StrategyUnit

Ben Paarmann recently posted an excellent overview of the Eurasian Idea (specifically Dugin’s version) and its role in Russia today. I’d like to take Paarmann’s post further and provide some greater context for the Eurasian Idea, why its still important for Russia today, the different Eurasian flavors and attempt to provide points about where Russia must go. (Ambitious, I know!)

Eurasian Idea in Greater Context
The question “What is Russia?” is a question that continues to shadow Russia and its long history. Russia cannot continue to leave this question unanswered while it attempts to rebuild itself from its Soviet-past and as the state continues to deteriorate. Putin, as Paarmann mentions, has so far taken a pragmatic approach towards the East and West

While folks like Trenin favors a full and almost unquestioning embrace of the West, those that remember Yeltsin’s campaign to align Russia with the West as fruitless are left wanting. With this bad aftertaste by Yeltsin’s attempt at reform, many folks are looking at some alternative means for repositioning Russia - from Dugin to the Primakov Doctrine.

There is little hope – at least in the medium to immediate future – of a Russia that can tie itself with the West. Paarmann is right to point to the closer economic ties between Russia and the EU, but Russia cannot depend on the E.U. alone, if China continues its raise and as it grows its influence in what has been Russia’s sphere of influence for centuries. Russia needs a plan for managing a rising China.

While there are lot of traditional Eurasian views that should be avoided - most importantly, the Eurasian obsession with defining itself as a counterweight towards the West. At the same time, Russia cannot avoid its geopolitical reality – due to its location and its sensed of “bigness”. Surrounded by the growing EU/NATO club in the West, resurgence of Islam in the South and a raising China in the East - Russia cannot but help define itself by geopolitics and feeling insecure.

Such feeling of insecurity feeds into another characteristic of Eurasianism: the notion of a “Russia under Threat”. Based on its own historical past, Russia is seen as a state under constant external threat from all sides; thus, expansionism is seen as a strategy to push and expand its protective shell around the Russian core. Imperialism becomes a defensive rather than expansionist strategy. Hence the expansionist tendencies and insecurities of most Eurasianists.

Eurasian Flavors

On the different “flavours” of Eurasianism and takes on the question of Russian identity, I suggest taking a look at the works of Graham Smith (The Masks of Proteus?), John O’Loughlin (Mask of Proteus Revisited) and Andrei Tsygankov (Mastering space in Eurasia).

To be continued in Part II…