Report on IPC Meeting No. 134, Dec. 26, 2025

Dec. 26, 2025 (EIRNS)—The 134th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition opened with comments by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and initiator of the IPC. She emphasized that we are not experiencing a multitude of discrete crises, but rather an “absolute epochal change” as the 500-year era of colonialism comes to an end.

Reviewing the situation in Europe, she said that the neocon narrative that the Russian invasion of Ukraine came out of the blue in 2022, unprovoked and with no prehistory, is no longer viable. The recently declassified conversations between Presidents Putin and George W. Bush simply underscore the fact that this war was entirely preventable. The West obviously knew that the stationing of nuclear- capable missiles along Russia’s borders was crossing a “red line.” The idea that rearmament of Europe is the solution to Europe’s economic collapse is “economic stupidity.” Free speech and free thought in Europe are under attack; the sanctioning of Jacques Baud, a respected and moderate analyst, exemplifies this. Elsewhere in the world, there are big warnings in the Israeli press of renewed aggression against Israel’s neighbors after the Dec. 29th visit of Netanyahu to the U.S., where he hopes to get the green light to attack. She concluded by saying, “We have to convince the Western governments to give up their arrogant idea” that they must dominate the world. We must move from confrontation to cooperation. 2026 will be a year of decision. Rachel Clark, interpreter, consultant, and international coordinator between Japan and the United States, is a longtime activist for Veterans for Peace. She reminded the participants that the Ukraine war began at the latest in 2014, with the attack on eastern Ukraine by the Kiev regime which killed 14,000 Ukrainians. Keeping this fact in mind, she reported that the remilitarization of Japan, carried out despite that nation’s postwar constitution, was instigated by pressure from the U.S. during the wars in Korea and Vietnam. The U.S. military is effectively an occupation force in that nation. Article 9 of the Japanese constitution, which formally renounces war as a sovereign right of the nation and prohibits the use of force to settle international disputes, has been overridden, despite protests by the Japanese populace. The power of the U.S.-Japan Joint Committee makes Japan’s elected legislature, the Diet, into a Kabuki Theater. Japan, which has a land area equivalent to California, has 350 military installations. Japan may be used as a sacrificial pawn in a proxy war, much like Ukraine. Japan has become the “poster child of Operation Mockingbird,” referring to the CIA project of planting propaganda in corporate media news reports; the media do not report on U.S. provocations toward China, but cover China’s responses as if they were unprovoked. A video was presented with highlights from the Dec. 14 youth conference of the Schiller Institute, featuring remarks from Helga Zepp-LaRouche, former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Naledi Pandor, South African Ambassador to Mexico Beryl Sisulu, former Chief of Staff of the Senegalese Air Force Alain Charlemagne Pereira, and youth from a broad spectrum of African nations, Southwest Asia, and Japan. Larry Johnson, former CIA intelligence official and a member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) asserted that there will be no agreement on Ukraine; the demands of the Ukrainians and Europeans are at odds with Russia’s conditions for peace negotiations, which are that the West recognize the territories formerly in Eastern Ukraine as part of the Russian Federation, and that there be no NATO presence in Ukraine. Demilitarization and Denazification, the original stated goals of the Special Military Operation, are still in place and non-negotiable. The Ukraine war will be settled on the battlefield, Johnson insisted, and Europe is irrelevant. Europe is no longer the world’s center of science and industrial production—there is nothing that they can offer that other countries need. The Russians are sitting on the sofa with a big bag of popcorn, watching the U.S. and Europe quarrel.

Regarding Venezuela, he pointed out that it is three times the size of Vietnam; the U.S. does not have the military capability to invade and control it. “I have no idea why we have chosen Venezuela to be the so-called hill to die on.” The U.S. is not in a position to achieve its goals through the use of military force.

Dialogue

Zepp-LaRouche thanked Rachel Clark and insisted that we must somehow ensure that the true history of World War II is communicated to young people. Larry Johnson reminded the participants that Japan and Germany, which are now re-arming, were the axis powers in World War II. Our governments try to depict Russia and China as imperialist aggressor nations, but it is the West which has blood on its hands from innumerable conflicts it has initiated. Trump is boasting about his plan for “Trump-class” naval vessels, but he apparently hasn’t heard about hypersonic missiles. The U.S. Navy could not stand up to the Houthis—how can they challenge China?

Zepp-LaRouche said that she cannot accept the prospect that Germany will go down in history as a nation which “just couldn’t make it, like the Incas or the Mayans.” Larry Johnson said he had never seen such a disconnect between the wishes of the populace in Europe and the U.S., and what their leaders are doing.

Congressional candidate Jose Vega presented the video of his Dec. 23 intervention on Ritchie Torres, which has been seen by roughly 2 million people on assorted platforms. “These people are not authorities, they are clowns and should be addressed as such,” he said.
Open Discussion

Frequent IPC participant John Steinbach recalled his long-working relationship with Rachel Clark, and observed that Japan has one of the world’s largest stockpiles of plutonium and an “off the shelf” capability of building nuclear weapons in a relatively short interval of time. Clark proposed that port cities around the world collaborate to ban military vessels from their harbors if they are carrying nuclear weapons.

A question came in from an online viewer: “How do you end poverty under capitalism?” Zepp-LaRouche said that there is no poverty eradication program in either Europe or the U.S., as opposed to China, where it has been successful: In fact, China is responsible for 60% of poverty eradication worldwide. Later, co-moderator Dennis Small stressed that it is important to define what we mean by “capitalism.” Do we mean financier speculation, or do we mean the American System approach typified by Alexander Hamilton, which is very similar to what China is doing today?

Rachel Clark said that we should stigmatize those corporations that profit from war, and pressure companies like Raytheon or Lockheed Martin to retool for civilian production. Part of the enormous U.S. military budget should be diverted to enable high school students to visit the world outside the U.S., an invaluable educational experience.

Clark said this meeting gave her optimism and we must inspire younger generations to lead the fight for peace. Zepp-LaRouche recounted how she was shocked during her first visit to the U.S. at the way Germans were depicted in shows like “Hogan’s Heroes.” She proposed that we encourage a major project for young people to visit actual historical archives, rather than relying on the narrative factory in the popular media. We must persuade the citizens of our nations that they are responsible for changing the policies of their nations: “It is possible to defeat even the strongest arm of the tyrant, if they unite for a good plan.”