Nov. 27—The world is writhing over the ongoing situation in Southwest Asia, and unexpected openings are popping up right and left. After a successful four days of hostage releases and accompanying “humanitarian pause,” a two-day extension was announced Monday evening, Nov. 27, thereby extending the pause until Thursday morning, Nov. 30. The question lingering in front of the world, however, remains: Can this temporary pause be turned into a real, lasting peace? And what’s required to actually achieve that?
May 14, 2025 (EIRNS)—While most Western political leaders and mass media remain mesmerized by their own impressive inability to solve the crises created by the bankruptcy of the British geopolitical financial system—Southwest Asia, Ukraine, and India-Pakistan, among others—the dominant global trend is contrary. It is moving instead towards an emerging new security and development architecture that will put an end to 500 years of colonialism, and its evil premise that Man is little more than a sophisticated beast.
The world needed Nancy Pelosi’s visit to Taiwan like it needs another global pandemic. The acute confrontation between the U.S.A. and China has now been added to the extremely dangerous and escalating crisis over Ukraine, and the dynamic of the geopolitical confrontation among the leading nuclear powers towards a nuclear third world war has been further escalated. The U.S.A. has thus officially buried its contractually guaranteed compliance with the One China policy, that had also been confirmed by the UN General Assembly in Resolution 2758, and has sent an unmistakable signal to the forces in Taiwan that are working toward Taiwan’s secession.
February 25 -- As Russian troops moved into Ukraine on February 24 with a mission to degrade Kiev's military capabilities, which President Putin has described as posing an existential threat to Russia's security, and the U.S. and NATO nations responded with an unprecedented economic assault against Russia, it is evident that the increasingly shrill and hysterical anti-Putin narrative coming from the Trans-Atlantic world had little to do with Ukraine and the deployment of Russian troops on its border. Instead, it is a response to the collapse of their post-Cold War "unipolar order". Further, it is an effort directed from the City of London and Wall Street, acting through its "Military-Industrial Complex", to prevent the further economic development of those nations which are not part of their "club" -- and especially the possibility of the emergence of a new, just financial system, serving a multipolar order of sovereign nations, committed to peace and economic development. This most emphatically includes Russia and China, whose leaders consolidated a strategic agreement on February 4, which provoked a panicked response from leading members of the "club," focused on their concern that the strengthened alliance will gain more adherents from nations unwilling to surrender their sovereignty to the "Rules-Based Order" and the banker's "Great Reset."This was the theme of many official statements and commentaries about the Putin-Xi summit, typified by one of the more extreme versions coming from Britain's {Daily Telegraph}, under the headline "Russia and China Rise from Their Knees to Challenge U.S. Dominance." The author, Roland Oliphant, summarized the cause for the hysteria by writing that, with this agreement, "the dominance of the U.S.-led global West will no longer be taken for granted -- or even tolerated." This panic was openly displayed in comments from officials in the days leading up to Russia's military intervention in Ukraine, in pronouncements of the intention to proceed with a brutal sanctions regime if Russia invades Ukraine, and their continued rejection of serious consideration of Putin's demand for security guarantees. Ursula von der Leyen, the President of the European Union Commission, told the Munich Security conference that the goal of sanctions would be to prevent Russia from diversifying its economy beyond oil and gas, by cutting off Russian access to modern technology. British PM Boris Johnson was even more explicit in comments on February 21, when he said that if Russia invades Ukraine, Russian companies will be prevented from trading in Pounds and Dollars. He added that they would cut off Russian firm's access to City of London financial markets. These threats are coherent with the open call for devastating economic warfare against Russia, outlined in a memo released following a White House meeting on January 25, which stated the intent of sanctions would be to conduct financial warfare to destroy the campaign Putin is directing to upgrade and modernize the Russian economy. In a briefing given on January 25, two anonymous senior White House officials said that with the sanctions they intend to impose, the "gradualism of the past is out, this time we'll start at the top of the escalation ladder and stay there." An example given was the use of "export controls", designed to deliver "a severe and immediate blow to Russia and over time make its economy even more brittle." In the lead-up to the Russian military actions, Putin accused the west of using Ukraine as a tool to provoke an invasion by Russia, to justify their destruction of the Russian economy. He added, in a joint press conference with Belarus President Lukashenko, that he expects more sanctions against Russia and Belarus, even if there is no invasion. This was reaffirmed by Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov, who said on February 22 that the goal of the West is to "punish Russia", using "all kinds of 'crippling sanctions'....We know that they will impose sanctions in any case, with or without pretext." When the U.S. and NATO countries initiated sanctions as the first Russian troops entered Ukraine, a defiant Putin said, “...the sanctions pressure will not lessen our resolve to firmly stand up for our interests. We see that blackmail, intimidation, and threats are the only tools the American policy has in its arsenal, trapped as it is in the stereotypes of a unipolar world and a false certainty that the United States still has the right and can impose its own global rules on everyone. This does not work with global powers, primarily Russia and other key international actors. Let its satellites and client states which have completely lost their independence, follow the threatening shouts coming from the United States." Will Sanctions Trigger An Economic Collapse? Once Russian military forces launched their surgical actions against Ukraine's military, which had been bulked up by extensive deliveries of advanced weapons by the U.S., the U.K. and other NATO allies, the onslaught of new sanctions began. President Biden announced the U.S. will impose "sweeping financial sanctions and export controls." Such measures, he said, will "cripple" the Russian economy, severely affecting Russia's ability to do business in dollars, Euros and yen. He claimed that the export controls will cut off "more than half of Russia's high-tech imports" and restrict access to vital technology inputs, "atrophying its industrial base...." Officials in Russia have stated that the country can survive new, harsher sanctions, adding that the effects will be felt much more sharply by the Anglo-American's European allies, especially if it includes cancelling the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline, which many European countries are counting on to deal with energy shortages and soaring prices, caused mainly by the incompetent Green policies imposed by the European Union. Biden has not yet announced removing Russia's access to the SWIFT foreign exchange transaction system, as this would profoundly damage existing trade of U.S. allies trade with Russia, but has been bandied about as a "nuclear option." The threat to Trans-Atlantic allies' economies was acknowledged by one of the defenders of such sanctions, who said the pain such measures will cause may negatively affect the "unity" of the anti-Russian alliance, but that this is the price that must be paid to defeat Russian aggression. Several analysts have noted that this would also create a pretext to blame Russia for the financial crash which is coming, caused not by Russia but the systemic collapse of the western financial system due to adherence to neoliberal economic policies. This gets to the heart of the matter. It is becoming increasingly evident that such a crash cannot be avoided, given the volumes of uncollectible debt outstanding, and the inflation which has resulted from the attempt to cover the debt with central bank monetary expansion. As {Executive Intelligence Review} has reported, a nearly $2 quadrillion speculative bubble is already blowing apart. This began in September 2019, when the Federal Reserve had to step in to flood the overnight lending markets -- through the so-called Repo window -- with ever higher volumes of liquidity. This was necessary as the commercial banks, which had been the suppliers of Repo liquidity, bowed out, as the demands for liquidity exceeded their capacity, as they were scrambling to cover their own bloated debt obligations. This lending ballooned from several billion a night, to more than $120 to $150 billion in overnight lending, and the terms shifted from repayment within twenty-four hours to a virtual permanent roll-over. The demand had spiked in part due to one large derivative default, but was compounded by the need of debt-strapped corporations for liquidity to cover the interest on their debts. There is renewed concern from speculators that the threat of a tsunami of defaults has not been contained by unlimited creation of liquidity, which is the primary cause of hyperinflation, creating a no-win choice for central banks: either cut off the flow of cheap credit to stop inflation, which risks unleashing a chain reaction of defaults; or keep pumping in liquidity, which would guarantee the triggering of Weimar-style hyperinflation globally, with horrific consequences for every nation. There is another alternative to the neoliberal insanity which has produced this systemic crisis, and that is based on what is emerging in Eurasia, through integration of nations with China's Belt-and-Road Initiative, which could be extended into Europe. The Putin-Xi agreement, while attacked as a military threat, is more frightening to western bankers and financial manipulators as it represents a potential alternative to the imploding City of London/Wall Street dollar-based system. Addressing the inter-relationship between the financial collapse and the war danger, the Schiller Institute has issued a call for convening an international conference to establish both a "new security architecture" and a "development architecture" for all nations. End To Geopolitics The threat of an agreement to scrap the bankrupt system owned by the City of London and Wall Street, and replace it with one based on an alliance between European and Eurasian nations, is not a new concern for the defenders of the present unipolar empire. It was fear of a Eurasian integration with western European nations at the end of the 19th century, typified by such projects as the Trans-Siberian railroad and the Berlin-to-Baghdad railroad, that was behind the adoption of "geopolitics" as a theory of the empire. The theory of "geopolitics" was first formalized by Halford Mackinder, a member of the Royal Geographic Society, in 1904, and was adopted as a strategy to divide East against West, and to isolate Germany, to protect the near-monopoly control of the British empire over world trade and finance. Its application directly led to two world wars in the 20th century. The real aim of the geopoliticians then, was to prevent French-Russian-German cooperation, which would serve as a basis for European integration with Eurasian and Asian nations. And that is the same fear which underlies the vilification of, and war drive against, both Russia and China today, with the Anglo-American strategists, operating through war hawks in government, academic circles and think tanks, taking the lead in shaping the narrative. Among their greatest nightmares is the following: Might Germany, perhaps with support of France, break out from under the domination of the Anglo-American forces running NATO and the EU, and join with Russia and China in moving to a new financial system, of the type proposed by American statesman and economist Lyndon LaRouche, as a New Bretton Woods? The escalating provocations against Russia and China are an obvious attempt to prevent this from happening. This was a theme of the Schiller Institute Conference on February 19, which was elaborated by a distinguished panel of speakers from many nations. It was the explicit theme of Helga Zepp-LaRouche's keynote, in which she presented the urgent need for a new strategic architecture, based on providing security for all sovereign nations, as the basis for a New Paradigm of peace and development. It was also the theme of the other keynote, delivered by this author, who opened the first panel by declaring that the Unipolar Order has come to an end. Watch the conference HERE. It is this reality which has provoked the impotent hysteria behind the threats against Russia, which preceded the Russian military actions in Ukraine, and have been amplified since. What Putin has initiated was made inevitable by the unwillingness of Trans-Atlantic governments to address the legitimate concerns he raised regarding security guarantees for Russia, which he said must be extended to all nations. There will be no peace or economic security anywhere, unless the return to the principle of the Treaty of Westphalia, as promoted by the Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and at the center of its call for convening an international conference, is adopted by all.
May 17—The attempted assassination of Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico has shaken Europe and the world. And the intended message is clear: opposition to Anglo-American NATO and the EU will not be tolerated. Since the May 15 attempt on Fico’s life, Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic, Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, and Belgian Prime Minister Alexander De Croo have all received death threats, largely delivered on social media.
The Biden White House celebrated “Dearth Day” by dragging together world leaders for a shared discussion about committing suicide by forcing the world to engage in a carbon-dioxide hunger strike. As the EU, UK, and US tried to outdo each other by cheerily announcing yet earlier dates to achieve various goals of reducing carbon dioxide emissions, John Kerry insisted that even carbon neutrality was too limited a goal. We’ll have to “suck carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere,” he gravely informed his bored audience.While general statements about loving nature and living in harmony with it came from all attendees, some of whom represent countries with true pollution problems that have very real health impacts, when it came time to drink the Kool Aid, many demurred. Xi Jinping pointed out that the responsibilities of the world’s nations are “common but differentiated,” continuing a theme of nations from the BRICS and the global south insisting that their growth would not be sacrificed to meet climate goals set by the trans-Atlantic nations. But the real threat to the future of the people of this planet is not climate change. It is nuclear war. Ukrainian President Zelensky, who met for hours with the head of MI6 last year, insists his nation is ready to stand up to Russia and should become a member of NATO. American think-tank lunatics insist on sending additional troops to Ukraine to counter the purported Russian threat. A thwarted coup attempt in Belarus is followed by the U.S. Ambassador to that nation meeting with the opposition leader. A Greek diplomat implores President Biden to prevent a new war by participating in a summit of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council. The situation with Taiwan remains intense, with numerous hawks pushing for additional support for Taiwanese independence, an impossible course and far worse for Taiwan than to move towards negotiations on resolving the cross-Strait relations to create a single China with great autonomy afforded to Taiwan. Driving the urgency of these military provocations, suicidal climate arrangements, and domestic U.S. fascism imposed by controlled-mob rule, is the exploding trans-Atlantic financial system, whose eruption backed by endless money-pumping is being treated euphorically as a period of immense growth. But as the upper part of the explosion propels finance upward, the detonation destroys the physical economy on which actual life depends. To reverse it, the reigns of power must be seized from Wall Street, which must be put under strict control and allowed a salubrious visit to bankruptcy court. National credit towards productive (read “anti-green”) investment in science, infrastructure, and manufacturing can carry the United States—and the world—towards the kind of economic paradigm largely being implemented presently by China, informed both by the previous success of the American system and the ongoing organizing of Lyndon LaRouche, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and the LaRouche movement. The Schiller Institute Conference of May 8 will bring together a thoughtful and active discussion on charting a course towards a Renaissance, to escape the war, banality, and ugliness of a culture which, though having abandoned the outlook that drove its past glories, insists on maintaining a now-unearned supremacy through crushing the rise of others. We must work to collectively outgrow this infantile identity.
Aug. 6—A stunning chorus of voices form around the world sang out on Sunday Aug. 6, the 78th anniversary of the barbaric bombing of Hiroshima, from dozens of parallel “Humanity for Peace” rallies across Europe, Ibero-America and the United States, led by a flagship rally in Dag Hammarskjold Plaza in front of the United Nations in New York City, demanding peace and a new international security architecture that protects the interests of all nations, large and small.
March 12—The power of reason is on the march in world affairs. The triumph for humanity in the recently-concluded Beijing-Iran-Saudi Arabia negotiations is only “humiliating” to the United States, or for NATO countries, for those that think like inhuman predators, like John Bolton, Samantha Power, Liz Truss, Tony Blinken, Boris Johnson, Victoria “cookie” Nuland, and most of the present incarnation of the State Department.
Dec. 14—A former head of state from a Third World nation commented, in conversation with a Schiller Institute representative over the last 24 hours, that the already scary strategic situation has become “dangerously frightening” in the last few weeks. She added that what was most frightening was not the escalation of threats against Russia from Global NATO; nor even the more-than-sobering remarks by Vladimir Putin to a Bishkek press conference, where he spoke about the U.S. nuclear policy of preventive or disarming nuclear strikes: “Regarding a disarming strike, perhaps we should think about using the achievements of our U.S. partners and their ideas about how to ensure their own security. We are just thinking about this.”
The American and NATO withdrawal from Afghanistan, and the entire 20-year military occupation there, are widely recognized as the worst disaster in NATO’s history. But have the lessons from his failure been learned?Shortly following the suicide bombing that killed a dozen U.S. troops and over 100 Afghans at the Kabul airport, President Biden announced to those responsible: “We will not forgive. We will not forget. We will hunt you down and make you pay.” While making such a statement (and using drones for revenge) was obviously far superior to extending the date of U.S. withdrawal, that such a statement would be considered politically necessary or expedient points to a deep and widespread sickness in the trans-Atlantic establishment. This sickness is seen in far more advanced form in Britain, whose institutions are frantically trying to assure themselves of their ability to continue to project force anywhere in the world, and to continue their endless war policies, with or without the United States. The sickness comes in a denial of the nature of the human species, a denial that looks towards a future of maintaining past dominance, rather than one that looks towards an era of new development, of growth, and of changing dynamics. Aeschylus captured this tension in his Oresteia trilogy, in which a series of revenge killings, including a demand for revenge in the form of the Furies—the Erinyes—is transformed, through the mediation of the goddess of wisdom Athena herself, to a concern for the future. The furious Erinyes become the Eumenides (the Gracious Ones), and serve as a constructive force for the future of Athens. The “forever war” policy that has come to characterize the trans-Atlantic approach since the murder of U.S. President Kennedy, against which Trump inveighed in his campaigns, and against which Biden took what could be a significant step with his Afghanistan withdrawal, must be replaced with a policy of peace through development. In the Eastern Economic Forum, held in Vladivostok, Russia, aspects of this principle were raised by Presidents Putin and Xi, who insisted that development is the path forward, and that “democracy” could not be instilled at gunpoint. Will Biden’s executive order on declassifying 9/11 reveal truths that will cast the 20-year experience in Afghanistan in a new light? Terry Strada, the leader of 9/11 Families United, rejoiced: “We are thrilled to see the President forcing the release of more evidence about Saudi connections to the 9/11 Attacks. We have been fighting the FBI and intelligence community for too long, but this looks like a true turning point.” Biden’s move for declassification, following his decision, taken despite enormous pressure from media and political layers, can be a powerful flank against the intelligence agencies whose lies have been used to maintain the forever war policy. Will the momentum away from permanent warfare continue through improved relations with Russia and China? Will a growing portion of the world’s leaders and thinkers—aided by you—come to understand that the true, immortal self-interest of the human individual lies not in maintaining power over others, but in doing good? If so, this present era can be a singularity, an inflection point, a change from one geometry to another, in which we defeat empire and raise our heads from the muck of conflict to look to the stars that hold our future. Lyndon LaRouche devoted himself to fighting for such a world, a commitment carried on by Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the LaRouche movement, internationally, today. Will that movement, and its allies, succeed?
July 21, 2024 (EIRNS)—“Wisdom born of experience should tell us that war is obsolete. There may have been a time when war served as a negative good by preventing the spread and growth of an evil force, but the very destructive power of modern weapons of warfare eliminates even the possibility that war may any longer serve as a negative good. And so, if we assume that life is worth living, if we assume that mankind has a right to survive, then we must find an alternative to war….” —Martin Luther King, Christmas Sermon, December 24, 1967
PDF In light of the escalating Ukraine crisis, people around the world are urgently asking themselves and their political leaders where this will all end. Is this heading towards a very big, perhaps even thermonuclear, global confrontation? Are we facing a reverse, more dangerous Cuban Missile Crisis? Will Mankind even survive?Behind this very real danger of war, and the cause of that danger, is the blowout of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system. A nearly $2 quadrillion speculative bubble of derivatives and debt is already blowing apart. A hyperinflationary process has been unleashed globally, with an accompanying collapse of the physical economies of the Western nations. The City of London and Wall Street, the owners of that bankrupt system, are desperate to destroy any functioning alternative to their system — such as Russia and China’s alliance around the Belt and Road Initiative, which now incorporates nearly 150 nations — and the financial Establishment has openly stated that this is what is at stake. So has Vladimir Putin, who has correctly said that the U.S./U.K./NATO relentless expansion eastward up to Russia’s very borders, is driven by this economic policy, and that it threatens Russia’s national security in ways Russia cannot accept. Therefore, to stop the drive to war, it is necessary to adopt a more fundamental approach, which is to establish an entirely New Paradigm that will ensure the security, and the economic development, of every nation on the planet. The only recent precedent for this in the West, is the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which put an end to 150 years of religious wars in Europe. It was crafted only at the point that all parties realized that, if they continued on their current path, there would be no winners and very few survivors. They chose to create a New Paradigm based on the defense of the interest of the other, and on the premise that the security of all was the first requirement for the security of each party. That is the key lesson of the Treaty of Westphalia for today. The world today stands at a similar crossroads. If the current geopolitical policies continue, nuclear war becomes a very real possibility — after which there would be no winners, and most probably no survivors. Instead, an international conference must immediately be convoked along the lines of the Peace of Westphalia. The fundamental interest of all of the parties is to ensure that the central economic and security interests of each are taken care of — in other words, an order based on the benefit of the other, on the common good or the General Welfare, and on an underlying love of all Mankind. The economic system must also be drastically reshaped to express this outlook. The renowned American economist Lyndon LaRouche specified in great detail how such a system would work, based on what he called his Four Laws: The immediate re-enactment of the Glass–Steagall law instituted by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, without modification, as to principle of action. This means putting the entire speculative financial bubble through bankruptcy reorganization. A return to a system of top-down, and thoroughly defined, National Banking, as specified by the U.S. first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton. The purpose of the use of such a Federal credit-system is to generate high-productivity trends in improvements of employment; with the accompanying intention, to increase the physical-economic productivity, and the standard of living, of the persons and households. Adopt a fusion-driver ‘crash program’ to promote the fundamental breakthroughs in science which unlimited economic growth and development require. The Schiller Institute and its founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche issue this call to initiate the urgent international discussion that is needed to convoke such a conference, and stop the so-called “Doomsday Clock” before it strikes midnight. It is time for institutions and individuals from every nation to step forward and join the mobilization for an international conference to establish a new security and development architecture for all nations. Sign the petition here
Aug. 18—In the midst of the NATO-orchestrated war that was launched, in fact, to destroy the Russian nation-state and its economic power, Vladimir Putin on Thursday, Aug. 17, spoke of building three high-speed rail lines: one between St. Petersburg and Moscow; one between Minsk and Moscow; and a third, connecting Sochi and Moscow. This internal improvements approach, echoing that of both Alexander Hamilton and Franklin Roosevelt, will require other internal changes, including financial changes, which, if implemented, will serve as an example to other nations, including developing economies in Africa, for how to end colonialism once and for all.
Feb. 21, 2025 (EIRNS)—During an interview published Feb. 20, Secretary of State Marco Rubio continued the trend of throwing out the neocon doctrine of the sole unipolar hegemon imposed after the Cold War.
Dec. 18—The Executive Intelligence Review symposium “Peace On Earth, Or Humanity’s Doom? The Case For Negotiations” should be viewed as an “epistemological springboard” for our international “Dona Nobis Pacem” campaign, already well underway in certain respects. Note the increasing worldwide response, of institutions and individuals alike, to the Vatican’s proposal to host peace talks. We also can propose to organize all citizens of good will, in these next weeks, to act as a world chorus for a principled peace in Ukraine. This takes organizing which will use the inspiration of the artist to supersede the pessimism of the political pragmatist. To arrive at a superior policymaking method among nations in order to avert thermonuclear war in time will demand a poetic change in the thinking of all those involved.
Feb. 19—The Schiller Institute Conference held today under the title “100 Seconds to Midnight on Doomsday Clock—We Need a New Security Architecture!” gathered leading figures from around the world to address, in the first panel, the mindless march to war between nuclear powers taking place over the artificially created crisis in Ukraine, and, in the second panel, the hope made real for the world in the Joint Communiqué by China and Russia on Feb. 4 declaring a new era for mankind.The conference began with a performance of the second movement of the Brahms Op. 100 violin sonata, performed by Norbert Brainin and Günter Ludwig in 1995, followed by prescient words from Lyndon LaRouche, speaking over 20 years ago, warning that the policies in place at that time would lead to precisely the danger of nuclear war being faced today. The first panel, “Who and What Are Driving the Rush towards World War? How close are we?” opened with a keynote by Harley Schlanger, a leading spokesman for The LaRouche Organization, asking if the world will move forward into a new era of peace through development, or descend into a new dark age and global warfare. He reviewed the failure of the United States to create a new world security architecture when the Soviet Union collapsed, falling instead into the geopolitical fantasy of the “end of history,” that the world would henceforth bow down to the Anglo-American version of liberal democracy. What ensued was a flight into wild speculation on Wall Street and the City of London, and illegal neo-colonial wars of choice by the Anglo-Americans, which together brought the Western economies to ruin and created today’s hyperinflation. However, the emergence of the Chinese economic miracle, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), and the Russia-China cooperation on all matters of strategy and economy, has provided the core of a new world order based on peaceful cooperation of all nations in economic development. The potential of this cooperation reaching out to all of Europe sent the geopolitical lords in the City of London and Wall Street into a panic, in keeping with Sir Halford Mackinder’s warning the Empire must control the “Heartland.” Natalia Vitrenko, the Chairwoman of the Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine, and a long time friend and associate of the Schiller Institute, presented a devastating picture of the actual conditions in Ukraine, of desperate poverty, near total collapse of both industry and agriculture, brought about by the 2104 coup led by self-professed Nazi organizations and militias supported by the U.S. and U.K., who turned the nation over to the IMF and Western bankers who looted the country to the bone. Now, with the West using Ukraine as a pawn in the effort to destroy Russia, they have shipped billions of dollars of modern weapons into the country, while the economy is in free fall, with massive capital flight, the loss of access to any foreign investment or credit, and the collapse of the currency. This, Vitrenko said, is exactly the result she had warned of in 2014, while speaking on a Schiller Institute tour of Germany, France and Italy. There must be de-nazification, she concluded, and a return to Ukraine as a neutral nation. The conference then heard from Col. Alain Corvez (ret.), a former Counselor for the French Defense and Interior Ministries, who declared that the current global crisis marked the end of American supremacy. It was the hubris of the American leaders in 1991 who chose to dictate to the world rather than use the collapse of the East bloc to establish a just new world order based on multipolarity. Then, breaking pledges given to Russia in return for peacefully withdrawing military forces from the former Soviet republics, they moved NATO eastward, now threatening to place their war machine on Russia’s border. Russia’s demand for security guarantees are reasonable, he said, and should be welcomed by all nations. While European countries are officially following the U.S. lies about Russian intentions, they have different needs and interests, such that in this “big moment,” they will likely break away from the anti-Russia hysteria. NATO should be dissolved, he concluded. Jens Jørgen Nielsen, a Danish professor and expert on Russia and the former Soviet Union, recalled the fear of nuclear war during the Cold War, and the relief when the Berlin Wall fell. But the promise of a new peaceful order was destroyed when NATO began to expand, ignoring the “indivisible security” agreed to in several treaties. He blamed President Bill Clinton for the first expansion, against the strong advice of leading figures. Now, the U.S. does wildly illegal things simply “because they can.” Jim Jatras, a former U.S. diplomat and advisor to the Republican leadership in the Senate, asserted that the crisis is not really about Ukraine, but the U.S. and U.K. refusal to even consider Russia’s core demand for security guarantees. The U.S. belief that they had the right, following the collapse of the U.S.S.R., to impose their idea of “democracy, human rights and free trade” upon all nations, reminded Jatras of the “Trotskyite, Bolshevik slogan of ‘peace, progress and communism’ they wanted to impose on the world.” Eurasian integration through the Belt and Road goes against the U.S./U.K. idea that NATO had to “Keep the U.S. in, Russia out, and Germany down.” Pakistani political economist Shakeel Ahmad Ramay then discussed Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan’s important visit to Beijing, discussing the disastrous conditions in Afghanistan, and Pakistan’s historic and current role. The U.S. objects to Pakistan’s role in the Belt and Road Initiative and the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), but they will not pull out. The BRI is an opportunity for all nations. [The complete transcript of Panel 1, including Q&A, appears in Documentation.] The second panel, Crafting a new strategic architecture: The Russian-Chinese Feb. 4 joint agreement, the World Land-Bridge economic development perspective, began with the 3rd and 4th movements of Beethoven’s sonata for violin and piano in G Major Op. 96, also performed by Brainin and Ludwig. Two video excerpts of Lyndon LaRouche were shown, from May 4, 2001, and November 1985 was played, calling for the New Silk Road approach to building up all of Eurasia, with Russia as a central part, as a pivot to world recovery, and contrasting that to Africa, to see that the general welfare for all nations, for the common good, was “the only chance for this planet.” Helga Zepp-LaRouche gave the keynote, noting that any honest view of the world today “from above” would see the rising economic progress in China and Asia compared to the failing Western system, which appears oblivious to the need for a new paradigm. We are on the brink of war, which can only be fully prevented by ending geopolitics, she said. She marveled at neocon Secretary of State Tony Blinken and German Green Party Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock being “joined at the hip” in their wild lies against Russia at the Munich Security Conference. The collapse of the U.S.S.R. did not mean the superiority of the Western liberal system, she said, as evidenced by the horrendous conditions of most of the developing nations. She quoted Roalnd Dumas, Hans-Dietrich Genscher and Ambassador Jack Matlock, who were all involved in the 1991 agreements with Russia, all asserting that the West did absolutely promise that NATO would not move an inch beyond Germany. Zepp-LaRouche described her role with her husband in the creation of the New Silk Road (BRI), and presented the historic Feb. 4 joint statement by Presidents XI Jinping and Vladimir Putin as the declaration of a new era, without geopolitics, which the U.S. and Europe must be convinced to join, rather than attempt to destroy. A new Peace of Westphalia is required, with all nations addressing the actual needs of mankind as a whole. “We are the greatest species,” she said. “Prove it! Make this the star-hour of the immortal species.” Dr. Wang Wen, the Executive Dean of the Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies and Professor of the Silk Road School at Renmin University in Beijing, discussed the relationship between Xi and Putin, meeting 38 times over the past 9 years leading to the historic Feb. 4 Joint Declaration of a new era. This includes rapidly expanding economic cooperation while also “watching each other’s backs” in the current dangerous global climate, in which “a certain country” believes it has the right to interfere in other nations. Alejandro Yaya, from the Argentina Civil Institute of Space Technology, described some of the results of Argentine President Alberto Fernández’s historic visits to Russia and China, where Argentina joined the BRI. The agreements include rehabilitating the nation’s rail system, with rolling stock, locomotives and cars coming from China and Russia. Russia will build a fourth nuclear power plant in Argentina, with other agreements on space cooperation, Huawei developing the country’s telecom system, and the exchange of technical expertise in both directions. Graham Fuller, a 27-year State Department and CIA official and former vice-chair of the National Intelligence Council, ridiculed Tony Blinken’s claim, in regard to Ukraine and Russia, that there is no longer any such thing as “spheres of influence.” He reviewed America’s history, which has been entirely built on claims of spheres of influence, such that now they consider the whole world as part of its own sphere. He discussed the difficult role of small countries living near major powers, be it Russia, China, India or the U.S.. He quoted Mexican President Porfirio Díaz who said: “Poor Mexico. So far from God, and so close to the United States.” Now, these powers need to sit down together and create a better system. Dr. Carlos Gallardo, the President of the Christian Democratic Party of Peru, which recently voted to pledge “adherence” to the Schiller Institute and the Belt and Road Initiative, presented the party’s support to the BRI by describing the historical road project of the Inca, whose territory went from present-day Colombia down to Argentina, with parts of Brazil, in the 16th century, all connected by the road system. “How could we not believe in the Belt and Road?” He displayed maps of the proposed bi-oceanic rail system proposed through cooperation with China. The last speaker was Tony Magliano, a syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist, who reviewed the mass starvation taking place around the world, focused on Afghanistan, remarking that the “humanitarian aid being offered to Afghanistan by the U.S. totals about three days’ worth of the spending over the past 20 years for the bombing and destruction of the country.” A rich dialogue by the participants followed each panel. The panels and discussion are being transcribed for publication in Executive Intelligence Review. To watch the conference (preferably with your friends and family), go here.
July 23—While the war in Ukraine is being escalated through the newly deployed U.S. anti-personnel cluster bombs, together with billions of dollars from the IMF/World Bank institutions (which were designed to build countries, rather than to blow them up), the U.S. and its NATO allies are also carrying out the largest military exercise in decades in Australia, demonstrating their intent to create a “Global NATO,” capable of waging war on China in addition to their war on Russia.
Feb. 17, 2025 (EIRNS)—The future may not be determined, but it is definitive that we are at the end of the post-Cold War, so-called “rules-based order.” In the forefront of many manifestations, including the tears of the outgoing chairman of the Munich Security Council yesterday, is the meeting Tuesday, Feb. 18, in Riyadh of the U.S. Secretary of State and Russian Foreign Minister to re-establish regular relations between these powers and to confer on ending the warfare in Ukraine.
March 8—As this publication has repeatedly insisted, the world is now standing closer than ever before to the outbreak of a civilization-ending war among the world’s superpowers. This danger has only been increasing as geopolitical blindness and a belief in the supremacy of the “rules-based order” is pushing Western officials increasingly into a direct conflict with Russia. Nations like Finland and Sweden have now joined NATO, bringing that military alliance up to Russia’s border, while the largest military exercises since the end of World War II are now ongoing, for the first time modeling a response to a theoretical attack by Russia on a NATO country.
Oct. 16, 2022 (EIRNS)—Over the last decade, a combination of British geopolitics and wetworks succeeded in shutting down four out of six existing or planned Russian gas pipelines, which could today be exporting over 260 billion cubic meters per year of natural gas to Europe. Instead, less than 55 bcm are now flowing, and that largely through the TurkStream pipeline. The Presidents of Russia and Turkey met last week, and they announced their intention to build a second TurkStream pipeline, capable of pumping over 60 bcm per year, doubling the current capacity of exports to Europe. But will Europe cooperate with this policy?
Oct. 18, 2024 (EIRNS)—This next week of our lives may be one of the most decisive that humanity will have ever lived. There is the upcoming BRICS conference in Kazan, Russia, from October 22-24, and which will be attended by leaders of 24 countries, as well as UN Secretary General Antonio Guterres and at least 26 other countries that have applied for membership; there is the International Monetary Fund Conference in Washington, happening at the exact same time (Oct. 21-26); there is the meeting hosted by LaRouche independent candidates Jose Vega and Diane Sare on October 26, “Build a Chorus of Peace Against the Ghouls of War;” and there are events, as of yet unknown, which will certainly unfold over the next seven days.
History making is a creative act. The civilization which survives and progresses is that which decides to break from the follies of the controlling modes of behavior which lead them toward their chosen doom, and adopt instead a new mode of thinking and acting which is in coherence with the laws of the known universe. As seen in the action of discovery of the scientist or artist, this act of leadership is not something limited to an “elite” or “chosen class”; as the founding of the American republic asserted, statecraft is a task, a duty, of the creative mind which lies, in potential, inside every human being, every citizen.Lyndon LaRouche asserted such in his 2002 writing, “The Historic Individual,” in which he said, “During each tragic moment of great crisis, every nation, every culture is gripped by the need for a sudden and profound change in its quality of leadership. Its survival then depends upon its willingness to choose a new quality of leadership which is typified by those extraordinarily exceptional individuals who stood, in retrospect like immortal souls, apart from, and above mere popular taste of their time. Throughout all the future history of mankind, as during the past, this presence, or absence of the determining role of the exceptional individual will always be, as it has always been, one of those milestones which mark those pathways of choice, toward either serenity or self-destruction, choices which close in on every culture at its moments of such great, self-inflicted peril as we face today.” It is that quality of potential leadership within the citizens themselves, as exhibited in a profound way in the four panels of the November 13—14 Schiller Institute International Conference, which will make the difference today between the end of civilization in a hyperinflationary breakdown and nuclear war, or, a righting of our moral ship to create a new paradigm of mutual development and progress. Developments on today’s political stage signal moves in both directions. As COP26 genocidalists call for the elimination of industrial development, and thus, the population, nations in Asia and Africa denounce the hypocrisy of the billionaire “jet set” and refuse to sign such a suicide pact. As the crisis as the border of Belarus and Poland threatens to escalate into general conflict targeting Russia, Merkel and Lukashenko speak for a second time this week about stabilizing the situation, pulling it back from the brink, and ensuring humanitarian aid for the thousands of people suffering in the freezing temperatures and terrible conditions. In Afghanistan, while ideologues call for the disgraced and obsolete NATO to come back in to “rebuild” the country, the “Troika-Plus” (Russia, China, the US, and Pakistan) meets in Islamabad to discuss the road toward stability in the region, and Russia leads the way by delivering its first shipment of humanitarian aid, 36 tonnes, which was guaranteed distribution to those in need by the Taliban government. What can and will determine our trajectory now is the assertion and intervention of the needed, big ideas upon which a new phase of civilization could be built. Such was seen in the intervention of a Schiller Institute representative into a discussion on tensions with China, when she raised the need for a Westphalian approach to solving conflicts on a higher plane. Such was seen, in force, in the presentations and dialogue of the recent Schiller Institute conference, of which video excerpts are being prepared to maximize and accelerate the intent, purpose, and impact of that extraordinary event. One excerpt in preparation will highlight the crisis in culture and education and Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s proposal for a resurgence of Classical education and culture worldwide, based on the best traditions and achievements of nations around the world. Such a program, though focused on the young, is the model for the kind of leadership required now, today, from each and every citizen as a creative contribution to ensuring the survival of our beautiful species. Lyndon LaRouche: “An adequate prospective leader for such a time of systemic crisis as today’s, must have devoted much of his, or her personal mental and moral development from childhood and adolescence on, to studying, and despising what prove to have been the systemic falsehoods which have become more or less generally accepted by peers, and also preceding and later generations. This impassioned awareness of widely accepted, implicitly axiomatic systemic falsehoods of assumption, as embedded in the customary practice of his, or her society, promotes in that young and maturing mind a disposition for emphasis on subject-matters pertaining to what Shelley identified as ‘profound and impassioned conceptions respecting man and nature.’” Be such a leader. Join our organizing efforts today.
ov. 15, 2024 (EIRNS)—It’s been hardly a week since the election of President-elect Donald Trump in the U.S., and it’s already clear that big changes are afoot. The hysteria about some of Trump’s cabinet picks continues, in particular around the role of Tulsi Gabbard as the future Director of National Intelligence—a decision that could potentially transform the U.S. Presidency’s relationship to the intelligence community for the first time since the 1963 assassination of John F. Kennedy. There are, of course, plenty of other cabinet picks which are horrible. But the fact remains that a potential sea-change exists, and it is precisely for this reason that there is such a clamoring among the neoliberal establishment.
