War is Ahead of Us
Alexander Dugin warns that the new multipolar world order is not set in stone and is unlikely to be peacefully accepted, but rather is bound to be shaped through escalated conflict, recalling how historic shifts are decided through the unpredictable unfolding of war.
A shift in world order usually occurs through war. Very rarely are those who wield global power willing to relinquish it voluntarily. They hold on until the very end, until they are destroyed and reduced to ruins. The same is undoubtedly true today.
Different twists and turns happen in history, of course. Therefore, one could only hypothetically expect, hope, or at least wish that Western leaders will voluntarily relinquish their hegemony. But something tells me that this is unlikely to happen. And if it does not happen, then there will be war. This war is already underway: the war in Ukraine, the wars in the Middle East. But it is not yet in full force. So far, it is only a harbinger of the huge, fundamental war that will be fought over the redistribution of real sovereignty between the forces that are being demarcated today.
Nowadays we often say: look, the multipolar world is here, the world is no longer unipolar, there’s BRICS, there’s “greater humanity,” and so on. However, we can see that the hegemony of the unipolar system is still strong. This is despite the fact that it is actually declining, and despite the fact that its colossal internal crisis, the implosion rather than explosion of Western society and the entirety of Western civilization, is clearly brewing. But, in some sense, despite the vector of this downward wave, Western hegemony is still stronger than multipolarity.
Let us be frank: it is still capable of, for example, reshaping the situation and balance of power in the post-Soviet space. We know that the globalists have been operating in Ukraine, Moldova, the South Caucasus, and Central Asia for three decades. But we allowed them to do so. And now, even despite the West’s split into two or even three forces — the globalists, the EU, Trump and MAGA — they have nevertheless succeeded in strong-arming elections in Romania, replacing candidates that are undesirable for the globalists, killing several dozen candidates from Alternative for Germany, covering it up as “accidents,” and, finally, they have managed to strong-arm elections in Moldova. At the same time, the war in Ukraine is ongoing. The West is not retreating, and it is very difficult for us to achieve decisive Victory.
It is too early to say that the Western unipolar world no longer exists. It does exist, albeit in agony.
And, of course, it is quite likely that if the unipolar world does not simply collapse in the near future, all of this will spill over into a big war.
I am not sure where this war will take place, whether in the Pacific Ocean against China or against India, in the Middle East, or whether it will directly involve us. It is fully possible that it might start with us. Therefore, what is happening in Ukraine might be the beginning of a bigger, formidable war.
With our nuclear arms, our territories, our historical identity, and our capability to conceptualize world processes, Russia is a few steps ahead of China. China is only now becoming a real global power. This is a new quality, a new state for it. There is no guarantee that the Chinese will handle this. We were a great world power in the 20th century (one of two) and in the 19th century (one of several). China’s greatness was in antiquity. Without a doubt, China is now one of the most important first-order states, one of the two or three which rule the world. But this is a new experience for contemporary China. It still needs to prepare itself for this, and many mistakes can be made here. We have very lively experience with this, which is why Russia is the main obstacle for the globalists and their main enemy. Therefore, we, and no one else, are the main participants in this war, the main conductors of the luminous ray of world history. We are the ones building the multipolar world.
Whether a third world war can be avoided in these circumstances is a big question. For now, the only option for avoiding it that has been put forth is that we capitulate, i.e., deliberately ending the war beforehand by throwing up the white flag and surrendering to the mercy of the victors. But the deliberate acknowledgement of defeat does not mean the end of war. We are still full of will and forces, and we are heading towards Victory, not defeat. Therefore, if a big war can only be avoided by defeat, then this is not our case, and in such a case war cannot be avoided. But whether there will be war does not depend on us. It depends on how the unipolar world organizing it will opt for the new level of escalation.
On the whole, I agree with the analysis that we cannot avoid a big world war. Such a war will draw China into it, and most likely India, the entire Middle East, the Islamic world. At the same time, of course, it will reverberate in Africa and in Latin America, where two coalitions are also taking shape: those who are for unipolarity and those who stand for multipolarity.
Thus, monstrous trials await mankind ahead. They are already happening, we are already inside them. What we have now will seem like child’s play compared to what is ahead. Naturally, like any normal person, I am not gloating or happy about this. But wars practically always happen whenever people say they don’t want war. Wars do not depend on whether people want them or not. There is a certain logic to history which it is virtually impossible to evade.
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I agree with Alexander Dugin’s central argument that global hegemons rarely surrender power peacefully and history shows transition almost always involves war. What we are seeing now, the Ukraine conflict, wars in the Middle East, tensions in Asia, is really about the violent unraveling of unipolarity and less about multipolarity having completely replaced the current order.
One additional point is that the West’s (particularly the US) decline is not linear but uneven. It still retains enormous coercive power in finance, technology and military reach, which explains why it can still engineer outcomes in places like Moldova or the Caucasus. Yet, each exercise of that power accelerates the fragmentation of the system, driving Russia, China, India, and others to harden alternative structures like BRICS, SCO, and new payment systems. The paradox is that Western “victories” now often sow the seeds of longer-term defeat.
This is why I share Dugin’s view the struggle is entering a decisive stage. Whether or not it escalates to full-scale global war depends less on multipolar powers than on how far a declining unipolar order is willing to gamble to preserve itself.
The fact that history does not show a peaceful transition of hegemony does not mean that in the future we'll have war. The main reason is that everybody is aware that this would be the last war on this planet. It would wipe out everything that we have achieved in the last 4–5000 years. We'll have local skirmishes following provocations such as in Ukraine, Palestine, Africa, perhaps Taiwan in the near future. Those powers that can live with the ensuing economic difficulties will prevail. The main losers will be the EU countries: no material resources, expensive energies and valuable human resources on the move to other, more attractive, economies. North America (US + Canada) will assume leadership of the anglophone world, loose economic clout, and settle for an unfriendly coexistence with the rest. Her main allies located in the EU will present no interest to the US dollars since they will be poor. The US will squash the last drop of juice out of them. Russia and the other BRICS will prosper and become the main area of growth and development. They will be peaceful giants, with capabilities imposing respect and providing them with security.