June 6, 2025 (EIRNS)—The following is an edited version of comments made by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in the course of the dialogue during the 105th weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on June 6.
Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I’m an optimist because I believe in the fundamental ability of humanity to always come up with solutions based on reason which are better than anything which was thought of before. But that doesn’t prevent me from being extremely concerned about the short term. It’s true that it takes two to tango [to start a war], but I will tell you a German proverb which says: “The best person cannot live in peace if the evil neighbor doesn’t like it.”
I think that’s what we are dealing with here. The Russians’ attempt to not get drawn into a provocation; to be patient; to outflank and rely on their military progress, that’s all true. But I think that the forces which are trying to destroy Russia are out there. Deputy Foreign Minister Ryabkov just put out a very stern warning, saying that there are serious forces in the United States—and he could have added in Great Britain and unfortunately in continental Europe—who want to cut Russia into many pieces. One of those forces is the Jamestown Foundation, which is having a conference in the United States, where they are discussing exactly that: To cut Russia into 40 parts or more. There is, going way back to the Great Game, a continuous pattern.
The other thing which one has to consider is: Why is this confrontation happening? Why is it that the continental Europeans, or at least those in the Coalition of the Willing, never came up with a diplomatic alternative? Why is it that, from the very beginning, they were on the course of, as [former German Foreign Minister Annalena] Baerbock said, ruining Russia, weakening Russia, destroying Russia. And they never even considered that diplomacy is a way of conflict resolution, especially when you are dealing with the strongest nuclear power on the planet? What is the motive behind this madness? If it comes to a war, there is not one stone left in Germany, let alone a human soul who could survive this. Why take that risk? What is behind this madness?
I think the simple answer is that, when empires collapse, they have a tendency to strike out. I’m not talking about the America of Trump; I’m talking about the British Empire, which exists not in the form of nations, but in the form of an oligarchical financial structure which is sitting in the City of London, Wall Street, and you could add Silicon Valley and the famous MICIMATT.
Their situation is terrible. The financial system of that neoliberal system is about to blow out. They have an unmanageable situation, with an over-indebted U.S. with $37 trillion in debt. But much more important is the $2 quadrillion over-extended derivatives market, which is like a powder keg. Since they are not willing to change that, because it is based on the maximization of profit for a very small class of billionaires and millionaires at the expense of billions of people all over the world, that is the driving motive for the war.
So, unless we remedy that as the real cause of the war, as long as they keep trying to feed this system with one bubble after the other, we are sitting in this war danger.
So, I’m all for having hope; and I agree with the detailed analysis that the damage done [by the drone strike on Russia’s bombers] was really not that significant. It’s not a game-changer. All of these things in detail I agree with; but I share worry over the larger picture. Because if you think of how fragile this world peace is—it just takes one successful assassination or two. There were already two attempts on Trump. Take a couple of things which could go wrong, and it could end civilization.
That danger, in my mind, is so absolutely big that we have to not only defeat the present dangers, going from one fire to the next, extinguishing them. But we need to put humanity on a completely different platform, which is the new security and development architecture, which is a form of living together as a human species and abandoning war as a means of conflict resolution. Because in the time of thermonuclear weapons, this implies the danger of annihilation; therefore, we must stop this.
We are not beasts. Beasts don’t go for world domination; they may want to have a good dinner and eat their neighbor animal. But it’s worse than beasts. The human being, when there is this lust for greed and power and so forth, when that takes over, it’s worse than beasts. So, unless we have remedied that and put the human species on a safer course, we should not stop our efforts, but redouble them and increase the level ten times and more.
