-Moscow official Islam in the Russian Federation supports the War on Terrorism launched by President Putin against the Chechen rebels. The main direction of Russian imperial aspirations in the post-Soviet international system, is the traditional southern front or what Winston Churchill described as the “soft underbelly of Russia”. Nowadays geopolitical thought in Russia connects the idea of a Western conspiracy into anti-Islamic rhetoric, in which the West, Turkey and Israel are plotting an ‘Islamic conspiracy’ targeting Russia’s security. Indeed, Russia is endowed with some characteristics of an empire by several factors: It suffers from an identity and value-related vacuum in the post-Soviet era; it has not evolved into a nation-state; it has sizable Muslim minorities in the North Caucasus, the Volga-Ural region including Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, and in the Omsk, Tyumen, Tobolsk, Novosibirsk, Vladivostok, Khabarovsk and Urengoi areas as well as larger cities, which have a different national and cultural sense of identity. This influences Russia’s worldview, security perspective, and foreign policy choices with the outside world. In Putin’s scheme of thinking, Islam, particularly its extremist version, and the Muslim world are either major sources of threat to Russia or actual or potential competitors. Long before the events of September 11, 2001, President Putin had been warning of an arc of instability, extending from the Philippines to Kosovo and claiming that an Islamic terror network, led by Osama bin Laden, was trying to create an Islamic Caliphate, the United States of Islam, which would unite a wide range of Islamic governments as well some Central Asian states and parts of the present-day territory of the Russian Federation. In fact the threat of Islamic extremism has brought Russia and the West closer together, but it has also meant the end of the old Soviet idea of using Islam, in whatever form –even its most radical versions, as instruments of Russian foreign policy in the competition for economic and political advantage. In fact, the Islamic factor has greatly impacted on Russia’s foreign policy and strategic security concept.

CONCLUSIONS: In this international environment, the neo-Imperialism hidden beside the alliances and strategic -military or economic- projects through witch President Putin –echoing the hallmark concepts of his foreign policy predecessor, Yevgeny Primakov- aspires to bind the former Soviet Caucasus and Central Asia states to the so called ‘Russian mission’. This of course, even though not acknowledged, in fact serves the goals of the Eurasianist movement. Central Asia’s ‘Rapid Reaction Force’, Eurasian Economic Community and Shanghai Cooperation Organization, back the same purpose in Russian terms. That is to raise Russia into Eurasian hegemony for a renewed quest for national greatness and to unite the different religions of Eurasia against the ‘Great Satan’, the United States of America. The Eurasianist positions of Aleksandr Dugin, do not necessarily coincide with President Putin’s policies inside and outside the Russian Federation, but in a recent editorial, President Putin himself affirmed that Russia has always seen itself as a Euro-Asiatic nation. Definitely, September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks to the U.S. and Islamic extremism has served Russian interests mostly in a negative fashion by acting as an impetus for forging alliances with other countries that share similar fears.

AUTHOR’S BIO: Thrassy Marketos is a Ph.D. candidate in International Relations, specializing in the Geopolitics of Eurasia, at Panteion University, Athens, Greece.