“The geographical and geopolitical borders of ancient Khazaria...will be reproduced”: Aleksandr Dugin
Excerpts from Dugin’s 1997 neo-Soviet strategic book Fundamentals of Geopolitics, as published on the website of the Russian Federation Communist Party:
At the same time, some problems arise with the northern regions of Kalmykia, which, however, are quite sparsely populated. It makes sense to include these northern steppe regions in the general integration belt, geopolitically "stretching" them directly between Rostov-on-Don and Astrakhan in order to close the triangle with the top in Volgograd from below. Thus, the geographically and geopolitically borders of ancient Khazaria, which controlled the entire region at the beginning of the first millennium, will be reproduced. This geopolitical entity can be conditionally called the "Khazar triangle".
When moving from the purely Russian zone of the "Khazar triangle", which should follow a latitude (horizontal) logic, although closely related to the north and the Center itself (Moscow), the integration vector radically changes its character. The entire North Caucasus and everything that lies south of it should obey exclusively the meridian orientation. The strategic centers of the "Khazar triangle" should develop independent geopolitical chains that deploy strictly to the south. From Rostov through Krasnodar to Maikop, Sukhumi and Batumi. From Stavropol to Kislovodsk, Nalchik, Ordzhonikidze, Tskhinval and Tbilisi. From Astrakhan to Makhachkala.
Any broad demarcation of ethnic regions of Transcaucasia should be supported, and long-long integration, on the contrary, should be strengthened. So, it is important to tear away active separatist Chechnya from Dagestan (and Ingushetia) by any means, closing the exit to the Caspian Sea. If only Georgia, which lies in the south, is left to Chechnya, it will be geopolitically controlled from all sides, and it will be possible to manage it from Orthodox Georgia. Dagestan and Ingushetia should also be partly tied to Georgia, which may lead to the creation of an autonomous North Caucasian zone, economically developed, but strategically fully controlled by Russia and Eurasian-oriented. The general redission of the North Caucasus could also solve the Ossetian problem, since new ethnic entities (for example, a united Ossetia) would lose the meaning of national-givened entities, acquiring a purely ethnic and cultural, linguistic and religious meaning. Following the same meridian logic, it is important to link Abkhazia directly with Russia.
All these steps are aimed at one geopolitical goal to strengthen the Eurasian tellurocratic complex and prepare its planetary triumph in a duel with Atlanticism. Therefore, this whole plan can be called the "new geopolitical order in the Caucasus". It implies the rejection of the traditional approach to existing political entities as "nation-states", i.e. strictly fixed administrative entities with permanent borders and a complete power structure. The "new geopolitical order in the Caucasus" involves a complete redissement of existing political realities and a transition from the model of state-state or nation-nation relations to a purely geopolitical system of the Center periphery, and the structure of the periphery should be determined not by political, but by ethno-cultural differentiation.
This can be done through the plan to create a "Caucasian Federation", which would include both three Caucasian CIS republics and intra-Russian autonomous entities. At the same time, the center would give way to cultural and economic autarky to the entire district, but would provide the cruelest strategic centralism. This would lead to an extremely flexible system that would not be based on violence, occupation or unification of Caucasian diversity, but on an awareness of the unity and commonality of continental destiny.
Armenia, which is a traditional and reliable ally of Russia in the Caucasus, plays a special geopolitical role. Armenia serves as the most important strategic base to prevent Turkish expansion to the north and east into the regions of the Central Asian Turkic world. On the contrary, in the offensive geopolitical aspect, it is important as an ethnocultural community, continuously continuing to the south, to the territory of Turkey, where a significant part of ancient Armenia and its main shrine, Mount Ararat, are located. Racial and linguistic kinship also binds Armenians with Kurds, another important ethnic factor that can be used to provoke geopolitical upheavals within Turkey. At the same time, it is extremely important to create a land corridor that crosses the entire Caucasus and reliably connects Armenia with the "Khazar triangle".
...
Russia and Poland emerged in forest glades. At the same time, a continuous series of turn nomads went here through the steppes from remote and unknown corners of Asia to the gate formed by the Ural Mountains and the Caspian Sea, starting from the 5th to the 16th centuries: Huns, Avars, Bulgarians, Magyars, Khazars, Pechenegs, Kumans, Mongols, Kalmyks. During the reign of Attila, the Huns established themselves in the middle of the Pashta, on the most remote "Danube" islands of the steppe, and from there struck north, west and south on the settled population of Europe. Most of modern history can be written as a comment on the changes that were directly or indirectly the result of those raids. It is quite possible that it was then that the Angles and Saxons were forced to cross the sea and found England in the British Isles. For the first time, the Franks, Goths and residents of the Roman provinces were forced to stand shoulder to shoulder on the battlefield at Chalon, having before them the common goal of fighting the Asians; thus, they involuntarily made up modern France. As a result of the destruction of Aquileia and Padua, Venice was founded; and even the papacy owes its great prestige to the successful mediation of Pope Leo at the meeting with Attila in Milan. This was the result produced by a crowd of ruthless and had no idea about the culture of the riders who flooded the uncontrollable plains, it was a blow freely inflicted by an Asian hammer on the unoccupied space. The Huns were followed by the Avars. It was in the fight against them that Austria was founded, and as a result of Charlemagne's campaigns, Vienna was fortified. Then came the Magyars and, thanks to their incessant raids from the steppe camps located in Hungary, further increased the importance of the Austrian outpost, thus shifting the focus from Germany to the east, to the border of this kingdom. The Bulgarians became the ruling caste in the lands south of the Danube, leaving their name on the world map, although their language dissolved in the language of their Slavic subjects. Probably the most long-term and effective in the Russian steppes was the settlement of the Khazars, who were contemporaries of the great Saracen movement: Arab geographers knew the Caspian or Khazar Sea. But, in the end, new hordes arrived from Mongolia and for two hundred years Russian lands located in the forests north of these territories paid tribute to the Mongol khans or "Steppes", and thus the development of Russia was delayed and distorted at a time when the rest of Europe was quickly moving forward.
Source: https://kprf.ru/library/classics/politolog/3654.html