The Liberal Moment

by Alexander Dugin

Alexander Dugin argues that the collapse of the unipolar world signals the beginning of a grand metamorphosis, as the fading light of Western liberalism gives way to the awakening of ancient traditions, deep civilizational identities, and the promise of a vibrant, multipolar era full of boundless possibilities.

“The Unipolar Moment” or the End of History?

In the 1990/1991 issue of the prestigious globalist journal Foreign Affairs, American expert Charles Krauthammer published a programmatic article titled “The Unipolar Moment.”¹ In this work, he proposed an explanation for the end of the bipolar world. Following the collapse of the Warsaw Pact countries and the disintegration of the Soviet Union (which had not yet occurred at the time of the article’s publication), a new world order would emerge in which the United States and the collective West (NATO) would remain the sole pole of power, ruling the world by establishing rules, norms, and laws, while equating their own interests and values with universal, global, and mandatory standards. Krauthammer called this de facto global hegemony of the West the “unipolar moment.”

Shortly thereafter, another American expert, Francis Fukuyama, published a similar manifesto titled The End of History.² Unlike Fukuyama, who prematurely declared that the West’s victory over the rest of humanity was complete and that all nations would henceforth adopt liberal ideology and accept the US and the West’s dominance, Krauthammer was more restrained and cautious. He chose to speak of a “moment,” referring to a de facto situation in the balance of global power, without rushing to conclusions about how durable or long-lasting the unipolar order would be. The signs of unipolarity were evident: the near-universal adoption of capitalism, parliamentary democracy, liberal values, human rights ideologies, technocracy, globalization, and American leadership. Yet, Krauthammer acknowledged the possibility that this state of affairs was not permanent but merely a phase — one that could evolve into a long-term model (validating Fukuyama’s thesis) or might instead conclude, giving way to a different world order.

In 2002/2003, Krauthammer revisited his thesis in an article titled “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,”³ published in the realist (rather than globalist) journal National Interest. This time, he argued that a decade later, unipolarity had indeed proven to be a moment, not a stable world order. He suggested that alternative models would soon emerge, fueled by growing anti-Western trends globally — especially in Islamic countries, China, and a resurgent Russia under the strong leadership of Vladimir Putin. Subsequent events further confirmed Krauthammer’s belief that the unipolar moment was over. The US had failed to consolidate its global leadership, which it genuinely possessed in the 1990s, and Western dominance entered a phase of decline. The opportunity for global hegemony, which Western elites had practically held in their hands, was squandered. Now, at best, the West would have to participate in constructing a multipolar world in a different capacity, without striving for hegemony, to avoid being left on the sidelines of history altogether.

Putin’s 2007 Munich speech, Xi Jinping’s rise in China and the country’s rapid economic growth, the 2008 events in Georgia, Ukraine’s Maidan revolution and Russia’s reunification with Crimea, the 2022 Special Military Operation, and the large-scale war in the Middle East in 2023 — all confirmed in practice that the cautious Krauthammer and Samuel Huntington, who foresaw an era of “clash of civilizations,”⁴ were much closer to the truth than Fukuyama’s overly optimistic vision (for the liberal West). Today, it is clear to any reasonable observer that unipolarity was merely a “moment,” now giving way to a new paradigm — multipolarity or, more cautiously, a “multipolar moment.”⁵

We revisit this discussion to emphasize the importance of the concept of a “moment” in analyzing global politics. It will remain a central point in our further analysis.

Moment or Not?

The debate over whether a particular international, political, or ideological system represents something irreversible or, conversely, something temporary, transitional, or unstable, has a long history. Advocates of specific theories often vehemently assert the inevitability of their favored social regimes or transformations. In contrast, skeptics and critical observers propose alternative views, treating such systems as mere moments.

This dynamic is clearly visible in the example of Marxism. For liberal theory, capitalism and the bourgeois order represent humanity’s destiny — a permanent state in which the world becomes uniformly liberal-capitalist, and all people eventually join the middle class, becoming bourgeois. Marxists, however, regarded capitalism as a historical moment in development. It was necessary for overcoming the preceding feudal moment but would itself be superseded by socialism and communism. The proletariat would replace the bourgeoisie, private property would be abolished, and humanity would consist only of workers. For Marxists, communism was not a moment but, essentially, the “end of history.”

The socialist revolutions of the 20th century — in Russia, China, Vietnam, Korea, Cuba, and elsewhere — seemed to validate Marxism. However, a global revolution did not occur, and a bipolar world emerged instead. From 1945 (following the joint victory of communists and capitalists over Nazi Germany) to 1991, two ideological systems coexisted. Each camp claimed the other was merely a moment — a dialectical phase rather than the end of history. Communists insisted capitalism would collapse and socialism would triumph, while liberal ideologues argued that communism was a deviation from the bourgeois path and that capitalism would endure forever. Fukuyama’s End of History thesis echoed this belief. In 1991, it appeared he was correct: the socialist system collapsed, and both post-Soviet states and Maoist China transitioned to market economies, confirming liberal predictions.

Some Marxists remain hopeful that capitalism will falter, paving the way for proletarian revolution, but this is uncertain. The global proletariat is shrinking, and humanity appears to be moving in an entirely different direction.

Liberal thinkers, however, embraced Fukuyama’s view, equating communism with a moment and proclaiming “endless capitalism.” Postmodernists explored the contours of this new society, proposing radical approaches to resist capitalism from within — ranging from individual transformation to subversive technological strategies. These ideas found traction among left-liberal elites in the US, influencing policies on woke culture, cancel culture, ecological agendas, and transhumanism. Yet proponents and critics of victorious capitalism agreed that it represented humanity’s final stage — beyond which lies post-humanity, as foreseen by futurists discussing the “Singularity,” where human mortality is replaced by machine immortality. Welcome to the Matrix.

Thus, in the ideological clash, the bourgeoisie triumphed, shaping the dominant paradigm of the “end of history.”

Trump as a Factor in World History

The very possibility of applying the term “moment” to the era of the global triumph of capitalism, even from within the Western intellectual sphere (as Krauthammer did), opens up a unique perspective that has yet to be fully explored and understood. Could the current, evident collapse of Western leadership and the inability of the West to serve as a universal arbiter of legitimate authority also carry an ideological dimension? Could the end of unipolarity and Western hegemony signal the end of liberalism itself?

This idea is supported by a critical political event: the election of Donald Trump as President of the United States for two terms. Trump’s presidency represented a striking repudiation of globalism and liberalism, reflecting the emergence of a critical mass of dissatisfaction with the ideological and geopolitical direction of the liberal elites, even at the heart of unipolarity. Moreover, Trump’s chosen Vice President for his second term, JD Vance, openly identifies as a proponent of “post-liberal conservatism.” During Trump’s campaigns, liberalism was consistently invoked as a negative term, specifically targeting the “left-wing liberalism” of the Democratic Party. However, among broader circles of Trump supporters, liberalism became a byword for degeneration, decay, and the moral corruption of the ruling elite.

For the second time in recent history, a political figure overtly critical of liberalism triumphed in the very citadel of liberal ideology, the United States. Among Trump’s supporters, liberalism has come to be demonized outright, reflecting its association with moral and political decline. Thus, it is increasingly plausible to speak of the end of the “liberal moment.” Liberalism, once thought to be the ultimate victor in historical progression, now appears as merely one stage in the broader course of history, a phase with a beginning and an end, constrained by its geographic and historical context.

The decline of liberalism signals the emergence of an alternative ideology, a new world order, and a different set of values. Liberalism has proven not to be destiny, not the end of history, nor an irreversible and universal paradigm, but merely an episode — an era with clear temporal and spatial boundaries. Liberalism is intrinsically tied to the Western model of modernity. While it won ideological battles against other forms of modernity — nationalism and communism — it has ultimately reached its conclusion. Along with it, the “unipolar moment” described by Krauthammer and the broader cycle of singular Western colonial domination over the globe, which began with the age of great geographical discoveries, has also ended.

The Post-Liberal Era

Humanity is now entering a post-liberal era. However, this era diverges sharply from the Marxist-communist expectations of the past. First, the global socialist movement has largely faded, and its primary strongholds — the Soviet Union and China — abandoned their orthodox forms, adopting aspects of the liberal model to varying degrees. Second, the primary forces responsible for liberalism’s collapse are traditional values and deep civilizational identities.

Humanity is overcoming liberalism not through a socialist, materialist, or technological phase but by reviving cultural and civilizational layers that Western modernity deemed obsolete and eradicated. This return to the pre-modern, rather than a continuation of the postmodern trajectory rooted in Western modernity, defines the essence of post-liberalism. Contrary to the expectations of left-wing progressive thought, post-liberalism is emerging as a rejection of the universal claims of the Western modern order. Instead, it views the modern era as a temporary phenomenon, an episode driven by one specific culture’s reliance on brute force and aggressive technological exploitation.

The post-liberal world envisions not a continuation of Western hegemony but a return to civilizational diversity, akin to the era before the West’s sharp rise. Liberalism, as the last form of Western global imperialism, absorbed all the key principles of European modernity and pushed them to their logical extremes: gender politics, woke culture, cancel culture, critical race theory, transhumanism, and postmodernist frameworks. The end of the liberal moment marks not only the collapse of liberalism but also the conclusion of the West’s singular dominance in world history. It is the end of the West.

The Liberal Moment in Hegel

The concept of the “end of history” has surfaced repeatedly in this discussion. It is now necessary to revisit the theory itself. The term originated with Hegel, and its meaning is rooted in Hegel’s philosophy. Both Marx and Fukuyama adopted this concept (via the Russo-French Hegelian Alexander Kojève), but they stripped it of its theological and metaphysical foundations.

In Hegel’s model, the end of history is inseparable from its beginning. At history’s start lies God, hidden within Himself. Through self-negation, God transitions into Nature. In Nature, God’s presence is latent but active, and this latent presence drives the emergence of history. History, in turn, represents the unfolding of the Spirit. Societies of different types emerge over time: traditional monarchies, democracies, and civil societies. Finally, history culminates in the great Empire of Spirit, where God becomes most fully manifest in the State — not just any state, but a philosophical state guided by Spirit.

In this framework, liberalism is but a moment. It follows the dissolution of older states and precedes the establishment of a new, true state that marks the culmination of history. Both Marxists and liberals, rejecting Hegel’s theological basis, reduced his theory to materialist terms. They began with Nature, disregarding Hegel’s conception of God, and ended with civil society — liberalism — as the culmination of history. For liberals like Fukuyama, history ends when all of humanity becomes a global civil society. Marxists, meanwhile, envisioned history ending with a classless communist society, although it remained within the framework of civil society.

By restoring Hegel’s full philosophical model, it becomes evident that liberalism is only a transitional phase — what Hegel would term a “moment.” Its conclusion paves the way for the ultimate realization of Spirit, which Hegel envisioned as an Empire of Spirit.

Postmodernism and Monarchy

In this context, the idea of monarchy acquires renewed significance — not as a relic of the past but as a potential model for the future. The global era of liberal democracy and republicanism has exhausted itself. Efforts to establish a global republic have failed. By January 2025, this failure will be definitively acknowledged.

What comes next? The parameters of the post-liberal epoch remain undefined. Yet the recognition that all of European modernity — its science, culture, politics, technology, society, and values — was merely an episode, culminating in a dismal and inglorious conclusion, suggests that the post-liberal future will be radically unexpected.

Hegel offers a clue: the post-liberal era will be an era of monarchies. Contemporary Russia, while still formally a liberal democracy, already exhibits the characteristics of a monarchy: a popular leader, the permanence of supreme authority, and an emphasis on spiritual values, identity, and tradition. These are the foundations for a monarchical transition — not in form, but in essence.

Other civilizations are moving in a similar direction. India under Narendra Modi increasingly reflects the archetype of a sacred monarch, a chakravartin, akin to the tenth avatar Kalkin, who ushers in the end of a dark age. China under Xi Jinping demonstrates the traits of a Confucian Empire, with Xi embodying the archetype of the Yellow Emperor. Even the Islamic world may find integration through a modernized Caliphate.

In this post-liberal world, even the United States could see a monarchical turn. Influential thinkers like Curtis Yarvin have long advocated monarchy in America. Figures like Donald Trump, with his dynastic connections, might symbolize this shift.

An Open Future

The term “liberal moment” holds revolutionary implications for political thought. What was once considered an inevitable destiny is revealed as merely a fleeting pattern in history’s broader tapestry. This realization opens the door to boundless political imagination. The post-liberal world is one of infinite possibility — where past, future, and even forgotten traditions may be rediscovered or reimagined.

Thus, the deterministic dictates of history are overturned, heralding an era of plural timeframes. Beyond the liberal moment lies a new freedom, with diverse civilizations charting their paths toward the unknown horizons of a post-liberal future.

(Translated from the Russian)

Alexander Dugin’s books can be purchased here.

1. Krauthammer, Charles. “The Unipolar Moment,” Foreign Affairs, 70.1, 1990/1991, pp. 23-33.

2. Fukuyama, Francis. The End of History and the Last Man. NY: Free Press, 1992.

3. Krauthammer, Charles. “The Unipolar Moment Revisited,” National Interest, 70, 2002/2003, pp. 5-17.

4. Huntington, Samuel. “The Clash of Civilizations?”, Foreign Affairs, summer 1993, pp. 22-47.

5. Савин Л., Многополярный момент.