the development of russian military policy and finland

Geopolitical Changes in Europe 11
2.3 The Return of Russia’s Geopolitical Way of Thinking
In the confusing times following the collapse of the Soviet Union, there arose
in anti-Western circles an immediate desire to find a new direction and a new
basis for values. From a group of conservative Russian geopolitical thinkers,
there soon emerged a forward-looking young philosopher named Alexander
Dugin (b. 1962), who’s influence on ruling circles has been noteworthy. According
to Dugin, who grew up in a military family, true patriotism is to be
found only in the army and in the security services. 36
In 1992 Dugin had already been appointed teacher in the General Staff Academy
of the Russian armed forces. There, under Lieutenant General Nikolai
Klokotov, the director of the Academy’s Strategic Institute, and with the support
of the Principal of the Academy and future Minister of Defence Army
General Igor Rodionov, he started to work on an important book about the
foundations of geopolitics and Russia’s geopolitical future.
In 2003, Dr. Alpo Juntunen, former Professor of Russia’s security policy at
the Finnish National Defence University, encapsulated Dugin’s ideas as follows:
[Dugin examines] everything as a battle between land and sea, in which the sides
are the maritime powers led by the U.S.A., and Eurasia, led by Russia. The forces
led by the United States are the enemy, which strives for a liberal-commercial, cultureless,
and secularized world mastery. This grouping is now overwhelming, but in
order to save the world, the Eurasian continent will have to counterattack under the
leadership of Russia. A new great power alliance must be shaped, to be led by the
Moscow-Berlin axis.” 37
[…]
Military co-operation with Germany must be made closer. The worst military problems
facing the future superpower are the border areas, the rimland, which the Atlantic
powers are striving to get under their control in order to weaken the Moscowled
mainland. Moscow has to take a firmer grip of the rimland area. […] Russia’s
only proper form of government is imperial. 38
slams-Finland-for-separating-mother-and-new-born-baby/]. A prominent role on the Russian
side is played by Dr. Pavel A. Astakhov, Children’s Rights Commissar for the President
of the Russian Federation. He graduated from the Faculty of Law, Dzerzhinski KGB
Higher School in 1991 [http://english.rfdeti.ru/content.php?id=12].
36 Laruelle, 2006. See also Dugin, 2010.
37
Other important axes to thwart the power of the United States and China are according
to Dugin the Moscow-Tokyo and Moscow-Tehran axes. See Dunlop, 2004.
38 Juntunen, 2003, pp. 39–40.