This is Part 4 of series on books by Dugin, the Russian philosopher (see Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3). This post covers his 2021 book, "The Theory of a Multipolar World". The book builds on much of what has already been said in earlier books, here I highlight only two points offered in this relatively short publication (154 pages). The first is Dugin's vision of what a multipolar world is and the second is his vision of what the future multipolar world will be based upon (which draws directly from Huntington and his civilizational theorizing). He writes:
"1. The multipolar world is a radical alternative to the unipolar world (existing in fact today), in that it insists on the presence of several independent and sovereign centers of global, strategic decision-making on planetary level; 2. These centers should be sufficiently equipped and independent materially to have the possibility to defend their sovereignty on a material level in the face of the invasion of a probable enemy, as a model of which we can take the most powerful force in the world today. This demand amounts to the possibility to oppose material, military, strategic hegemony of the US and NATO. 3. These centers of decision-making are not obligated to recognize as a sign qua non Western norms and values (democracy, liberalism, the free market, parliamentarism, human rights, individualism, cosmopolitanism, etc) and can be entirely independent of the spiritual hegemony of the west;" [author continues with additional points] (p. 17)
"Huntington identifies the following civilizations: Western civilization, Orthodox (Eurasian) civilization, Islamic civilization, Hindu civilization, Chinese (Confucian) civilization, Japanese civilization (potential), Latin-American civilization, Buddhist civilization, African civilization. They are destined at a certain historic time to become the poles of a multipolar world." (p. 48) [Dugin continues with sections describing each of these]
On multipolarity, from The Fourth Political Theory, Dugin writes:
"The idea of a multipolar world, where the number of poles and civilizations are the same, will offer humanity a wide range of cultural, philosophical, social and spiritual alternatives. We will have a model with the presence of a "regional universalism" in a particular "large space" that will give to large bands and significant segments of humanity necessary social dynamics (that is typical for globalization and openness), but devoid of the shortcomings that globalism has taken on a planetary scale. However, regionalism can also develop in this situation, as well as local, ethnic and religious communities, since the unifying pressure inherent in nation-states will be significantly weakened." (p. 119)
"There no universal standard - neither material nor spiritual - will be. Each civilization will finally proclaim that it is a measure of things. Somewhere it will be a man somewhere - religion, somewhere - ethics, somewhere - matter. But for realization of this project we have to endure a lot of fights. First and foremost, it is necessary to cope with the main enemy Globalism and the desire of the Atlantic western pole once again to impose all the peoples and cultures of the Earth its sole hegemony. Despite the deep and true observations of his best intellectuals, many of the political establishments in the United States still use the term «civilization» in the singular, implying the «American civilization». That is the real challenge that we all, all nations of the earth, and especially Russian, should simply have to give an adequate response for." (p. 120)
