Feb. 18, 2025 (EIRNS)—That the postwar unipolar world order has fallen apart might be the understatement of the century. Today, in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, high-level delegations from the United States and Russia met for four-and-a-half hours as a significant step toward re-establishing normal bilateral relations between the world’s biggest nuclear superpowers, and resolving the Ukraine conflict in a way which, in the words of meeting participant and U.S. National Security Advisor Mike Waltz, is “a permanent end to the war, and not a temporary end, as we’ve seen in the past.”
Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche commented, “This is a relief to the whole world. This is exactly what Dr. [Naledi] Pandor demanded at the recent International Peace Coalition meeting: Where are the adults in the room? That table [in Riyadh] was full of adults. That they came up with a pathway to solve all problems, taking care of the interests of all others afflicted by the conflict, is very promising.”
The readouts from both sides of the meeting were very positive, affirming the importance of the U.S.-Russia relationship and outlining measures that were agreed upon by the participants. These include appointing ambassadors and lifting restrictions on diplomatic missions in the two countries; appointing high-level teams to begin discussions of a solution to the Ukraine conflict; establishing a dialogue for resumption of economic cooperation, including in areas of energy and space exploration; and preparing a meeting between U.S. President Trump and Russian President Putin.
The reaction from the “kids table” of EU leaders, illegitimate Ukrainian President Zelenskyy, and most notably, British intelligence-linked think tanks, has been utter panic. Articles in British intelligence mouthpieces the Royal United Services Institute and Chatham House call on Britain and Europe in general to rally the troops to carry the war against Russia down to the last Ukrainian, since the U.S. seems to be bowing out.
The Russian response to such childish yet insipid behavior has been very blunt: Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova observed on Feb. 18 that “Russian-American contacts at high and the highest levels are causing real hysteria among Euro-Atlantic Russophobes,” and Russian Permanent Representative to the UN Vassily Nebenzia said that due to their Russophobic and maniacal mindset, European elites “won’t do for guarantors or even mediators [in the Ukraine war]. We can tell it also from what was said the other day by European participants of the Munich Security Conference—their statements were reckless, hawkish and divorced from reality.”
Russian officials have also made very clear that they will not drop the issue of what they see as major root causes of the conflict: the intention to pull Ukraine into NATO, the lack of security guarantees for Russia, and Western support for Nazi elements inside the Ukrainian regimes.
The developments in Riyadh have opened a wide gulf between the direction the world can take with cooperation between sovereign nations for peace, and the troglodyte system of war and empire that has dominated up until now.
As Helga Zepp-LaRouche has emphasized many times, to really win the peace, we must overcome geopolitics and enter into a new paradigm of win-win cooperation among sovereign nations which work together to promote the interests of humankind as a whole. The changes which lead to a solution to the Ukraine conflict can open the door for a new security and development architecture for the world, as called for by Zepp-LaRouche in her statement, “Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture”:
“The new paradigm which will be characteristic of the new epoch, and towards which the new global security and development architecture must be directed, therefore, must eliminate the concept of oligarchism for good, and proceed to organize the political order in such a way, that the true character of humanity as the creative species can be realized.”
We have an opening now: Seize it!
