Alexander Dugin warns that without a real military alliance, the Eurasian axis will stay vulnerable, and BRICS's limited drills prove how far it still has to go.
Conversation with Alexander Dugin on the Sputnik TV program Escalation.
Host: The first topic-and of course the most important and most widely discussed right now-is the renewed confrontation between the United States and Iran. The intense phase has already lasted about seven or eight days. The temporary ceasefire that was signed is no longer in effect. Right now we see the two countries exchanging strikes, but still rather restrainedly, it seems to me-though I could be wrong. I'd like to know what we should expect next, because two main assumptions are circulating: either they will trade some fire and then restore a ceasefire, or, on the contrary, this will lead to much greater escalation, and for now both sides are simply waiting each other out. There is also a report from The Washington Post that, after the losses the United States has suffered in this confrontation with Iran, they are preparing a very powerful operation and are trying somehow to secure the Strait of Hormuz so that shipping can pass through it unhindered. What should we expect?
Alexander Dugin: I believe we have now reached the point where the entire public-relations campaign-Trump's marketing-style posts aimed at calming the markets (the stock exchanges, the Dow Jones and other indices)-and the speculation, including economic speculation, around the war has hit its limit. The war between America and Iran has moved from the realm of declarations into the realm of reality. Only now, and in earnest. Iran has long been feeling this on its own skin: it has suffered enormous losses among its leadership. For Iran this has been serious for a long time; for the United States it was still just a game. Now they have announced seventeen American soldiers killed-I think the real figure has already passed a hundred over this whole period; they have simply begun to admit it. The point is not that the soldiers died-they died earlier, and American soldiers have been dying steadily in this clash with the Iranians-but that far more have been killed than is acknowledged.
The very fact that they have started admitting it means they have crossed some kind of internal prohibition. Originally everything was treated like a computer game: press a few buttons and instantly the leadership in Iran changes, the nuclear weapons disappear, they go and kiss the boot of Ben-Gvir and other radical racists from Israel, everything falls into place, the platforms open for explosive growth of the American and global economies, and Trump is the "king of the world." Up to a certain point America tried to maintain that appearance. It is no longer possible.
When the Iranians showed that they are a tough nut to crack, that they are a civilization-state, that they are a subject in world politics rather than an object, that they are a pole of the multipolar world-and this is no reproach to the other Islamic states and societies that make a great show of themselves, work themselves into a frenzy, beat their chests and shout "Allahu Akbar," yet in practice turn out to be little more than obedient puppets of the West and Israel. Despite all their loud pathos and cruelty, they prove to be obedient little rodents. Against the background of these Islamic "rodents," genuine Shiite Iran demonstrates what it means to be a Muslim, to be a believer, to be independent, to be free, to wage a real holy war-jihad. Not by attacking the weak, the poor and the helpless who cannot defend themselves, but by throwing down a challenge to the real, absolute evil in the world: the United States and Israel.
Iran has shown what it means to be independent, sovereign and truly believing. This is also the awakening of Iran itself, which, without war and without any radical change in policy over recent decades, had begun to stagnate. People there too had started saying: "We keep waiting for the final battle, we talk about it constantly, and it never comes." Like in the film The Desert of the Tartars: they wait for Gog and Magog, and they never arrive, and people begin to despair of their own faith. Suddenly that faith was completely renewed by the American-Israeli aggression-and now Iran is real. This war will be real, because Iran has already lost everything it could lose; from this point on it can only gain, defending its sovereignty, independence, dignity and true faith to the last Iranian.
Within Islam this is an example of extraordinary, genuine resistance that the Americans never counted on. They assumed everything would be theatrical, that they would buy off the Iranian elite, remove the dissenters, install fully compliant figures, and that the entire pathos of preparation for the final battle that had been cultivated in Iran for half a century since Ayatollah Khomeini's revolution would simply collapse. It did not collapse. Now it is the turn of the system that proclaimed itself absolutely invincible to begin collapsing. And here everything is only just beginning.
They have started admitting losses among their own armed forces. One of the senior officers of the U.S. Navy has died-they claim it was in some non-combat incident, a helicopter crash, but he is dead; this is the "fog of war," no one knows the full story. In short, the Americans are beginning to acknowledge that they are taking casualties. Strikes on American bases in Kuwait, Bahrain and Jordan, constant attacks on Israel, and the targeting of the economic and technological infrastructure of U.S. allies in the Middle East (including the desalination plants Iran hit)-all of this shows that the Iranians understand the situation correctly: either they win, or they cease to exist. There is no middle ground.
Host: Could we discuss the question of compromise and agreement for a moment ? Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi has said that his country can end the military confrontation with the United States and move to a negotiated settlement once it gains the advantage on the battlefield. He sees two possibilities: ending the war through capitulation, or gaining the upper hand and only then entering talks on a new agreement. Looking at it this way, a similar situation has already occurred before, but it was achieved not through military success, but through the effective economic tactic of closing the Strait of Hormuz, which caused intense global discontent and forced the United States to seek a compromise in order to restore a ceasefire and ease pressure on the oil market. Why shouldn't Iran now, in addition to the Strait of Hormuz, also close the Bab el-Mandeb Strait-or ask the Yemenis to do so-in order to secure and even strengthen the same economic leverage?
Alexander Dugin: I think that is about to happen-the closing of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait. The Iranians will fight to the end; they are extremely consistent. Even when they agreed to negotiations with the United States on reopening the Strait of Hormuz, they set very serious conditions. Trump assumed he could outsmart everyone-but he is a con man, a pure swindler. Trump is simply a dirty, aggressive killer and fraud who never stands by his word. The Iranians understand this better than anyone.
Host: But is he like that only toward Iran ? Is he exactly the same toward everyone else?
Alexander Dugin: If he behaves that way toward some, he behaves exactly the same toward others. Make no mistake: we are dealing with an unhinged maniac who keeps no promises, who constantly changes his position on every issue according to the momentary situation-market, political, whatever. He is a genuine fraud. His own America is cursing him; his own voters are turning away. Everything about him is clear: he came to power under the noble slogans of fighting the "deep state," yet he betrayed everyone he possibly could. He has zero authority in any sphere. The Democrats hated him before and still hate him; now even his own electoral base deeply despises him. As for how the rest of the world views America-there is nothing left to say. It is finished.
But that is less important than his internal motivation. He came with certain ideological principles that were genuinely attractive: traditional values, a return to religion, focus on domestic problems, publication of the Epstein files, the arrest of everyone involved in pedophilia, cannibalism and the other atrocities committed by members of the American and European elites. He promised all of that. He promised to end wars, including the war in Ukraine. American sociology has the concept of the "Fourth Turning": Trump's supporters identified the fourth stage of the cycle with the era of Biden and the globalists, and after his election many sincerely believed a "golden age" was about to begin. They believed he would fight for "America First" and dismantle the deep state.
He betrayed everything and everyone. Why ? Many say, as you correctly noted, that he is under Israeli influence, that he has been taken hostage, blackmailed with compromising material-his own participation in those filthy, satanic orgies at Epstein's-or by some other means. It no longer matters. He has completely lost face everywhere: before European partners, before the American public, among his own supporters, and in the eyes of the world. The Iranians were prepared to reach a reasonable agreement even with this maniac, but it is impossible. One cannot negotiate with such creatures. When the Iranians now speak of readiness to return to the negotiating table, it is largely for form's sake-they are ready for nothing of substance. They understand perfectly well what they are dealing with. The next round of talks will be possible only when Iran has an even stronger negotiating position.
That means tens or even hundreds of thousands of American dead returned home; the closing of the Bab el-Mandeb Strait by the Houthis; fierce fighting for the coastal zones; the cutting of the undersea fiber-optic cables that run through the Strait of Hormuz; strikes on the critical economic infrastructure of America's Arab allies within range of Iranian missiles. We shall see what the next turn of events brings.
Host: You mentioned tens or even hundreds of thousands of American corpses being sent back to the United States. So are we already looking at the real possibility of a full-scale ground operation?
Alexander Dugin: They talk about it every day.
Host: Talk is one thing. What will the actual actions be?
Alexander Dugin: Of course we cannot know for certain what will happen. I am not claiming to see the future; I am describing how the Iranians themselves see the situation: if the escalation continues, they will fight to the death. They will defend every inch of Iranian soil. Thirty million people have volunteered-one in three Iranians-to defend their country. That includes supporters of the doctrine of Velayat-e Faqih (Guardianship of the Islamic Jurist) and, interestingly, the political opposition as well. In the face of American-Israeli aggression they are united. Iranian society is completely united and filled with absolute determination to defend the homeland.
Neither drones nor pure economic pressure will decide this. Look at Iran's geography, at the Zagros Mountains-they are virtually impassable. If a ground operation begins, it can drag on for decades, and that will be fatal for the United States. The Iranians will stand to the last. There will of course be enormous losses on the Iranian side, but no one can stop this war now. Trump cannot end it on his own terms, because the Iranians are dictating very hard conditions. He twists, he lies, he threatens, he insults. He behaves-there are no polite words for it-like a terrorist, like Zelensky. Wherever you look, it is the same model: like something out of Zelensky's old Kvartal 95 comedy troupe, only soaked in blood. Whether in the United States or in Ukraine-the pattern is identical: lies, deception, cruelty, sadism. No agreements, no reality-just the unhinged policy of global maniacs. Who learned from whom is already impossible to say-whether the Americans from the Ukrainians or the Ukrainians from the Americans-but right now they behave in a strikingly similar way on the world stage. The Iranians have understood this the hard way: their political, religious, spiritual and military leaders were treacherously murdered without any justification, under false pretexts-exactly as the Americans occupied Iraq and later overthrew Gaddafi in Libya. Pure lies in the service of the most brutal hegemonic plans.
That is why, in my view, we must conclude that negotiations with this overreaching Western power no longer work. They are worthless; we have learned that from our own experience. One can talk about anything, but nothing changes: Washington's support for Kiev continues, everything goes on as before. I believe the Iranians are showing an example-to us and to the whole of humanity. And to China, which is next. And to North Korea-a proud and strong country, but one that cannot resist alone. We need to build the Eurasian axis that Trump himself recently mentioned. Trump is apparently receiving his first lessons in geopolitics from his neoconservative tutors: he has suddenly discovered the existence of a Eurasian axis consisting of Russia, Iran, China and North Korea. Some claim Zionist agents misled him and that we are the good guys who will not play along-but that leads nowhere. It is far more realistic, thoughtful and responsible for Russia to prepare to defend this Eurasian axis. It exists because any state that claims sovereign politics, a multipolar world and independence from the Hegemon is automatically the Hegemon's enemy. Trump came to power promising to roll back global hegemony. He did not roll it back-he expanded it. He has pursued aggressive unipolar policies with methods and on a scale that even his globalist predecessors did not dare. He arrived on a wave of anti-globalism and became an even more aggressive, bloodier globalist.
Host: An important point about what this preparation actually means. You said Russia needs to prepare for this confrontation. How exactly ? What needs to be done?
Alexander Dugin: In our strategic thinking at present there are two components. The first is the belief that we can still reach some kind of deal with Trump and freeze the conflict, at least temporarily, so as to gain a breathing space. But we never use such peaceful pauses productively. Only in war, only under extreme conditions, are we truly capable of renewing ourselves. The time we are now desperately trying to bargain for at the negotiating table is, in essence, even harmful to us.
The second position is more responsible, more realistic, and in my view the only adequate one: escalation with the West-with America and the European Union-will only intensify. We must expect new players to enter the war against us: for example, an attack on Kaliningrad, the complete blockade of shipping in the Baltic, and a growing number of other strikes, including with the most effective and hardest-to-intercept missiles, against Russian territory. This is already happening; these strikes in various forms are becoming more frequent and more painful.
We must prepare for the escalation that is being forced upon us and abandon the subject of negotiations. Then we will have only one plan, not "Plan A" and "Plan B." Plan A is to negotiate; Plan B is to do something if negotiation fails. Negotiation will fail not because of any particular mistakes on our side or the West's, but precisely because the West interprets our attachment to Plan A-our orientation toward agreement-as weakness. That is all.
Agreement will become possible only when we truly mobilize and begin to behave differently. At present we say: "This is retaliation for that, this is retaliation for this." The moment we frame our actions as responses, we neutralize them. Now we must say: "This is an advance payment, and this is another advance payment-not only regarding Ukraine, but regarding all the surrounding supporters of the war-and all of it is paid in advance. Help yourselves." As soon as we start operating according to Plan B and forget Plan A entirely, then, in my view, they will finally be able to negotiate with us. That is the problem: the moment they see our desire for a peaceful settlement, they only escalate further. Only when they see escalation coming from our side will it become possible to begin talking about anything at all.
Host: So it is clear that there is no point in trying to reach agreements with the Americans or with the West as a whole. What, then, about internal cooperation among the countries of this Eurasian axis itself ? Why are we not deepening our military interaction if all of us - Russia, China, North Korea and Iran - understand perfectly well that we are confronting the West?
Alexander Dugin: For two reasons. The first is that each of us - with the possible exception of North Korea, which is more clear-sighted in geopolitical terms - still believes it is easier to strike a separate deal with the West. In other words: we will reach an agreement, and let the Iranians and the Chinese sort themselves out. China thinks: let the Iranians and the Russians fight, and we will somehow manage later. The Iranians, until recently, also said that they have their own track, their own relations with the West, while the Russians can conduct their special military operation in Ukraine. Yes, we help one another - we help them, they help us, and China helps as well - but each still acts for himself. This is a kind of narrow nationalism: people ignore geopolitics and the laws of history, focusing only on immediate national interests in the spirit of pragmatic realism, sometimes even sacrificing allies for their own short-term gain. This is classic Machiavellian politics, characteristic of every country to one degree or another. And it is precisely what prevents the full formation of the Eurasian axis that follows logically from geopolitics applied to present conditions and from the necessity of opposing a multipolar world to a unipolar one.
The second reason is that the West maintains extensive and highly influential agent networks inside the leadership of all these countries - except, probably, North Korea. In China and in Iran right up to the most recent period. And in our own country, of course, there is the "sixth column": since the 1990s it has operated quite openly, and today it calls itself the "party of ceasefire" and so on. These networks say: "What does this have to do with us ? We are part of the West; we can reach excellent agreements with the West. We suffer only because of our own radicals and because of the other radical members of this Eurasian axis." In Russia they say: "Let us sacrifice China for the sake of the West, not to mention Iran with its radicalism; let us draw closer to the West." The Iranians say the same: "Let us sacrifice the Russians - they do not really help us, they only make promises. Why do we need them ? Let us settle the matter with the West." And the Chinese say: "Look, we have not yet been seriously burned; there is no war over Taiwan yet. We are preparing intensively for it, learning from other people's mistakes, studying the experience of a new type of warfare in Ukraine and in the Middle East. When it comes to us, then we will see. For now we will not make a complete break with the West."
The result is that both limited sovereignists - a kind of narrow realism - and pure agents of Western influence act in unison. They try to relativise and diminish the necessity of creating this multipolar geopolitical bloc - the Eurasian axis. They slow the process from within. And of course the West does everything possible to prevent the axis from taking shape. Yet it is necessary to create it. In fact it is forming by itself, but not because we are actively advancing it. The Eurasian axis is currently taking shape as a reaction, as a response to the attacks of the globalists. It seems our elites are incapable of absorbing the real lessons of geopolitics on their own. After forty years of promoting geopolitics in our society I have the impression that people take note of it, but since "no prophet is accepted in his own country," it is treated as optional reading - interesting, curious, but nothing more. The real lessons of geopolitics we receive only from the West.
Host: That raises the next question. Will Russia, China, Iran and North Korea begin a more rapid unification and abandon the reasons you mentioned, trying to eliminate them ? Under what conditions ? What must happen ? Could something truly serious - for example a nuclear strike on Iran - serve as a catalyst ? We have already discussed the possibility that the United States may find itself in a position where it has no choice but to use nuclear weapons. By the way, the possible appearance of nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia is also extremely interesting here, because it could affect the entire region. Do you think the Eurasian axis will begin to function only under such catastrophic scenarios, or could the catalyst be less extreme?
Alexander Dugin: To be honest, I find it difficult to answer. I see only one thing: we do not learn from our own mistakes or from reflection; we learn only from reaction. At what moment we will move from irresponsible dreams of reaching an agreement with the West to direct action is hard to say. We wake up only when it becomes impossible to go on sleeping. As long as we can ignore reality, as long as we can lull ourselves with stories that we too are part of Western civilisation, that the West is not so bad and that we share common roots, this will continue indefinitely. Any appeals to science, logic, history, geopolitics or strategy coming from within have no effect whatsoever.
These stories are accompanied by very serious material and economic processes, yet by our own free will, actively and on our own initiative, we are incapable of acting in a Eurasian key. We begin to build this axis, we begin to behave as a truly sovereign state - and this applies equally to Iran, to us and to China - only when something hits us. Whether it is a nuclear strike, a missile that kills the entire Iranian leadership, or conspiracies: recall China, where six out of seven senior military leaders were executed. That did not happen for no reason. China does not like drastic measures, which means the recruitment of its military leadership by the Americans had reached a critical point that required their elimination.
When we react - when it is no longer possible not to react - what exactly must occur for us to recognise the necessity of actively, immediately and offensively creating this Eurasian axis with joint military exercises and mutual assistance ? We need to build a military bloc. The West does everything it can to deter us from it: they say they will reach agreements with the Russians in Anchorage, with the Chinese in Beijing, with the Iranians in Switzerland - with each of us separately, anything rather than allow a military bloc to form. That means they fear it, and therefore we are obliged to create it. Simply a military bloc of Russia, Iran and China: "your enemies are our enemies," mutual assistance begins. Iran would gain access to the Arctic via the Caspian, and we would gain access to the warm seas. We could solve a great many strategic problems. What stops us ? Those for whom this is mortal danger - our enemies. Yet we often refuse to regard them as enemies, thinking: "Well, it is important for China to confront America because they are neck-and-neck in GDP and technology," or "That is necessary for radical Iran, but why do we need such confrontation?"
Nevertheless, all of us who wish to preserve sovereignty, dignity, culture, pride, independence and freedom will be forced to join this aggressive - I would even say offensive - Eurasian axis. Because if we do not attack, we are attacked. The enemy understands no other language.
Host: At the same time the West acts cunningly and treacherously. Saudi Arabia is now being given the opportunity by the United States to enrich uranium - another project aimed against Iran. On the other hand, in Japan there is talk of the possibility of acquiring and storing nuclear weapons, of the idea that the "three non-nuclear principles" should no longer apply. Our confrontation with Ukraine also escalated in large part when talk began of Kiev possibly obtaining nuclear weapons - that was one of the key problems. So it turns out that our entire surroundings are in one way or another affected by these processes (with the exception of North Korea). The question arises: why can we not act in the same way ? If the United States is indirectly creating a nuclear threat around us, why can we not create a similar threat for them in return - or do we lack the capability?
Alexander Dugin: We have the capability, but we lack the resolve and the understanding of the depth of the processes unfolding in the world. At a certain point we slid into a banal, trivial, crude, almost ignorant mythological explanation of all historical processes through economics, profit and trade. As if rising indicators mean that everything is beneficial for everyone. This is unthinkable naivety - strategic idiocy - to measure historical and strategic processes by economic models. The economy is important, but it determines nothing in the world. It adjusts itself to ideologies and interests. The belief that the economy will "sort everything out," that the market with its "invisible hand" will lead to harmony - there is nothing more dangerous than this ideology. It is a false construction created specifically for colonies so that they would quietly help the hegemon and the metropolis grow at their expense.
This globalist idea has so deeply embedded itself in us that a strict, cold geopolitical analysis - based on the same principles on which the West builds its strategies - is perceived as something secondary. After all, we did not invent geopolitics; the Anglo-Saxons did. Mackinder created the systems and the vocabulary. And what is the meaning of this geopolitics ? That the civilisation of the Sea - Anglo-Saxon, liberal-democratic, capitalist - is fighting the civilisation of the Land, based on heroic principles, traditional values and a distinctive spiritual culture. This war is irremovable. It cannot end while one of the participants exists in independence and freedom. From this follows directly the idea of inflicting a "strategic defeat" upon us. This is geopolitics in action. The West does not conceal these principles; they are taught in every academy. Why do we not transfer them onto our own soil, why do we not learn from what is happening instead of merely reacting?
They strike Wildberries - we strike Kiev; they attack a residence - we deliver a retaliatory strike. But it looks as if we have gone into hiding and are simply spitting back. We need to do the exact opposite of what they do. They want to inflict a strategic defeat on us so that the Land ceases to exist. We want to exist - therefore we must win this war against the civilisation of the Sea. And that is the collective West, including Trump. If he had, as he originally promised, recognised multipolarity and accepted that the West is only one pole among others, that would have been one thing, and he should have been given a chance. We invested in that, we believed. But when everything shattered, it is no longer possible not to notice: the Trump who came to power no longer exists, MAGA no longer exists, the publishers of the Epstein lists and the fighters against the deep state no longer exist. All those people who shared that ideology are now in opposition to Trump. He turned out to be a cog - whether this is his personal tragedy or whether he was a nonentity and a clown from the beginning no longer matters.
We are now dealing with classical geopolitics: either we or they. The Eurasian axis is a basic element of the forecasting that constitutes the essence of their outlook. They began the struggle against a potential Eurasian bloc already in the 1980s. Paul Wolfowitz wrote into the National Security Doctrine under Clinton in the 1990s the central principle: the prevention of the creation on the territory of Eurasia of a military-political and economic bloc that could limit the influence of the global West in the region. That clause has never disappeared; it is passed from administration to administration.
Host: I would like to ask about the significance of artificial intelligence and what happened at the World AI Conference in Shanghai. If China speaks of creating some kind of alliance in the field of AI, is this a step toward the unification of the Eurasian axis, or is it something else?
Alexander Dugin: I think it is partly a step toward unification. The principles of geopolitics, against which so many of our people - good, intelligent people - have argued, are simply a kind of madness. Not to see the obvious, not to recognise the laws of geopolitics and their power - at least the fact that the West builds everything precisely on them - must be acknowledged. If we did so, we would apply the principles of geopolitics, the principles of the civilisation of the Land and the necessity of integrating the Eurasian axis to everything: to the military alliance we have spoken about, to the proliferation of nuclear weapons - because the civilisation of the Sea allows its clients (Israel, Saudi Arabia, possibly Japan) and even Ukraine to possess them, while denying them to us. Therefore we must say: they proliferate, they spread nuclear weapons among "their own," and we will spread them among "ours." They attack and lie - we will not believe their lies, we will defend ourselves, and sometimes we will carry out preventive acts and conduct an offensive policy. The same applies to the economy: they create it in their own interests, and we must create it in ours - collectively, together with the other countries of the Eurasian axis, drawing in the neutrals (BRICS is an excellent initiative for this).
The same is true of artificial intelligence. AI is an extremely powerful instrument of new technologies, and either it will belong to the civilisation of the Sea, as it does now, or we will attempt to build our own - a continental, land-based, Russian-Chinese-Iranian-Korean AI that is technologically independent. Today one needs the appropriate servers, cooling systems (something China is actively developing) and certain algorithms. The models China develops are being refined; they are becoming sovereign. If Grok, ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude are switched off for them, the Chinese have their own analogues. They do this with every technological development, achieving enormous success and strengthening the sovereignty of the state. We must join this process. We signed the charter at the AI conference, but what we need is precisely a Eurasian AI. Try saying that at any serious event - people will either giggle, or look at the floor, or think that "Kremlin propagandists" have arrived and that it is impossible. That there is only one progress, one society, one democracy, one political system, one economic model - Western liberal capitalism - and nothing else!
In essence, the issue is not artificial intelligence but the natural intelligence of our elites. It is infected with the toxic mould of Westernising influence. We can dance around agreements on joint work with the Chinese on AI as much as we like, but nothing will move until the Western-centric model of the world, of history, of society, of the economy and of technology remains in the heads of our influential people. As long as the West is for them the alpha and omega of the universe, everything will be blocked. We will not build proper relations with China, and something will always get in the way. We will not help Iran and will wait until - God forbid - they collapse, and then everything that has fallen upon them will fall upon our heads.
If we do not wake up now in all these spheres, the country will require - let us put it this way - a "geopolitical awakening." This is precisely political Eurasianism: the recognition of the civilisation of the Land, of our special destiny, and of the necessity of defending the multipolar world not only by reactive answers to challenges but by proactive actions. We must ourselves set the agenda, ourselves create the processes and events to which the West and our enemies must then seek answers, rather than constantly trailing behind events and acting reactively. This lesson of geopolitics that the collective West is teaching us today we could have mastered ourselves, by our own will, if we had made the effort. I hope we are nevertheless approaching the tipping point at which we will finally take geopolitics seriously, at the proper level and with the most serious approach.
(Translated from the Russian)