G. Greenwald: Professor, thanks so much for taking the time to talk to me. It's great to see you. I want to start with the change in what seems like the climate and certainly in Washington, in the United States, where there's a great deal of expectation that with a new president, one who specifically is vowing that he wants to see an end to the war between Russia and Ukraine and there's a lot of expectation that that is going to happen. I think the same is true in Western European capitals, for better or for worse. Some people are happy, some people are not. What is the expectation here in Moscow in terms of that likelihood? 

Alexander Dugin: First of all, we observe carefully how deep the changes that Mr. Trump has brought with his new team, new administration are. That is something incredible. He has changed direction 180%. So that is totally reversal of the previous administration. 

G. Greenwald: In what way do you mean that? 

Alexander Dugin: First of all, ideologically, because there was left liberalism and globalism that was a kind of ruling power in the United States and in the collective West and Trump has brought nationalism, patriotism, America First, and he declared the war against all globalist institutions, starting from USAID and all the other clans and deep state. And this time, there was not only talk, only speech, only words, but also deeds, with totally new persons. So that was unexpected for us and we could not, not remark this huge, huge change in the American line. And because in our opinion, in Russian opinion, the war in Ukraine was provoked and literally started by the previous administration, so, this contrary-to-previous-administration line of strategy of Trump, we observe was very positive, a positive feeling because …

G. Greenwald: Before you go on, just let me ask you:  when you say the prior administration provoked the war in Ukraine, what specifically do you mean by that? 

Alexander Dugin: So, they have promised Ukraine to join NATO and that was the red line for Putin. We always insisted that it is too much, that exceeds what we could tolerate. But nevertheless, Biden and before him, Obama, Nuland, this group, the clan of globalists, not the United States of America in general, but this clan of globalists, they pushed this agenda against us, provoking us, so that’s how we consider the situation. It is important to understand not what the reality is, but what the people participating in some conflict, how they conceive the realities. So, our reality, our truth was that. And we have remarked that the enemies of Mr. Trump, they are those who have started the war and they are our enemies. So, we have a common enemy: globalists, left liberal agenda and second and very important point, we coincide with our defense for traditional values, for patriotism, family, religion, and many other things. That is the difference. That makes difference between globalism and Trump, on one hand, on the other hand, between globalists and us. 

So, we have many, many common ideological points with Trump, but, at the same time, we are very, very careful in our expectation that Trump could help us finish the war, because one thing is the affinities and the ideology and the other, geopolitical interests. In that sense, we are not so sure that his rejection of the globalist agenda will necessarily end accepting our truth in the Ukrainian conflict. That we need to see further. 

Nevertheless, we see how different is the position of Trump regarding Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian general with the rest of the same globalist left liberal structure in the EU and Europe. That gives another positive element of expectation, but we still are very careful, because I think that globalists, before leaving the office, tried to create the conditions to make more obstacles in order to prevent… 

G. Greenwald: You mean like authorizing the use of Ukrainian missiles? 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, yes, and many other things. They wanted to put Trump in the trap, in the trap. And if he would like to finish the war, he would be incapable to do that because of all these elements they have done before leaving office. 

G. Greenwald: So let me ask you, there was obviously a political scandal in the United States during the 2016 campaign, when Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton were competing to be the president. The argument was made, well, Trump is the candidate of the Russians, Trump is who the Kremlin wants to win and they have a lot of animosity toward Hillary Clinton. In Trump's first term, from 2017 to 2020, he did things like send lethal arms to Ukraine, whereas President Obama before him was very reluctant to do that. He also campaigned to have Germany and Europe stop buying natural gas through Nord Stream, something very antagonistic to Russia. 

Is it true that in 2016, and it sounds like it from what you're saying, that you at least and more broadly, maybe the Russian government had a preference for Trump to win?

Alexander Dugin: So, from the beginning of his campaign, when he has appeared for the first time on the horizon, on the political horizon in the U.S., we have immediately remarked the difference between his strategy and globalist strategy. So, we, from the beginning of his appearance, would rather see him with some sympathy. But there was no element of real intervention in his support. Everybody here in Kremlin, maybe, besides myself, everybody here was convinced that Hillary was going to win. So that was just something funny, sympathetic, but we didn't accept him seriously. When he came to power and when he won, he was under pressure. So, they have created this false strategy, fake news campaign, to demonize him, to undermine his influence, that he is a marionette and an instrument of Putin. And maybe he was obliged, because that was his first term, he accepted much more, he heard more opponents, people from the Republican Party and so on and he tried to give the impression that that is absolutely senseless. 

So, maybe that was the kind of driver to help more Zelenskyy but now the situation is totally different. First of all, the people from the administration who made these claims that there was a kind of Russian intervention in favor of Trump, now they are in the courts, they are fired, and they are under inquiry. So, if now somebody of serious position starts to repeat the same lies, it is already something like a kind of crime. So that is suspicious. So, Trump could not pay any attention to such slander and propaganda of his political opponents. So, he is totally free to deal with Russia in good terms, in bad terms. That demands that he consider what the American interests are in this field. So, he is totally free. So, he could not discount absolutely any claim that he plays in favor of Russia, in favor of Putin, because it is an already established fact that all that was a lie. So, that is the difference between the first term, and the second term. 

G. Greenwald: Let me ask you, though, you referenced USAID and then sort of with the USAID is the National Endowment for Democracy. And it has gotten a lot of attention in the United States in the last two or three weeks because the new government has been targeting it with budget cuts. There is a lot of discussion about what these agencies are and what they do. There is sort of an attempt to say “Oh, these are charitable agencies, they go around the world helping people, they give to the poor.” Maybe there is an extent to which they do that, but in a lot of countries, there is a lot of hostility toward these agencies because of the perception – and the proof – that they are used by the U.S. government to interfere in other countries. 

Is that something that from the Russian perspective is understood or seen about the National Endowment for Democracy, about USAID, that there are arms to interfere in not just other countries but specifically here in Russia? 

Alexander Dugin: As well as a network of Soros and all the other assets linked to the USAID, you said, we have found a long time ago that there is something wrong with USAID as an agency. And instead of promotion, some humanitarian, purely humanitarian help and aid to the people, to the society, they are just the instrument to organize color revolutions or to influence media. They were buying so-called independent journalists and bloggers… 

G. Greenwald: Inside Russia? 

Alexander Dugin: Inside Russia, outside of Russia in the post-Soviet space. We have remarked that – we have fixed that – and after 2012, USAID was prohibited here, not because they gave humanitarian aid, because they worked to destabilize political situations. They intervened in the social process, trying to help and to promote regime change. That was nothing like humanitarian agency. That was a kind of soft power and sometimes including terrorist networks used by globalists, not by the government of the United States, in order to promote some ideological agenda, fighting against what they called authoritarian regimes in order to install their place, so-called liberal democracies. 

So, that was an ideologically engaged and very radical and illegal system and that was for us as well, a very astonishing, very amazing step of Trump's administration. The first week they had dismantled, the first week in the White House, the White House, they started with that, with revealing the truth that USAID was some ideological asset and not just a normal government agency. So, we knew that long before and that was a very important step because I think many things will be changed now when there is no such huge support of ideological war that globalists waged on all humanity, and especially in our country, only Ukraine – because it seems now that 90% of so-called free press, free media in Ukraine was supported financially by USAID. So, that is something that was clear and transparent for us and that Trump has come to the same conclusion. 

G. Greenwald: Let me ask you about the motive at play in this agenda that you're describing as the globalist agenda to impose what they describe as liberal democracy on other countries. If you go back to the Obama years, where I think a lot of the U.S.-Russian hostility began – with the Hillary Clinton State Department and through the years – the United States is perfectly happy to partner with and deal with and even impose very dictatorial regimes. When there were protests in Egypt for democracy by the students, the Mubarak government was very close to the United States. Hillary Clinton talked about Prime Minister, President and Mrs. Mubarak being very close friends of her family in Saudi Arabia and all around the world. The United States has partnered with and been very happy with dictatorial regimes. So, when there is this effort to use these agencies to change the government of Russia, to change the political climate in Eastern Europe and the like, it doesn't seem to me like the motive is, “Oh, they want to just spread democracy because they love freedom.” What do you think the motive is and why there's been this effort to try to undermine stability in other governments in the region, including your own?

Alexander Dugin: First of all, there are two lines, two schools in international relations, as for sure you know: realism and liberalism. According to realism in international relations, you can deal with any government if it is willing to cooperate with you, to follow your line, to support you. You just discount whether they are dictatorial, authoritarian, democratic, liberal, socialist, communist, it’s secondary importance. That is realism. So, you should follow your national interests and all the rest is of secondary importance. That was the position of Kissinger, the position of John Mearsheimer. That is classical realism in international relations. And partly, the United States is based on this line, on this school. So, what is good for America is acceptable. So, if…

G. Greenwald: Democracy or authoritarianism doesn't matter. 

Alexander Dugin: Yeah, it does not matter. Liberalism in international relations is a totally different system. So, that is the idea that you should fight authoritarianism in any country, including in the United States, in Europe. So, nobody is perfect. So, we need to make democracy more functional, more equal, more tolerant, more woke in some sense. And starting from that regime that is openly not so liberal, or they are called such. So that is the kind of angle that Mubarak was the friend of the United States and of Israel, nothing against them, but at the same time, he was openly authoritarian. 

G. Greenwald: Like General Sisi now. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, yes. There is no big difference. They belong to different ideological camps, but the methods they use in the rule are more or less similar. 

So, liberalism in international relations, that is globalism and left liberalism, as they call it now in the U.S, that is a totally different approach to international affairs and, in that sense, Russia represents a kind of independent civilizational state with different political philosophy, with different values – for us, in our eyes, they are democratic, but in the eyes of globalists, they are authoritarian. 

So, in these schools normally during the last hundred years in the United States, they competed, they were more or less in balance. So, one step in a realistic way, the other, liberal, and they cooperated somehow. But, after the fall of the Soviet Union, the liberals in international relations have won because, according to Fukuyama, they have remarked that it is now the moment of unipolarities, all the world should turn into democracy, liberal democracy, no more realism, no more nation-state. We need to destroy that. We need to come to a global government. 

That is the normal path of the manuals of international relations in this section dedicated to liberalism in international relations. That is not conspiracy theory. World government is a political, sociological concept of liberalism in international relations. And this balancing move to put, to concentrate everything on this global, liberal approach. And I think that was the loss of the balance and Trump is restoring that. So he is not against liberal democracy, but he is against an unrealistic attitude to world politics.

G. Greenwald: That is the U.S.'s responsibility or role to change other governments that he's rejecting. 

Now, let me ask you though, on this scale that you just described of liberal democracies on the one hand and authoritarian regimes on the other. Prior to the fall of the Soviet Union, all Americans were taught that the Soviet Union is on the extreme end of authoritarianism. There are no elections. There's no free speech. If you criticize the government, you go to jail. All of these things were taught. And after the fall of the Soviet Union and the rise of Yeltsin and a certain change in the relationship between the United States and Russia for a while, there was this sense of, okay, Russia is becoming more Western. There's more democratic reform. 

Now, we're very much back to the same perspective of Russia that we had prior to the fall of the Soviet Union: it's an authoritarian regime, there are no real elections, people who criticize the government go to prison, there's a crackdown on individual rights and the like. In the ideas that you just used to describe the perspective of the United States, liberal democracies here, authoritarian governments here, is it fair to consider Russia more toward the authoritarian pole? 

Alexander Dugin: So, I think that when the United States dealt with the Soviet Union, that was the path of ideological propaganda. There were two systems competing on the global scale and blaming each other to be manipulated by big finance or to be authoritarian, totalitarian. So that was the path of the ideological weaponry of the Cold War. And there was some sense in that because the zone of Soviet influence was so big. So, we influenced some states in Latin America, some political parties in Europe and Asia. So, we competed on the global level, and we blamed each other for being something bad. 

In our eyes, in the Soviet ideology, capitalism is bad because that is exploitation and all that. In the capitalist camp, socialism was totalitarian and bad. That was not about the truth. That was about ideology. 

When the Soviet pole collapsed, there was only one ideology, liberalism, that had won on the planetary scale. Huntington has seen very correctly from the beginning of the ‘90s that after the collapse of two ideological camps, there will be new actors, civilizations. They will return, they will emerge. And they will not form an anti-Western pole or something like Soviet system, but they will try to defend their identities. They simply don't coincide with the Western one. 

So, there we need to make a translation of the terms. So, we could not reduce all the situations to whether authoritarian or liberal democracy. So that is absolutely the violence against the differences of culture, terms. For example, in our opinion, we could have democratic authoritarianism, something like that because if we choose by our free will someone who will be considered as a father of the nation or authoritarian figure, the father. 

G. Greenwald: There are a lot of people who think the United States has that now with Donald Trump, for example. 

Alexander Dugin: You are experiencing exactly the same dilemma, the same question. You could, by all your free will, you could prefer something that should not be globalist, liberal, democratic, and maybe it could seem as well as authoritarian. 

These big monuments of Trump already down. So, we passed all our history making huge monuments for our leaders. So that was not the case in the living leaders. That was not the case of political philosophy, political tradition in the United States and now, with Trump, you have arrived immediately – in some months – you have arrived at the same conclusion that maybe – maybe – people, the society, the masses would prefer a strong leader, strong authoritarian leader with extra capacity and a special right to change the situation that you consider to be in pitiful conditions. 

So that is the same logic. So maybe you understand us much better now because you have one of the first experiences of how great and how beautiful some kind of democratic authoritarianism could be. 

G. Greenwald: But I guess the one difference is that the reason Donald Trump is in power and presumably in another 18 months or so, there'll be a Congress in place, as a result of well, he won a free election. It was the Democrats who tried to put him in prison, the Democrats tried to have him ineligible to even run on the ballot, but they failed. He was able to run and by all accounts, there was a free election, and he was chosen. Presumably there'll be another one of those in 18 months for the Congress and not another one of those in three and a half years for the next president. Whereas I think this argument is that, well, in Russia, you can say that people want a democratic authoritarianism, but there's no real elections and therefore it's not really comparable to the United States. What about that argument? 

Alexander Dugin: First of all, I think that the Democrats wanted to rig elections and seal elections from Trump precisely because they were afraid that something like that could happen in the United States because the will of the people could be different from the understanding of how democracy should work, according to some abstract liberal democratic concepts. And they started – I have remarked once Biden has said that the freedom is more important than democracy. 

So, you can rig democracy if your freedom is in danger. So, there is an inner paradox because the people having free election can vote for someone who can be considered by abstract liberal theorists as something that …

G. Greenwald: Authoritarian. 

Alexander Dugin: Authoritarian or something for someone who doesn't fit exactly with their understanding of how democracy should be, not how it is. And so, a democracy that could prefer a strong leader and weak democratic government – it is a historical fact that the things like that happened in history. The liberals are very, very afraid of such possibility. And free elections in your case, the United States – only in the case of Europe, it is this open possibility to choose whoever you want and not what the globalists suggest that you should or what should elect. So that is some contradiction embedded in democracy itself. So, democracy could, in some situation, as was the passage from the Roman Republic to the Roman Empire, when Republican government was so corrupt, incapable to solve the concrete economic geopolitical military problem and respond to the challenges that there was the need, the popular need to change the type of government from passage from Republic to the Empire. I think something like that is going now in the... 

G. Greenwald: Yeah, I agree. And obviously you see in the United Kingdom where they voted to leave the EU, despite being told by what you might call the globalists that they shouldn't, you see the rise of a lot of parties. Just yesterday in Germany, the AfD is now the second most popular party. In France and all over Europe, you see the same thing with the rise of populist parties, what you might call more nationalist parties, anti-globalist parties. 

But I think the argument there is, let's say there is a decision to move in what one might call a more authoritarian direction or a less liberal direction, that there will be ongoing democratic ratification of that, as long as you're holding free and fair elections every four years. And that would still be a difference a lot of critics of your country would say than what happens here in Russia because here in Russia, you may think there's satisfaction with that system, but you don't really have free and fair elections to test it. 

Is that something that is a fair critique of Russia? Is it accurate? And do you think there should be that kind of ratification occasionally? 

Alexander Dugin: First of all, I don't think that everything could be reduced to this dilemma: a democratic system or authoritarian. There are many more versions of the political structures than these two oppositions. Second, if we consider, for example, Russian elections as they are now when the people voting for Putin, if you have Trump at the head of United States, if you have – let us imagine, AfD at the head of the Germany, Marine Le Pen at the head of, France, absolutely democratically elected, and there is no globalist lobby ruling the West, so, how do you think would they recognize Russian elections as fair, democratic, totally transparent and accountable? So, I have a feeling that yes, they would say they would prove because it is against the logic of globalists. But the people could choose and continue to support someone they have elected as a kind of father of the nation and repeat that for four years. 

G. Greenwald: But you would need alternatives, not just controlled ones, but free ones. 

Alexander Dugin: Why? Why we should have alternatives if we are happy with what we have?

G. Greenwald: But how do you know people are happy unless they are able to express that? 

Alexander Dugin: Referendum voting and they are happy, still happy, and still happy. There is no alternative and that could last as long as you want. Finally, you believe in your leader, in your father of the nation so much that you will follow his indication of the successor. So, he, for example, Putin would say this guy will continue my line. He knows better than us and we are going to believe. [  ] So, sometimes alternatives are important, but sometimes no. They could be, for example, if there is some collapse of the authority of some leadership, there could be different ways to overthrow it, by votes, in democratic ways or not. There are different ways. But if there is the radical discontent with the ruling leader, the ruling figure, always there are ways to finish with it. So that was...

G. Greenwald: I guess Russian history has examples, American history has examples.

Alexander Dugin: European, African, Asian, that is kind of eternal. Eternal questions and Machiavelli has said, “If there is the ruler who is a living ruler, he is a good ruler because the bad ruler is dead.”

G. Greenwald: Let me just go back to Ukraine for a minute because I got sidetracked with some interesting things that I wanted to ask you about anyway, but obviously there's a desire on the part of the Trump administration to end the war. Trump has said that during the campaign. He said that over and over and over again. He's saying that now as well. 

The question, of course, is how such a war might end. NATO from the beginning defined victory in a way that always seemed to me to be designed to ensure their humiliation, which was that we want every Russian troop out of every inch of what had previously been recognized as Ukraine, including Crimea. It seems obvious now that's not going to happen. Pete Hegseth, the new Defense Secretary said, “We're never going to go back to the pre-2014 borders.” There was a lot of anger that he said that, but it seems true. There are a lot of people in the West who still think that the motive for the war, the goal of Putin, is not only to take all of Ukraine, but to exert in a pre-1989 way authority over large parts of Eastern Europe as well. And then there are a lot of people who say, “No, it seemed like what Putin and the Russians want is some buffer zone to ensure safety between NATO and encroaching NATO moving eastward and Ukraine.” So, how do you see the real Russian goal, the longer-term Russian goal when it comes to Ukraine and Eastern Europe? 

Alexander Dugin: I think that if we consider the real capacity of Russia, of modern Russia, to, for example, put Eastern Europe under control, as was the case of the Second World War, we arrive immediately, after a serious consideration, that it is absolutely impossible. Maybe it was desirable. Maybe we would rave of that. We would do everything to accomplish that by strategic and historical reasons in order to reinforce our security, but that is absolutely out of our capacities and nobody could say in Russia that we are able to do that. Maybe we will be obliged to put into the situation a necessity to fight with Europe, with NATO, and maybe this war will give some positive results. But it is very, very small possibility. 

G. Greenwald: And people in Russia recognize that?

Alexander Dugin: Absolutely. No, no. That is a common opinion. For example, few would say that we would desire that.

G. Greenwald: Right. 

Alexander Dugin: But all would agree that we... 

G. Greenwald: Capability is not there. 

Aleksandr Dugin: More than that, it is now very difficult for us to establish full control over Ukraine. And we see that. But we would prefer to have at least neutral Ukraine. Neutral, not hostile, not friendly, but just neutral, as was in the case of Kuchma and Yanukovych, working with the West, having good relations with us. And we would let Ukraine alone with Crimea, with Donbas. We didn't want that. Our government tried to avoid military intervention. So that is absolutely clear. But we could, when we started, a more powerful way to keep Ukraine back under our conflicts, there was this war. And in this war, we see an absolutely certain point. First of all, NATO, as you have said, could not overcome Russia. So, the goal to so-called “liberate Crimea or eastern part of Ukraine,” is impossible on the level of the powers. So, we stand strong against all the sanctions, all NATO weapons given to Ukrainians and we will stay in that and maybe progress until the end, until the last Russian. We are very decisive on that. But at the same time, we see how difficult to us is to progress. So, we would satisfy, at least now, with keeping back these territories, assuring that Ukraine is not going to become the part member. 

G. Greenwald: When you say “keep back,” do you mean that – and I realize you're not necessarily negotiating for the government, or even if you were, you wouldn't do it with me – but is there a scenario, do you think, in which Russia would be willing to give back to Ukraine some or all of the land it has come to occupy over the last three years? 

Alexander Dugin: It's absolutely zero chance for that. 

G. Greenwald: Why is that? 

Alexander Dugin: First of all, we have paid a big price for that and nobody in Russia, in Russian society, no warriors, no people who have lost their children, the parents, they would accept that. So, Putin has said... 

G. Greenwald: Because otherwise, the loss of their children would be for no reason. In other words, the people who lost their... 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, because that was the kind of great patriotic war, and it is continuing and Putin has put his authority on the scale for the victory. So, without victory, no historical legitimacy. 

G. Greenwald: What is victory? 

Alexander Dugin: That depends. In my opinion there are different scales. So, it could be a control over Ukraine.

G. Greenwald:  All of Ukraine.

Alexander Dugin: All of Ukraine. Putin, a not pro-Russia but neutral figure on the top dismantling military potential and Nazi ideology, Russophobia, this hatred to Russian Orthodox Church, Russian language. So that would be maximal victory. If we liberate what we call Novorossiya, the territory that includes four regions we have already taken and… 

G. Greenwald: All the provinces in eastern Ukraine that you…

Alexander Dugin: As well. So, these four provinces and new four provinces around Odessa, Kharkov, Nikolaev, and Dnipropetrovsk, but that could be annexed to Russia and it could be victory as well. If we manage to do that. Or to take Kiev and to divide Ukraine in two parts, western and eastern. And the less possible, the smallest victory that we could maybe afford – I'm not sure, but maybe it is in the plans – it is to keep the territories, the provinces we have already under in Russia and Crimea, obviously, and to give all of Ukraine, all the rest of Ukraine, to accept that, and to demilitarize – and promising not to enter NATO. But I think that as well, this smallest victory could provide a huge reaction from the population. 

The normal victory, the victory that will immediately satisfy everybody here, and that is very important to the future period, because we need to assimilate, to integrate these new territories, old, in our history, old, old earths, so that will be accepted by everybody. The smallest victory that is inconceivable for the West, for Zelenskyy, as I think maybe for Washington now, that could create critical turmoil inside of Russia. So, it will be very, very difficult to present as victory in the level... 

G. Greenwald: Just maintaining what you have. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, yes. 

G. Greenwald: Let me ask you about that, because there's a lot of times there is, in Western propaganda, a kind of cartoon version of Russia that's presented, which is that Putin is not just, as you call him, or describe him maybe, the “father figure” of the country, but he's a totalitarian leader. Only his will rules everything. There's no dissent, there's no opposition, there's no questioning permissible. 

My sense, following Russian politics as best as I can from a distance, is that there's actually been a lot of disagreement in Moscow and in political circles about what this war ought to achieve. You're obviously laying out different views that people have of what it is. Is there a certain kind of political pressure on President Putin inside Russia not to give away too much? 

Alexander Dugin: I think that is not so much political pressure from concrete political groups, but rather the general opinion, a kind of mood of the people in the front, the people here in the country. So, the patriotism is now a kind of common position of the absolute majority of the Russians. And patriotism, that is sociological, cultural, ideological... 

G. Greenwald: Psychological. 

Alexander Dugin Psychological, absolutely. And that creates much more pressure on Putin than any fraction around him. And what is interesting, there are people who are in tune with this patriotism and close to Putin, but they are still not the absolute majority. The many representatives of Putin's elite still believe in the end of the conflict and restoration of the pre-war relations with the West. So, they accepted this patriotic line of Putin and a majority of the population, but they still have a second thought. And I think they are making the pressure on Putin in order to stop the war as soon as possible. So, the pressure on Putin is not from the side of the pro-war… 

G. Greenwald: To take all of Ukraine. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, yes, yes. But to stop it immediately. Stop it in any way and accept any suggestion. 

G. Greenwald: Who are those people? How would you describe people with those views? 

Alexander Dugin: I'm calling them sixth column. There is a fifth column. Fifth column, they’re liberals, pro-Western, who openly protest and protested against Putin. Now they are mostly outside of Russia. If they are here, they don't show themselves because it is over with them. So, the fifth column doesn't exist here as the public…

G. Greenwald: Is that because they've been suppressed or imprisoned or just driven out because of public opinion or a combination of both? 

Alexander Dugin: Combination of both. Not too much repressed and despised by the majority of the population, but not until the moment to beat them, to hit them, to aggress them. So, they preferred to run away before the real repression, in their opinion, would start. So, they have fled the country. So, we could not know whether it would be repression or not, severe or not so severe, because they are outside. 

But there is a sixth column. So, there are liberals, representative of this '90s, Yeltsin's time, oligarchs, some bureaucrats who really hate patriotism, who hate our people's sovereignty. They had a very good life during these good relations with the West and they still keep the same mood, the same attitude. But, in spite of the rebellion against Putin, they prefer to be on his side. And they... 

G. Greenwald: Because they keep their influence that way, but not really share the visions. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes. Sixth column, so. Here are now advocates of Putin, but they dream about stopping the war and return to the pre-war period. So that was, I think, a very interesting situation. They are powerful. They try to influence Putin. They try to make pressure on him. And they are part of this globalist network. Maybe they were paid by USAID because now it is manifested that USAID has helped to write a Russian constitution. We are living under USAID product and many other norms and laws in the beginning of the '90s. 

So, we, Russia, was a part of this network and the people from this USAID-paid network in different levels, now many of them are a part of people close to our elite, close to Putin. So, they weren't purged because Putin is very, very mild, to say the truth, very, very gentle. He prefers to convince someone than to fire or to punish him or her. So, he is very, very humanistic. And he has conserved almost all the core of this pro-Western liberal elite. Only most radical [ones] were fired or put outside. 

But that is the real danger because the mentality of this liberal sixth column is much more like Schultz, Macron, Stammer, and not Trump. So, they want now, they are in a very awkward position, they want peace with the West, but they don't like absolutely Trump. Because in Trump, they see maybe their fate, their doom. If Putin would start something like Russian Doge, they will be first to suffer because they are corrupted, they are traitors, they are not, in any way, patriots, they really hate and despise Russian people, they are this sixth column. 

G. Greenwald: I heard a speech from President Putin, maybe it was an interview, and he referred to a certain kind of Russian who feigns patriotism, but really their heart lies in traveling to France, traveling to London. They love their foie gras, they love their Western villas and the like and that this tension between what he called patriotic Russians and these kinds of Russians who crave above all else integration of Russia to this global border and to this European set of values that he considers anti-Russian always stayed with him because it really seemed like it came from a very internal place. Is that the kind of group that you're talking about? 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, yes. That is the political elite of the ‘90s because the absolute majority of the people now in power, they came in the '90s and they stay here still. The situation is totally changed, nevertheless, they keep their places. But Putin prefers not to punish them, not to fight with them, not to do what Doge does to many agencies, but rather to re-educate them or maybe to seduce them, to give them a place, to give them peace, give them place in the power. But they should at least pretend to be patriots. So, that is not about the sincerity of their ideological conversion. And Putin tolerates those who maybe with words are on the side of the greatness of Russia, of patriotism, and so on. But he doesn't go deeper. 

G. Greenwald: But it sounds like you would like to see a kind of what you're calling Doge of Russia. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, I think that is the problem. We need Doge for Russia. We need absolutely Russian Musk. We need people like Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, Pete Hegseth, Robert Kennedy, and other heroes of new Trump's revolution here because we have many, many common points. The bureaucracy, the huge corruption on any level of Russian society, and the treason of Russian interests in favor of some other countries’ or groups' interests. So we are in a very similar position, and we need Trump's revolution here, and doging Russian state and political elites in order to purge this system. 

G. Greenwald: It's funny because a lot of anti-Trump liberals believe that Trump has brought the Russian transformation to the United States. In other words, you seem to be saying, “Oh, look, it's over there, is what we need over here.” And a lot of liberals believe that Trump has sort of copied Putin. 

Alexander Dugin: Well, you see from the distance. You see only the best thing on the other side. 

G. Greenwald: Always your neighbor's grass is greener. 

Alexander Dugin: Yeah, absolutely. That is. But at the same time, what I am admiring personally, how fast and how rapid, this velocity of the changes. That is purely American. Putin makes everything very carefully with delay, one step ahead, two steps behind. And finally, in 25 years, you couldn't recognize your country. Nothing was done, nothing was declared openly, nothing was changed. But everything is already changed and we didn't remark that. With Trump, they're quite opposites. In one month, there is no more ancient regime. There is much of its revolution. 

G. Greenwald: It's still there, but it's under attack quite openly. 

Let me ask you, because one of the things that Western propaganda is designed to do is to prevent anyone from ever thinking about the world from the perspective of any country deemed adversarial or hostile. Can you describe to people why it is, well, first of all, describe to people how Western involvement and U.S. involvement in Ukraine has looked since at least 2014, or even going back if you want, and why that is threatening to Russia? 

Alexander Dugin: So, in our eyes, in our society, not just in mine, but….

G. Greenwald: the Russian society.

Alexander Dugin: Russian society. Yes. Russian people. That was the Russian society. Yes, Russian people. That was a kind of clear hostile intervention of the power that really hated Russia. So, we added ideology, woke globalism, liberalism that contradicted to our traditional values, and action on the actions of the West, the collective West, on the geopolitical level. So that was the kind of combination between ideological hostility and geopolitical hostility. And we have seen, we have interpreted that as creation of artificial anti-Russia in Ukraine, because the Ukrainians are the part of the same people, the same church, and a part of us was cut and transformed in an artificial way by some kind of psyops in something radically different aligned to us in the absolute contradiction. So that was creation of the artificial identity with great racist nationalism and anti-Russian nationalism, and supported by the globalists, by the liberals, and by all the countries, starting from the United States to European Union. Sometimes, some leaders, European leaders at that time, were... 

G. Greenwald: Which time do you mean? Do you mean 2014? 

Alexander Dugin: 2014 something. But starting from that and more and more and more, some European leaders were a bit reluctant to promote this aggression, but this time, the United States – Obama's administration, Nuland, other globalists, Democrats – they pushed this agenda against European leaders in order to escalate relations between Russia and Ukraine. 

After that, the other European leaders followed this tendency, they were involved more and more and more in Russophobia, and now, paradoxically, the region of hostility, the hatred to Russia and most support to Ukraine is not from the United States, but from the European Union. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah. But I guess the question that a lot of people have listening to that is, well, that was done in Ukraine. Ukraine's a separate country, it's a sovereign country, was once part of the Soviet Union with Russia, but no longer is. Why is it threatening to Russia, if it is, to have such active U.S. and EU involvement in Ukraine? 

Alexander Dugin: Because Ukraine, in the history, didn't exist. It begins with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the borders were not based on the ethnical, geopolitical and historical experience. That was just an administrative province of the Tsarist Empire first, and after that of the Soviet Union, nobody cared about what ethnic groups, what religious groups lived there. Because that was part of the same political and administration space, the same state, and that was just the province of it. So, nobody resolved the problem you belong to this ethnic group or to the other. They were considered to be a part of the same Russian world, the same Russian people. The collapse of the Soviet Union was made by the administrative borders of the entities that never existed politically before. 

G. Greenwald: But there was a Ukraine. I mean, we talked – before the collapse of the Soviet Union… 

Alexander Dugin: There was not Ukraine as a state. 

G. Greenwald: Right, but there was a Ukrainian identity. 

Alexander Dugin: As a state… 

G. Greenwald: Within the Soviet Union.

Alexander Dugin: It was kind of like Nebraska or Utah. So, you could say that is a state, but it is not the national state, sovereign national state. That was just the province with a very small amount of autonomy. So that was just the part of the unitarian state and the collapse of the Soviet Union gave to this artificial entity the status of sovereignty because the first leaders, the Yeltsin, believed that we will be friends because we belong to the same civilization. And that was not the case. 

So, when we have remarked, when we have understood that there is some anti-Russian movement, political, supported by the West, already in the '90s, but in the '90s, nobody reacted properly against the threats and the challenges from the West. But with Putin, we started to take in consideration these processes in Ukraine. We tried to convince them to stay with us, we supported candidates from the East of Ukraine, we tried to convince oligarchs and political, economic elite to deal with us, not prohibiting them to deal with the Europe or with the United States, but conserving some balance, natural balance, neutrality, some friendly relations with us. Friendly relations with the EU, but in some limits. All the presidents of the Ukraine, including Yushchenko, who was very, very pro-Western, they accepted this balance. So, one president more pro-Russian, the other pro-Western, pro-Russian, pro-Western, but in the same not radically hostile to Russia. And the coup on Maidan was precisely to destroy this balance. That was deliberately the step, the move, to put the radical nationalist circles at the top, provoke Russian reaction in Crimea and elsewhere, and to divide, to cut Ukraine from Russia, including Eastern part that originally, in the beginning, were almost absolutely in favor of Russia, but under propaganda, under demonization, under Western suggestions that turned into the bloody mess. 

So, this anti-Russian ideology has won over Ukrainian society and they started to hate their own history, their own religion, thinking that the West is paradise and Russia is hell. And they were Russians that would like to escape so-called Russian hell that never existed… 

G. Greenwald: But why is that a threat to Russia if that happens in this other sovereign state of Ukraine? Why is it a threat to Russia? 

Alexander Dugin: So... 

G. Greenwald: You're talking here about internal Ukrainian politics. 

Alexander Dugin: But that is not so, because first of all, what is sovereign? If you are a great power, only the other great powers are sovereign, in your opinion. All the rest is a hypocrisy. So, if, for example, you imagine Mexico creating anti-U.S. government and... 

G. Greenwald: Or China doing so in Mexico. If China did so in Mexico, I guess, it would be the analogy, right? China comes, instills anti-American sentiment. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes. Anti-American sentiment. And everybody in Mexico would think, let us hang the Yankee on the trees, as was the case in Ukraine, and supply with a huge amount of weapons and try to provoke the United States on the border. So finally, you would understand us. 

That is not about neutrality or sovereignty. That is the direct challenge and when you see the other geopolitical power, Western geopolitical power supporting that and igniting that, fueling that, so you could understand Russian reaction. We acted very mild. Putin was the last who finally decided to intervene. So…

G. Greenwald: There were sentiments inside Russia that that should have happened earlier. 

Alexander Dugin: Absolutely, absolutely. Now everybody, Putin as well, he has acknowledged that. So that was my opinion. But starting from 2014, I claimed that continuation of the conflict is inevitable because the collective West and the globalists, they will not stop. They will concentrate the powers, they will weaponize Ukraine in order to attack us, to get back the Eastern territories and these Minsk talks will lead to nothing. I declared that starting from 2014 and they have a kind of repression against myself. I was cut from all the channels, all the TV channels. So not repression, but ostracism. So, something like that. It was not physical or juridical, but I was fired from Moscow State University because I said, I continue to say, what I consider the situation is. And now…

G. Greenwald: You feel vindicated. 

Alexander Dugin: Took a huge price to that. 

G. Greenwald: So, I don't mean you're celebrating. I just mean you believe that perspective that the West was intent on expanding… 

Alexander Dugin: That was right. That was just right. And now it is acknowledged by Putin himself. Now he says, we should start earlier. We should start... 

G. Greenwald: Are you back in good standing with television networks and the like, or? 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, but it could change. I don't depend from that. 

G. Greenwald: No, I know that. I know, of course, nobody wishes for more…

Alexander Dugin: After the beginning of the special military operation, I was called back, but I don't depend from that. I am continuing to say, if, for example, tomorrow I will find the conditions of the peace are not acceptable for our society, people, and they are the treason of our heroes, I would say that... 

G. Greenwald: No matter the consequences. 

Alexander Dugin: No matter the consequences. Because that is the freedom. I am a great partisan of freedom, of the opinion, of the speech, but if my freedom should not necessarily contradict, for example, existence of authoritarian leader, I could follow him when I agree with him. I could be against him. If he decides to repress me, that is the rules of the game. 

So, I will fight not for my freedom, but for the truth, as I consider it. I hope, I believe, in some situations, this dissident voice, dissident example, could win. And everybody will say, “Oh, he is right. This guy is right. He says good things, and we support him against this corrupted, obsolete regime.” Things happen. It is very, very difficult this challenge to be loyal to your own search for truth, but I think that is almost equal in liberal society or in authoritarian. If you are not liberal, for example, in liberal society, you will be crushed. You will be canceled. If you are anti-authoritarian in an authoritarian society, exactly the same. So, it is not about that, I think. We need to stay with truth, with our faith, with our principles and values, defending them wherever we are, in democracy or in monarchy. 

G. Greenwald: I just have a few more questions, but I'm finding this very illuminating. I think a lot of people will, too. What's so interesting to me is the way you're talking, the way you're describing everything, is essentially that there is a very robust debate about what the agreement should be that ends the war if there's an agreement. 

There are people who think that anything short of taking over Ukraine would be inadequate to Russian interests. There are people who think that, well, maybe if we keep everything, obviously Crimea and the Donbas, but even some more, that might be okay. Maybe there are some of these six-columnist people or others who think, no, let's just keep Crimea and just get this war over with and get back to the West. And Putin is sort of somewhere in the middle being influenced by all of these different factions, which sounds like a pluralistic discourse and not a top-down authoritarian one.

Alexander Dugin: Exactly, that is the case. So that is not just formal pluralism. That is kind of sociological pluralism because the difference is we have no lobby around Putin, we have no groups around Putin, we have no clans. So that is much less formal than in the West. There are moods. They are very active, very serious moods, opinions, sentiments, feelings, interests and many ways to hide the real interest, the real motivation. 

So, the Russian society is much more complicated, I would say, not so transparent, but exactly, you're absolutely right. There are competition of different solutions and Putin is not free to install everything he would like to be true or correct. He is observed from many angles of our societies and the groups, not formal groups, just forces of our society could create differences atmosphere of rule, of behavior, of social obedience. So, the meaning of population really matters in Russia and it has its own channels to get to Putin and not just he could dictate his will, whatever everybody would do and accept. So that is not just, that is not authoritarianism. Absolutely. 

G. Greenwald: For example, as you said, I guess, from what I'm gathering, and I'm just creating a hypothetical example – I don't at all think this is likely, I just mean it to illustrate the point – that if, let's say, Putin were eager to end the war in Ukraine in a way that would be as fast as possible, he could say, “Here's everything. Here's the Donbas, here's all the territory we conquered. We'll keep Crimea, but here's everything else. We'll be over here and kind of keep this as a neutral zone.” It sounds like that would not really even be possible even if he wanted to because of all this sentiment that you're describing. 

Alexander Dugin: I think yes, I think yes. Maybe he could try if that would be the case, he could try that, but that will be the error, a mistake – any leader, including very, very great leaders, could make a mistake. So, nobody is accepted from that. Maybe Putin, from his position, would agree to this solution, but on the ground, on the grassroots level, I think it will not be accepted because they have promised us the victory and they have demanded from us to fight until the victory and to sacrifice everything we have for the victory. 

To take this small part of Ukraine after so many sacrifices could not be the victory in the eyes of the real people, of the deep people. Maybe elite would glorify that. “Stop, please stop, let's take that as the victory. We have won, we have won,” but there is something else. So that is the problem, I think, that if we consider the real society, including so-called authoritarian one, there is much more actors than one or the people around him. That is a huge and very complicated, complex system of powers inside of such society, including vertical and authoritarian, and always was. 

In our history, Tsardom, the Tsars, the kings, they were controlled by so many processes in society, in the classes, and not only just the people around them. So, that is a kind of organism, the kind of living being. The state is a living being. If we consider that the head should rule, that doesn't mean that all other members are exempt from their own participation in the whole. 

G. Greenwald: I keep having this phrase that you said earlier about doging Russia in my head. Russia needs a doging. As you might know, I live in Brazil, I'm American, but I live in Brazil, and I have for many years. Over the last two months, you have this right-wing populist movement led by Jair Bolsonaro, and they talk all the time now about USAID and where money has gone, because there have been a lot of USAID money into Brazil as well. And you have now right-wing conferences in the United States, and they're often attended by right-wing leaders from every continent, from Europe, from South America, from everywhere. 

It is kind of ironic because all of these right-wing populist movements are very nationalistic in the way they describe themselves in the way you're talking about this Russian identity, Russian sovereignty, Russian patriotism. But at the same time, maybe because of the internet, maybe for other reasons, there seems to be a very close linkage, almost like it's an international movement as well, where populists and nationalists are linking up together increasingly and forming a kind of worldwide movement. 

Is that how you see the Russian national movement? You're very tapped into the right-wing discourse in the United States, I can see that. And I see that in a lot of other populist and nationalistic movements as well. There's a little tension because the idea is we want an expression of our own country, our own culture, our own history, our own borders, but at the same time, it seems, increasingly – I don't want to say like globalism – but it does seem to be an internationalist movement as well. Is that how you see it? 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, I agree. Because that is interesting, that being European, Americans, Brazilians and Russians, we have the same threat of the loss of our identity and canceling of our cultural values, traditions, because the globalists, they promote the kind of postmodern relativism. So, no values, no gods, everything is optional, and there is no organic identity. All identities are just the play, the game, so you could choose any identity you prefer, and all the values are relative, and so there should not be national states, national culture, no civilizations, only one civilization, liberal and [  ] history, and so on. 

And that is directed against Russia, against Russia and understanding what Russia, holy mother Russia is, what is our tradition, our religion, our value. The same, it is against United States of America, including against those conservative part of it, very large as we see, that get against the majority of European population under the rule of globalists. The same, I think, for Brazilian people. So, I see that this coordination, or beginning of coordination of these conservatives, and the people – I don't like term nationalist, because I am not nationalist. I don't think that is good term that fits for Russia, because we had here much more a civilization-state with different nations. 

G. Greenwald: Not just a nation-state. 

Alexander Dugin: Absolutely, never, never nation-state. The Soviet Union wasn't a national state, the Russian Empire wasn't a national state. So, nationalism, maybe for a Western country, it is a normal term, but for our country, it is the wrong term. So, I could not, they describe me as ultra-national, but I'm not nationalist at all. So that is just irony. But I think I agree, there should be a kind of coordination between the people and the countries, and the movements defending their own deep identity, their own civilizational values and… 

G. Greenwald: Because there's a common enemy, as you see it, which is globalism. 

Alexander Dugin: Globalism, yes. Not the West, not China, not socialism. Just globalism. It could be Islamic, it could be Chinese, it could be – it was Soviet Russian, that was a kind of globalism as well. Now it is left liberal-Western globalism, but all kinds of globalism are bad. 

G. Greenwald: When you say Soviet Russian globalism, that's how it was before, do you mean the exportation of the Soviet ideology to other parts of the world, which you oppose? 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, I was a dissident in Soviet times. I was formed as a traditionalist, as a philosopher of conservative values, and that was in the beginning of the '80s. So, 45 years ago, I started something like Saint Nikolai Conscious Life, and that was against this globalism of the Soviet Union, against materialism, against atheism. 

I was in favor of the restoration of Great Russia, Russia as a civilizational state, and I fought for that, not so much against communists, but I was against. It was youth, I didn't participate in some political movement, but ideologically I was very opposed to that and when Perestroika started, I tried to get from the trap of the liberalism in order to promote the return to the roots, Russian roots, and that I still defend the same values, but I think that this kind of dialogue between different tendencies – not necessarily right, not necessarily nationalist, and for sure not racist, because racism, it is globalism. The globalists are racist because they think that there is only one civilization, the liberal ones. 

G. Greenwald: That is the superior one.

Alexander Dugin: So yeah, that's suprematism, liberal suprematism. I am radically against all kind of racism, but I think that the people who defend this civilizational identity being different for them should cooperate, should hear each other, should get inside the skin of other in order to understand the perspective, for example, of American patriotism, of Brazilian patriotism, Chinese, Islamic patriotism, Iranian, Jewish. Nobody should be excluded from this dialogue of the people conscious about their belongingness, conscious of their deep identity and defending this identity together against the globalist threat. 

G. Greenwald: I know you're a philosopher, so just to go kind of a little bit deeper into that first principle, is the reason that you think it's beneficial or desirable for people to embrace this kind of cultural identity or whatever, religious identity, however people identify, is because naturally human beings are tribal and this sense of tribal belonging is important, or is there some other value that causes you to want to preserve that way of organizing? 

Alexander Dugin: Tribe is one of the levels of the identity, the smallest level, clans, tribe. There is much higher as well, other levels. I have studied, I have dedicated to that my book that is translated into English “Ethno-Sociology,” and the highest point of common identity, common destiny, common social understanding of the unity is the civilization. In my opinion, the most important point in my philosophy is that there is not only one civilization but there are civilizations, in the plural, and that is the highest level. It is not tribal, not clan, not ethnic. It is not national. It is something much higher, but they are very different from one another. For example, the Chinese civilization. China is a civilization state. There are many ethnical groups inside, there are many forms of life and traditional peoples and communities and societies. But there is something common. They could not read correctly hieroglyphs in the north or in the south, they are different. So that is an inclusive, great civilization, not just people or clan. They look different. So, China is a continent, the universe, the same for Russia, the same for the United States of America, the same for Europe. So, there are civilizations, and there is no direct hierarchy. There is no hierarchy between them. Indian civilization, Islamic civilization, not Iranian, Persian, Turkish, Malaysian. 

G. Greenwald: But these are nations and you're talking on a higher level of civilization. 

Alexander Dugin: So, nations could form, could be a part of civilization, but civilization, it's something that is the highest unity possible. And if we imagine or if we are in search of much higher level, we need to take into consideration all these civilizations. So, we need to ask Chinese men, how does the term men sound? What do you mean by being men? Ren, it's men in Chinese. And what are the implications? What are the basic texts you have derived this term from? The same for Islam, the same for Africa, for Latin America, for Russia, for Europe. And only after taking in consideration these civilizational claims or translations, we could arrive at some system. 

There will be, for example, human rights. But human rights in each civilization have totally different meanings. Now we are dealing with the Western, modern, liberal understanding of what is human or what is right. And we discard totally Chinese understanding of what is juridic, the law, the Confucianism, and so on. Russian, Byzantine, Christian, Orthodox tradition, we don't take into consideration. So, we are dealing with the products of one civilization and not a whole civilization, because liberal globalists represent only a small part, geographically and historically, of the Western civilization. If we go deeper, we see totally different meaning of the man, of the right, during different periods of the West. And if we are convinced that the most modern is the better, that is the kind of chronocentric racism. Tempocentric racism. So, you discard your own ancestors. You consider them to be stupid, primitive, and so on, and that is wrong. We need to respect them. We need to understand them. And the most we are dealing, for example, the Russian ancient language. It is much richer than the modern. So, many meanings, many forms; the same with Latin, the same with German, the same with Greek. So the ancient, that is not the primitive. It is much... 

G. Greenwald: In some ways, it's richer than...

Alexander Dugin: Yeah, richer than...

G. Greenwald: Right, deeper. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, but we need to combine them. We could not... 

G. Greenwald: Right, because they're still modernizing in progress, but by retaining what was not discarded. 

That's a perfect segue to the last thing I wanted to ask you about, which is, what you're describing, this kind of – and it was the end of history, was all about that, as you referenced earlier with Fukuyama – and this globalist notion that we're going to impose on everybody and everything our Western ideals of liberalism because it's objectively superior, was possible in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union when the United States was the superpower, the unilateral world governed by one major power. And I think there's a perception now, not necessarily in the United States, but around the rest of the world, that that's changing, that the world is becoming far more multipolar. Obviously, the rise of China is an example of that, but also the role that Russia is playing, that the West is starting to accept, and other poles of power as well. In India, you have huge countries with very rich and powerful histories or civilizations, as you call them. 

Is that the direction that you think the world is going in, getting away from the unilateralism of the '90s and Bush and Obama years into a more multilateral world and do these changes that you desire inevitably accompany that? 

Alexander Dugin: I think that we had the chance to avoid many problems if we heard Samuel Huntington, who has suggested, in the beginning of the '90s, not to fall into illusion of this unipolarity, not to fall into illusion of the liberal end of the history and the great glory of the West that now should lead the world and oblige everybody else to follow the same liberal agenda – individualism, human rights and so on, global government. But we need to accept the fact of existence of different civilizations, including Russian, Islamic, Chinese, Indian, all that now is appearing as the powerful political entities, as big spaces, it's something powerful in a material way. Huntington has seen that as a concept, as the ideas…

G. Greenwald: The war of civilizations, as he described it. 

Alexander Dugin: Clash, clash. 

G. Greenwald: Clash of civilizations. 

Aleksandr Dugin: But that is not an important clash. Everybody take into consideration, pay attention to “clash,” but we need to pay attention to “civilizations,” in plural, and that the clash is possible, where there is war, there could be peace, where there is peace, there could be war. They are linked together. Clash or not clash or dialog, they are interchangeable. So, the most important civilizations, and we had the chance to go that way, but we didn't go.

G. Greenwald: Why not? 

Alexander Dugin: I think that that was the kind of inertia of the Cold War. So, there was a bipolar system based on propaganda, political concept, and when one pole disappeared, there was the other. The other didn't disappear or didn't transform. So that was a reason why NATO exists still, why they try to find their new enemy in order to explain its being. So, the West went a unipolar way. 

I have spoken with one French general who has received the order after the fall of the Soviet Union, in 1992, precisely to create Eurocorps, to create the European army because there is no more the threat from the East, NATO is obsolete, so we need to create a European army and he has said that he has prepared during six months almost everything. So almost everything was ready to that, dealing with Germans… 

G. Greenwald: Then NATO would automatically disappear because the purpose of it no longer existed. 

Alexander Dugin: Maybe, they thought like that. 

G. Greenwald: Right.

Alexander Dugin: Because there was no threat on the East, Russia was democratic and so on. And after six months, he has received the second order: Stop that, stop that. Destroy it. 

G. Greenwald: Because things work and they continue. 

Alexander Dugin: And they, yes, and that was kind of a decisive moment to where to go either to multi-polarity suggested by Huntington, and now we are obliged to accept that. Marco Rubio has accepted that already. So, we are in multi-polarity. But this multi-polarity is the result of the wars, of the conflicts that still haven't ended, these wars, they continue. So that was the wrong decision. And this idea of continuing the unipolar moment, as Charles Krauthammer has said, was the great crime against humanity. 

So, in spite of accepting this and dealing with this re-emerging civilization, as Chinese, Indian, Russian, Islamic, with delicate methods to accepting their claims, respecting their right, and carefully constructing the global reality in favor, maybe, of the West, but dealing carefully with these re-emerging civilizations, instead of that, that was chosen the right to go ahead, to continue this unipolarity, to continue this Cold War. But without old enemy, they tried to put Islam in the place of this global enemy that failed. And finally, they returned to the same old story of Cold War about how evil those Russians are. I think that was the mistake. And that was the crime of the Western globalist elite not hearing Samuel Huntington. 

G. Greenwald: Well, ironically, you seem to be suggesting that had they been more delicate about it, how they found a new way to deal with the world different than how they dealt with it during the Cold War, that maybe they would have been more effective in imposing a global order because it would have produced less of a backlash, the kind of backlash that we're now seeing. 

Alexander Dugin: Exactly, exactly. Maybe the West could assure its leading role in this multipolar world, and now everybody hates the West because of this artificially prolonged unipolar moment. Globalists insist on the continuation of this unipolar moment, the more radical backlash, backlash is and will be.

Trump, in that sense, he is wise. He is doing exactly what the responsible, correct European global Western leaders should do, let the other create their greatness, their civilization, their polls, if they can. So, Trump, he doesn't promise to the other to make them great. So, it is up to us to make us great. That is why we need Russian Doge.

G. Greenwald: Well, last question, and it's the perfect conclusion, I think. There was a speech, I don't know if you saw it, I think it was in 2023, by Fiona Hill, who's a long time… 

Alexander Dugin: Spy, the leader of the spy, American spies. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah, she's been a pretty, very, very – but she's also been a very kind of militarist person when it comes to dealing with Russia and China. She worked in the Trump White House. But she gave a speech to a bunch of European national security elites in 2023 where she said, “Look, this may not be what I want to tell you, but I have to tell you because it's the reality” that when we do things like fuel the war in Ukraine or even what the United States was doing, arming and fueling Israel's destruction of Gaza, leaving aside the morality of it or the wisdom of it, she said, that's exactly the kind of resentment that gets created around the world that is driving a lot of countries into the arms of China and BRICS and looking for alternatives to a unilateral world because there's a perception that instead of respecting the world, we use our superior military force to bully it, to get our way, and that's inevitably going to create a backlash. It's inevitably going to push people away from us. Do you basically agree with that framework? 

Alexander Dugin: That's correct. This remark, this observation is totally correct, but…

G. Greenwald: It was just bizarre to hear it from her since she…

Alexander Dugin: There is only a difference. There is multilateralism and multipolarity. Multilateralism is based on the idea that there is only one truth and that is Western, modern, liberal truth, but you need to hide that. You need to trick the other, not necessarily cheat, but to make the image that you respect them because they are savage, that you should respect, you should treat them carefully in order to promote your agenda. It is multilateralism. And there is multipolarity. That is based on the sincere faith that there are different civilizations that we could not compare between each other. They have their own measures inside of them. All of them have their proper vision of what is time, what is life, what is soul, what is God, what is space. 

If you accept this sincerely, this plurality of civilizations, that is not about leadership, that is about humanity – so that is new, not so much realistic, but idealistic vision. So, I think that is difference. Multipolarity is very, very sincere and very loyal to the principle of this multipolarity. Smallest group of people of a tribe could have their own universe. We shouldn't educate them how it is in the reality because in their reality, it is so. So that we should apply to civilization a kind of anthropological approach. 

G. Greenwald: That respects diversity. 

Alexander Dugin: Yes, absolutely. Diversity and universes and differences and the thing that could seem to us to be weird or strange. We shouldn't judge them because for them maybe what we do seems very, very strange. So that is diversity and real pluralism of civilizations. So that is the principle, that is philosophy. And I think Fiona Hill just thinks how better to…

G. Greenwald: For sure, it was just a strategic point that she was making, not a broader moral or ethical one, but one that I think nonetheless Europeans needed to hear. 

Alexander Dugin: But she is right. 

G. Greenwald: Yeah. Well, Professor, thank you so much. This has been very interesting, and I really appreciate your taking the time to talk to me. 

Alexander Dugin: You're welcome. 

Watch the full interview here.

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