Fukuyama’s Thesis Of The End Of History
From an ideological point of view, the world still lives in the shadow of the controversy of the 1990s, between Francis Fukuyama and Samuel Huntington. No matter how much the theses of both authors have been criticized, their importance has not been diminished, since the dilemma still remains and, moreover, is still the main content of world politics and ideology.
As I recall, in connection with the collapse of the Warsaw Pact and then the USSR, the American political philosopher Francis Fukuyama formulated the “end of history” thesis. It boiled down to the fact that in the twentieth century, and especially after the victory over fascism, the logic of history was reduced to the confrontation of two ideologies—Western liberalism and Soviet communism. On the outcome of their confrontation depended the future, and therefore the meaning of history. And now, according to Fukuyama, the future has arrived, and this moment was the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the coming to power in Moscow of liberals who recognized the ideological supremacy of the West. Hence the “end of history” thesis. According to Fukuyama, history is a history of wars and confrontations, hot and cold. In the second half of the twentieth century, all the confrontations and wars were reduced to the opposition of the capitalist, liberal West against the communist East. When the East collapsed, the contradictions disappeared. The wars stopped (as it seemed to Fukuyama). And, accordingly, history ended.
The End Of History—Postponed, But Not Rejected
In fact, this theory is the basis of the entire ideology and practice of globalism and globalization. Western liberals are still guided by it. It is the idea advocated by George Soros, Klaus Schwab, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Barack Obama, Bernard Henri Levy, Hillary Clinton and… Joe Biden.
Liberals admit that not everything has gone smoothly since the 1990s. Liberalism and the West have faced different problems and new challenges (political Islam, the new rise of Russia and China, populism—including in America itself in the form of Trump and Trumpism, etc.). But globalists are convinced that the end of history has been somewhat delayed, but it is inevitable and will come soon enough. Under the slogan of a new effort—to make the end of history a reality and irreversibly consolidate the global triumph of liberalism—the campaign of globalist Joe Biden (Build Back Better, meaning “Back to globalization again—and this time more successfully, more thoroughly rebuilding the rear”) took place, inscribed in the planetary program of Klaus Schwab’s “Great Reset.” That is, Fukuyama and his thesis have not been discounted—just the implementation of this plan, ideologically flawless from the point of view of the liberal worldview in general, has been postponed. Nevertheless, over the past 30 years, liberalism has continued to permeate society—technology, social and cultural processes, the spread of gender politics (LGBTQ+), education, science, art, social media, etc. And it has not only been about Western countries, but even of such semi-closed societies as the Islamic countries, China, and Russia.
The New Phenomenon Of Civilizations
Back in the 1990s, another American author, Samuel Huntington, contrasted Fukuyama with an alternative vision of world processes. Fukuyama was a convinced liberal, an advocate of World Government, denationalization and de-sovereignization of traditional states.
Huntington, on the other hand, adhered to the tradition of realism in International Relations; that is, he recognized sovereignty as the highest principle. But unlike other realists who thought in terms of nation-states, Huntington believed that after the end of the Cold War and the disappearance of the Eastern Bloc and the USSR, there would be no end to history, but new actors would compete with each other on a planetary scale. As such, he named the “civilizations” and predicted in his famous work (Clash of Civilizations) their clash with each other.
Huntington proceeded from the following: the capitalist and socialist camps were not created in a void, by abstract ideological designs, but on quite certain cultural and civilizational foundations of different peoples and territories. These foundations were in place long before the New Age and its simplistic ideologies. And when the dispute of modern ideologies ends (and it did with the disappearance of one of them, communism), the underlying contours of ancient cultures, worldviews, religions and civilizations would emerge from beneath surface shapes.
The True And False Enemies Of Global Liberalism
Huntington’s rightness became particularly evident in the 2000s when the West confronted radical Islam. By that time Huntington himself had died before enjoying his theoretical victory, while Fukuyama admitted that he had jumped to conclusions and even put forward the thesis of “Islamo-fascism,” after whose defeat the “end of history” would come, but not before.
Nevertheless, Huntington’s correctness was not limited to political Islam. Moreover, Islam was in practice so heterogeneous that it did not form a unified force against the West. And it was convenient for Western strategists to manipulate the Islamic threat and Islamic fundamentalism factor to justify their interference in the political life of Islamic societies in the Middle East or Central Asia. A much more serious process was the quest for full sovereignty by Russia and China. Again, neither Moscow nor Beijing confronted the liberals and globalists with any particular ideology (especially since Chinese communism recognized economic liberalism after Deng Xiaoping’s reforms). These were two civilizations that had developed long before the New Age. Huntington himself called them Orthodox (Eastern Christian) civilization in the case of Russia and Confucian civilization in the case of China, quite rightly recognizing in Russia and China a connection to deep spiritual cultures. These deep cultures made themselves known precisely when the ideological confrontation between liberalism and communism ended in a formal, but not real (!) victory for the globalists. Communism disappeared, but the East, Eurasia, did not.
Victory In A Virtual World
But the proponents of the end of history have not been complacent. They are so enmeshed in their fanatical models of globalization and liberalism that they do not recognize any other future. And so, they began to increasingly insist on a virtual end to history. As in… if it’s not real, let’s make it look like it is. In essence, the policy of controlling consciousness, through global information resources, network technology, the promotion of new gadgets, and the development of models for merging people with machines, has been bet on. This is the “Great Reset” proclaimed by the creator of the Davos Forum, Klaus Schwab, and adopted by the U.S. Democratic Party and Joe Biden. The essence of this policy is as follows: while the globalists do not control reality, they completely dominate virtuality. They own all the basic networking technologies, protocols, servers, etc. Therefore, based on a global electronic hallucination and total control over the consciousness, they began to create an image of the world in which history had already ended. It was an image. Nothing more. But the tail seriously decided to wag the dog.
So, Fukuyama retained his importance; no longer as an analyst, but as a global political technologist, trying to impose perceptions stubbornly rejected by much of humanity.
Putin’s War On The Liberal Order
As such, Fukuyama’s assessment of the special military operation in the Ukraine is of some interest. At first glance, it might seem that in this case his analysis becomes altogether irrelevant, as he simply repeats the common clichés of Western anti-Russian propaganda that contain nothing new or convincing (in the style of banal Russophobe journalism). But upon closer examination, the picture changes somewhat, if we ignore what is most striking: the rabid hatred of Russia, Putin, and all those forces that oppose the end of history.
In an article published in the Financial Times, Fukuyama in the very title expresses the main idea of his claims about Russia: “Putin’s war on the liberal order.” And this thesis in itself is absolutely correct. The special military operation in the Ukraine is a decisive chord in the assertion of Russia as a civilization, as a sovereign pole of a multipolar world. This fits perfectly with Huntington’s theory; but it completely contradicts Fukuyama’s “end of history” (or the Popper/Soros open society).
Yes, that’s exactly it—the “war on the liberal order.”
The Ukraine’s Key Role In Global Geopolitics
The importance of the Ukraine for the rebirth of Russia as a fully independent world power has been clearly recognized by all generations of Anglo-Saxon geopoliticians—from the founder of this science, Halford Mackinder to Zbigniew Brzezinski. Earlier it was formulated as follows: “Without the Ukraine, Russia is not the Empire, but with Ukraine it is the Empire.” If we put the term “civilization” or “multipolar world pole” instead of “Empire,” the meaning becomes even more transparent.
The global West staked on the Ukraine as the Anti-Russia, and for this purpose instrumentally gave the green light to Ukrainian Nazism and extreme Russophobia. To fight against the Orthodox civilization and multipolar world any means were good. Putin, however, did not accept this turn and entered the battle; but not with the Ukraine, but with globalism, with the world oligarchy, with the Great Reset, with liberalism and the end of history.
And here is where the most important thing came out. The special military operation is directed not only against Nazism (denazification—along with demilitarization—is its main goal), but even more against liberalism and globalism. After all, it was Western liberals who made Ukrainian Nazism possible, supported it, armed it, and pitted it against Russia—as the new pole of the multipolar world. Even Mackinder called the lands of Russia “the geographical pivot of history”—that was the title of his famous article.
For history to end (a globalist thesis, the goal of the “Great Reset”), the pivot of history must be broken, destroyed. Russia as a pole, as a sovereign actor, as a civilization simply must not exist. And the diabolical plan of the globalists was to undermine Russia in the most painful area, to pit the same eastern Slavs (that is, in fact, the same Russians), and even the Orthodox. To do this, Ukrainians needed to be placed inside the globalist matrix, to gain control over the consciousness of society with the help of information propaganda, social networks, and a giant operation to control the psyche and consciousness, which millions of Ukrainians have fallen victim to in recent decades. Ukrainians have been persistently inculcated with the idea that they are part of the Western (global) world, and that the Russians are not brothers, but bitter enemies. And Ukrainian Nazism, in this strategy, coexisted perfectly with liberalism, which it instrumentally served.
The War For A Multipolar World Order
This is exactly what Putin has engaged in a decisive struggle with. Not against the Ukraine, but for the Ukraine. Fukuyama is completely right in this case. What is happening today in the Ukraine is “Putin’s war on the liberal order.” It is a war with Fukuyama himself, with Soros and Schwab, with the “end of history” and globalism, with real and virtual hegemony, with the Great Reset.
Dramatic events—and this is a universal dilemma—they decide the fate of what the coming world order will be. Will the world become truly multipolar, that is democratic and polycentric, where different civilizations will be given a voice (and we hope that this is exactly what will happen—this is the meaning of our future victory)? Or (God forbid!) it will finally sink into the abyss of globalism, but in a franker form, where liberalism will now not oppose Nazism and racism, but merge inseparably with it. Modern liberalism, ready to use Nazism and ignore it when it comes to the interests of nations, is the true evil. Absolute evil. It is this, and it is this, that the war is being waged about right now.
Fukuyama’s 12 Theses Based On One False Premise
Another recent text by Fukuyama, “Preparing for Defeat” in American Purpose, a publication of the American “neocons” (neoconservatives), as vocal representatives of liberal Nazism, deserves some attention. In it, Fukuyama offers 12 theses of how, in his view, events will unfold during the conflict in the Ukraine. Let us cite them in their entirety. Let’s say right away that we are talking about complete disinformation and enemy propaganda, and it is in this capacity—fake news—that we cite this text:
“Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine. Russian planning was incompetent, based on a flawed assumption that Ukrainians were favorable to Russia and that their military would collapse immediately following an invasion. Russian soldiers were evidently carrying dress uniforms for their victory parade in Kyiv rather than extra ammo and rations. Putin at this point has committed the bulk of his entire military to this operation—there are no vast reserves of forces he can call up to add to the battle. Russian troops are stuck outside various Ukrainian cities where they face huge supply problems and constant Ukrainian attacks.”
The first sentence is the most important. ” Russia is heading for an outright defeat in Ukraine.” Everything else builds on the fact that it represents absolute truth and is not questioned. If we were dealing with analytics, it would start with a dilemma: if the Russians win, then…, if the Russians lose, then…. But there is no such thing here. “The Russians will lose because the Russians can’t help but lose, which means the Russians have already lost. And no other options are considered, because that would be Russian propaganda.” What is this? This is what liberal Nazism is all about. Pure ideological, globalist propaganda, placing the reader instantly from the beginning in a virtual world where “history is already over.”
Then everything becomes predictable; only adding to the hallucination. We are dealing with an example of a “psy-op,” a “psychological operation.
“The collapse of their position could be sudden and catastrophic, rather than happening slowly through a war of attrition. The army in the field will reach a point where it can neither be supplied nor withdrawn, and morale will vaporize. This is at least true in the north; the Russians are doing better in the south, but those positions would be hard to maintain if the north collapses.”
No proof. Pure wishful thinking. The Russians must be losers because they are losers. And this we hear from the model loser Fukuyama, whose predictions have all been demonstrably disproved.
On the whole, everything is built on the assumption that Moscow was preparing for an operation that was to take two or three days and culminate in a victorious greeting with flowers from the liberated population. As if the Russians were such idiots that they did not notice the thirty years of Russophobic propaganda, the West’s coaching of neo-Nazi units, and a huge, by European standards, not badly armed (by the same West) and trained in Soviet times (and the training was serious back then) army, which was going to start a war in Donbass and then in the Crimea. And if a special operation by the Russians in such a situation was not completed in two weeks, it is a “failure.” Another hallucination.
The West Sacrificed The Ukrainians
And then Fukuyama says a rather important thing:
“There is no diplomatic solution to the war possible prior to this happening. There is no conceivable compromise that would be acceptable to both Russia and Ukraine given the losses they have taken at this point.”
This means that the West continues to believe its own virtual propaganda and is not going to compromise with Russia and implement a reality check. If the West waits until Russia is defeated to begin negotiations, they will never begin.
“The United Nations Security Council has proven once again to be useless. The only helpful thing was the General Assembly vote, which helps to identify the world’s bad or prevaricating actors.”
In this thesis, Fukuyama is referring to the need to dissolve the UN and create in its place the League of Democracies; that is, fully subordinate to Washington, states that are willing to live under the illusion of “the end of history.” This project was formulated by another liberal Nazi Russophobe McCain and has begun to be implemented by Joe Biden. Everything is going according to the “Great Reset” plan.
“The Biden administration’s decisions not to declare a no-fly zone or help transfer Polish MiGs were both good ones; they’ve kept their heads during a very emotional time. It is much better to have the Ukrainians defeat the Russians on their own, depriving Moscow of the excuse that NATO attacked them, as well as avoiding all the obvious escalatory possibilities. The Polish MiGs in particular would not add much to Ukrainian capabilities. Much more important is a continuing supply of Javelins, Stingers, TB2s, medical supplies, comms equipment, and intel sharing. I assume that Ukrainian forces are already being vectored by NATO intelligence operating from outside Ukraine.”
With the first sentence, however, one can agree with Fukuyama. Biden is not prepared to launch a nuclear duel that would immediately follow the announcement of a no-drone zone and other direct steps for NATO to intervene in the conflict. And “the Ukrainians defeat[ing] the Russians on their own” sounds cynical and cruel, but the author does not understand what he is saying: the West first pitted the Ukrainians against the Russians and then allowed the Ukrainians to be left alone with the Russians by refraining from effective assistance. The Ukrainians win virtually only in a world where history is over. And they should, in Fukuyama’s thought, be happy about it. It’s just a question of defeating the Russians.
“The cost that Ukraine is paying is enormous, of course. But the greatest damage is being done by rockets and artillery, which neither MiGs nor a no-fly zone can do much about. The only thing that will stop the slaughter is defeat of the Russian army on the ground.”
When Fukuyama utters the words “the cost” is “enormous,” it is clear from his nonchalant expression that he does not know what he is talking about.
Putin And The New Beginning Of Populism
Next, Fukuyama reflects on the fate of President Putin. All in the same vein of daydreaming about the end of history. In no uncertain terms, he declares:
“Putin will not survive the defeat of his army. He gets support because he is perceived to be a strongman; what does he have to offer once he demonstrates incompetence and is stripped of his coercive power?”
Another thesis built entirely on the first premise. The defeat of the Russians is inevitable, which means that Putin is finished. And if the Russians win, then Putin is just beginning. This is what matters, no longer for the delusional Fukuyama, but for us.
“The invasion has already done huge damage to populists all over the world, who prior to the attack uniformly expressed sympathy for Putin. That includes Matteo Salvini, Jair Bolsonaro, Éric Zemmour, Marine Le Pen, Viktor Orbán, and of course Donald Trump. The politics of the war has exposed their openly authoritarian leanings.”
First, not all populists are so directly influenced by Russia. Matteo Salvini, under the influence of the liberal Nazis and Atlanticists in his inner circle, has changed his previously friendly attitude toward Russia. One should not exaggerate the pro-Russian sympathies of the others either. But here again there is a curious point. Even if we accept Fukuyama’s position that the populists are Putin-oriented, they only lose if the Russians are defeated. And in the case of victory? After all, this is “Putin’s war with the liberal order.” And if he wins it, then all the populists win along with Moscow? And then the end of the global oligarchy and the “Great Reset” elites.
A Lesson For China And The End Of The Unipolar World
“The war to this point has been a good lesson for China. Like Russia, China has built up seemingly high-tech military forces in the past decade, but they have no combat experience. The miserable performance of the Russian air force would likely be replicated by the People’s Liberation Army Air Force, which similarly has no experience managing complex air operations. We may hope that the Chinese leadership will not delude itself as to its own capabilities the way the Russians did when contemplating a future move against Taiwan.”
Again, this is all true if “the Russians have already lost.” And if they have won? Then the meaning of this lesson for China would be just the opposite. That is, Taiwan will return to its native harbor faster than one might assume.
“Hopefully Taiwan itself will wake up as to the need to prepare to fight as the Ukrainians have done, and restore conscription. Let’s not be prematurely defeatist.”
It would be better to be realistic, and view things as they are, taking all factors into account. But maybe the fact that the West has ideologues like Fukuyama, hypnotized by their own delusions, is good for us?
“Turkish drones will become bestsellers.”
Now fragments of these “bestsellers” are being collected by bums and looters in the dumps of the Ukraine.
“A Russian defeat will make possible a “new birth of freedom,” and get us out of our funk about the declining state of global democracy. The spirit of 1989 will live on, thanks to a bunch of brave Ukrainians.”
Here’s the brilliant great conclusion: Fukuyama already knows about “the defeat of Russia,” as he knew about “the end of history.” And then, globalism will be saved. And if not? Then there will be no more globalism.
And then—”welcome” back to the real world, to the world of peoples and civilizations, cultures and religions, to the world of reality and freedom from the totalitarian liberal concentration camp.
Alexander Dugin is a widely-known and influential Russian philosopher. His most famous work is The Fourth Political Theory (a book banned by major book retailers), in which he proposes a new polity, one that transcends liberal democracy, Marxism and fascism. He has also introduced and developed the idea of Eurasianism, rooted in traditionalism. This article appears through the kind courtesy of Geopolitica.
Featured image: “Aeneas fleeing from Troy,” by Pompeo Batoni; painted in 1753.