Alexander Dugin proposes Armenia to participate in Eurasian Union

The Union of Politicians of Armenia organized a discussion on the topic of Armenia’s motivations to join Eurasia Union in case when Armenia can maintain very good relations with Russia without participation in that union too. The main speaker was Alexander Dugin, a Russian politician and philosopher, who was introduced by the Politician’s Union chairman Hmayak Hovhannisyan as “the Kremlin’s unofficial ideology speaker.”

In fact Dugin is the Kremlin’s official ideology speaker because the main policy of Eurasia Union advocated and promoted by him is among Russia’s main priorities now and the Russian president Vladimir Putin is making efforts to make this policy come true by involving other countries in the union.

So far there have been conversations about Armenia receiving an offer from Russia to join the union. In fact the union does not exist at this point. Currently the format that is being developed to become union is a customs union in participation of Russia, Kazakhstan and Belarus. However, there is an ideology for such union and Dugin made a presentation of that idea. He made a presentation to show the motives of founding such union and why they want Armenia be a part of it.

Dugin says that since the collapse of the Soviet Union the world has been homopolar. Countries that have sovereignty have fallen under America’s super power influence. He believes that Russia needs to unite and merge with the countries of the former Soviet area to establish its power and create a new pole in world politics.

Dugin says that for now Russia does not have the resources and potential as before to make its pole an alternative to the Euro-Atlantic pole and restore the bi-polar world politics order. However, if it is not possible to restore the bi-polar system, there can be a multi-polar system, and the Eurasia Union can be one of the powers in the multi-polar world order. Dugin says such poles in this system can be China, India and Arab countries.

Why does Dugin think that Armenia should be in this group? He believes that Armenia, Georgia, Ukraine and even Turkey cannot become EU members as this geopolitical group will not open doors for them. It means that after being rejected by Europe, these countries will have no choice but join Eurasia Union. However, the question whether this new format of Eurasia Union will be for the countries that are rejected by Europe is still open.

Also, Dugin thinks that for the sake of stimulating the project Russia may offer economic privileges for the countries that will join the union. As an example Dugin says that Russia has forfeited economic interests to Kazakhstan and Belarus. Accordingly this means that Armenia may receive economic privileges if agrees to join Eurasia Union.

Concerning Karabakh conflict Dugin says that the situation in the region is in a manner that the status-quo is in the interests of all parties involved. Dugin believes in case of Armenia’s participation in Eurasia Union resolution of the conflict will not be guaranteed, but the status-quo will be guaranteed. Dugin thinks the current situation with Armenia-Turkey relations will continue being at the same level in the future too. “Previous attempts to normalize Armenian-Turkish relations bypassing Russia were failed. If there are more similar attempts, those will fail too,” said the speaker. However, Dugin believes that as Turkey and Azerbaijan see that they have no place in Europe, they will try to revise their geopolitical policies and may want to integrate with Eurasia Union too. In such situation he thinks relations may normalize and even the borders may open.

Is Dugin’s notion of Eurasia Union an individual idea or a notion for resisting the American hegemony? Isn’t this an idea developed for the purpose of mobilizing small countries around Russia in order to counterbalance the American hegemony by convincing those countries that it will be the best way for their existence and development? Dugin says that Eurasia Union may develop further to the extent of becoming a confederation of countries.

There was discussion about the system of values of Eurasia Union. Despite the American system, which is based on the notion of individual’s freedom, Eurasia Union should be based on the notion of justice. Maybe Dugin means social justice. Now let’s look at Russia and ask if it can be the bearer of the ideology of justice. A country, where the level of corruption is skyrocketing, people have to apply to mafia for their justice, and their decisions are considered to be the highest levels of justice – for such country justice is mere theoretical understanding. Can Russia promote justice and bear that ideology itself? Maybe Dugin thinks that it’s a matter of time and Russia is trying to cope with those problems. However, we see that this struggle is theoretical only and in real life it does not bring about change. In other words, before promoting certain values and offering others to adopt those values, Russia would be better to adopt those values itself.

By Avetis Babajanyan