Report on IPC #166
The 166th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) took place on August 7, 2026—81 years after the August 6th and 9th, days in 1945 when the world’s first use of nuclear weapons laid waste to Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan, killing at least 110,000 civilians, with many more dying later from the impact of the radiation. With the U.S. President Donald Trump Administration now openly “revising” its nuclear doctrine, making the use of nuclear weapons more likely in the proposed wars with Russia and China, the appropriate title of the event was “The Art of Reversing Our Criminal Course.”
Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the initiator of the IPC and the founder of the Schiller Institute, opened the event, noting that we are closer to a nuclear war than at any time in history, including the time of the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. She noted that there are no international arms control treaties left in existence; the international trust among nations and parties, even among so-called allies, has completely broken down and the old order no longer exists. In that context, for there to be a discussion by the so-called “U.S. Deputy Secretary of War” Elbridge Colby, as reported by NBC News, that the Pentagon is considering revising its nuclear doctrine to move away from deterrence towards nuclear war fighting—at a time when there are already two regional conflicts, in Ukraine and Southwest Asia, with the potential for the use of nuclear weapons and there is the rising danger that other nations may decide they need to acquire nuclear weapons—is incomprehensible! She noted that Iran has not only survived but defeated the most powerful military power in the world, the United States, which is backed by a strong military power, Israel. Despite Trump’s protests, the West is running out of munitions to fight forever wars. The signing of a military agreement between Saudi Arabia, Turkey (a member of NATO), and Pakistan (a nuclear power state) demonstrates the dramatic shifts taking place across the region. A new global architecture assuring both security and development for all nations is required, with justice for all, if these wars are to be stopped and no new wars are to be launched, she said.
Behind this crisis is the now over two quadrillion dollars in debt imposed on the trans-Atlantic economies, which is being addressed not by constructing a new system, but by returning to the methods of Hjalmar Schacht, Adolf Hitlerʼs president of the German Reichsbank and Minister of Economics from 1933 to 1937—diverting all available credit away from the real economy into military production and war-fighting. Underlying all of this is the Malthusian mentality of depopulation, as demonstrated by the recent call by the Sustainable Development Magazine calling for reducing the world’s population by half—to less than four billion by 2200.
The first speaker was Dr. Akiko Mikamo, the author of the book “8:15 A True Story of Survival and Forgiveness from Hiroshima,” now reprinted under the title “The Hiroshima Boy,” and producer of the documentary “8:15 Hiroshima, From Father to Daughter,” which describes in vivid detail the impact and the suffering of her father and mother, who were both in the death zone of the Hiroshima atomic bombing, but survived. She said that the annual event in Hiroshima commemorating the Aug 6, 1945 event this year saw 127 countries send representatives, while events were held around the world. She described the events, with pictures of the destruction of buildings and people. She said her father, Shinji Mikamo, refused to simply blame the United States, but blamed war. She closed by noting that people often respond to being harmed or being fearful, by striking out—which is also used to justify war. This is an endless cycle, she said, “which must be broken.”
Dr. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus of Science, Technology, and International Security at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a world expert on the impact of nuclear weapons, began by comparing Acting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Adolf Hitler near the end of World War II. He said, if Hitler had admitted defeat after Operation Bagration (June 1944)—when the Russian troops had destroyed within 3 weeks 28 of 32 German army divisions in Byelorussia and were at the Polish border, and it was clear that the war was over for Germany—the lives of 2-3 million Germans could have been spared. So, also with Zelenskyy today, who refuses to admit defeat.
On the proposed new U.S. nuclear doctrine, Dr. Postol said neither side could win a nuclear war, but could only unleash global destruction. He noted that he had warned that President Joe Biden’s administration had approved a few years ago the development of “super-fuses” for its “prompt strike” nuclear weapons, which by dramatically improving the targeting accuracy of the warheads, doubles the killing power per warhead against very hard targets—which, he said, would allow the use of lower yield nuclear warheads to destroy Russian nuclear missiles in their silos. The war hawks today may imagine the same now, but there is no such thing as a “tactical” nuclear weapon. He warns that many otherwise intelligent scientists don’t understand, and argue they can go ahead to “win” a nuclear war.
Dr. Postol added that proliferation is also a serious danger. Iran, he said, is being told by the United States openly that they are threatening to destroy Iran’s society and culture. In that light, Iran may believe that only building a nuclear weapon can prevent it. Iran is not likely to try, but they could build one if pressed to do so by upgrading their 60% enriched uranium. However, Iran could, with only its current armaments, virtually destroy the small state of Israel, and such an operation would leave Israel also in an existential crisis, which could lead to their own use of nuclear weapons.
Even the Saudis are worried about an Iranian bomb, while they also believe they can no longer rely on the United States to defend them, and are therefore reconsidering their own nuclear weapon plans. Acquisition of nuclear weapons may also be being considered by the Japanese, the South Koreans and Taiwan, Dr. Postol worried, due to their consideration of China’s nuclear weapons.
Helga responded that China is the only nation with a plan similar to her own Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture, referring to Chinaʼs Four Global Initiatives for development, security, civilization and governance.
Dr. Postol agreed. He also noted that the United States has had two presidents: Biden had essentially forced Russia to do what they did not want to do, in their attack on Ukraine, and Trump who started (together with Israel) an unprovoked war of aggression against Iran. We should be thankful, he said, that, like Chinese President Xi Jinping, Russian President Vladimir Putin is rational, which is our best hope that neither would use nuclear weapons.
Moderator Dennis Speed asked Dr. Postol about the 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey, which concluded that Japan would have surrendered even if the U.S. had not dropped the bomb, even if Russia had not threated to enter the war against Japan, and even if the U.S. had not threatened to invade.
Dr. Postol said that he believed the United States was planning to invade, estimating that millions of Americans and many millions of Japanese would die, and thus they decided to drop the bomb, believing that would save more lives that they would through an invasion. He added that whether it was right or wrong, it was done, and the horror of the result must serve to help prevent it even happening again.
This provoked a discussion amongst the participants, in particular from Zepp-LaRouche on the absolute lack of needed use of nuclear weapons, as Japan was prepared to surrender. Further discussion will be had.
John Steinbach, of the Washington based Hiroshima and Nagasaki Committee described the makeup of the 1946 U.S. Strategic Bombing Survey as essentially being the view of the Joint Chiefs of Staff—which included many members who were against the use of the bomb. But, Hap Arnold, who Steinbach said was an asset of President Truman, and was the only one in favor of using the bomb, won the argument. He also described the process by which scientists Albert Einstein and Leo Szilard approached Franklin Roosevelt explaining to him that a nuclear weapon was possible with the newly discovered principles of nuclear technology, and that Germany was trying to build such a device, and that the Manhattan Project to build the atomic bomb was necessary. However, when it was discovered that the Germans were not able to do this, rather than dropping the project, the target was switched to Japan.
Jack Gilroy described the open letter he and the IPC and the Schiller Institute had prepared to send to Archbishop John Wester, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, To Urge Pope Leo XIV to Call for a Peace Conference, as Pope John XXIII had done in 1962 at the urging of President John Kennedy and his associates to stop the Cuban Missile Crisis. Gilroy called on the moderator Anastasia Battle to read the letter, which she did.
The discussion period was based on a letter sent in by Sister Paz (“peace” in Spanish), a nun in Spain, about how to deal with the darkness coming from the financial and military oligarchy, suggesting that only the Infinite can answer that question. John Steinbach and Dr. Postol basically said “Amen.” Helga Zepp LaRouche called for the letter drafted by Jack Gilroy to the Pope to serve as a rallying point for people worldwide to focus attention on both the danger and the solution, to follow the lead of Mahatma Ghandi, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., and Nelson Mandela, and act Imago viva Dei.
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