Dec 19, 2016 10:38 AM EST By Chris Brandt, UniversityHerald Reporter

The name Alexander Dugin might not ring any bell to many but in Russia, he and his philosophy are regarded in high esteem. He has a huge influence in Russian politics playing adviser to some of the top military and political figures in Russia earning him the nickname "Putin's Rasputin."

Dugin's rise to power and influence in Russia is not surprising. He is not only a political scientist but also a writer and a professor at the prestigious Moscow State University. He is also a linguist but most of all, he is an articulator of Kremlin's philosophy. But what makes Dugin a dangerous man?

You can watch Dugin's many lectures on YouTube but you need to understand Russian. There, he also expresses his controversial opinions where he proposes to eliminate science and technology. The most controversial, however, is his proposal of the Fourth Political Theory, which is based on the philosophy of Martin Heidegger, the existentialist philosopher who had strong ties with Nazism.

Heidegger's philosophy proposed that in order to save the world, there needs to a a root of a human self-awareness. For Dugin, since this root is different from person to person and culture to culture, there's no need for a superpower. Instead, he proposes a multipolar power division where one of them is Eurasianism.

Eurasianism is an ideology which posits Russia as a nation independent and different from Europe. Furthermore, it opposes what Dugin calls as the Atlantic civilization which embodies liberalism. With this philosophy, Dugin calls all nations with anti-Western sentiments to forge an alliance and create a multipolar world.

So far, Iran and Turkey share Dugin's sentiments. However, there's no clear evidence yet how much Putin believes the underlying theories of Dugin's philosophies. For now, it is clear that Russia has adopted Dugin's "Foundation of Geopolitics" as its blueprint for foreign policy.

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