What would you criticize about this article, if anything? It is too conspiratorially inclined or is it mostly correct? I have always been somewhat skeptical of the “heartland” theory, and i am wary when it comes to analyses by non-Marxists, especially when the focus is on individuals and shadowy groups rather than systems. Something here bothers me… but i can’t quite put my finger on it.
I’m not a fan of the heartland theory stuff. That always seems to me to just be a very Russian-centric way of reading history.
Like if a Russian nationalist reads history, then to that Russian nationalist the events that involve Russia seem more important, and then because Alexander Dugin isn’t a particularly self aware Russian nationalist he concludes “wow all the most important events involve Russia!” Like, ok there are elements you can pull out of it that are we interesting but really it’s just a way of saying “Russia is the center of the world!” but attempting to sound objective about it. Which is silly.
But all that shit about PNAC and the neocons yeah that’s true. And more, goddamn. It’s an empire and it’s playing the Great Game.
But this “heartland” “rimland” Russo-centric stuff doesn’t add anything to that picture. The USA wanted to dominate the Caspian basin and the Middle East because it’s where half or two thirds or whatever of the worlds oil is, that was the motivation, the USA wanted to control the spice. Squeezing Russia out of the Great Game was no doubt satisfying to some but it was more the victory lap by an excessively triumphant USA coming to take the spoils of “winning” the Cold War than some nonsense about “we need to control the rimland”.
It doesn’t actually add anything to the picture, it just centers it on Russia which isn’t surprising since it was written by an outspoken Russian nationalist.
But they didn’t have to kill his daughter over it. I suspect she was just an easy but high profile target.
The guy isn’t actually very influential. He’s something more like a Jordan Peterson meets Tucker Carlson character.
He’s emphasized in the west because he’s a bit cooky which makes Russia look silly and he says some very nationalist cooky things that allow them to pretend he’s the mad Rasputin to the Tsar, which works well for their narrative.
Yeah, what happened to his daughter is awful, she was actually doing some really good work as a journalist, advocating for and helping the people of the Donbass.
I agree about the “heartland” theory being silly, it seems too ad hoc and esoteric. I don’t see any materialist justification for it.
The funny thing about it is that despite a lot of Russian nationalists having picked up on it (because as you say it strokes their egos), it actually originated in the West and has been used by Western imperialists to form their agenda. I find that quite amusing.
As for Dugin, i think you’re spot on about his irrelevance and about comparing him to Jordan Peterson. I personally just can’t take anyone seriously who claims to have invented a “fourth political theory” when there isn’t even a third, despite what fascists like to claim. The simple fact is that there can only be two “political theories” because there are only two classes, the bourgeois and the proletarian. Fascism and liberalism are just different manifestations of the same bourgeois ideological framework.