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Helga Zepp-LaRouche

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Helga Zepp-LaRouche & Chas Freeman: What is Going On in Germany? April 17, 11am Eastern

Helga Zepp-LaRouche will discuss on Thursday, April 17, 11am Eastern / 5pm CET with Ambassador Chas Freeman the question of What is Going On in Germany?

Helga Zepp-LaRouche writes in her recent article “Trade War, Rearmament, World War? Or a New Security Architecture?”  – for distribution during the Easter Marches in Germany- that even before the lates aggravation of the strategic situation through the “tariff war”, “we here in Germany were preparing for war. We are told that because of the “unprovoked Russian war of aggression,” we must become “ready for war,” that Russia will attack Germany and other European nations militarily by 2029 at the latest, so we have to invest hundreds of billions of euros in armament, the German Army is going into schools to recruit, and the Interior Ministry says school children should be trained in war preparedness. A certain Lieutenant General Andre Bodemann explains, in respect to “Operation Plan Germany,” that people will soon have to get used to seeing the transport of many dead and injured in the streets again, Volkswagen is once again producing armaments which are to be used against Russia again. The whole world is looking at Germany in horror, wondering how this is possible, given our country’s history. How on earth did we get to this point just 35 years after the peaceful revolution in East Germany and German reunification?”

Zepp-LaRouche continues to pose the essential question:

“If Trump, regardless of his tariff policy, is now attempting to end this war and thereby the deaths in Ukraine, shouldn’t Germany and Europe support this 100% instead of wanting to continue the war in a “Coalition of the Willing”?”

She concludes by stating, that: “So what can be done? In such a dual existential crisis—the threat of financial collapse and the danger of war—band-aids will not help. We need a completely new paradigm in international relations, a return to diplomacy as a means of conflict resolution, and the overcoming of geopolitics by focusing on the common interests of mankind.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche will discuss on Thursday, April 17, 11am Eastern / 5pm CET with Ambassador Chas Freeman the question of What is Going On in Germany?

Ambassador Freeman has an extensive career in U.S. foreign policy includes his role as interpreter for President Richard Nixon in his famous 1972 visit to China. He did the legal analysis that inspired the Taiwan Relations Act of 1979 and was Country Director for China, Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for African affairs, and Assistant Secretary of Defense. He served abroad in India and Taiwan, and as Deputy Chief of Mission at the U.S. Embassies in China and Thailand. He was U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1990-1991 war to liberate Kuwait. He edited the Encyclopedia Britannica article on Diplomacy, and is the author of several books on statecraft as well as on Middle East and Asian policy.

Amb. Freeman has given interviews to the Schiller Institute and EIR, participated in conferences of the Schiller Institute and addressed meetings of the International Peace Coalition.


Zepp-LaRouche: ‘Trade War, Rearmament, World War? Or a New Security Architecture?’

The following article by Helga Zepp-LaRouche will appear in the upcoming issue of the German weekly newspaper, Neues Solidarität. It is translated by EIR.

By Helga Zepp-LaRouche

By unilaterally imposing tariffs on the entire world, then “pausing” them, then raising the tariffs on China to 145%, United States President Donald Trump did not cause, but he did trigger, a process that could lead in the relatively short term to the disintegration of the global financial system, which is already on the verge of collapse. This escalation is moving toward “uncharted waters” and risks leading to an “outright financial war,” according to the global head of foreign exchange research at Deutsche Bank, George Saravelos. As a result, a systemic crisis of the global financial system threatens, with the acute danger that the existing flash points of war could escalate up to a Third World War!

But even before this latest aggravation of the strategic situation, we here in Germany were preparing for war. We are told that because of the “unprovoked Russian war of aggression,” we must become “ready for war,” that Russia will attack Germany and other European nations militarily by 2029 at the latest, so we have to invest hundreds of billions of euros in armament, the German Army is going into schools to recruit, and the Interior Ministry says school children should be trained in war preparedness. A certain Lieutenant General Andre Bodemann explains, in respect to “Operation Plan Germany,” that people will soon have to get used to seeing the transport of many dead and injured in the streets again, Volkswagen is once again producing armaments which are to be used against Russia again. The whole world is looking at Germany in horror, wondering how this is possible, given our country’s history. How on earth did we get to this point just 35 years after the peaceful revolution in East Germany and German reunification?

The great historic opportunity of Germany and the world to use the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the subsequent end of the Cold War to establish a peace order for the 21st Century was missed. While the Russian leadership agreed to the reunification of Germany and its membership of NATO, very generously so in the light of German history, the neocons in Washington and London were already scheming to establish a unipolar world.

Declassified U.S, Russian, German, British and French documents, now available in the U.S. National Archives, State Department, Pentagon, presidential libraries and various national archives and university libraries, prove that a deluge of promises against NATO expansion eastward was made to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze, by Baker, Bush, Genscher, Kohl, Gates, Mitterrand, Thatcher, Hurd, Major, and Woerner. These documents show clearly that the Russian complaints about having been deceived are absolutely justified. Former CIA Director Robert Gates admits unequivocally that Gorbachev and others were deliberately led to believe that NATO would not expand to the East.

Was the sixfold eastward expansion of NATO and the deployment of offensive weapons systems on Russia’s border, which means a de facto reverse Cuban Missile Crisis for Russia, not a provocation? And now, on March 31, the New York Times published a 13,000-word article on the results of a year-long investigation based on 300 interviews, that documents that the U.S. was commanding the Ukraine war out of the Clay Barracks in Wiesbaden since mid-April 2022 at the latest. Does this not fully confirm that this is a classic proxy war between the U.S. and Russia? Military experts from many countries have convincingly demonstrated that Russia has neither the intention nor the personnel and military capacity for a war of aggression against Europe.

If Trump, regardless of his tariff policy, is now attempting to end this war and thereby the deaths in Ukraine, shouldn’t Germany and Europe support this 100% instead of wanting to continue the war in a “Coalition of the Willing”?

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants an EU military budget of €800 billion. Incoming German Chancellor Friedrich Merz broke his campaign promise immediately after his election, pushed through an amendment to the Basic Law and will implement a military budget of €400 billion to begin with, but potentially with no upper limit. This gigantic militarization will also result in enormous cuts in social expenses. For that, German depositors are to be persuaded to invest their savings in armament bonds—a form of modern Mefo bills. Given Trump’s tariff policy which threatens to involuntarily “unwind” the entire financial system with its bubble of $2 quadrillion of outstanding derivative contracts, even such plunder would be like leaves swept away in the wind. If there is one thing we can learn from history, it is the certainty that at the end of such rearmament frenzies comes war, always along the motto: First they want your money, then they want your children.

In the short term, if Trump sticks to his tariff war, there will be a wave of bankruptcies in the countries of the Global South, and among U.S. companies and farmers, as well as a rise in inflation and the ensuing private bankruptcies, while owners of U.S. Treasuries could be forced to convert them into hundred-year bonds, as Trump economic adviser Steve Miran suggests. It could also be called expropriation.

So what can be done? In such a dual existential crisis—the threat of financial collapse and the danger of war—band-aids will not help. We need a completely new paradigm in international relations, a return to diplomacy as a means of conflict resolution, and the overcoming of geopolitics by focusing on the common interests of mankind.

1. Germany and the other European nations must organize for an international conference to be put on the agenda immediately to resolve to create a new global security and development architecture. This conference must first agree on common principles as laid out in the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence and the UN Charter. In this spirit, a new Bretton Woods system must then be created, which above all overcomes the underdevelopment of the countries of the Global South through a fair credit system.

2. A banking system in the tradition of the Glass-Steagall Act, as introduced by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933, must guarantee the continuous service of industry, agriculture and trade. Credit creation must be brought under the control of sovereign governments through the creation of national banks. In Germany, the Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau after the Second World War can be a reference point.

3. This conference must then put an end to all wars in the world, in the spirit of the principles of the Peace of Westphalia, and launch the reconstruction of the former war zones through a just post-war order.

4. New arms control treaties must be negotiated immediately, and an extensive conversion of the industrial capacities of the military-industrial complex into useful industrial production must begin.

5. The common challenges for mankind, such as overcoming hunger and poverty, creating a modern health system for all nations, universal education for all people and other existential issues must be solved in cooperation with the BRICS states and nations of the Global South.

6. This conference takes on the goal of promoting a dialogue among cultures based on the fact that mankind’s identity is our common ability to reason, which enables us to always find a solution to all problems on a higher level than the one on which they originated.

Therefore, take these calls to action:

Join the International Peace Coalition, which has been holding a Zoom conference every Friday at 17:00 hours (CET) / 11am Eastern for 97 weeks!

Take part in all Easter marches and peace demonstrations!

Don’t leave our future in the hands of the warmongers!


Zepp-LaRouche’s CGTN Article Presents Alternative to Trump’s Tariffs

China’s CGTN today published an article by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, “What Could U.S. Tariff Policy Lead To?” in which she described what an alternative should be to Donald Trump’s import tariffs.

Quoting from the White House statement on tariffs, Zepp-LaRouche wrote that it “lumps together very different cases. While China has lifted nearly 850 million of its own citizens out of poverty, eradicated absolute poverty, created a middle-income group of 400 million people with an enormous purchasing power, and beyond that, become the engine of development for the Global South, the situation for Germany is quite different.

“The introduction of the eurozone in 1999 was criticized heavily at the time because it integrated very differently developed economies into one currency zone, which was not an ‘optimal currency zone.’ When Gerhard Schröder implemented ‘Agenda 2010,’ a series of reforms, as the German chancellor in the early 2000s, it did suppress domestic wages, and in that way increased the competitiveness of the German economy relative to the less industrialized countries of the eurozone. It increased the weight of the German economy at the expense of the other European countries, since they could not devalue their currencies anymore.

“As a result, Germany became the ‘export world champion’ for a while, but many domestic investments, such as renewal of basic infrastructure, were neglected, and the buying power of the domestic market was relatively weakened. Naturally all of this was overshadowed by subsequent developments, such as the loss of access to cheap Russian gas, and the loss of the Russian market for geopolitical reasons. Theoretically, the Trump tariffs could be a wake-up call for Germany to put its own house in order.”

Globalization and outsourcing had a similar impact in the U.S., and Trump wants to reverse this, but instead of listening to his free-market ideologues, he should “return to sound physical economy principles: investment in scientific and technological progress, international space cooperation and innovation in general. That means the education systems of the U.S. and European nations have to be reorganized to serve this orientation, and incentives have to be given to train a highly skilled labor force for this purpose.”

The alternative to unilateral actions to destroy the old order “is a cooperative approach, where real development perspectives for Africa, Asia, the Americas and Europe are put on the agenda for joint ventures and cooperative investments in infrastructure, industry, agriculture, science, health and education systems, financed through productive credits.

“The trade imbalances will be removed by making the pie bigger, taking into account the different characteristics and levels of development of the individual economies in a fair division of labor. ‘Humanity first’ will lead to a win-win outcome for everyone.”


Ambassador Jack Matlock Discusses the Strategic Crisis with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, April 9, 11 am Eastern/ 5pm CET

Join Ambassador Jack Matlock and Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in their live discussion, April 9, 11 am EDT / 5 PM CET Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org

Helga Zepp-LaRouche will be speaking with the former U.S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, Jack Matlock. Ambassador Matlock was a career Foreign Service officer, serving as the U.S. Ambassador to Moscow during the turbulent years of 1987 to 1991, which preceded the peaceful dissolution of the Soviet Union. From that vantage point, he has special insights into U.S.-Russian relations, including the prospect for normalization of relations today, after the breakdown during the Biden years.

Join Ambassador Jack Matlock and Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche in their live discussion, April 9, 11 am EDT / 5 PM CET Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Peace without Visions Does Not Work

April 4, 2025 (EIRNS)—Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche addressed the Swedish Schiller Institute annual conference on Sunday, March 30, 2025.

Read Transcript


Live with Helga Zepp-LaRouche: Stop Rearmament, Defuse the Debt Bomb, April 2nd, 11 am EDT/5 pm CET

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue to discuss the mobilization to end the ‘Special Relationship’ in celebration of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Republic. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org

March 31, 2025 (EIRNS)—There is a grave escalation of the threat of direct military strikes and warfare against Iran by the United States, with involvement of Britain. Terrible in its implications of needless death and havoc spreading throughout the region, it is part of the effort to stop the renewed diplomatic relations between the United States and Russia, whose potential cannot only resolve the Ukraine crisis, but that of other conflicted areas, even the current horrors in Western Asia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute leader, spoke of these developments today as the darkening of “the clouds of war.” She warned against this escalation, heading toward havoc across the region, and also pointed out the larger context and implications.

Confrontation with Iran is one of the traps set for President Trump to spring, intended to take down key figures in his new government, and most importantly end the world-important normalization of U.S.-Russia relations, which he has begun. SignalGate is being used for this purpose.

The British-French Coalition of the Willing, the EU ReArm Europe and EU “Reassurance Force” for Ukraine can be seen as ludicrous, except they are deadly. The militarization demand they are pushing is, in actuality, another financial bubble, the terminal bubble in the sequence of bubbles, following on the global “Green” fraud, also pushed by the political-financial centers of the City of London, Wall Street, and satellites. The war economy bubble is untenable. As for the leading figures of Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron, and others, they are toy soldier Napoleons—but playing with nuclear fire. Rallies and voices are rising against them in Europe.

As this kind of call to action reverberates across the trans-Atlantic, we also see the response of those cornered: They perpetrate intimidating and illegal actions to squash opposition. In France today, judges handed down a ruling that prevents political activity by Marie Le Pen, of the sizable Rassemblement National (National Rally) party, for five years. Moreover, this action against her lifts the gate for another political figure to make gains, who has aligned himself with all that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is doing. In the other “democracies” across Europe there are similarly blatant interventions, as we have seen in Romania.

Find out more, and what can be done at this Friday, April 4th weekly meeting, the 96th, of the International Peace Coalition.

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue to discuss the mobilization to end the ‘Special Relationship’ in celebration of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Republic. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Live Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche: The LaRouche Plan for Peace and Prosperity (March 26, Noon EDT, 5pm CET)

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue and send your questions, comments and organizing reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org

Discussion between the U.S. and Russia, as led by Presidents Trump and Putin, has walked the world back from the brink of immediate nuclear confrontation, and toward normalized relations between the world’s two largest nuclear powers—an indispensable condition for any viable and peaceful future of mankind as a whole. Within that, negotiations are proceeding toward a resolution to the conflict in Ukraine, likely, according to several sources that include U.S. special envoy Steve Witkoff, to involve new elections in Ukraine.

On the other hand, the situation in Southwest Asia hangs by a very thin thread, as Gaza has once again, and with the apparent approval of President Trump, been turned into a genocidal war zone under Israeli assault. Along with the resumption of direct military attacks, supplies to Gaza have been completely cut off, and food, fuel, and medical supplies are quickly dwindling. Catastrophic injuries and deaths are once again beginning to pile up, mostly among children, women, and the elderly.

The claim is that perhaps now Hamas will be willing to accept the terms offered, with nary a mention made that it was Netanyahu’s Israel which broke the ceasefire deal by refusing to negotiate the promised Phase 2. However, the historical dynamics operating under the surface, those behind Netanyahu in Israel, the transatlantic military industrial complex, and beyond to the historic British and U.S. intelligence role in the manipulating conflicts in the region, tell a more complex tale that can’t be addressed by reacting to mere events.

Not only does the conflict in Southwest Asia not have a purely local cause, but it cannot be solved with a purely local solution. The only viable approach is that called for by Helga Zepp-LaRouche: We must now form a new, global security and development architecture that takes into account the interests of all countries.

For someone who thinks the diseased thoughts of geopolitics, that all nations must secure their interests against those of all other nations, such a new system would never work; for someone who thinks the thoughts of a creative human being, such a proposed system is the natural, next evolutionary step of human society, as we overturn geopolitics and adopt a new way of thinking about human relations which puts the interests of humanity as a whole first.

An example of this principle in practice is the LaRouche proposal of the Oasis Plan for Southwest Asia. This plan was presented on March 18 by President of Solidarité & Progrès Jacques Cheminade to a meeting of the Académie de Géopolitique de Paris, at which he rightfully asserted that “there is no other choice than a win-win agreement for the people if we truly want to achieve peace. Only a dynamic of mutual development can escape a dynamic of war. This is the Oasis Plan method…. It has characteristics specific to this region of the world, but to ensure its lasting success, it must be situated within the context of an international architecture of mutual peace and security, beyond this region. The only war worth winning is the war against the desert.”

Peace in one part of the world must lead to peace in all parts of the world. Though the situation with regards to the war in Ukraine is hopeful, we must act rapidly to ensure that triggers aren’t pulled somewhere else to blow up the situation. All concerned citizens of the world must do their part to make the dynamic of peace, as exemplified by the Oasis Plan, the agreed-upon basis of a new world system. Until then, our job is not done.

Take Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s remark to the 94th meeting of the International Peace Coalition as a mission statement: “It is my deepest belief that only by changing the paradigm completely can we avoid a catastrophe.”

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue and send your questions, comments and organizing reports to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Live Podcast with Larry Johnson and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, March 19, Noon EDT, 5pm CET

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Larry Johnson in their discussion. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Schiller Institute leader Helga Zepp-LaRouche summarized the current strategic situation on Monday, as running along on “two tracks”:
First, the track leading potentially to a positive resolution in Ukraine, with benefit for other zones of conflict; and the second track, of war preparation madness, leading to doom.

Zepp-LaRouche invited former CIA officer and intelligence analyst Larry Johnson to discuss the quickly changing and developing geopolitical situation in the wake of the phone call between US President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin. Other topics that will be discussed include Johnson’s trip to Russia with fellow journalists Judge Napolitano and Mario Nawfal to interview Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and the vote in the German Parliament for a change in the constitution to finance the ‘war economy’ in order to further the (nuclear) confrontation with Russia.



Larry C. Johnson is a former CIA officer and intelligence analyst, and former planner and advisor at the US State Department’s Office of Counter Terrorism. As an independent contractor, he has provided training for the US Military’s Special Operations community for 24 years. Since its founding in 1998, Larry has been managing partner of BERG (Business Exposure Reduction Group) Associates LLC, which specializes in investigating money laundering and counterfeit products, as well as providing financial analysis and counter terror strategy. Larry was a frequent guest on all major US networks from the 1990s to the late 2000s, but made the “mistake” of consistently offering candid insights and honest assessments, without deferring to establishment bias. As waging “Forever Wars” became the singular policy objective of 90% of the nation’s elected officials, and of the entire media, those voices offering independent and unbiased analysis were relegated to the wilderness, Larry’s along with them. Vilified by the establishment right, left and center, Larry must be doing something right. His take on global security, intelligence and geopolitics is regularly sought by businesses, by non-mainstream media, and by an organic and growing online cooperative of non-partisan dissident journalism and commentary. In 2024, Larry addressed the United Nations Security Council, and attended the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF). He appears regularly on various news sites, video blogs and independent online channels, including Sputnik, RT, Judging Freedom, Redacted and The Duran, among many others.

Petition: Instead of Rearming for the Great War, We Need to Create a Global Security Architecture!

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche and Larry Johnson in their discussion. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Stand Up for Principle: Intervene To ‘Create a Global Security Architecture!’, Live with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, March 12, Noon EDT

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue to discuss the mobilization to end the ‘Special Relationship’ in celebration of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Republic. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org

March 10, 2025 (EIRNS)—Changes in all directions are occurring by the day in the world strategic situation, and in people’s everyday lives. One historic pattern to be reckoned with, is the U.S.-Europe hostility. The dramatic feature of this is the mad rush in Europe for militarization—perpetrated in the name of defending Ukraine, and preparing to defend against war from Russia.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and leader, noting this today, called the U.S.-Europe breach “worrisome and dangerous.” But she spoke not from the standpoint of recommending returning to the conformity among the nations on both sides of the Atlantic, which has gone on for decades, under horrible British geopolitics. She spoke today from the vantage point of ending that for good. On March 8, Zepp-LaRouche issued a statement of principle and action through the Schiller Institute titled, “Instead of Rearming for the Great War, We Need To Create a Global Security.” Her appeal warns the nations of Europe that “they are making a catastrophic historical mistake. If they then also attempt to finance the enormous lack of military capabilities by creating money outside the regular budgets, they are repeating German Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht’s policy of Mefo bills from the 1930s.”

Zepp-LaRouche’s statement concluded with eight points for action, beginning: “We call on European politicians to come to their senses! Do not repeat the mistakes of the 1930s!”

European circles on the warpath exceed even the wildest science and sociological fiction. Tomorrow in Strasbourg, EU functionaries Ursula von der Leyen, European Union Commission President, and Antonio Costa, European Council President, are to meet with the European Parliament to attempt to cheer them on for the mad EU “Rearm Europe” plan, mandating $860 billion in new arms funding, for Europe and Ukraine, to stand up against Russia. On March 20-21 the leaders of 27 EU countries are to have their second meeting on this multi-billion euro commitment in Brussels, likely with Volodymyr Zelenskyy on hand, Acting President of Ukraine.

This flight forward occurs at the very same time as the breakdown of Ukraine forces in the field is worsening rapidly. In its Kursk region, Russian forces have encircled some 6-10,000 Ukrainian incursion soldiers in a “cauldron” at Sudzha. The Russians conducted a surprise move to enter through nine miles of empty underground gas pipelines.

A meeting will take place tomorrow, March 11, in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, between Ukrainian and U.S. delegations. U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio leads the Americans. Acting Ukrainian President Zelenskyy will be accompanied by Andriy Yermak, head of the Office of the Presidency.

The Schiller Institute posting of the Zepp-LaRouche March 8 “Global Security Architecture” statement, has a signature page for endorsements, and also welcomes any and all other initiatives acting in the same spirit and principles. For example, on March 9 in France, a statement was issued by former military officers and by sovereignists, opposing the extending and sharing of the French nuclear force, which French President Emmanuel Macron is proposing. Their statement is titled, “Nuclear Deterrence, in Essence, Is the Expression of a National Will and Cannot Be Shared.”

The Schiller Institute posting introduces Mrs. LaRouche’s statement as, “for immediate and widespread international circulation. It is being issued at a time when Europe is at an historic crossroads, where a different alternative must be urgently put on the table if a catastrophe is to be avoided. We encourage signatures of endorsement from all walks of life to force this issue out into the public debate as quickly as possible.”

Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche in her weekly live dialogue to discuss the mobilization to end the ‘Special Relationship’ in celebration of the upcoming 250th anniversary of the Republic. Send your questions to questions@schillerinstitute.org


Instead of Rearming for the Great War, We Need to Create a Global Security Architecture! – by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The following statement was issued March 8 by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, for immediate and widespread international circulation and endorsement. It is being issued at a time when Europe is at an historic crossroads, where a different alternative must be urgently put on the table if a catastrophe is to be avoided. We encourage signatures of endorsement from all walks of life to force this issue out into the public debate as quickly as possible.

The European Union (EU) and most European governments are in the grips of a war hysteria that can only be compared to the warmongering madness that broke out before World War One. Astronomical sums are slated to be spent on rearmament: European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen wants to invest €800 billion(!) in the “Rearm Europe” plan, but by invoking Article 122 of the EU’s Lisbon Treaty to bypass the European Parliament. The likely next German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, who had promised before the [Feb. 23] election that the CDU would not touch the debt brake, now says the exact opposite after the election: he proposes, to begin with, €400 billion(!) for arms buildup, and €500 billion for “infrastructure,” which will largely serve military purposes, but without setting an upper limit (!) for military spending—“Whatever it takes!” as Merz put it. Those are the infamous words Mario Draghi used during the euro crisis to signify that all the money floodgates should be opened. And this at a time when the German physical economy is in free fall, when some European countries are being crushed by gigantic mountains of debt and Europe has already been largely left behind economically.

And why such a sudden fantastic increase in money, as if there were no tomorrow? U.S. President Donald Trump is talking to Russian President Vladimir Putin and wants to bring the Ukraine war, which has long been lost militarily, to an end through negotiation, and thus end the horrific dying of Ukrainians and Russians. At the same time, Trump is pulling the world back from the brink of a thermonuclear world war, from which we were only a hair’s breadth away due to the escalation of the previous U.S. administration.

But rather than congratulating Trump and supporting him, the European Union—which was, after all, the winner of the 2012 Nobel Peace Prize—as well as UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer, French President Emmanuel Macron and Merz are attempting to continue the war in Ukraine “to the last Ukrainian,” even though experts estimate that it has already taken the lives of over one million Ukrainians and around 300,000 Russians.

The Europeans are thus attempting a repeat of the sabotage with which UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson torpedoed the Istanbul agreement between Putin and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in March 2022, which could have ended the war after a few weeks, and so is responsible for all the deaths since then.

At the same time, different secret services in Sweden, Denmark, Germany, etc. are producing forecasts that say Russia will allegedly have built up its military capabilities to such a point by 2029-30 that it will then be able to attack one or more other EU states. This is a purely geopolitically motivated assertion for which there is no evidence whatsoever, but which could turn out to happen if Europe continues to focus on confrontation, on the motto: “What I shout into the forest, will come back as an echo.”

Various institutes, such as the Kiel Institute for the World Economy, point out that neither the German Bundeswehr, nor the British or French armed forces are even remotely capable of engaging in a direct confrontation with the world’s strongest nuclear power—Russia. The Kiel Institute warned, for example, that at current procurement rates, it would take the Bundeswehr up to 100 years to reach the level of its 2004 stocks. The British Army has just 219 tanks, while Russia produces over 1000 per year. The British Royal Air Force has just 173 combat aircraft! Italy has an impressive 150 main battle tanks! Macron’s offer to use French nuclear weapons as a nuclear umbrella for the whole of Europe should be seen as a provocation of Russia more than as actual protection.

Tom Harrington, Professor Emeritus at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut, aptly summed up the reaction of Europeans: “If you are a chihuahua and you play a Doberman for many years on TV, you can forget that you’re actually a chihuahua. That can lead to much delusion when the director calls off the production.”

If the EU and the individual European member states now sabotage Trump’s intention to end, together with Russia, the Ukraine war which was a proxy war between the U.S. and Russia from the beginning, then they are making a catastrophic historical mistake. If they then also attempt to finance the enormous lack of military capabilities by creating money outside the regular budgets, they are repeating German Reichsbank President Hjalmar Schacht’s policy of Mefo bills from the 1930s. At that point, the great war with Russia and with all the countries with which Russia is in a strategic partnership would become a self-fulfilling prophecy!

The European establishments have so far failed to reflect on their own strategic mistakes of recent decades, which have led to the current situation so unpleasant for them. Instead of seizing the great historic opportunity presented by the fall of the Berlin Wall and German reunification to establish a peace order that was absolutely possible at the time, all of Europe ended up following the policies of the Anglo-American neocons. Instead of dissolving NATO together with the Warsaw Pact in 1991, the West broke all the promises it had made to Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev and expanded NATO no less than six times—by a total of 1000 kilometers—up to the borders of Russia, thus creating the conditions for a reverse Cuban missile crisis. In addition, the policy of sanctions, regime change and interventionist wars, especially in Southwest Asia, created an enormous backlash throughout the Global South.

But the European establishments have so far been incapable of reflecting on their mistakes out of the obvious fear that it will profit their critics. Faced with the choice of joining Trump’s new U.S. peace policy, they are aligning behind the British policy—and thus the country leading the war policy!

Clearly, the European pro-Atlantic establishments have still not realized that the historical momentum has already shifted massively to Asia. Several nations there have growth rates that the European economy can only dream of. The economic success of China is due to its economic policy, which gives the priority to investment in infrastructure, the real economy, innovation, excellence in education and increased productivity through investment in cutting-edge technologies.

China’s trading partners benefit from this policy, which is based on win-win cooperation, as it is also economically beneficial for China. Organizations such as the BRICS, which now has 19 members and partners and many more hoping to join, as well as ASEAN, SCO, EAEU and others, now represent an attractive alternative to the unipolar “rules-based” order based purely on military alliances and geopolitical interests. Above all, it is by now well known that the application of these “rules” is a highly arbitrary matter.

Europe has reacted to Trump’s sudden signals for an end to the Ukraine war and a resumption of diplomacy with Russia with great panic—and cries for war. But there is still time to correct this potentially fatal course. If Europe wants to overcome its current economic misery, the way out lies in cooperation with the nations of the Global South, which has long since become the Global Majority.

Humanity has reached the point where it must overcome the old patterns of thought steeped in geopolitics and the Cold War and replace them with a new global security and development architecture that takes into account the interests of all nations on this planet. A positive example for this is provided by the Peace of Westphalia, which came about because the warring parties came to the conclusion that if the war continued, no one would be able to enjoy victory, since there would be no survivors. How much more convincing this argument is in times of thermonuclear weapons which, if used, would lead to the extinction of all mankind!

  • We call on European politicians to come to their senses!
  • Do not repeat the mistakes of the 1930s!
  • Humanity is at the most important crossroads in its history!
  • For a new paradigm: cooperation instead of confrontation!
  • For immediate negotiations on a new Peace of Westphalia!
  • For an end to the war in Ukraine through negotiations and diplomacy!
  • For an end to the war in Gaza through diplomacy, the recognition of the two-state solution and the economic development of the entire region!
  • No stationing of American medium-range missiles in Germany!


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