General

Report on IPC #128

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute and the initiator of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), opened the IPC’s 128th meeting by juxtaposing NATO and Ukraine’s increasingly reckless desperation—seen in a just-neutralized mad attempt to hijack a Russian MiG 31 fighter jet, and use it to bomb a NATO facility in Romania—with an exciting new potential, to secure a new security and development architecture that came together at the Schiller Institute’s Nov. 8-9 conference in Paris.

The situation, Zepp-LaRouche pointed out, is fraught with danger. Instead of minimizing tensions in the world, new hot spots are being created, such as in the Caribbean, in large part by new “options” and orders issued from the office of the American Secretary of War Pete Hegseth. An example of this was Hegseth’s announcement of “Operation Southern Spear” just before the IPC meeting commenced, claiming: “this mission defends our Homeland, removes narco-terrorists from our Hemisphere, and secures our Homeland from the drugs that are killing our people. The Western Hemisphere is America’s neighborhood—and we will protect it.” Zepp-LaRouche said that other speakers would address this crisis in more detail.

Zepp-LaRouche outlined the recent report issued by the Russian Security Service, which asserted that Ukraine and the U.K. attempted to hijack a fully-armed Russian jet fighter for a false-flag bombing operation intended to bring NATO directly into war against Russia. Ukraine’s defeat on the battlefield has led to this and other desperate efforts to keep the war going. Though there is war hysteria being fomented by governments across Europe, with military build-ups, and even a new military draft in Germany, the population is not in favor. Higher salaries and increased benefits are being offered to entice German youth to join the military, but this only enrages career officers and soldiers who are excluded from such offers.

The Coalition of the Willing is even considering the use of nuclear weapons, a position that has recently been supported by the Protestant Synod. Catholic Bishops and others, in contrast, are condemning the threat of the use of nuclear weapons; Pope Leo XIV is against even the possession of nuclear weapons. “Nuclear arms offend our shared humanity and also betray the dignity of creation, whose harmony we are called to safeguard,” he said in a statement issued Aug. 5 of this year. Catholic bishops in the Caribbean have also spoken out for dialogue, not violent confrontation; the bishops of the Antilles Episcopal Conference, representing 13 nations and several former British, French, and Dutch territories, voiced their concern about “the recent buildup of naval and other military assets in the Southern Caribbean.”

Zepp-LaRouche quickly reviewed several other global hot spots. Despite the ceasefire, the wanton killing in Gaza continues, and the shipments of food, medicine, and other basic goods are only 30% of the levels promised. Meanwhile, squatter-settler violence in the West Bank has only escalated. In Asia, tensions are growing between China and Japan after the recent comments by Japanese Prime Minister Takaichi about Taiwan, threatening to spiral out of control. And in the U.S., President Trump is surrounded by think tanks and advisors pushing for war, while at the same time he is confronted by crises in the economy and the financial bubble.

Zepp-LaRouche also reminded IPC participants about the 1983 Able Archer NATO exercises, which rehearsed a nuclear first-strike on the Soviet Union, bringing the world to the brink of an actual nuclear war. A recently-released 15 page appendix in a book truthfully documented this, and within a short period the appendix was redacted. The IPC must be solution-driven, as with the Ten Principles for a New Security and Development Architecture, and the Oasis Plan for Gaza and Southwest Asia. Zepp-LaRouche called on the IPC to use the call by fellow member Father Harry Bury, who has appealed to Pope Leo XIV to support the Oasis Plan. She also called on participants to explore and support Bury’s call for the canonization of the 15th-Century Cardinal, Nicholas of Cusa, and the exoneration of economist and statesman, Lyndon LaRouche.

Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst and founder of the Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity, began by remarking about the clarity, conciseness, and comprehensiveness of Zepp-LaRouche’s briefing. McGovern then encouraged everyone to buy a subscription to the Executive Intelligence Review (EIR), saying that “If you don’t get it, you don’t get it.” He brought up the recent interview given by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to the Italian newspaper, Corriere Della Sera. The publication decided not to publish the interview, blocking a very important discussion from the American and European public.

Lavrov had supplied an analysis of the breakdown of the process initially begun at the Alaska meeting between Trump and Putin, where both had called for cooperation. McGovern said that it was not clear why this cooperation had been sabotaged, but that Britain and the Financial Times were involved. Lavrov has said that Russia could work with the real Trump, but something is going on to prevent this, and in the meantime, communications have come to a halt. The Russians were expecting a meeting in Budapest, but everything was cancelled. Despite all of this, Russia is open to another meeting and is willing to deal with Trump. At the end of the Alaska meeting, Putin suggested another meeting in Moscow, but Trump never gave a direct answer, except to say that it would cause some “heat” for him.

McGovern also returned to the topic of the 1983 Able Archer crisis, with an “inside story.” Because others in the CIA refused to inform the White House of the seriousness of the situation, McGovern stated, then-CIA head William Casey had to go to the White House himself to brief the President that Able Archer was risking war and needed to be stopped. McGovern made clear that it was a human intervention that stopped that war danger, not a machine.

Former President of Guyana, Donald Ramotar, spoke next regarding the Venezuela crisis. While the conflict in the Caribbean is said to be based on drug trafficking, he began, we all know that this is not true. (President Ramotar was one of eleven former heads of state in the region who signed the recent “Statement for the Peace and Stability of Our Continent,” declaring that the region should be a zone of peace.) Trump is under massive pressure with respect to the Jeffrey Epstein documents, he said, and is surrounded by war hawks. Other factors affect the U.S. domestic front as well, such as the recent New York City elections.

President Ramotar also remarked on Gaza, saying that the United Nations must call for an election in Gaza, but that it cannot be like the 2006 election that was voided when Hamas won. McGovern thanked Ramotar for his point, explaining that it had been Sec. of State Condoleezza Rice who insisted on having the election in Gaza. Then, when Hamas won, she helped to cancel the results.

Co-moderator Dennis Small also commented on the post on X by Sec. of War Hegseth about the creation of Operation Southern Spear, justifying it as “our neighborhood.” The plan is to extend the anti-narcotics campaign to the entire hemisphere, Small said, but to leave Wall Street untouched. Mexico and other countries have already been threatened in this way. The real target, however, is not oil, but Brazil. The plan is to prevent Brazil from working with the BRICS, especially China. If this policy succeeds, it will create a massive refugee crisis, which Guyana, Colombia, and Brazil are already anticipating. McGovern said that this was an accurate assessment of the crisis.

Ramotar then added that in 1980, the Caricom [Caribbean Community] countries had signed an agreement with the U.S. to allow American military ships to stop and board suspected drug-trafficking boats for inspections; so, there is no need to attack ships at sea today. None of the boats which have been targeted by the U.S. could have survived the voyage all the way to U.S. shores, and none of the Trump Administration’s attempted justifications stand up to scrutiny.

The final main speaker was Dr. Gershon Baskin, an Israeli peace activist who played a lead role in the hostage negotiations. Speaking via pre-recorded video, Baskin said that ending the war in Gaza must come first. He gave Trump full credit for forcing Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to agree to the ceasefire. After Israel failed to assassinate Hamas leaders in the Doha attack, Arab friends told Trump that the attack proved that Netanyahu is “unhinged.” Baskin is hopeful that the situation can lead to success, as the U.S. is now building a military base near Gaza and has taken over the aid delivery. For the first time, U.S. diplomats met with Hamas negotiators. Baskin emphasized that the task now is to build a Palestinian leadership and Palestinian security forces.

Importantly, Dr. Baskin has called for regional economic development for Southwest Asia, and would like to see both the U.S. and China working together on this. He suggested that Qatar could be a facilitator between China and the U.S., but that barriers to this cooperation will have to be removed. The “coincidence of opposites,” looking for a higher truth, Baskin said, is the only way that two opposing forces could agree to work together at a higher level. He referenced the U.S. motto, “E pluribus unum” (from many, one) as an example of the principle.

Zepp-LaRouche, who had just spent an entire weekend in Paris discussing the “coincidence of opposites” as not only the proper method of thinking but also the method for diplomacy, pointed to the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) and China’s most recent Five-Year Plan. While the plan uses China’s phrases and terminology, the ideas in it, she said, cohere with the outlook formulated by her late husband Lyndon LaRouche, with an emphasis on scientific innovations, education, culture, and an understanding of their true history. China, in effect, is saying it wants to use the American System of economy! She contrasted this to the ongoing economic collapse of Germany, where one-third of Germany’s world famous machine-tool industry, the very heart of the German economy, is bankrupt.

Zepp-LaRouche also spoke about Cusa’s idea that the only legitimate government is one based on the principle of the consent of the governed. Leaders in the West no longer have the consent of the governed. The U.K.’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer has single-digit support percentages, and his counterparts in France and Germany have similarly low ratings. Therefore, the people themselves must take responsibility for self-government, and that is why what is happening among youth around the world, especially in the continent of Africa and among the BRICS nations, is so important.

The final speakers included youth activists from Europe, Mexico, and the U.S., who reported on the Schiller Institute’s Nov. 8-9 Paris conference and follow-up activities. (A full report on this will become available later.) They spoke of the upcoming Dec. 14 online youth conference (details to be released soon), and the Schiller Institute NYC Chorus musical event shortly thereafter. [eir]

Oct. 25, 2025 (EIRNS)—The 125th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on Friday, Oct. 24, was not the usual panel discussion, but instead a dialogue between Schiller Institute founder and IPC initiator Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Theodore Postol (U.S.), professor emeritus of Science, Technology and National Security at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Zepp-LaRouche began by describing the present strategic turmoil, where we are buffeted between hope and chaos. The Wall Street Journal said that the U.S. had given permission to Ukraine to use Tomahawk missiles to strike deep into Russia. U.S. President Donald Trump then denied the story, and Russian President Vladimir Putin warned that a Russian response would be serious, even overwhelming. There was also some confusion about the planned Trump-Putin summit in Budapest, which was on, then off again. Regarding Gaza, Zepp-LaRouche remarked, “The so-called peace deal does not seem to hold.” The Israeli Knesset voted to annex the West Bank, a repudiation of Palestinian statehood and an indication of Israeli obstruction to peace. The window of opportunity to stop World War III may be closing soon, she warned.

On the hopeful side, she reported on the Bering Strait Tunnel Project round-table discussion, which took place on Oct. 22, with experts on engineering, rail development, finance, and diplomacy from the U.S., Russia, Italy, and Germany.

Putin’s Leadership vs. German Lunacy

Zepp-LaRouche described Putin as “one whom one can only admire for his seemingly endless patience.” She charged that the “regime-change” people who want to get rid of “that thoughtful Putin” have not considered who would replace him, who would control Russia’s nuclear arsenal. Her sentiments were echoed by Postol, who said: “Whenever Putin shows restraint that saves humanity from catastrophe, they think it shows weakness on his part … he shows extraordinary ability to finesse these situations…. We can only be grateful that we did not have a Joe Biden equivalent in the Russian leadership.”

On the other hand, Zepp-LaRouche described how German Chancellor Friedrich Merz has shifted to an “idiotic” policy of “strategic uncertainty” regarding the deployment of Taurus missiles to Ukraine. To keep one’s opponent guessing is “really playing with fire,” she said. Postol added that he finds it hard to believe that anyone could have such a lack of grasp of history as to behave as Merz is behaving: “Germany is now being subjected to strategic deception by its political leadership and the American leadership.” Merz is lying when he says that the missiles deployed to Germany will not be nuclear armed. “The Russians will have no choice but to treat these weapons as nuclear armed,” Postol said. If they are conventional, they are meaningless. He compared this to the installations in Poland and Romania of defensive missiles that can quickly be converted to offense; the Russians do not have the luxury of speculating as to what the current status of those missiles may be. Merz’s approach will tremendously increase the likelihood that nuclear war will begin on German soil.

Teetering on the Brink of Nuclear War

Postol reported that there had been catastrophic events in the past few days, and that Trump’s statements and actions have seriously damaged the prospects for diplomatic progress. Putin has wisely offered to adhere to START provisions for a year while negotiations take place on renewing the treaty. However, due to Trump’s actions, “I think that Russia has now been put in a situation … where it really has no choice but to solve its security concerns on the battlefield in Ukraine.”

Postol, a leading expert on the consequences of the use of nuclear weapons, revisited some of the alarming material he has presented in past IPC meetings. “A nuclear war will effectively end modern civilization,” he said. “This is simply a fact of physics…. Fighting and winning a nuclear war is simply not technically feasible.” Statements by Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron and British Prime Minister Keir Starmer betray a deep ignorance of these facts.

Because of the extreme destructive effects of nuclear weapons, any nation that is attacked with them will be forced to respond with nuclear weapons in a desperate effort to save itself. Able Archer was a 1983 NATO military exercise, simulating a war with the Warsaw Pact, conducted with high-level participants, including then-U.S. Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger. By day five of the exercise, it had escalated to the hypothetical use of strategic nuclear weapons—and the U.S. and Soviet Union no longer existed.

Regarding the physical effects of the use of nuclear weapons, Postol said that most people imagine the main devastation to be the result of the shockwave, but that is just a secondary effect. Extraordinary damage is done by the initial fireball, which is much worse than the shockwave. The fireball would set fires over a vast area—approximately 600-700 square kilometers would be instantly ignited. Hurricane-force winds would be sucked into this area by upward convection, causing a gigantic firestorm, a fire tornado. Shelters would turn into ovens. Three-hundred-kph winds would accompany the shockwave that follows. Postol illustrated this very dramatically and passionately with historic images.

Europe’s War Dance

Zepp-LaRouche noted that Putin had changed Russia’s strategic doctrine one year ago, from a basic “no first use” doctrine to one under which Russia reserves the right to use nuclear weapons, when even a conventionally armed country backed by a nuclear power threatens the national existence of Russia. The previous doctrine was not sufficient to deter existential threats.

Postol commented on the rearmament drive from leading NATO nations: “As for all this talk about going to war with Russia, it’s almost laughable.” Russia clearly has no intention to invade Europe or occupy Ukraine. They have been forced to take action because of the behavior of the West. In January of 2022, then-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken told Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov that the U.S. reserved the right to put nuclear weapons in Ukraine. Why is anyone surprised that Russia then invaded Ukraine?

Zepp-LaRouche asked Postol for his take on the strident calls for a conventional arms buildup. Postol said that the collapse of the German economy is a direct result of the Ukraine war. When Biden blew up the Nord Stream pipeline, he did much more damage to Germany than to Russia. “Germany is in the process of deindustrializing,” but Merz is not concerned with that. He wants to divert limited funds away from the people of Germany to prepare for an unnecessary war with Russia. European leaders are so desperate to cover up their own responsibility for the economic collapse that they are willing to initiate a war with Russia.

Good and Evil

When the session was opened to questions, one person asked about the question of evil in strategic politics. Zepp-LaRouche stressed the tenth of her Ten Principles of a New International Security and Development Architecture, that man is basically good. She said that the origin of evil is the system of oligarchy. Friedrich Schiller said the most important requirement for humanity is Empfindungsvermögen (empathy). What good does it do you to have written on your tombstone that you owned 200 Porsches and ate kilotons of caviar? Hannah Arendt was not entirely wrong about the “banality of evil.”

Postol agreed that man is good, with some qualification. He said that man is also “cursed with animal instincts.” We need a world where reason can overwhelm our animal instincts. Unfortunately, he said, there are very few people in positions of power today who wish to do good. European leaders of today created the conditions which led to the Ukraine war. They lack the courage of a Nikita Khrushchev to admit it when they have made mistakes.

Conclusion

Zepp-LaRouche expressed her appreciation of Postol as a “voice of reason,” saying that if you don’t start with what Postol laid out about the reality of nuclear war, you will end up wrong. She encouraged all participants to redouble their efforts to halt the march toward nuclear war, before the window of opportunity closes forever. [eir]