NATO’s “Globalized” Atlanticism and the Eurasian Alternative

Mahdi Darius Nazemroaya, The Globalization of NATO (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2012).¹

... the class struggle in our time has been thoroughly internationalized. The revolutionary initiative against capitalism, which in Marx’s day belonged to the proletariat in advanced countries, has passed into the hands of the impoverished masses in the under-developed countries who are struggling to free themselves from imperialist domination and exploitation (Baran and Sweezy 1968: 22).

NATO’s Evolution toward a Global Agenda

The dissolution of the Soviet Union provided the US ruling class with ample opportunities to carry out its long-postponed plans of world domination (Amin 2006). These plans – whether called the New World Order, New American Century, Broader Middle East and North Africa Project, or other – rely primarily on geostrategic considerations that seek to reconfigure the map of at least 22 countries in Eurasia through military means. The ever-increasing US aspirations for world domination in the aftermath of the Cold War have boosted the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) as the main military apparatus for advancing the interests of global capitalism. This being the case, Atlanticism, which is the driving ideology behind NATO, has ceased to focus merely on the Euro-Atlantic zone, and has embarked on a blind quest for a unipolarity that strives to fully subjugate the Third World.

Nazemroaya argues that in the aftermath of the Cold War, NATO has ceased to be a “defensive pact intended for mutual defense” and turned into an openly offensive organization that operates in the tri-continent in pursuit of global missions (16-19). Based on his analysis, it is possible to further argue that the globalization of NATO is driven by three factors: to feed the Western financial centers through money-laundering tied to such criminal activities as drug trafficking and organ harvesting; to ensure the control of natural resources and energy routes in Eurasia; and to contain Iran, Russia and China.

The Gulf War marked the first step toward the globalization of NATO after the Cold War. However, the real turning points were the NATO intervention in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1995, the NATO aerial war against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in 1999, and the NATO deployment into Macedonia in 2001. Nazemroaya draws attention to NATO’s role in criminalizing Albania and the former Yugoslav republics by providing passive support for the drug trade and organ harvesting (99-103). Following the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001 and the ensuing rise in the supply of opium and heroin,

Instead of stopping the massive flow of opiates from Afghanistan, the NATO-led foreign military presence has assisted it.[...] Afghanistan forms the starting point of an important trade route within the global lack market and the Eurasian drug corridor that includes Albania and the Serbian province of Kosovo as important shipping points (125, emphasis added).

Using evidence provided by Public Intelligence and The Hindu, Nazemroaya goes on to discuss how NATO encourages the Afghans to produce opium and even taxes opium production. He maintains that what happens in ex-Yugoslavia and Afghanistan does not represent random and marginal instances of corruption, but rather is an organized activity subordinated to capitalist centers, the major beneficiaries of which are Wall Street and financial conglomerates (105); he adds:

There is more to be said about Afghan opium and why it is important. Drug trafficking is now an instrument of US foreign policy just as it had been for Britain, which also supports the interests of Wall Street. Using IMF statistics, it can be inferred that money laundering is a significant part of the global economy. Money laundering is important to maintain the North American and Western European financial sectors… 91% of the billions of US dollars spent on cocaine are deposited in the domestic banking system and help accumulate hard currency for infusion into the US and Canadian economies (125).

The Gulf War, the disintegration of Yugoslavia by NATO, and NATO’s active support for the US “War on Terror” in Afghanistan were followed by anti-piracy and surveillance operations in 2008-09 in Africa and the Arabian Peninsula as well as the NATO war on Libya in 2011, which resulted in the murder of Muammar Gaddafi. In parallel with the aforementioned “global missions” of NATO, the organization started to expand by incorporating the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania and improving its ties with Georgia and Ukraine following the “colored revolutions” that took place in these countries. Aside from passively supporting international crime, the globalization of NATO in Eurasia pursued a two-fold aim: to control Eurasian natural resources and energy routes, and to contain Iran, Russia and China. To this end, NATO focused on preventing the unification of Eurasian states to form a “mega-power” that could challenge US imperialism (273, 279). Afghanistan constitutes a special target for NATO for two reasons:

Firstly, Afghanistan is a major geo-strategic hub that conveniently flanks Iran, the former Soviet Union, and China… Secondly, Afghanistan also constitutes a doorway into energy-rich Central Asia, which permits bypassing the territories of Iran, the Russian federation, and China. (119)

In a similar fashion, the African case is also marked by NATO’s desire to challenge the increasing hegemony of Eurasia, particularly the peaceful ascendancy of China, as well as to control energy resources, specifically in Sudan and Libya. As such, NATO focuses its activities on balkanizing African countries and militarizing the Horn of Africa.

Because of China’s economic and geo-strategic interests, Russia and China have jointly opposed US, UK and French efforts to internationalize the domestic problems of Sudan at the UN Security Council. Sudanese oil is mostly bought by the China National Petroleum Corporation… It should be of little wonder why the US and Atlantic Alliance are so deeply interested in the “security” of Sudan, well outside the Euro-Atlantic zone. Sudan is being carved up because of its resources and Washington’s project to contain the Chinese.[...] The country’s immense geographic size has been matched by a considerable amount of minerals and other natural resources. Oil, gas, gold, silver, copper, chromium, iron, mica, silver, uranium, aluminum, tungsten and zinc are spread throughout the vast country and mostly unexploited. (214)

Aside from Afghanistan and Africa, Nazemroaya underlines that NATO strives to explicitly encircle Russia through the global missile project and the previously-mentioned colored revolutions in such countries as Georgia and Ukraine; China through the militarization of Japan and Asia-Pacific; and Iran through several military violations and NATO operations in neighboring areas.

The Growing Challenge to Atlanticism: SCO and the Eurasian Alternative from Below

Nazemroaya’s book deals not only with the globalization of NATO, but also with the rise of Eurasianism as an alternative to NATO’s Atlanticism. Nazemroaya considers the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) a material challenge to NATO’s Atlanticism and an important vehicle for a Eurasian unity.

The origins of SCO go back to the foundation of the Shanghai Five (China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, and Tajikistan) in 1996 by Russia and China, which brought forth Eurasia’s aspirations for equal treatment, regional security and national sovereignty (282, 291). Founded in 2001, SCO now includes China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan as member states; Afghanistan, India, Iran, Mongolia, and Pakistan as observer states; and Belarus, Sri Lanka and Turkey as dialogue partners. Along with a claim for multipolarity, SCO defines its main aim as the fight against the “three evils” of terrorism, extremism and separatism, which are caused by NATO’s efforts to destabilize the Eurasian region. Furthermore, SCO makes clear that it is not solely a defense organization, but also anticipates boosting economic cooperation with a special emphasis on such strategic areas as infrastructure and energy.

Despite several SCO-led joint military drills and bilateral trade deals, SCO could not match NATO’s power for a number of reasons. First, China and Russia, as the leading powers of SCO, cannot assume the kind of responsibility that the US state did after World War II. The Marshall Plan was a tremendous effort, involving not only the economic reconstruction of Europe, but also applying the US model of economic development to integrate the diverging interests of each country on a permanent basis (Panitch and Gindin 2012). This was the material basis for the emergence and consolidation of the NATO alliance. By contrast, SCO cannot go beyond simply providing diplomatic communication channels; it does not have the capacity to foster the economic and political interdependence of its member countries.

Second, SCO remains an extremely top-down mechanism, and lacks the cultural organizing capacities to create a new Eurasian identity. In this regard, it could learn from ALBA (Alternativa Bolivariana para las Américas, Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas), whose cultural mechanisms TeleSUR (Nueva Televisora del Sur, New Television of the South), Culture Houses, and Cultural Fund contribute to regional integration. Third, SCO lacks mechanisms to create an intelligentsia of its own through the establishment of regional ties among universities, defense schools and think-tanks. Here again, ALBA sets a strong example, having already established its own mechanisms for integrating higher education integration and defense schools (Gürcan and Bakiner Forthcoming in 2013-2014).

The Eurasian answer to the globalization of Atlanticism, however, comes directly from the Eurasian peoples. A Eurasianist political movement has arisen.As its founder Aleksandr Gelyevich Dugin asserts, this movement is made up of two diverging but mutually supportive leanings: the Russian position which is more traditionalist, and the Turkish position, which has a more historical-materialist and Third Worldist orientation (Dugin et al. 2004: 10).

The emergence of Eurasianism does not signify the existence of a ready-made grassroots and popular movement free of contradictions and limitations. It is rather a first step, led by political parties and various intellectuals, toward developing a cultural alternative to Atlanticism. Eurasianism is not an inherently anti-capitalist alternative, but it encourages its supporters to conceive of it as a double movement,perhaps in a Polanyian sense that its anti-imperialist character could potentially lead to popular-democratic opportunities for Eurasian peoples. This double movement has so far been unknown to Western readers. I should note that I do not necessarily agree with the opinions of Eurasianists as presented below. Rather than trying to prove that Eurasianism constitutes a “correct” political-ideological line, I hope to encourage further research and discussion, taking up from where Nazemroaya’s account leaves off.

Dugin is an influential Russian thinker and scholar who served as an adviser to Vladimir Putin and numerous Russian parliamentarians (Tezkan and Taşar 2002: 204). His Eurasianism recognizes globalization as an objective and irreversible process, which is temporarily dominated by an Atlanticist project imposing Eurocentric values and unipolarism on the world’s peoples. Dugin suggests replacing the Atlanticist vision with an Eurasianist multipolar strategy alongside a special emphasis on recognizing the “civilizational diversity” of Eurasia (Dugin 2007: 48-49). He defines Eurasianism as a merging of traditionalist and modernist conceptions of political philosophy, upholding at once the diversity of value-systems and the need for economic development, the emancipation of labor, and social justice (Dugin 2007: 64-65). The principles of Dugins’s Eurasianism are thus “scientific patriotism” (emphasis on strategic rather than emotional and fundamentalist choices), “social policies” (emphasis on social justice), “Eurasian regionalism,” traditionalism (emphasis on cultural diversity), and the creation of a common Eurasian morality, namely a common understanding of history and people along with a belief in the supremacy of moral values (Tezkan and Taşar 2002: 217). Dugin maintains that world civilization is shaped by the historically unstable dialectical balance between two “axial” civilizations: the Anglo-Saxon (or Atlantic) and the Eurasian (Dugin 2005: xi). He goes on to argue that the survival of the Anglo-Saxon front rests on the building of a “cordon sanitaire,” or a line of buffer states for containment purposes, and the primary goal of Eurasianism should be to neutralize, if not win over such buffer states as Germany, Japan, Turkey etc. through regional integration (Dugin 2005: 197-198).At the same time, he does not want containment policies to dominate the Eurasian zone; he thus rejects Turanism² or Panturkism (the project for the unification of Turkey with other Turkic republics in Eurasia) (Dugin 2005: 182-183).

Turkish Eurasianism seems to offer a more viable and concrete alternative for it prioritizes rationalistic, secular and realistic values; as opposed to its Russian counterpart, which brings to the fore such values as mysticism, traditionalism and esoterism. Furthermore, the Turkish approach has so far exhibited a stronger mobilizing capacity, appealing to a wide range of communist/socialist parties and populist movements around the world. Accordingly, the rest of the paper will focus on the Turkish case.

Turkish Eurasianism has its roots in a Mao Zedong-influenced dialectical and historical materialism defended by the Workers’ Party. The WP is one of the largest socialist/communist parties in Turkey, with its daily newspaper Aydınlık (Clarity) having a national circulation of over 60,000 with a surprisingly broad readership from socialist, nationalist and populist backgrounds (in conformity with the Party’s strategy of building a national-democratic common front or counter-hegemony that goes beyond the mere unification of Leftist movements and aims to transform the nationalist and populist traditions too). Besides its fast-growing TV Channel Ulusal Kanal (The National Chain) and its popular publishing house Kaynak Yayınları, WP publishes Teori (Theory), a monthly theoretical journal, and Bilim ve Ütopya (Science and Utopia), one of the nation’s most widely read science magazines.

The WP organized the First International Conference on the Eurasian Option, held November 19-20 1996 in Istanbul with the participation of more than 15 Eurasian communist and socialist parties coming from such countries as North Korea, Azerbaijan, Russia, Ukraine, Iraq, Syria, Serbia and India. The conference concluded with Lenin’s slogan “Workers and Oppressed Peoples and Nations of the World, Unite!” (Dugin et al. 2004; M. Perinçek 2006: 139-140). The Second International Conference on the Eurasian Option, held in Istanbul in April 2000, drew more than 30 Eurasian communist and socialist parties (Dugin et al. 2004; Perinçek 2006: 141-151). A third conference was held in December 2004 in Istanbul with wider Turkish participation, including former statesmen, current politicians from various parties, scholars, and former military officials, along with numerous participants from all over Eurasia (Dugin et al. 2004; M. Perinçek 2006: 104-109).

Throughout the 2000s, Eurasianism has gained significant momentum in Turkey, influencing a growing number of political circles and military officials who argued for taking Turkey out of NATO. In response to the growing tide of Eurasianism, the dominant Atlanticist clique within the Turkish state and government decided to start a full-scale witch hunt by arresting 301 generals, 27 admirals and numerous left-wing and right-wing politicians, scholars, students and journalists, whom they accused of planning a military coup.³

It is worth exploring the WP’s ideology in order to generate a better understanding of Turkish Eurasianism. Opposing traditional class-reductionist variants of Marxism which see each social phenomenon simply as a reflection of class struggle, WP draws on Mao Zedong’s dialectical conception of contradiction. Interestingly, unlike many Mao-influenced political parties, WP firmly rejects the label of “Maoism” and does not even mention Mao’s name in its party statute. It refuses to use a technical Marxist jargon which would do nothing but alienate people from the Party. Nevertheless, we must briefly explain Mao’s dialectical conception of contradiction in order to grasp the reasoning behind WP’s Eurasianist analysis of world affairs.

According to Mao, society is exposed to numerous contradictions, the importance of which depends on the particular historical context in a given country.

The fundamental contradiction in the process of development of a thing and the essence of the process determined by this fundamental contradiction will not disappear until the process is completed… In addition, among the numerous major and minor contradictions which are determined or influenced by the fundamental contradiction, some become intensified, some are temporarily or partially resolved or mitigated, and some new ones emerge; hence the process is marked by stages. If people do not pay attention to the stages in the process of development of a thing, they cannot deal with its contradictions properly. (Mao 1971: 102)

Accordingly, although the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat constitutes a fundamental contradiction under capitalism, there might emerge other important contradictions without which this fundamental contradiction of capitalist societies cannot possibly be resolved:

There are many contradictions in the process of development of a complex thing, and one of them is necessarily the principal contradiction whose existence and development determine or influence the existence and development of the other contradictions... Therefore, in studying any complex process in which there are two or more contradictions, we must devote every effort to funding its principal contradiction. Once this principal contradiction is grasped, all problems can be readily solved. (Mao 1971: 110-112)

According to Turkish Eurasianism, our age can no longer be defined as the “era of imperialism and proletarian revolutions” in the aftermath of the dissolution of the Soviet Union, but instead it corresponds to an era of “imperialism, national-democratic revolutions and ‘opening out’ to socialism” (D. Perinçek 2011). It is thus premature to expect a purely proletarian revolution in the oppressed world, as post-Cold War imperialism dissolved nation-states and threw oppressed peoples back into the Middle Ages by promoting ethnic separatism, fundamentalism, feudalism and sectarianism (D. Perinçek 1996), as clearly observed in Iraq, Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Libya. A similar agenda of breakup is envisaged for such major Eurasian countries as China, Russia, Iran, Turkey and Syria.

Turkish Eurasianists view the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and Kurdistan Freedom Life Party (PAJAK, its sister organization in Iran) as major actors in the Greater Middle East Project of the US, which aims to destabilize the region (Gültekin 2011). Turkish Eurasianists oppose such separatist movements in Iraq, Iran, Syria and Turkey. According to Turkish Eurasianism, the PKK supports itself through criminal activities such as racketeering, and weapon and drug trafficking in “deep” cooperation with some elements of the Western Atlantic alliance, which, in line with Nazemroaya’s arguments, helps launder money for imperialist financial centers and advance imperialist geopolitical interests. Meanwhile, we should note that a large proportion of the WP, which is the main proponent of Turkish Eurasianism, comes from Kurdish and Alawite backgrounds. Mehmet Bedri Gültekin, the currently jailed vice-chairman of the WP, who is of Kurdish origin, argues that it is no coincidence that the main headquarters of PKK are in Northern Iraq, which has been the primary center of US influence in the region (Gültekin 2011). Gültekin goes on to argue that the only solution to the Kurdish question lies in the joint struggle of Turkish and Kurdish working peoples against US imperialism and European powers under a unifying revolutionary program that would ensure the present and future democratic gains of Kurdish communities. According to him, PKK represents a Westernist current of Kurdish ethno-nationalism, whose subsidiary headquarters are located in European cities (Gültekin 2011), where the PKK leadership operates with the blessing of state elites and secret services.

Under these conditions, Turkish Eurasianists hold that the ultimate revolutionary solution lies in building a united front of national and democratic forces against imperialism under the leadership of communists, incorporating or at least neutralizing certain right-ward but anti-imperialist political elements. The priority of communists is to carry out national-democratic tasks and claim the legacy of past national-democratic revolutions, which is the only way that they can achieve the national leadership to build socialism. Put differently, resolving the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat in the national arena depends on resolving the parallel contradiction between oppressing and oppressed nations under imperialism. Imperialism has already co-opted the working class in the global North. Any revolution in the North is inconceivable unless the oppressed world cuts off the transfer of imperialist rent to the Northern working class. The principal expression of the contradiction between the oppressing and oppressed nations is the contradiction between US imperialism and the whole of humanity (M. Perinçek 2006: 28). As the orbit of the world revolution has shifted toward the South, Eurasianism has become a major force for resolving these contradictions.

The major principles of Turkish Eurasianism can be summarized as follows: generating a consciousness of “oppressiveness” as a nation, rejecting religious fundamentalism and chauvinistic nationalism in the name of solidarity with the working peoples of the world, solidarity among oppressed nations against imperialism and hegemonism, delinking from the imperialist-capitalist system, prioritizing the struggle with imperialism and its collaborators, and neutralizing or winning Japan and Europe as intermediary powers (D. Perinçek 1996; M. Perinçek 2006). Accordingly, Turkish Eurasianists argue for a secular and popular nation-state model for the whole Eurasian region, which would recognize the need for the territorial integrity and national sovereignty of Eurasian countries, instead of promoting cultural pluralism and localism (Altun 2005; Kazancı 2005; D. Perinçek 2000). Drawing on the Chinese discourse on “socialism with Chinese characteristics,” Turkish Eurasianists argue that Eurasian revolutions should rely on the geographical conditions and historical-cultural legacy of each nation-state, hence the rationale behind adopting Kemalism in Turkey in programmatic rather than ideological terms, just as Venezuela did with Bolivarianism, Cuba with José Martí, and China with Sun Yat-sen. Moreover, the future of nation-states lies in regional integration and solidarity with other oppressed nations in the fight against the “four leeches” (financial circles, religious and clan sectarianism, and feudalism), which are all fed by US imperialism. Finally, Turkish Eurasianism contends that the first step toward Eurasian integration is to establish a “West Asian Community,” which would include Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Azerbaijan (D. Perinçek 2009).

Turkish Eurasianism – parallel to Russian Eurasianism – firmly rejects the Atlanticist project of Turanism or Panturkism.Turkish Eurasianism holds that regional integration should be promoted with West Asia (involving particularly Syria, Iraq and Iran) rather than with Central Asia where Turkic republics predominate. Eurasianists prefer ties with Russia, China and Iran over so-called “ethnic” bonds with Turkic republics. Regarding the Uyghurs (a Turkic ethnic community in China), they support China’s territorial integrity and oppose the Uyghur liberation movement (whose headquarters are in the US), which arouses the anger of right-wing Turanists in Turkey. Nonetheless, it is also erroneous to associate Turkism and Turanismwith racism and fascism.⁴ As I have demonstrated elsewhere (Gürcan 2010), the first generation of Turkists emerged in Russia, having been strongly influenced by Russian populism and socialism and having also participated in the Russian Revolution of 1905. Furthermore, the founders of the Communist Party of Turkey included socialists with Turkist origins (Mustafa Suphi, Ethem Nejat etc.). Last but not least, major communist figures in the Eastern Soviet Union, executed under the Stalin regime, such as Sultan Galiev, Nariman Narimanov and Turar Ryskulov were proponents of Turkism, sometimes even making “Turan” a central concept in their terminology.

Conclusion: From Utopia to Reality

In the aftermath of the Cold War, US imperialism has implemented its plans for world domination primarily by military means, as the only way to ensure the expansion of markets and neoliberal restructuring (Amin 2006: 4-5, 10); (Magdoff 2000: 167). Hence the strategic role of NATO as the main military instrument of global capitalism. Based on Nazemroaya’s book, I have argued that the material basis for NATO’s present and future evolution is threefold. First, NATO aims to ensure the strength of the financial centers of US imperialism by destabilizing the Eurasian countries and encouraging such criminal activities as drug trafficking and organ harvesting, which require money laundering. Second, it maintains US control of natural resources and energy routes in Eurasia. Third, and relatedly, it strives to encircle the emerging powers of Eurasia such as Iran, Russia and China, which have the potential to challenge the unipolar system imposed by US imperialism. Accordingly, the Atlanticist ideology of NATO has also evolved around the well-grounded belief that US financial strength will be endangered if the emerging Eurasian powers join forces to build a united front.

In examining the prospects for a Eurasian alternative, I have argued that if SCO is to match the strength of NATO, it must become more than a mere organization for defense and economic cooperation. Aside from representing a military organization, NATO’s strength emanates from its hegemonic ability originating from the years of Marshall Aid, which helped merge the interests of European ruling classes with those of the US state. This implies that such Eurasian initiatives as SCO need to incorporate social and cultural concerns by establishing special funds for cultural issues and social movements, cultural houses that would promote a Eurasian identity, think-tanks for independent strategy-making and for developing a strong intelligentsia, and well-coordinated mass media activities. It is equally important to promote development models proper to Eurasia and to create participatory planning-driven “social missions” that would compete with US-supported NGOs in both hegemonic and economic terms. Furthermore, these activities should be accompanied by efforts to create an ideological environment as strong as Atlanticism in order to ensure political cohesiveness and firmness. Such an all-round transformation would immensely contribute to mitigating diverging interests of and harmful competition among member states.

Finally, this transformation is inconceivable without the involvement of an international Eurasian movement from below, which would exert a considerable amount of pressure over top-down Eurasianist organizations and would help them to further radicalize. Recent developments indicate that the Eurasian front in Turkey is growing, as a major center of influence for the rest of Eurasia. As the process of integrating Turkey into the European Union has been interrupted, state repression has increased, and political, intellectual and military figures advocating the Eurasian alternative have been jailed. At the same time, the official membership base of the WP has seen a previously unknown growth and the circulation of its daily newspaper has grown. Turkish public opinion has started to express strong convictions that Turkey no longer needs EU membership, and even Prime Minister Tayyip Erdoğan asserted that Turkey’s membershipin SCO is of primary importance (Hürriyet Daily News 2013) – at the expense of further antagonizing the Islamist and pro-US Gülenist movement, albeit with an opportunistic and populist intention.

There is thus clearly fertile ground for the flourishing of a Eurasian alternative from below. But such a flourishing, which would transform this Polanyian instance of double-movement into a viable alternative, depends on the Eurasian movement’s ability to claim a genuine social movement identity, so as to make Eurasianism more than a mere discourse or slogan and to raise it to the rank of a “living cultural reality.” Cultural organizing should therefore become integral to political organizing. Cultural associations should be founded in the various Eurasian countries; Eurasian festivals should be organized, and political-cultural periodicals published. One of the most important tasks of Eurasianism, once it becomes a genuine cultural and intellectual movement, is to peacefully mobilize during SCO summits and make its own claims heard by Eurasian politicians. The task is not only to influence the agenda of “top-down” Eurasianism, but also to convince Eurasian officials that there exists a genuine Eurasian alternative from below that needs to be supported and represented in SCO summits. Similar to the ALBA experience, this could even lead to the creation of a “Social Movements Council” that would transform SCO into a genuine regionalist organization (Gürcan and Bakiner Forthcoming in 2013-2014). In the long run, such a social restructuring might also be better able to compete with US-supported NGOs and development programs, by providing a social-movement support for the “social missions” that Eurasian organizations could create, whose counter-hegemonic effectiveness has been proved by the ALBA experience.

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Notes

1. Page references, unless otherwise indicated, are to this text.

2. “Turan” is the name given to Central Asia, “the land of the Tur,” in Persian.

3. Eurasianists reject this accusation. Given the existing information overload, it is hard to know whether or not there really was a coup attempt. As The Economist puts it, there are also serious allegations that the Gülenist movement (a powerful Turkish-Islamist movement which, interestingly, is based in Pennsylvania and believed to control the judiciary and the police force) is behind the operations targeting the Turkish army The Economist. 2013. Erdogan and his generals, Retrieved February 11, 2013, from www.economist.com/news/europe/21571147-once-all-powerful-turkish-armed-forces-are-cowed-if-not-quite-impotent-erdogan-and-his.

4. As Ziya Gökalp (2011), one of the historical figures of Turkism argues, Turkism and Turanism have different meanings. Turkism is a political ideology which calls for a celebration of a Turkish nation-state having its own language and culture, regardless of its constituents’ ethnic or racial background. Turanism has a more extensive meaning, and encompasses the political and cultural integration of different nations in the Turkic geography.