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| Duas grandes almas luminosas, e mestres de geo-estratégia, Ali Larijani e Vladimir Putin. |
Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.
Host: Let’s outline the main topics of this episode: the situation in Abu Dhabi, the results of the U.S. elections, and the formation of a new government in Israel — the fate of Netanyahu’s political legacy. And, of course, the widespread anticipation of that trilateral Russia–U.S.–China summit, which is attracting enormous attention. There’s a lot of talk about whether this meeting will become a “new Yalta,” and whether we even need a new Yalta, or whether the discussion will concern entirely different matters. History is cyclical, and we will definitely examine how applicable this cycle is to the present day.
But let’s start with the first topic — the trilateral talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, with Washington acting as mediator. The composition of the participants is more or less the same as in previous rounds. It can’t be said that any breakthrough results were achieved earlier: each time we carefully noted that the process seemed to be moving, but whether it would lead to major shifts remained an open question.
Today, however, there is a sense that with each new round we are getting closer to being able to answer this question with real certainty. What is this confidence based on? Above all, on a radical change in negotiating positions. We are seeing a severe crisis in Kiev — both financially and in terms of the overall situation on the ground. And this is by no means about gloating: ordinary Ukrainians are now paying for the catastrophic mistakes of the leadership entrenched in the Verkhovna Rada and on Bankova. A leadership that long ago lost its legitimacy and is using the remaining state resources — primarily human resources — exclusively for its own enrichment, buying villas and yachts around the world while the country slides into the abyss.
At the same time, the position of the American patrons is also shifting: the United States is increasingly clearly realizing that Ukraine is no longer a profitable asset for them. Washington is beginning to feel that pragmatic trade and direct engagement with Russia are far more advantageous than endlessly financing this toxic and dangerous black hole.
What should we actually expect from these talks in Abu Dhabi? Should we count on a real shift?
Alexander Dugin: The situation is shaping up as follows.
Trump is, of course, trying to pressure Zelensky to force him into negotiations, but after the Republicans’ crushing defeat in the midterms, he simply no longer has any real leverage to compel the Kiev regime to any kind of constructive participation.
Frankly, I expect absolutely nothing from the diplomatic meetings in Abu Dhabi. Of course, it’s good that they are taking place, good that we are working in this direction, and good that Trump does not fall into the same manic, blind hatred of Russia that consumes most European politicians. All of this must be assessed pragmatically: such contacts are useful for lowering the temperature of escalation. But I must admit that I see no real prerequisites whatsoever for ending the conflict in the foreseeable future.
We hope for Abu Dhabi, we hope for a possible trilateral meeting of Trump, Putin, and Xi Jinping — these are all important international platforms. But Trump himself is not currently in a position to truly resolve this crisis. He had two years of complete initiative when he could have done something substantial. He didn’t. And now he has far fewer levers and opportunities than before.
The Ukrainian side and the European Union, which unconditionally supports Zelensky’s dictatorship, are determined to fight us until total destruction. They state outright: “Trump has fundamentally, crushingly lost the midterm elections to Congress and the Senate! He is now in the full sense of the word a ‘lame duck’ — a president with paralyzed powers in the second half of his term, whose any proactive decision is now blocked by the Democratic majority.” They look at him and think: “Why take Trump into account at all? We just need to drag things out — in two years the Democrats are guaranteed to return to the White House.”
In America, Trump is extremely unpopular and has lost the ability to influence real processes. The position of Kiev and Brussels is simple: stall, drag things out, pretend to negotiate, and better still — drag the Eurocrats into the process, who will deliberately sabotage any dialogue. Right now they are desperately trying to get into Abu Dhabi in order to sabotage these talks from the outset. But even if they are kept out, the West will still have plenty of other ways to continue this war.
Therefore, from purely rational considerations, we should not harbor illusions: peace negotiations are currently incapable of producing a tangible result. But they must be conducted. Our President is acting absolutely correctly. In this process, it is necessary to participate, sending clear signals to the world community that Russia has no intention of attacking Europe.
However, as long as Europe and the West as a whole set themselves the delusional goal of inflicting a “strategic defeat” on us, we must be prepared for ultimate confrontation and deliver a reciprocal strategic defeat to our enemy.
Under no circumstances should the U.S. and the EU be viewed as outside observers or indifferent arbiters catching signals from Kiev. They are not mediators. They are a direct, active participant in this conflict.
And one last point on Abu Dhabi: do not forget that right now, after the Republicans’ electoral failure, the Democrats are preparing a series of criminal cases against Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. The entire Democratic Party’s election campaign was built on the question: “On what basis are private individuals, relatives, and business partners of Trump, who possess no official powers, running key areas of U.S. foreign policy?” This circumstance completely nullifies the legitimacy of any agreements they reach. Trump, as we know, easily betrays and abandons his supporters. If dark clouds gather over Kushner and Witkoff, Trump will instantly renounce any commitments they have made.
Negotiations must be conducted, but one certainly should not expect any turning-point decisions from them.
No one fully knows the real state of affairs inside the Kiev regime itself. If things are completely catastrophic for them, they will of course try to cling to any tactical pause in order to survive the hardest winter and regroup. But why would we want that?
Our troops and our Aerospace Forces have done everything to ensure they do not survive this winter in combat-capable condition. The conditions the other side will offer us will be 99% unacceptable. Why should we destroy with our own hands what has been achieved with the blood of our soldiers?
We need to continue advancing, moving toward complete and unconditional Victory, and count on no one in the West. Count only on the power of Russian weapons, on our spirit, on our great people, and on God.
Host: Alexander Gelyevich [Dugin], I’d like to pick up on something you said at the very beginning of your monologue. You said that you currently see no prerequisites for something truly fundamental to be achieved in these negotiations.
How, from your point of view, should these real prerequisites even look? What exactly are we waiting for? Suppose the talks in Abu Dhabi lead to nothing. Then some time passes, and those very conditions begin to take shape on the horizon. What do they look like in practice?
Alexander Dugin: A very good question. The prerequisites do not look like some of our abstract good wishes, but like real successes on the fronts. Real prerequisites will appear when we are truly advancing, when we begin to crush and smash the enemy. When the opponent really starts sliding, collapsing, and disintegrating under our blows.
We must break through the front; our victorious troops must advance, liberating city after city, region after region. Then the prerequisites for real peace will become obvious to everyone, because we will have solved our tasks by force. Then it will become clear to everyone: if they do not understand this peacefully and do not agree to our conditions now, with each passing day their starting positions will become worse and worse.
But so far — and this must be understood soberly — the West absolutely does not see this. We believe in ourselves, we know for certain that we will win — and that is correct; it cannot be otherwise. But they do not see sufficient confirmation of this.
One must look at the situation not only as we would like it, but through the eyes of our enemy. So, from the enemy’s point of view, there simply do not exist today any objective prerequisites for voluntarily agreeing to any conditions that even remotely satisfy Russia. No one among them sees this.
Another matter is that Trump’s domestic situation in America is shaping up disastrously. Therefore, he would actually not mind freezing this conflict. I think he is currently so disoriented that it is even difficult for him to formulate exactly what he wants. As Dmitry Simes rightly notes, Trump makes so many zigzags in his policy that talking about any long-term strategies is simply out of the question — he changes them daily.
Nevertheless, with regard to Russia, one must give him his due: he follows a line of, if not de-escalation, then at least he clearly does not stoke additional escalation. He retains this primitive American view: if one makes some cosmetic, fictitious concessions to Moscow, then Russia will stop drawing closer to China, will refuse to support Iran, and it will once again be possible to try to use it as a subordinate object in one’s global game.
Of course, this is a deeply false illusion. Nothing of the sort will happen. Russia never betrays its friends and allies; we have our own grandiose strategic plans.
We are building a multipolar world. And until the rest of humanity finally affirms it, we will not stop. And the world will truly recognize multipolarity only when the West capitulates before this fact. China is already in a multipolar world, India is confidently moving in this direction, the Islamic world as well. But the main barrier remains the West. If the West finally agreed to a multipolar world, this would truly eliminate the root cause of all current and future conflicts.
Therefore, unlike them, we have an absolutely consistent, long-term, unyielding position. It does not depend at all on whether Biden, Trump, Vance, or some next favorite of the Democrats sits in the White House.
We have one unchanging strategic goal:
We are building a multipolar world. Russia is a civilization-state, and we need absolute civilizational sovereignty within this multipolar order. That’s it.
With those who are ready to take this into account, we will always find a common language and conclude mutually beneficial agreements. But if someone continues to persist and seeks to inflict a strategic defeat on us — well, we will respond in kind and act with complete symmetry.
Host: And if we return to the election results: you quite clearly characterized Trump as a “lame duck.” But I have also heard completely opposite expert assessments.
Many claim that such an outcome, on the contrary, allows Trump to strategically redistribute responsibility, relieving himself of part of the excessive burden for domestic and even foreign policy failures. They say that everything he now dislikes in the decisions of Congress he can simply block with his presidential veto. And all the key tectonic processes he has already launched, and he can calmly wait for the results.
How do you regard such a point of view?
Alexander Dugin: I follow American politics closely, and I think this version is simply nonsense. Of course, the dictionary and the possibilities of language are incredibly vast; any political science construct can be wrapped in more or less confident nonsense. But let’s look at the dry facts.
Trump is a Republican president. And the Republicans lost these midterm elections much more heavily than anyone expected! What happened is what in the U.S. is called a “blue tsunami” — a crushing victory for the Democratic Party. Blue is their color, red is the Republican one. This “blue wave” even swept away traditionally conservative, solid Texas! That is a colossal, catastrophic defeat.
Today, in the eyes of Americans, Trump is not even just a “lame duck.” He has become what in American culture is called, in one apt word, the loser. He is an absolute loser (not completely) — in the eyes of his own party, in the eyes of his political opponents, and in the eyes of ordinary voters. And he is forced to admit this himself.
Look at what happened right after the elections: as soon as the Republicans’ nightmare failure became obvious, Vice President JD Vance directly stated: “It was precisely getting drawn into the war with Iran that cost us the elections.” Yet until the very end Trump had insisted that he would continue to unconditionally support Netanyahu’s escalation. But what is even more telling: when Trump’s supporters first attacked Vance for these words, literally a day later Trump himself suddenly declares: “Actually, Vance is right. Our people hate these endless Middle Eastern wars and interference in Israel’s affairs.” Trump instantly admits a truth that absolutely everyone else had known long before him.
After that, how can one possibly treat a defeat as a “victory” or as a carefully thought-out strategy?
He has only two years left in power. He is absolutely unpopular, he failed the elections, and he badly let his party down. Yes, he still has the veto power; he can block Democratic laws and will almost certainly do so. But inside the Republican Party itself real hatred of him is now growing. The “Republicans Against Trump” movement is gaining strength. He has lost all his resources; he has no political future left. The only thing remaining for him is, at the end of his term, to issue pardons for his family and his business partners and quietly retire.
Deep down he is a developer, a businessman, used to measuring everything by concrete deals. And, finding himself at this point of failure, he realizes that he has completely failed his second presidency. He wanted to get everything and got nothing:
He wanted to go down in history as a peacemaker — he did not bring peace;
He wanted to completely pull the U.S. out of globalist projects — he did not pull it out;
He wanted to publish the Epstein lists — he did not publish them;
He wanted to become the “king of the world” — he did not become it.
Nevertheless, for all that, for us Trump — even in this broken state — is still clearer and safer than his Democratic opponents.
And the layout in the Middle East will now also begin to change rapidly — especially after Netanyahu has finally lost power in Israel. There will no longer be the kind of powerful, aggressive pressure from the Israeli lobby on the American political system that we observed under the far-right figures. [We hope so, as their power of corruption is still great]
Host: But aren’t we missing the fact that he got Venezuela with its enormous oil reserves? He has come extremely close to control over Greenland — and has partly actually advanced on that track. He has substantially weakened Europe, which, it would seem, was precisely his main strategic task. Finally, he has somewhat improved relations with Russia, something that under the Biden administration was impossible to imagine.
Perhaps we are simply incorrectly assessing his original goals? Could it be that his real strategy was something entirely different?
Alexander Dugin: We tend to believe people; we want to believe. But Trump proclaimed a grandiose program — and completely failed all of it.
The fact that he seized the president of a sovereign state [note: referring to events around Venezuela and Maduro] is yet another gangster-style move of American policy as a whole. Both right and left, both Republicans and Democrats, from time to time kidnap or kill inconvenient leaders. But in essence this is pure state terrorism.
And the fact that he unconditionally supported Israel in the genocide in Gaza is also absolute terrorism. How can we count these terrorist “successes” as a plus for him?
If he had solid, monolithic support from American conservatives, for whom such actions — wild by the standards of normal humanity — serve as a criterion of positive evaluation, I might still allow such an argument. But everything is different.
The Democrats themselves are not against the destruction of the Iranian leadership or the kidnapping of inconvenient leaders, but the brutal forms in which Trump packaged it provoked strong [or a bit] revulsion among them. And support for the Israeli slaughter has today in exactly the same way alienated a huge part of the Republicans themselves from him.
Therefore, objectively — and this is not personal criticism of Trump: in Russia we must pragmatically use any opportunities to strengthen our own positions and achieve our great goals — Trump has lost practically everything that could be lost. In the aggregate of results, he is one of the worst presidents of the United States.
In the same Venezuela, a bloody mess is still inevitable. Right now they are quietly trying to install their puppets there — recently they managed to put a person of dubious reputation at the head of the Venezuelan Foreign Ministry (or in key anti-Chavista positions). Yes, they are trying to entrench themselves, but this is Chávez’s country, a country of unyielding resistance. Everything most important there is still ahead. And María Corina Machado was brought in there precisely so that she would add fuel to the local sixth column serving the interests of the globalists. The fifth and sixth columns in Venezuela still have a tough clash ahead of them; things are far from smooth there.
Today we need to think less about Trump and fix the main point: his policy has turned into a massive failure. Trump has betrayed and surrendered all his allies, even the closest ones. Only yesterday he spent two years tightly aligning himself with the Zionists and neoconservatives, and today he is firing Susie Wiles, who was effectively performing the role of Netanyahu’s PR person and heading his campaign staff. He is bringing Stephen Miller closer and without hesitation is getting rid of Laura Loomer, who faces legal prosecution for working for the Israeli lobby, and of Mark Levin — both of them, by the way, notorious Russophobes.
He will easily abandon any people, any words, and any promises. Trump does not keep his word at all. And this trait of his is finally starting to seriously wear on both the Americans themselves and the rest of humanity.
Host: Let’s return to the Israeli topic, which is currently attracting enormous attention. Let me remind our radio listeners: as of November 9, 2026, Benjamin Netanyahu has been temporarily removed from the preferential right to form a cabinet. The mandate to create a new government has passed to opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot.
The situation in the Israeli political landscape is changing rapidly. It is important for us to understand how this turn will affect the broader Middle Eastern situation and the overall security strategy.
Alexander Dugin: There are several extremely important aspects in these Israeli elections — both of a purely technical nature and of a deep civilizational, global character.
What is happening right now? Yes, Likud received a majority in the elections, but this mandate is insufficient for independently forming a cabinet of ministers and confirming a prime minister. Israel is a parliamentary republic, so everything is decided through coalition arrangements. Gadi Eisenkot’s bloc received 48 seats, plus 19 seats for the Joint Arab List and another 5 mandates for another Arab faction.
To form a government, both Netanyahu and Eisenkot vitally need the support of the Arab parties. Eisenkot is ready for this, and the Arabs acted extremely intelligently and pragmatically. They declared: “We will not put forward any preliminary demands at all! No bargaining over ministerial portfolios and additional preferences. Let’s first simply use the vote count to bring down Netanyahu — and that’s it, we give you, Gadi Eisenkot, our unconditional support.”
What was Netanyahu originally counting on? That the coalition bargaining would drag on, the Arabs would start twisting arms, demanding posts and budgets, and Eisenkot’s own voters — Zionists who hate Arabs no less than the Likud electorate — would rebel. The calculation was that this inevitable bargaining would cause a crisis, Arab-Israeli contradictions inside the Knesset would block the creation of a new cabinet, and in the end Netanyahu would remain acting prime minister by inertia. The entire Likud was betting on this.
And suddenly the Arabs say: “No, we won’t argue, we agree to everything.” And Eisenkot replies: “I agree too.” That is precisely why Israeli President Herzog, according to protocol, tasked Eisenkot with forming the government.
Today Netanyahu is genuinely hated — if not by all of humanity, then certainly by more than half of it. Especially after the Republicans’ resounding failure in the American elections, especially after the collapse of those forces in the U.S. that were closely tied to Netanyahu and the ultra-Zionist lobby. Support from Washington is evaporating sharply. He is squeezed from all sides: both domestically and globally. Let us not forget the international arrest warrants issued against him for war crimes and the organization of genocide. Netanyahu will objectively no longer be able to wage war against the entire world.
But there is another, fundamental layer — the religious-eschatological one.
Netanyahu relies on extremely religious, messianic currents within Zionism. Eisenkot, on the other hand, is a pure hard-line secular politician, a secular nationalist. One of his key demands is to obligate the ultra-Orthodox (Haredim) to serve in the army, which they have never done.
And what do Netanyahu’s ministers — Smotrich and Ben-Gvir — represent? They are leaders of religious Zionism. Their fanatical idée fixe is to build “Greater Israel,” completely destroy the Palestinians, arrange their forced transfer, expel them from the historical lands, and begin expansion into adjacent territories: into southern Lebanon, into Syria, all the way to the Euphrates. And of course, the obligatory, inevitable war with Iran as the crowning element of their plan.
Why do they behave so madly and irrationally?
Because this radical part of the Zionists sincerely believes in the imminent coming of Mashiach — the Messiah. And they have an entire fanatical doctrine: one cannot passively sit and wait for Mashiach; one must artificially prepare the way for him.
The other Jewish currents believe that Greater Israel and the Third Temple will arise by themselves, as a divine miracle, when Mashiach comes. But these fanatics are convinced that everything must be the other way around: first we must create Greater Israel with our own hands, first we must forcibly restore the Third Temple and replace the archetype of the suffering Messiah (Mashiach ben Yosef) with a triumphant, victorious conqueror-king (Mashiach ben David) who will inspire terror in everyone. They believe that precisely this violent action will launch the final eschatological chord of world history.
The current prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, received a carte blanche and sacred blessing for such a policy from these extremist religious circles. Together with Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, he managed to infect a significant part of Israeli society with this madness. But Mashiach… is delayed. That is, all this militant policy would have been fine if Mashiach were about to appear. But he is delayed!
And here is precisely that colossal tension, that residual reservoir of sympathy and empathy for the Jews and for Israel, which humanity continued to feel after the tragedy of the Holocaust — Netanyahu completely and ineptly squandered this entire capital after what he did in Gaza, in Lebanon, and with regard to Iran.
Yet his doctrinal program precisely included the task of carrying out a violent transition from the “suffering Messiah” to the “triumphant Messiah,” inspiring only fear and horror in everyone around. And on this fanatical basis his entire foreign strategy was built as well: he managed to draw the American president into this messianic logic. [And many of his admnistration]
All the masters of the White House before Trump were, in one way or another, under the influence of the Israeli lobby and provided significant support to Zionism, but none of them crossed certain lines. Trump did. And now everyone is paying for this adventure:
Trump is paying with the crushing failure of his party in the midterm elections;
Netanyahu is paying with the loss of power and defeat in the domestic elections in Israel.
Their entire bet was built on some political-geopolitical, historical miracle. This is how amazingly history is structured: we think we live in an era of absolute secularism, rationality, pragmatism, and critical science, but it turns out that religious-mystical factors at certain moments exert a sometimes decisive, determining influence on world politics.
After all, this madness reached the still strongest country in the world — the United States, which was simply woven into someone else’s eschatological agenda. This, in turn, provoked reciprocal eschatological surges in Iran. In Tehran, religious eschatology — the teaching about the End of Times — interprets what is happening unambiguously: the aggressor who attacked the Shiite state is perceived by them precisely as the appearance of Dajjal, the Antichrist.
As a result, over the past few years, together with Netanyahu — with the connivance and assistance of Trump — we have effectively moved into the geopolitics of the End Times. But now these apocalyptic expectations have collapsed. Mashiach has not appeared, the miracle has not happened. And here a colossal reverse effect arises:
1. This will cause a deafening shock inside Israel itself and completely reformat its internal landscape; 2. This will bring down the previous electoral and political constructions in America; 3. This will have a fundamental influence on all of humanity. We stand on the threshold of very serious, tectonic events.
Many representatives of traditional religious Judaism have always warned: this is precisely where the absolute error and sin lie! One cannot create a state, and even more so wage aggressive wars of conquest, before the true Mashiach comes. “Before” this — it is a taboo, a prohibition. But from the point of view of these active, anticipatory Zionist fanatics — “one can and must.” This is the deepest theological schism within the Jewish world itself. And we have seen, through the example of Trump, how gigantic an influence these circles are capable of exerting on global processes, if they effectively managed to force the president of the United States to carry out their will contrary to all the national interests of America itself and his own party.
Right now a hard course correction on the Middle East will inevitably begin in Washington. Of course, hypothetically one cannot completely rule out that, at the very end — before the final departure — Trump and Netanyahu are capable of going to extreme madness and attempting to deliver a nuclear strike on Iran.
A mass of alarming information is now circulating on the internet, including among pro-Russian bloggers, to the effect that diplomatic agencies are supposedly proposing that our citizens leave the territory of Iran and Israel. In reality, these warnings — official recommendations of the Russian Foreign Ministry to refrain from trips to Iran amid continuing risks of escalation — need to be examined and assessed soberly, without panic.
But proceeding from the degree of fanatical, extreme messianic expectations that reigned in Netanyahu’s entourage, and taking into account that Trump essentially has nothing left to lose, one cannot completely dismiss the probability of a direct nuclear strike on Iran. Trump himself casually mentioned this possibility a few days before the Democrats’ “blue tsunami.” This is an extremely dangerous moment, and we are obliged to be ready for any development of events.
That is, we clearly understand: the situation right now is capable of sharply shifting in one direction or the other.
And all of this — as we already see from the example of America — inevitably returns like a boomerang against Trump and Netanyahu themselves. And they will not simply climb out of this trap. They tried to rapidly turn the page of world history, taking personal responsibility for it. And the voters — both American and Israeli — recorded this fatal mistake with astonishing precision.
Of course, in political science it is customary to believe that the average voter is stupid, naive, and believes propaganda myths. To a certain extent this is so. But this electoral shift shows something completely different: when fundamental disagreement arises on the deepest theological and ethical questions, when the destructive policy of the leadership begins to contradict the elementary basic interests of the population, it turns out that society is not so hopeless at all. People are capable of drawing independent conclusions and responding with harsh reactive action. Society still exists as an active subject of history. Posts on social networks [Facebook, &, and even censured] and political technologies were unable to completely cancel the real participation of the masses in politics.
Americans in these elections demonstrated: their vote was by no means a reaction against conservatism as such. It was a reaction against the mad involvement in the war with Iran and against Trump’s blind pro-Israel line. [So true, both causes] And those millions of people who voted against the Republicans are sending a clear signal to the winning Democrats — Hakeem Jeffries and Chuck Schumer, who now head Congress and the Senate: “If you try to continue the same fanatical Zionist policy, you will receive exactly the same crushing blow — from both the left and the right!”
We are observing a turning point in history. Israel, to which American society traditionally related with overwhelming unconditional sympathy — where approval reached 70–80% by default — thanks to Netanyahu’s madness and Trump’s connivance, is today beginning to arouse dislike and even hatred among ordinary Americans.
But behind this visible electoral wave stands something incomparably deeper than simply the rise in diesel prices, inflation, or other tangible but still secondary economic factors. The matter is much more serious: a metaphysical confrontation of several fundamental scenarios of the End of History is underway:
The liberal-globalist end of history according to Fukuyama, transmitted by the current U.S. Democratic Party; 2. The radical-Zionist messianic project embodied by Netanyahu; 3. The Christian-Zionist variant, a vivid representative of which in the American leadership is Pete Hegseth, who heads the Pentagon. This is also a specific religious-political construction that links the fate of Christianity with radical Zionist fanaticism. And this radical sect turned out to be capable of directly controlling the U.S. military machine.
This is the point at which we find ourselves.
All the banal notions that the entire world politics is explained exclusively by economics, election promises, and PR strategies of electoral cycles — all of this takes place, but only on the surface. However, at those moments when real Ideas, metaphysical meanings, and ideological constructs come into play, all this surface political technology is suddenly and instantly completely nullified!
Look at the same geopolitics: it was in Europe’s interest to continue receiving our cheap Russian gas, oil, and raw materials. Economically everything was ideal for them. But where is their economy now? It has been sacrificed.
The significance of economics in the modern world is fundamentally overestimated. Its influence on politics exists, but it is absolutely not primary — it is, in essence, tertiary.
In first place always goes the philosophical-religious, deep civilizational block. In second place — grand geopolitics. And only somewhere in third or fourth place do current economic interests trail along.
And we clearly see how the West today sacrifices its economy for the sake of ideological attitudes. We in Russia behave logically and consistently; our system is coherent. But when irreconcilable contradictions arise in the West between these deep motivations, we become convinced time and again: religious, metaphysical, philosophical, and civilizational factors, reinforced by geopolitics, invariably prevail over any direct economic benefit.
Host: Alexander Gelyevich [Dugin], if we return to the apocalyptic scenarios and geopolitical risks you were talking about: literally in the coming days, in mid-November, a potential meeting between Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Jinping is scheduled on the sidelines of the APEC summit.
Is this trilateral meeting in the “Big Three” format capable of radically defusing international tensions — for example, of taking the threat of the use of nuclear weapons off the agenda, whether in the Middle East or on other theaters? Will the leaders be able to resolve the key global issues, or are we attributing far more historical significance to this summit than it is actually capable of bearing?
Alexander Dugin: No, in my view this meeting does not have such a fateful character.
It is, of course, a good, important, and necessary meeting. But its main significance lies elsewhere: the very fact of this trilateral meeting clearly underscores that we are already living in a multipolar world. The three key poles of the contemporary world architecture have finally taken shape — Russia, China, and the West. And the leaders of these three poles are gathering at one table. [We should count Iran also, even if he is not there still.]
But the paradox is that the West itself is today split, deeply fragmented, and there is simply no unanimity or single consolidated position among it.
Host: Allow me to interrupt: and who, today, is “the West” at all?
Alexander Dugin: That is precisely what I want to emphasize — the West as a single whole no longer exists.
The European Union is one West. Trump is another West, and moreover the Trump who makes promises and the Trump who fulfills the expectations of his voters are also different things. Britain is a separate West with its own ambitions. The globalists in the Deep State are yet another West. And radical Israel is also the West. At least five completely different Wests!
But the main tragedy is that none of these five Wests is yet ready to voluntarily recognize a multipolar world. Whereas we and China are in principle unwilling to recognize anything except multipolarity.
Discussing this with Trump at APEC is, of course, important. But with equal justification it needs to be discussed with the European Union, with Britain, and with Eisenkot in Israel as well. Our fundamental task is to force the West to reconcile itself to the inevitability of a multipolar order.
And the idea of nuclear weapons is precisely the last, extreme argument of bewildered actors. Trump, realizing that Iran cannot be broken by ordinary means, in impotence resorts to talk of nuclear weapons as a last resort. As for us — our President has repeatedly emphasized that we do not seek to use it, but the nuclear arsenal exists to defend our sovereignty, and if we are forced to the ultimate step, there will be no choice left.
Therefore I do not think that this meeting on the sidelines of APEC will be able in one moment to remove the terrible eschatological, apocalyptic tension that has been building for years. Only partial, local de-escalation along individual tracks is possible. But the key contradictions will not disappear — neither civilizational, nor ideological, nor metaphysical.
The time for a full-fledged, fundamental conversation about these things has simply not yet come.
Although everyone is today drawn into this apocalyptic End-Times geopolitics, with the exception of our President, [the most sane, balanced, prudent and clairvoyant] few in the West or the East fully grasp the essence of what is happening.
Look at China: I have spoken a great deal with Xi Jinping’s closest advisers; I have many friends among Chinese intellectuals. In their civilizational code — in Daoism, in Confucianism — the very category of the “End of the World” is entirely absent. They do not have this concept. For them time is cyclical and the world is eternal. We in the West and in Russia have difficulty imagining this.
Our own conception of time — Christian, Jewish, and even the atheistic-Marxist teaching of progress or Hegel’s “end of history” — is linear. It rigidly tends toward a certain final point, toward a meaningful resolution. And in order to speak seriously with Xi Jinping about the “End of the World,” the Chinese elite still has yet to deeply master this European-Abrahamic metaphysics.
Therefore humanity is not yet ready for a “summit of the End Times.” The forthcoming talks are an extremely important, but still intermediate, technical meeting. It is valuable in that it clearly records: the only real weight in the contemporary world is held by Russia, China, and the West. And Trump himself at it represents by no means the entire West, but only a quarter of it — half of America, which itself is only part of the Western world. A quarter is a lot, it is significant, but it is far from the entire world.
Host: Alexander Gelyevich [Dugin], just clarify, please.
Alexander Dugin: Look: he came to power and declares: “I am the king of the West! I am the emperor of the West! Submit to me!” And indeed many actually believed him.
But he completely failed to sustain this position; he simply could not live up to it. And in big politics — as in history in general — when someone raises his hand and then fails to deliver the blow, or proclaims himself first but in reality turns out to be only second or third, such a fatal miss does not go unpunished for anyone.
If a similar dialogue had taken place at the very beginning, immediately after Trump’s first arrival in the White House, it would have been an entirely different story. One could have said that three true kings of the contemporary world were meeting: Vladimir Putin — the unconditional emperor of Eurasia, Xi Jinping — the emperor of Asia, and Trump — the emperor of the West. Two years ago that could have been a truly epochal meeting! That is when it needed to be held, in order once and for all to agree on the complete cessation of American interference across the entire globe and on the joint construction of a multipolar order. Everyone hoped and sincerely wanted to believe that Trump was capable of this.
But now, I would say, holding such negotiations is both too late and too early. Too late — because talking with Trump about a real, long-term redistribution of spheres of influence in the world is already meaningless. It is not with him that one needs to conduct this conversation today. And too early — for speaking with someone who is truly capable of representing the West as a whole. Either no such leader will ever again be able to fully and single-handedly represent the West in the future, or the West itself will simply finally split into these autonomous regional poles.
Host: So is it correct to summarize that the very fact of holding this “Big Three” meeting today is much more important and significant than any of its practical results?
Alexander Dugin: Yes, exactly so. The very fact of this meeting possesses the deepest [not so deep...] symbolism. It is a clear, irrefutable confirmation of the multipolar world in fact — even if the West itself still formally refuses to recognize it.
It is precisely from this angle that the event should be viewed. It records an already established tectonic reality. But to agree on something fundamental and long-term in the present configuration they simply cannot — for this today there are absolutely no real prerequisites.»
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