Foundations of Geopolitics

The Foundations of Geopolitics: The Geopolitical Future of Russia (Russian: Основы геополитики: геополитическое будущее России) is a geopolitical book by Aleksandr Dugin. Its publication in 1997 was well received in Russia; it has had significant influence within the Russian military, police forces, and foreign policy elites, and has been used as a textbook in the Academy of the General Staff of the Russian military. Powerful Russian political figures subsequently took an interest in Dugin, a Russian political analyst who espouses an ultra-nationalist and far-right ideology based on his idea of neo-Eurasianism, who has developed a close relationship with Russia's Academy of the General Staff.

Dugin credits General Nikolai Klokotov of the Academy of the General Staff as co-author and his main inspiration, though Klokotov denies this. Colonel General Leonid Ivashov, head of the International Department of the Russian Ministry of Defence, helped draft the book.

Klokotov stated that in the future the book would "serve as a mighty ideological foundation for preparing a new military command". Dugin has asserted that the book has been adopted as a textbook in many Russian educational institutions. Former speaker of the Russian State Duma, Gennadiy Seleznyov, for whom Dugin was adviser on geopolitics, "urged that Dugin's geopolitical doctrine be made a compulsory part of the school curriculum".

Eurasianist sentiments have been on the rise across Russian society since the ascent of Vladimir Putin in the country. In a poll conducted by Levada Center in 2021, 64% of Russian citizens identify Russia as a non-European country; while only 29% regarded Russia to be part of Europe.

In 2023, Russia adopted a Eurasianist, anti-Western foreign policy in a document titled "The Concept of the Foreign Policy of the Russian Federation", approved by Vladimir Putin. The document defines Russia as a "unique country-civilization and a vast Eurasian and Euro-Pacific power" that seeks to create a "Greater Eurasian Partnership" by pursuing close relations with China, India, countries of the Islamic world and the rest of the Global South (Latin America and Southern Africa). The policy identifies United States and other Anglo-Saxon countries as "the main inspirer, organizer, and executor of the aggressive anti-Russian policy of the collective West" and seeks the end of geopolitical American dominance in the international scene. The document also adopts a neo-Soviet posture, positioning Russia as the successor state of USSR and calls for spreading "accurate information" about the "decisive contribution of the Soviet Union" in shaping the post-WWII international order and the United Nations.

In Foundations of Geopolitics, Dugin makes a distinction between "Atlantic" and "Eurasian" societies, which means, as Benjamin R. Teitelbaum describes it: "between societies whose coastal geographical position made them cosmopolitan and landlocked societies oriented toward preservation and cohesion". Dugin calls for the "Atlantic societies", primarily represented by the United States, to lose their broader geopolitical influence in Eurasia, and for Russia to rebuild its influence through annexations and alliances.

The book declares that "the battle for the world rule of Russians" has not ended and Russia remains "the staging area of a new anti-bourgeois, anti-American revolution". The Eurasian Empire will be constructed "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." Dugin seems not to rule out the possibility of Russia joining and/or even supporting the European Union and NATO instrumentally in a pragmatic way of further Western subversion against geopolitical "Americanism".

Outside of Ukraine and Georgia, military operations play a relatively minor role except for the military intelligence operations. The textbook advocates a sophisticated program of subversion, destabilization, and disinformation spearheaded by the Russian secret services. The operations should be assisted by a tough, hard-headed utilization of Russia's gas, oil, and natural resources to bully and pressure other countries. The book states that "the maximum task [of the future] is the 'Finlandization' of all of Europe".