May 6, 2025 (EIRNS)—The world is in shock following the eruption of military strikes between India and Pakistan overnight. On top of the already tense situation globally, this new conflict between nuclear powers represents yet another flashpoint, one which could rapidly become a global disaster. Airstrikes launched by India overnight killed a number of people in Pakistan, along with at least a dozen wounded. Pakistan immediately vowed to retaliate, and has reportedly already begun firing artillery shells into India. Leaders around the world are wisely calling for immediate calm and a silencing of hostilities.
While the immediate trigger of this conflict was the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, India, in April that left 25 Indians and 1 Nepali dead, the roots of this conflict go back decades. Before Pakistan was a nation, the Indian subcontinent was known as the “pearl” of the British Empire—a bloody and degrading period of those peoples’ history. When Britain was finally forced to depart India in 1947, it left in its wake the Partition into India and Pakistan, setting into motion decades of religious tension to follow. But that wasn’t all. The British Empire’s “Great Game” against the Soviet Union, along with the willing obeisance of their American assets, turned this region into a playground for extremist and militant activity throughout the ’70s and ’80s. As Pakistan’s Defense Minister Khawaja Asif said on April 24 when asked about the presence of terrorism in Pakistan: “We have been doing this dirty work for the U.S.A. for about three decades, and for the West, including Britain. That was a mistake and we suffered for that. If we had not joined the war against the Soviet Union and the war after 9/11, Pakistan’s track record was unimpeachable.”
The world is now at a crossroads. There are various conflicts raging—Israel-Palestine, Russia-Ukraine, now India-Pakistan—none of which can be resolved if vengeance and retribution become the order of the day. But neither can they be resolved without addressing the root causes of each—their geopolitical origin—which are in fact still operating to this day! Have the Anglo-Americans admitted to their hand in utilizing Islamic extremism as an asset to overthrow the Syrian government, as Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn warned President Obama in 2013? Have they admitted to their propping up of neo-Nazis in Ukraine to effect “regime-change” and the dissolution of Russia? Without addressing these and other issues, any solution to these conflicts will remain elusive.
Beyond that, the collapse in the West is proceeding at a breakneck speed. Germany’s prospective new Chancellor Friedrich Merz made history on May 6 when he became the first-ever chancellor candidate to lose the first round of voting in the Bundestag. As Europe’s ruling elites are increasingly rejected by their voters, the notion of “democracy” and “Western values” is increasingly becoming nothing more than a hollow slogan.
At the same time, Trump’s new tariffs are causing major disruptions across the supply chain. The Port of Los Angeles, which receives one-fifth of all seaport freight entering the U.S., will be down 35% in shipments from Asia next week compared with a year ago. This kind of shock comes on top of the longer-term collapse of the nation’s physical economy as a whole. Cleveland-Cliffs, America’s third-largest steel-maker, on May 2 announced major plant and mine closures, which will soon mean the direct loss of 2,200 jobs.
As Helga Zepp-LaRouche has insisted, a solution to these problems cannot come from the level from which they originated. Only a higher-level solution, basing itself in natural law, as her “Ten Principles” document proposes, will stand a chance at providing the world a pathway forward over the next 50-100 years, and beyond. These ideas will be the subject of the upcoming May 24-25 Schiller Institute conference—be sure to register and attend.
