General

Dec. 20, 2024 (EIRNS)—Opening today’s 81st consecutive online Friday weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche reminded participants that she warned that the period leading up to President-elect Donald Trump’s inauguration on January 20 could be the most dangerous period in human history—and that assessment has not changed. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is looking at the prospect of an early war against Iran, to confront Trump with a fait accompli. The truth about the sudden collapse of the Assad government in Syria is emerging: The British- and American-trained fighters of the Revolutionary Commando Army (RCA) had been told by U.S. Special Forces, this is your moment, get ready for the attack.

She underscored that the British and American sabotage of peace talks between Ukraine and Russia in the Spring of 2022, is now confirmed by Jean-Daniel Ruch, Switzerland’s Ambassador to Türkiye at the time. In the same vein, U.S. Defense Secretary Austin told the Ukrainians that it was too early to end the war; that it must be prolonged in order to weaken Russia.

Swiss Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard (ret.) , formerly senior planning officer for the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe’s Special Monitoring Mission (OSCE SMM) in 2014, reported that when Trump withdrew from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, Russia immediately began to work on what became the hypersonic IRBM Oreshnik. It was relatively inexpensive; it involved nothing revolutionary. They simply channeled existing efforts into making a new missile. However, to shoot down a hypersonic Oreshnik, which flies at Mach 10, one has to be close enough to intercept it in its boost phase. When it reaches its descent phase, it is moving far too fast. Even the European Parliament can’t change the laws of physics, no matter what EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen thinks. The Russians were thinking about non-nuclear strategic weapons in the 1980s, taking warnings of nuclear winter seriously, unlike USSTRATCOM Director for Plans and Policy Rear Admiral Thomas Buchanan, who explains his imagining what a winnable nuclear war looks like.

Steve Starr, former director of Missouri University’s Clinical Laboratory Science Program, discussed the recent assassination of Russian Gen.-Lt. Igor Kirillov, head of Chemical, Biological, and Nuclear Defense Troops of the Russian Armed Forces. The Anglophile media accused General Kirillov of disinformation regarding U.S. biolabs in Ukraine. He was providing factual information. The U.S. claims that these labs were for “biological threat reduction,” but pathogens produced there were not destroyed. They were purchasing long-range drones from Türkiye. Why would they need those, if not for the delivery of biological weapons? The U.S. Department of Defense has biolabs in 25 countries. They are conducting “research into biological warfare under the guise of health.”

Starr compared the Oreshnik system to ballistic missiles, which follow a parabolic trajectory through space. Hypersonic missiles, however, stay within the atmosphere. Russian hypersonic glide missiles, such as the Avangard, use magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generators to, in some way, annihilate shock waves and eliminate drag, making missiles maneuverable at hypersonic speeds. Starr concluded that no political goals are worth risking the destruction of the entire human race.

Zepp-LaRouche asked Starr to comment on the fact that Europeans are asking whether NATO war scenarios assume the destruction of Europe. Starr replied that during war games, there was a popular joke that German villages are 5 kilotons apart, adding that under present doctrines, there are incentives for launching a preemptive strike. Electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapons can fry all solid-state electronics, disabling all communications. Under such circumstances, it’s “use ’em or lose ’em.” Zepp-LaRouche responded, “If Europe wants to survive, should we get the hell out of NATO as soon as we can?” Starr responded, “Yes.”

Herman “Ka Mentong” Tiu Laurel, head of the Asian Century Journal in the Philippines, began with his long history of collaboration with the LaRouches. Before February of 2023, the Philippines was in good shape, enjoying productive engagement with China and the world. But the Bongbong Marcos team came in and stopped all development projects. Disputes with China, which were being addressed by dialogue, are now sparking armed clashes at sea. Laurel said, “There are still many Filipinos who do not accept the China Bully theory.”

In April 2024, the U.S. brought in missile launchers, ostensibly for an exercise. There was protest against this. The Armed Forces of the Philippines promised that they would be removed, but they are now accepted as permanent. Laurel’s organization works to counter the war drive. They have found 25 U.S. bases that are not identified as such, and need to be removed, so that the Philippines can be a sea of calm; of peace and prosperity.

Discussion

A question was asked of Starr: If a number of hypersonic Oreshniks and/or other weapons were combined, as Putin has noted, could it produce an effect similar to a nuclear explosion, but without using a nuclear weapon? Starr discussed some of the possible effects, then returned to the question of MHD, which could help develop fusion energy. But the French military said, “bombs first, energy later.”

A number of long-term activists presented reports on their organizing activity. Cloret Ferguson of the Schiller Institute described how she has been trying to broaden the network that is active with the IPC, including with an email campaign to “derail this deranged Admiral Buchanan.” Former congressional candidate Jose Vega was in the nation’s capital with former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter a couple of weeks ago, where he was told that the CIA had briefed congressional officials that Russia is not bluffing, but the corporate media has spun their reports to say the opposite. Vega is emphasizing that Congressmen should support H.R. 10218, to stop the shipment of ATACMS missiles to Ukraine. Gilles Gervais, from The LaRouche Organization in Canada, read from a letter he sent to the Canada-U.S. Intra-Parliamentary Group, telling them that the solution to border issues, tariffs and migration is to be found in the new Schiller Institute pamphlet, “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War”.

In response to a participant who argued that Buchanan’s first-strike policy has been in effect for decades, Zepp-LaRouche answered that that is true, but there are differences today in the world situation. Following the end of the Cold War, it would have been easy to dissolve NATO and go for a peace order. Instead, we got NATO expansion, more than 1,000 km eastward, then the Maidan coup in 2014 and the subsequent civil war in Ukraine which killed 14,000 in the Donbas. What we face now is not simply more of the same, but rather an escalation spiral. The population of Europe is “only slowly waking up,” unlike during the 1980s when hundreds of thousands were protesting in the streets.

She concluded, “If I may add a bit of optimistic outlook at the end of this discussion,” this is the time to call your elected officials. “Much of our democracies have been turned into plutocracies,” but you may find some officials who are still human, and civilization is at risk. Trump has hinted that he “might not be the kind NATO member that Biden was,” and we must act to ensure that is the case. She encouraged the participants to read up on the Peace of Westphalia, and her proposal for Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture. 

As a strategic intervention meant to knock the world off its current trajectory towards short-term military and economic Armageddon between two irreconcilable blocs—that of the bankrupt Western powers running the U.K, the U.S. and NATO, on the one hand; and that of the emerging Global Majority, including Russia and China, on the other—Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche commissioned a study that was released today under the title, “Development Drive Means Billions of New Jobs, No Refugees, No War.”

It makes the case that a solution to the current showdown is readily at hand if the nations of the West join with the BRICS grouping to ensure the rapid industrialization of the whole planet. It emphasizes that this approach also provides the only possible solution to the migrant crisis sweeping the Americas and Europe: Develop the impoverished nations of the South to productively employ their labor force at home.

The new pamphlet is also meant to organize for, and underscore the central themes of, the upcoming Dec. 7-8 Schiller Institute international online conference “In the Spirit of Schiller and Beethoven: All Men, Become Brethren!” It is there that the scientific breakthroughs of Lyndon LaRouche will be used as the touchstone for policy deliberation around the needed new international security and development architecture—to be organized along the lines proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s Ten Principles.

It is only four days since the Russian deployment of their new Oreshnik hypersonic missile system delivered a shock around the world, and the implications are still being digested in Western policymaking circles. Early indications, however, are that those circles have by and large not yet been jolted back into reality, and they continue to escalate the confrontation with Russia. France has doubled down on the policy of using their SCALP long-range missiles to strike deep into Russia from Ukrainian territory. The Baltic nations are joining Germany in becoming “war-ready” for a frontal confrontation with Russia. And the outgoing Biden administration is being deployed to lob political and economic hand grenades in all directions as they head for the exit, as can be seen in the Department of Justice’s “lawfare” attack on the Modi government in India.

Nor is the response to date from the incoming Trump administration particularly encouraging, as is reflected in the naming of Scott Bessent to be Treasury Secretary. Bessent is not only a Soros protégé going back decades, who reportedly played a leading role in Soros’s infamous speculative operation in 1992 which “broke the Bank of England,” but he is also being cultivated by the City of London and Wall Street as their inside man to control Trump and make sure he doesn’t do anything the bankers disapprove of. London’s The Economist wrote happily: “By eventually picking Mr. Bessent, Mr. Trump has sided with his instinct to keep the markets happy. His selection suggests that he really could be constrained by their reaction, at least when it comes to economic policy.”

It is precisely that “constraint” being imposed by the global mega-speculators that has to be broken, and replaced with Lyndon LaRouche’s science of physical economy, if we are to get Mankind off the trajectory towards thermonuclear extinction.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute and initiator of the International Peace Coalition, delivered the following opening remarks to her weekly webcast, in which she evaluated the world strategic situation in the aftermath of the Trump victory in the U.S. presidential election.

I think it’s definitely a moment of a break in a very tense strategic situation. Trump has promised to stop wars. Obviously, we have to see if the words are followed by deeds; but also Vance, his Vice President, said something similar. So, I would take the attitude that he’s a newly-elected President, and let’s see if he follows through with his promises.

Obviously, the key question is not only what he does inside the United States, but naturally the foreign policy is crucial. I think he will do something to bring the Ukraine war to an end; I think there is a potential for that, even if the Russians are very cautious, which is understandable given their point of view. But I think that potential exists. I am not so optimistic concerning Southwest Asia.

But I think the really crucial question is, what will be the attitude of the Trump administration to the efforts by the Global Majority to build a new economic system? I would just hope that there are enough voices internationally who show the potential. The initial reaction from the Chinese, from Mao Ning, the spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry, was that the Chinese position is basically one of offering win-win cooperation. Given the fact that Xi Jinping already several years ago had offered to Obama that the Obama administration should cooperate with the BRICS and the Belt and Road Initiative—to which Obama reacted very negatively by putting out the Pivot to Asia instead. But that offer obviously still exists, and given the fact that the countries of Hungary and Slovakia—who are very interested in ending the Ukraine war, because it’s a neighboring country and it’s a terrible thing to have such a war in their neighborhood—are also on a very positive course with China. I think there is a potential to end the Ukraine war, and to build bridges.

I think the countries of the Global South which have proven in Kazan that they are definitely determined to move in the direction of a more just and equitable new world economic order, I think they also will see the opportunity. I could very well imagine that many of them are reaching out to the new Trump government to see if a positive attitude can be arranged. Now, that may be as it may be.

I can only say that our task—that of the LaRouche Organization, the Schiller Institute—basically is that we have to use the moment to really catapult the world situation into a new paradigm; a new security and development architecture. I have said this repeatedly, and it’s more true now than ever before, that if we do not overcome geopolitics—which is the Wolfowitz doctrine, which is the idea that even demands that the U.S. should remain the hegemon of the world forever. But also geopolitics, which is the idea that one nation or a group of nations have the right to impose their interests over other nations. That thinking has to go, especially in the time of thermonuclear weapons. I think we have to really use this present situation to try to move out of this present extremely dangerous zone.

How dangerous it is, is underlined by the fact that just hours before the election result was known, the United States launched a Minuteman ICBM missile test, which is nuclear-capable, to demonstrate the nuclear readiness of the United States. I think this just shows you that the mindset of the present administration is still in the old paradigm; and that is exactly where the problem is located.

So, I think the next period will be extremely dangerous. I think that the period until the inauguration of Trump remains one of utmost suspense and danger, and naturally even beyond that. But I think if one can hope that what Trump said he will do—naturally one has to watch very carefully what Cabinet he is putting together. If it’s people who will insist, as Trump himself said during the election campaign, that he wants to split the relationship between Russia and China—which I think has zero chance of happening, given the fact that the reason why these two countries have moved together so closely has everything to with the strategic dangers. So, I don’t think there is any chance to split these two countries; but it would be very unfortunate if the message coming from the new Trump administration would be that he indeed wants to go in that direction.

If, on the other side, there is a concerted effort to try to move the world into a better place—and that’s what our upcoming Schiller conference is all about; to establish a new security and development architecture which takes into account the interests of every single country in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia — we are possibly on the verge of a completely new era. But it does require a lot of effort by a lot of people of good will.

So, I’m on the one side optimistic that something big can be done, but on the other side, it would be a fatal mistake to put down the alarms; because we are not out of the danger zone in the slightest. Therefore, I think it does still require a maximum mobilization of people who are fighting for peace.