Helga statement, article, transcript

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: A Transformation Bigger than the End of the Cold War

September 12, 2023by madeleine in General, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

The following speech was given by Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Founder of The Schiller Institute during Panel 1 “The Strategic Situation After the Historic BRICS Summit” at the international Schiller Institute Conference “Let us Join Hands with the Global Majority To Create a New Chapter in World History!”

A Transformation Bigger than the End of the Cold War

It is most urgent that we make the ordinary citizens of European nations and the USA–who are bombarded on a daily basis with a barrage of news in the mainstream mass media, which all have generally a spin in such a way, as to create an almost entirely fictitious parallel reality–aware of the tectonic change going on in this historic moment. Because only if they recognize the choices clearly lying ahead of us, is there hope for a positive way out of the present existential crisis of humanity.

It is high time to review the success and respectively the failure of the official policies of the recent period in order to assess the validity or flaws of ones own axioms of thinking. If there is one lesson about how it came to two world wars in the 20th century, then it is the number of miscalculations on the part of the participants in those wars. Having that parallel in mind one can only sound the alarm bells in the shrillest way possible.

The geopolitical confrontation of the US-led NATO over Ukraine, which did not start „unprovoked“ on February 23, 2022, but really already with the „Orange Revolution“ financed by the NED in 2004, and escalated with Victoria Nuland’s Maidan Coup in 2014, is clearly not working the way it was intended. The unprecedented series of sanctions did not „ruin Russia“, as Annalena Baerbock had wished, but caused a far reaching reorientation of Russia to the East and the South. But also Russia’s expectation about a short term nature of the military special operation did not materialize since the Russian leadership obviously underestimated the effect of NATO-operations in Ukraine since the Maidan coup and the subsequent attitude of the population, as well as the far reaching willingness for military engagement in Ukraine by the West.

Now a military stalemate has been reached, and the continuation of the military operations can, despite all new weapon deliveries, only lead to the complete attrition of the human resources of Ukraine, who already has suffered horrendous casualty figures, and the danger of an escalation to the nuclear level, if either Russia sees its territorial integrity threatened or somebody thinks that a limited nuclear war is feasible.

If the Europeans believed that their giving in to the demands of ever „more weapons“ to Ukraine, would lead to a victory of Ukraine on the battlefield, that also did not work out. Instead European nations find themselves completely cut off from any ties with their neighbor Russia, the „energy- dependency“ shifted from Russia to the much more expensive American energy, and in the meantime Germany has lost even the appearance of a remnant of sovereignty and with it the respect in the whole world. Germany, the erstwhile economic powerhouse of Europe is rapidly undergoing a process of deindustrialization caused by exorbitant energy prices provided by the wonderful protective power and ally US, who is not hesitating to lure the battered German industries to resettle in the US with the help of the Inflation Reduction Act–not even to mention the North Stream Pipelines about which nobody believes the belatedly made up story about the sailing yacht Andromeda. A popular saying these days is: What do you need enemies for with friends like this?

Germany has been transformed into a doormat, trampled upon by NATO-boots, while the present political leadership with its green Atlanticist ideology, for whom it would be a euphemism to call it „German,“ is gambling away about everything all the generations have built up from the rubble fields after the Second World War. Half of the German Mittelstand, the source of the entire social system in the country, is either going bankrupt or leaving to reinvest either in the US or in China. The overwhelming mood in the country is one of desperation, restaurant owners, farmers, craftsmen, store owners, nurses, all kinds of service industries, all feel that the floor is being pulled away from under them, and those, who don’t want to move to the Alternative for Germany, a right wing party, with some good points, but also unacceptable elements in it, feel that they have no place to turn to. „Everything will crash against the wall“, is one of the most heard sentences in many private discussions. People feel completely betrayed. We should remember, it was that utter feeling of betrayal after the Versailles treaty, which was the death-nail for the Weimar Republic!

But what most citizens of the West have no inkling about, is that a much bigger, much more consequential development is taking place elsewhere, in those parts of the world, which are effected by what is going on between NATO and Russia, where the „collateral damage“, such as high energy and food prices in these countries was considered „negligible“. And now that oversight is turning out to be the biggest misjudgment of all.

The unilateral (and therefore illegal) sanctions against Russia and a whole series of other countries, the confiscation of state assets and weaponization of the dollar on top of the longstanding experience of unfair trade and credit conditions have led to a gigantic blowback in the countries of the Global South which since has emerged as the Global Majority, representing more than 85 % of the world population. The massive attempts by NATO countries to pressure countries in Latin America, Asia and Africa to take the side of the „democracies“ of the „rules based order“ against the supposed „autocracies“ and „dictatorships“ in the Ukraine conflict backfired thoroughly. The identity of these countries as being part of the Nonalignment Movement and the „Spirit of Bandung“, the major alliance between Asian and African countries of the 1955 conference, came back to life and with it the memory that it was the Soviet Union which had helped many of the developing countries in their struggles for independence against the colonial powers.

When Lyndon LaRouche, my late husband, had first proposed an alternative to the IMF and its conditionalities in 1975 with the proposal for the IDB, which was intended to issue 400 Billion dollar credit lines per year for industrial development projects, this proposal was fullheartedly endorsed be the NAM then, who incorporated it in their final resolution in Colombo, Sri Lanka, representing already 75 % of the world population. The reaction of the financial powers to be were brutal: Indira Gandhi and Mrs. Bandaranaike were ousted from power, President Ali Bhutto and Prime Minister Indira Gandhi several years later were assassinated. The NAM played a subdued role for many years to come as a result of these attacks.

Lyndon LaRouche, whose 101st birthday we were celebrating yesterday, and his international movement kept writing development plans relentlessly, a comprehensive infrastructure plan for the entire African continent, presented in 1976 in a conference in Paris, Operation Juarez for Latin America in cooperation with Mexican President Lopez Portillo, a 50 year plan for the Pacific Basin in light of the expected increase on population density in that part of the world, a 40 year plan for India, which Mrs. Gandhi started to implement, the Oasis plan for Southwest Asia, and in 91, when the Soviet Union disintegrated, the Eurasian Landbridge, the New Silk Road–all of these programs were presented at literally hundreds of conferences and seminars on five continents.

After President Xi Jinping presented the concept of the New Silk Road in Kazakhstan, exactly 10 years and 2 days ago, Western governments, think tanks and media amazingly ignored this program which was clearly the largest infrastructure program in history ever, easily an order of magnitude larger then the Marshal Plan for Europe after the second World War.

But for the countries of the Global South the BRI became the game changer, allowing many of them for the first time to seriously launch infrastructure programs, industrial parks, advanced science projects, etc. From the end of 2017 the attitude in the West towards the BRI suddenly shifted from indifference to hostility, in the security papers of the Pentagon first, and then synchronized in all western media and think tanks, China’s rise was characterized as „systemic rival“ and „opponent“ culminating in the recent „decoupling“ and „de-risking“ frenzy. With the recent enlargement of the BRICS into BRICS-11 and the expressed interest of around 40 more countries to join likewise, the idea of a complete decoupling from Russia and China is more than absurd: it is suicidal. The perspective of creating two more or less separate blocs in reality is not feasible and can be only seen as the futile effort to economically weaken an adversary before a planned military attack, which given the existence of several thousands of nuclear missiles would mean the annihilation of the human species and with it all life on earth.

It is time for a fundamental strategic reevaluation. Is it not now more in the interest of the US and European nations to take the initiative to cooperate with all the countries of the Global South and build a prosperous world for all nations, than taking the risk of pursuing a policy which may lead to the „end of history“, albeit in a different way than Francis Fukuyama, the father of all political misjudgments fantasized?

News are coming in this morning, that Prime Minister Modi announced in a long overdue step at the ongoing G20 summit in New Delhi, that the African Union has been admitted to the G20, making the G21. That is positive, but completely insufficient. In order to eliminate the danger of a third, this time thermonuclear war, we need to create a totally new international security and development architecture, which takes into account the security and economic interest of all nations on the planet. And that is only possible, if it is based on the development of all, on the interest of the other, and the creation of a common future, which is promising and uplifting for all of humanity.

The comprehensive study the Schiller Institute published in 2014 in response to President Xi’s announcement from 2013 in Kazakhstan, „The New Silk Road becomes the World Land Bridge“ can be the basis for such a peace order for the 21st Century. It gives a clear orientation for the economic buildup of all parts of the planet, concrete plans for overcoming underdevelopment in the Global South as well as concrete guidelines for the reconstruction of the decaying economies of the Global North. Together with the Ten Principles I suggested for such a new architecture, these proposals could be the basis for any serious attempt to find a solution to the present crisis. Why not conduct a special session of the UNGA to discuss such a new international architecture, when clearly so many people around the world are concerned about the threat to world peace?

The idea of a World Landbridge, connecting all infrastructurally developed continents through tunnels and bridges, so that one can travel soon with a maglev train from the southern tip of Argentina or Chile up north through the Americas via the Bering Strait all way along the transsiberean railway to Gibraltar and on through Africa to the Cape of Good Hope. This will be the realization of the vision of the German economist Friedrich List and his „space and time economy“, where he outlined, how an advanced transport and communication system with a high speed, dense regularity and cost efficiency of infrastructure would allow for new levels of the mental and material productive powers. This development would then lead to a „Republic of the planet“ based on the „economy of humanity“, which would make it possible that all talents would exchange their ideas and work together in all areas in science and art and all areas of knowledge, which in turn would increase the efficiency of all powers of humanity, the exact opposite of „decoupling“ and „derisking“, obviously.

A similar idea about the future development of humanity to become a great community of the entire world, a „datong shijie“, one can also find with Cai Yuanpei, the first education minister of the Republic of China and President of Peking University, who introduced Schiller’s conception of aesthetic education into China. Obviously the same evolutionary innate idea governed Nikolaus of Kues idea about harmony in the macrocosm based on the best mutual development of all microcosms. Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz’ idea of a preestablished harmony in the universe represents the same idea, Vernadsky’s notion of the increasing dominance of the noosphere over the biosphere, as well. And I remember very well, how Lyndon LaRouche stunned his associates, when he talked about how despite the present importance of the sovereignty of the nation state, that would not be the last stage in the evolution of the the development of humanity.

Look at this latest breakthrough China made in controllable nuclear fusion technology for a new generation of an „artificial sun“, the Huanliu-3, a week ago. They realized high-confinement mode operation with a plasma current of one million ampere for the first time, according to the China National Nuclear Corporation, (CNNC). The high-confinement mode, is also used as the standard mode for the International Thermonuclear Experimental Reactor (ITER), in Cadarache, France, which is run by seven member parties, China, the EU, India, Japan, Russia, South Korea and the US. This inherently safe form of nuclear energy, once it is fully realized, is one of the technologies which will remove the basis for geopolitical rivalry, because it will make energy so plentiful and cheap, that it will be cheaper than the continuation of military conflict.

The perspective for a completely new paradigm in international relations is on the horizon, and this could come much faster then most can imagine. A change in the US with the next presidential election could return the US on the path of a republic. As Sergey Glazyev indicated, a new BRICS currency will likely materialize in 2024 during Russia’s chairmanship of the BRICS, which could turn out to be the lifeboat for the global financial system.

So, there is all the reason for a culturally optimistic view for the future of mankind, provided we replace hatred, envy and resentment with love, generosity, and curiosity for the potential of the other cultures. We still have time to reset the axioms of our thinking.

Let a Garden Amidst a Million Gardens Bloom!

July 11, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, General updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Our conferences

By Helga Zepp-LaRouche

This is Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s prepared text for her presentation to Panel I, “Peace in the World Through a New Security and Development Architecture for Each and Every Country: The Indispensable Strategic Autonomy of European Countries,” of the Schiller Institute’s July 8–9 conference, “On the Verge of a New World War—European Nations Must Cooperate with the Global South!” It was translated from the German and edited for EIR magazine. (Subheads have been added.)

Mrs. Zepp-LaRouche is the founder and leader of the Schiller Institute.

Excellencies, distinguished guests, dear friends of the Schiller Institute!

What a joy to welcome people from so many nations here in Strasbourg in person, after circumstances forced us to hold our Schiller Conferences only virtually for over three years! But we used this time well to bring together so many new forces worldwide, with which we can intervene together at this crucial moment in world history to create a new paradigm for the future of humanity!

Let me say it straight away: Even if our continent is in an existential crisis, we will not allow its demise. Rather, we will revive the best of what European culture has produced, and what is now buried under the speech balloons of a decadent counterculture and the barbarism of the diehards of the past, and we will bring that into the shaping of the New Paradigm!

Unquestionably, we are now in the most dangerous moment the human species has ever faced, as we are extremely close to extinction as a species on this planet, because that would be the consequence of a global nuclear war. And contrary to what the propaganda of the trans-Atlantic mainstream media claims, the danger is not due to “Russia’s unprovoked war of aggression” nor to “China’s increasingly aggressive imperial power grab,” but to the trans-Atlantic forces who are unscrupulously playing with nuclear fire, while attempting by all means to exert unipolar dominance over the world when it has long since been moving in a multipolar direction.

While the mainstream media in unison slander as a “Putin sympathizer” anyone who dares to think that history did not begin on Feb. 24, 2022, and while NATO and the U.S. government fund organizations that put people on lists that put their lives in danger, the nations of the Global South have very much gained an independent view of things.

The sixfold expansion of NATO to the East, coming a thousand kilometers closer to the borders of Russia, despite promises to the contrary, can be as little covered up as the efforts of the Northern “ATLANTIC” defense alliance to expand in the Indo-Pacific region as Global NATO. Above all, with the increasingly blatant and arrogant appeals with which representatives of the “rules-based order” demand that the whole world submit to their intrigues and their “indulgences” in modern garb (such as a carbon tax or CO₂ emissions trading), they have crossed the Rubicon. But by such means they hope to prolong the existence of the hopelessly bankrupt neoliberal financial system at least a bit longer.

We are currently experiencing a change of epoch, albeit not of the kind that Chancellor Scholz referred to on Feb. 24, 2022, which amounts to the militarization of Europe as a protectorate of the United States. Rather, we are seeing the end of some 500 years of colonialism, which the countries of the Global South are determined to finally shake off with the help of China and the BRI. For example, at the recent Global Financing Summit in Paris, President Ramaphosa demanded that the international community provide investments for the Grand Inga Dam project:

“Let’s get that done and then we will be convinced that you are serious with the promises that you make…. “

It is estimated that the cost today would be perhaps $120 billion, and that it would generate at least 44 gigawatts of electricity, which would have an absolutely revolutionary impact on the entire continent’s energy supply and economy.

More than 30 nations have applied for membership in the BRICS, which would then include the world’s most populous countries. The attempt, coming mainly from the U.S. and the UK, to “decouple” from China or to “de-risk,” as this foolish phrase has come to be called—when all these countries are closely linked with China—can only lead to economic suicide, or to an equally suicidal formation of geopolitical blocs, which would carry the seeds of a world war.

In the face of this tectonic shift of power, which occurs at most once or twice in a millennium, the European nations—but also America—must decide whether they want to cooperate productively with this emerging world order, or whether they (with NATO, the U.S., and the UK) will opt for total confrontation and the attempt to oppress the absolute majority of the human species. The decision between these two options will test, at the same time, our moral fitness to survive: Are we, as rational beings, able to give ourselves, together with the Global South, an order that guarantees the coexistence of us all and, as Leibniz would put it, allows the happiness of future generations? Or are we soulless human machine guns, hatefully directed only toward the destruction of the supposed enemy?

Nuclear War ‘Options’

This is not an academic question, as will become obvious in four days at the annual NATO summit in Vilnius, at which the Hungarian government—thankfully— announced that Ukraine’s admission to NATO will remain out of the question for as long as the war continues, which should actually be self-evident. Now, however, there are recent statements by Berlin’s two leading think-tanks—Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik (SWP) and Deutsche Gesellschaft für Auswärtige Politik (DGAP), both are close to the government—about possible security guarantees for Ukraine outside of formal NATO membership. Even if these are only ideas from think-tanks, and not necessarily the policies of the Berlin government, these papers deserve the closest attention, because their authors are typical of the so-called “experts” who speak non-stop on the talk shows, and in this way influence the views of the population.

It is not only in France that there has been a great deal of concern recently about Germany’s seemingly complete loss of all sovereignty (which was never very good), as could be seen in the German government’s lack of response to the sabotage of the Nord Stream pipelines.

Now, it must be taken into consideration that the SWP, which advises the government, the Bundestag, the EU, NATO and the UN among others, was created on the initiative of the BND [Bundesnachrichtendienst, Germany’s foreign intelligence service], which, when it was founded under the aegis of the American occupying power in 1962, incorporated personnel from the military intelligence service Fremde Heere Ost and the Gehlen Organization. The SWP was initially based in Ebenhausen, a small town near Pullach, where the headquarters of the BND was located. The much larger DGAP (the German Council on Foreign Relations), 2800 members, was founded as early as 1955 in cooperation with, and modeled on, the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the British Royal Institute for International Affairs, known as “Chatham House.”

In an SWP paper of June 29, 2023, entitled, “From ad hoc support to long-term security guarantees as a NATO member,” it is stated that there are two options, apart from full NATO membership, that would really guarantee Kiev’s security. The first is “demilitarization” of Russia by reducing its armed forces and arms industry to a level that rules out “offensive operations.” This would only be possible through “external shocks,” a clear defeat of the army, a renunciation by the leadership of its “neo-imperial understanding of its role,” which would require a change of regime, and the simultaneous denuclearization of Russia’s military potential. That, however, they say, is “currently unrealistic.” The second option would be for Ukraine to build up its own nuclear arsenal.

Just in case, the DGAP provided yet another option, circulating under the keyword “hedgehog,” as an animal symbolizing such a massive rearmament of Ukraine—into a super armory so to speak—that it would deter all future attacks. This includes the variant proposed by the chairman of the British defense committee, Tobias Ellwood, which envisages support from a coalition of the willing and a powerful task force, a Joint European Defense Initiative (JEDI). Germany’s Rheinmetall Group has already announced plans to build a modern tank factory and other weapons factories in Ukraine.

Meanwhile, U.S. defense contractors Northrop Grumman, Raytheon and Lockheed Martin sponsored champagne receptions at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington, not least to celebrate the MoU [memorandum of understanding—ed.] that the world’s largest financial services firm, BlackRock, which manages $10 trillion in assets, landed with the Ukrainian government. JEDI is only intended to help bridge the gap; in the long term, NATO membership is indispensable. The goal is to anchor Ukraine irrevocably in the Euro-Atlantic structures. The priority, therefore, is to proactively communicate to their own populations the “meaning, purpose and goals” of NATO membership for Ukraine and to take action against institutions that claim to be part of civil society but are in fact controlled by the Russian state. For the record, we are not controlled!

What a nightmare! The largely destroyed Ukraine is to be transformed into a mega-armed country, a “hedgehog,” or rather into a permanent cash cow for the military-industrial complex on both sides of the Atlantic; it will become a “frozen” conflict that can be activated at any time, as a permanent crossing of the red lines defined by Russia which, in the meantime, is supposed to be “ruined” according to [German Foreign Affairs Minister Annalena] Baerbock, or permanently weakened (according to [U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd] Austin, RUSI [the British Royal United Services Institute], [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg, etc.).

There’s not a single thought about ending the war through diplomacy, no peace negotiations, no positive vision for the Ukrainian people, and certainly not a peace order for the world as a whole! What an ugly, destructive spirit rears its head here, no human emotion influences the thinking, it’s cold as a robot which is steered by a worm-eaten algorithm!

A New Economic Order

But the arrogance that leads some to claim that they belong to the camp of the “good people,” and can therefore suggest the most horrendous things with impunity, also blinds them. The reality is by no means that the Russian economy is collapsing, quite the contrary. Economic growth in May was [when annualized] 5.4%, while Germany is officially in recession, and Russia was forced by the sanctions to build up many branches of production for its own benefit and redirect trade patterns from the West to Asia, where the momentum of the world economy is anyway.

The trans-Atlantic financial sector, on the other hand, is sitting on a bubble of 2 quadrillion dollars of outstanding derivative contracts—that’s a 2 with 15 zeros—which ultimately means hopeless systemic debt. Central banks are switching back and forth between QE and QT [quantitative easing and tightening—ed.] in apparent disorientation. But Josep Borrell, EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, takes the cake. He recently stated with utmost arrogance at the European Diplomatic Academy in Bruges, that Europe is a garden, while most of the rest of the world is a jungle that could intrude into it.

Such a point of view will find no sympathy among the 5,000-year-old cultures of the peoples of Asia, who together with the other countries of the Global South have long been putting into place a New World Economic Order—and where Mr. Borrell is now regarded as a comedian but not one to invite for a visit—or among the nearly 50 percent of German companies that are fleeing the country, due to the mismanagement of the German government and the unaffordable energy prices.

Hearing Borrell’s misplaced comparison to a garden, one is reminded of Scene X in Act II of Schiller’s play Don Carlos, when the Marquis of Posa, who sees himself as a citizen of the world and carries the liberation of Flanders from the Spanish yoke in his heart, confronts King Philip II, the absolute ruler of Spain, the empire on which it was said at the time that “the Sun never sets.”

Phillip says something very similar:

“Behold my Spain, see here the burgher’s good blooms in eternal and unclouded peace. A peace like this will I bestow on Flanders.”

And the Marquis answers:

“The churchyard’s peace!… And do you hope to end …

The universal spring, that shall renew

The earth’s fair form? Would you alone, in Europe,

Fling yourself down before the rapid wheel

Of destiny … Vain thought!”

The absolute majority in Germany, for example, has lost confidence in the government, and according to recent surveys, 79% are not satisfied with the government’s policies. Here in France, we have just seen what state the social fabric in this garden is in. No wall can be built high enough to protect the garden, Borrell says? Well, we see at the external borders of the EU, what these walls look like. Pope Francis described the reception camps for refugees in the border countries of Europe as concentration camps, which are surrounded by high walls topped with NATO barbed wire, and are repulsive enough to deter people from venturing in small boats over the Mediterranean Sea, which itself has long since been turned into a horrendous mass grave.

No, Mr. Borrell, this Europe is not a garden, it is a continent that competent politicians, such as Charles de Gaulle and Konrad Adenauer, wanted to bring out of the rubble of the Second World War into a better future, and which a thoroughly decadent political caste, having thrown out the window its duty of peace, is now leading into a renewed catastrophe that threatens to far surpass the horrors of the Second World War.

And if large parts of the world outside Europe resemble a jungle, it’s because Europe has not developed Africa in the past centuries, but well-known families in the trans-Atlantic world have built their fortunes on the slave trade, drew profits from the opium trade, or are profiting from the modern successor of colonialism—the casino economy—in which the wealthy determine the rules of our oh-so-fantastically-organized rules-based order.

Or maybe other regions are a jungle because the trans-Atlantic interventionist armies took up residence there, as NATO did for 20 years in Afghanistan, during which time nothing was built, and then left the country in ruins. Or as in Iraq, where a country rising to modernity was bombed back into the Stone Age, and concerning which Madeleine Albright said the death of 500,000 Iraqi children was a fair price to pay for the right to continue ruining the country. And the list of why some countries of this world are not gardens could go on: Syria, Yemen, Libya, Haiti, etc.

But there is a way out. The nations of the Global South, whose existence was just recently discovered by the G7, and which represent the overwhelming majority of humanity, have long been shaking off the shackles of modern colonialism and creating a new international currency, new development banks, a new credit system. Over 30 countries have applied for membership in BRICS-Plus; the SCO, AU, ASEAN, EAEU, Mercosur and other organizations have moved to carry out their trade in national currencies. One hundred and fifty-one countries cooperate with China’s BRI [Belt and Road Initiative], which this year celebrates its tenth anniversary, and managed during that decade to make sure the term “developing countries” really does apply to the countries of the Global South.

Europe and the ‘Global South’

We in Europe, and even in America, have to give up the already doomed attempt to contain the rise of these countries by decoupling or “de-risking.” We have to replace confrontation, which in any case only benefits the military-industrial complex, with cooperation. Germany, France, Italy, and all other European nations must become part of the new paradigm in international relations; our middle class, now bankrupt under the old paradigm, can not only help build the Inga Dam, but realize the Transaqua project that will provide electricity to twelve more nations in Africa. We can cooperate with China to provide the entire Global South with a high-speed rail system, we can build ports and waterways, green deserts through large-scale desalination of seawater, and build new cities.

Yes, and while we’re at it, we can also modernize our own ailing infrastructure. Instead of enriching the defense industry and impoverishing the population, we can repair our schools, make the health care system functional again, intensify international cooperation on the ITER fusion project as a crash program in order to achieve commercial use of fusion energy faster, and we can spare ourselves all the pollution and the destruction of our landscapes with those unspeakable wind turbines. We can also rebuild Ukraine as a bridge between Central Europe and Russia as part of the new Silk Road.

To bring Europe, and America, onto this path, is our commitment. And let us remember what Posa said to King Phillip, and what we, together with Schiller, say to the many Borrells of today:

“Geben Sie die unnatürliche Vergöttrung auf,

die uns vernichtet!…

Sie wollen pflanzen für die Ewigkeit,

Und säen Tod? Ein so erzwungnes Werk

Wird seines Schöpfers Geist nicht überdauern…

“Geben Sie, was Sie uns nahmen wieder!

Lassen Sie, Grossmüthig, wie der Starke,

Menschenglück aus Ihrem Füllhorn strömen—

Geister reifen in Ihrem Weltgebäude,

Geben Sie, was Sie uns nahmen, wieder.

Werden Sie, von Millionen Königen, ein König!”

~ ~ ~

“Give up the unnatural deification that destroys us!…

You would plant for all eternity, and yet the seeds

You sow around you are the seeds of death!

This hopeless task, with nature’s laws at strife,

Will ne’er survive the spirit of its founder….

“Restore us all you have deprived us of,

And, generous as strong, let happiness

Flow from your horn of plenty—let man’s mind

Ripen in your vast empire—give us back

All you have taken from us—and become,

Amidst a thousand kings, a king indeed!”

Today, we no longer need a king, but as a variation on Posa’s words today,

let us say:

Let a garden amidst a million gardens bloom!

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: The Freedom of the Press and Freedom of Julian Assange Are Identical!

May 3, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in General updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

April 3, 2023–The “narrative” of the MSM is that there are countries, where freedom of the press thrives, such as Norway, which appears again at the top of the relevant index; and that there are countries, where it is suppressed. In reality, in the MSM honest journalism has almost entirely disappeared. The very notion of a historical or objective “truth,” which can be unearthed by investigative journalism, has been buried by a barrage of projectiles which pierce through that very concept. What has come in its place is an arbitrary variety of descriptions of that “truth,” which are either named as “fake,” or must be “debunked,” or even crushed before conception by being “pre-bunked.”

In reality there is a brutal fight for control of the “narrative” of the “rules- based-order,” where journalism has been degraded to serve as the executioner on behalf of the ruling elites. If this were an exaggeration, Seymour Hersh would have received a newly created Nobel Prize for excellence in Journalism in Norway, and all the Norwegian media would have excelled in reporting about the role of Norway in the sabotage of the Nord Stream Pipelines.

The heads of state who assemble this weekend for the coronation of King Charles can prove their commitment to freedom and democracy by congratulating the newly crowned King for making his first act the freedom of Julian Assange!

World War III or Peace? ~ Support China’s Peace Plan!

March 6, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Color Revolutions, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Global Diplomacy, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Sanctions, World war danger updates

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

No, not sleepwalking, but rather with eyes wide open, and without reason, backbone or conscience, the trans-Atlantic Establishment is pushing us to the edge of the cliff, beyond which a thermonuclear Hell is lurking, that threatens to annihilate all life on this planet. The 12-point program for a diplomatic solution to the strategic crisis between NATO and Russia, released by China on February 24, represents a possible last-minute lifeline to save us from jumping off. Although it was rejected out-of-hand by President Biden and the EU Commission, it has been increasingly supported for good reason by nations of the Global South, and consequently by most of humanity. It definitely needs to become an integral focus of all those forces worldwide that, in this time of existential threat for humanity, are committed to a diplomatic solution to the Ukraine conflict. It also represents a concrete option around which to orient the offer of Pope Francis to use the Vatican as a venue for peace negotiations.

The reason why China’s peace plan was immediately rejected by the United States and NATO is that their goal is the restoration of a unipolar world in which China would never be allowed to play the role of a broker for peace. As NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg made clear Feb. 28, in his joint press conference with Finnish Prime Minister Sanna Marin in Helsinki, he sees Ukraine’s future as a part of the EU and as a member of NATO (in the long run). Thus, for NATO, the option of a neutral Ukraine is off the table, although the NATO leadership knows perfectly well that Russia considers that a blatant disregard of its demand for security guarantees. In other words, the U.S., the UK, NATO and the Atlanticists defend the line: “Ukraine has to win on the battlefield,” and “Russia must be ruined.” Conversely, Russia naturally sees this as an existential threat, and will attempt to bring about a decision on the battlefield.

The Russian government would be in a parallel universe if it did not take seriously the proposals discussed at a joint event of the Jamestown Foundation and the Hudson Institute in December 2022, concerning options for a complete breakup of the Russian Federation. Their “minimalist” goal is for Russia to be turned into “a looser, confederation-type administrative political structure”—de facto disempowering the Russian government, while the “maximalist” goal is the complete breakup and partition of Russia “along ethno-religious lines” and the simultaneous creation of separate states such as Chechnya, Dagestan, and Tatarstan. In that case, they say, demilitarization comparable to the Morgenthau Plan proposal, a “de-Sovietization,” would have to be carried out, and broad sections of society would have to be brought before a war crimes tribunal or re-educated.

Since the collaborators of these two think tanks are recruited from the inner core of the U.S. intelligence agencies and the military-industrial complex, i.e., the real U.S. power structure, Moscow must assume that these scenarios reflect the intention of the U.S. government. That, in turn, would fulfill the condition that the Russian military doctrine has set for the use of nuclear weapons, i.e., when the territorial existence of Russia is threatened.

According to experts from several nations, a military victory for Ukraine is far away. Ukrainian troops have suffered huge losses, averaging 1,000 men per day over the past three months and around 500 per day since mid-February. Some 10 million refugees—two million of them in Russia—unanimously say they do not want to return to Ukraine. Overall, the Ukrainian population has dropped from 37.5 million to about 20 million at present. Almost half of the urban infrastructure has been destroyed, while all critical industrial capacity is located in Russian-speaking regions.

In such circumstances, a war of attrition lasting many years, as the amount of weapons ordered by NATO would seem to indicate, will be a meat grinder in which the population will be wiped out “to the last Ukrainian.”

While U.S. military officials such as Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Mark Milley are pushing for negotiations based on a realistic assessment of the situation, and even the Rand Corporation has advised against a “long war” in Ukraine for its own reasons, the hawks around the State Department are apparently following the proposal made by one of Britain’s leading think tanks, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), which advocates escalating the war to the point where Russia would have to threaten to use nuclear weapons because of a threat to Crimea and thus to Russian territory. According to this perverse logic, the ensuing “Cuban Missile Crisis on steroids” would “promote” the settlement of the war because Russia could thus be forced to surrender. U.S. Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs, Victoria “Dr. Strangelove” Nuland, notorious for her active role in the 2014 Maidan coup in Kiev, recently reiterated her support for Ukrainian military attacks on Crimea. Thus, the danger of an escalation to a global nuclear war in the short term is knowingly accepted. Obviously, the lives of the Ukrainian population do not count in this scenario; the sole goal is to ensure the defeat of Russia in order to re-establish the status of American hegemony.

The European Council for Foreign Relations, the EU’s own think tank, points out in a recent study that although the U.S. and Europe have drawn closer to one another, the rest of the world is moving further and further away from the West. Those who wish to get an idea of this reality for themselves are advised to watch the video of a dialogue between Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the head of the Indian think tank ORF (Observer Research Foundation), Sunjoy Joshi, at this year’s Raisina Dialogue. A good representation of the Global South’s elite meets regularly at this prestigious event sponsored by the Indian government. As Lavrov, among others, indicated, the Russia-India-China troika, first initiated by Russian Foreign Minister Primakov, continues to be a centerpiece of strategic cooperation, but has since greatly expanded into the BRICS Plus group, to which two dozen other countries of the Global South have applied for membership. Therefore, Russia is hardly isolated, as this includes an overwhelming majority of humanity.

And this majority supports the Chinese peace proposal, which calls for respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries, abandoning a Cold War mentality, ending hostilities, ending sanctions against Russia, and proposes concrete steps on how to overcome the crisis diplomatically. President Zelensky has also stated that he wants to discuss this with President Xi. The near-hysterical reactions of the mainstream media and the Atlanticists to the Chinese proposal prove once again that ideological glasses cause blindness.

The majority of the world’s population supports a diplomatic solution to the crisis. Brazilian President Lula, who has called for a peace club composed of the nations of the Global South, will travel to China later this month to discuss peace initiatives with Xi Jinping. Italian General Fabio Mini, former commander of the KFOR mission in Kosovo, has proposed further useful steps for a settlement of the conflict in Ukraine. Pope Francis’ offer to use the Vatican as a venue for diplomatic negotiations is gaining support from key individuals and institutions around the world, as well as religious leaders of various denominations.

Therefore, it is high time for China’s proposal to become the center of the discussion. The situation today is comparable to that in which the negotiations leading to the Peace of Westphalia ended 150 years of religious war in Europe. At that time, the warring parties came to the conclusion that the war had to come to an end, otherwise there would be no one left to enjoy a victory because everyone would be dead. That is precisely our situation today, with the difference that the existence of nuclear weapons today would guarantee such an outcome.

One of the most important results of the Peace of Westphalia, which laid the foundation for international law, was the realization that peace requires taking into account the interest of the other. From that standpoint, not only is NATO’s repeated eastward expansion a catalyst for war, NATO itself is obsolete and urgently needs to be replaced by a new international security and development architecture that takes into account the interests of all states on the planet.

It is urgently necessary that the newly emerging peace movement, that came onto the scene at the “Rage Against the War Machine” demonstration on Feb. 19 in Washington, on Feb. 25 in Berlin, and in many other rallies in Italy, France, Germany and numerous other countries, take a clear position in favor of ending NATO and supporting the Chinese proposal for a peaceful settlement to the conflict which otherwise threatens to lead to the end of civilization.

zepp-larouche@eir.de

Take this Tragedy as the Opportunity to Lift All Sanctions Against Syria

February 7, 2023by Anastasia Battle in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Economic development updates, General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Sanctions, Syria, Turkey

By Helga Zepp-LaRouche

PDF of this statement

Feb. 6, 2023 (EIRNS)—The recent double earthquake in southern Turkey and northwestern Syria is a terrible disaster which is generating a wave of emotion and empathy from around the world. The situation will likely worsen due to forecast weather of extremely low temperatures throughout the region, resulting in the collapse of weakened buildings due to the cold and frost, not to mention the immediate consequences to children, women and men who have lost everything.

Time is of the essence. We welcome an international response; in fact there are several countries that have already offered their assistance to the populations affected by the earthquakes. This being said, it is difficult to accept that the same disaster has a very different human impact on either side of the borders of Turkey and Syria. On the Syrian side, this tragedy is affecting a population that has been hard hit by years of war and sanctions imposed by the United States with other nations.

This situation confronts us, as Western nations, with our responsibility to uphold the values we claim to embody. Are we going to continue to apply the measures that we very well know have led to the unimaginable suffering, misfortune and death of innocent people? Or are we going to finally make the decision to lift these criminal sanctions? Don’t we know, after so many years of use, that the weapon of sanctions only hurts the people?

It is time for Western leaders to regain a minimum of moral fiber, by taking this tragedy as the opportunity to definitively lift all sanctions against Syria and, from then on, to organize the reconstruction of the country with those who are determined to contribute to it.

Zepp-LaRouche on CGTN: “Fostering Cooperation in a Fragmented World”

January 19, 2023by Mary Jane Freeman in Activity of the Schiller Institute, Agriculture, BRI - Belt & Road, BRICS updates, China, Economic development updates, Education, Finance, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Germany, Global Diplomacy, Healthcare, Helga media coverage or interview, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Video, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Media coverage of our activity, New financial order updates, Power & Energy, Railway projects, Space updates, World Land-Bridge updates, World war danger updates

Jan. 18, 2023 (EIRNS)–CGTN today published on its English-language YouTube channel (which has about 3 million subscribers) a 14-minute video commentary by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche, on the occasion of the Davos World Economic Forum. CGTN’s introductory blurb asked the question: “How should world leaders work together in a volatile situation? Join Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder and president of the Schiller Institute, to explore these talking points.” The video can be found here.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche:

The world economic forum has given its annual meeting the title “Cooperation in a Fragmented World,” and shortly before the Forum published their Global Risk Report, in which they present the results of the latest Global Risk Perception Survey. In that, they consider the current crisis, then the expectation of what many experts think will come out in the short term (two years), the most severe in the long term (ten years), in terms of the economy, the environment, society, and those geopolitical and technological risks that could become tomorrow’s crises. Then they consider how these different crises could evolve into a “poly-crisis” by 2030.

Concerning the methodology used to come to their evaluations, they report that they interviewed over 1200 experts from academia, business, government, the international community, and civil society between September 7th and October 5th, 2022. In other words, this Global Risk Report is not based on scientific methods, but rather on an Aristotelian method to arrive at the common denominator of the opinions of selected experts.

While there will also be attendance from countries of the Global South, who may try to set different accents, the World Economic Forum represents a good portion of the top global corporate establishment; and they clearly try to continue to push their agenda, which is an acceleration of the Great Reset, that they have been pushing before. It completely leaves out the optimistic perspective, for example, of the circa 150 countries working with the Belt and Road Initiative and their optimism that through investments in infrastructure, agriculture, industry, and international scientific cooperation, etc., most of the problems they insist will dominate the next years can be overcome.

Instead, there is a lot of talk about “progressive tipping points” and “catastrophic outcomes,” which are all designed to motivate the assembled business leaders and beyond, to adopt the program fitting the financial interests of the main financial players of the neo-liberal system. For example, in the section called “Natural Ecosystems; past the point of no return” they write:

“Human interventions have negatively impacted a complex and delicately balanced global natural ecosystem, triggering a chain of reactions. Over the next ten years, the interplay between biodiversity loss, pollution, natural resource consumption, climate change, and socioeconomic drivers will make for a dangerous mix.

“Given that over half of the world’s economic output is moderately to highly dependent on nature, the collapse of ecosystems will have far-reaching economic and societal consequences. These include increased occurrences of zoonotic diseases, a fall in crop yields and nutritional value, growing water stress exacerbating potentially violent conflict,” etc., etc.

The deep Malthusian pessimism reflected in such a statement makes clear that this report is more a program of their intent than a scientific prognosis. Because of human interventions, the world population has increased from a few millions after the last Ice Age to 8 billion. If there will be a fall in crop yields, then [it will be] only because of the Green demonization of modern agriculture. And if there will be a violent conflict, then only because the necessary development of new fresh water resources will be blocked by the Malthusian environmentalist agenda.

Economic Risks in 2023

Unfortunately, I think that 2023 will see an escalation of the financial and economic crises. The central banks have tried to curb inflation by raising the interest rates rather rapidly. Then, as we could see for example in Great Britain, they had to suddenly go from quantitative tightening to quantitative easing again, because of the danger of a chain reaction of over-indebted firms; thus going back to the inflationary money pumping. Since the tendency towards hyperinflation is the result of ever more monetarist policies going for profit maximization at the expense of physical economy and the reckless liquidity injections following the systemic crisis of 2008 by the trillions of dollars, euros, and pounds, only an end to the casino economy could solve the problem.

What should be put on the international agenda is the reintroduction of a Glass-Steagall banking separation, which puts the commercial banks under state protection, but forces the investment banks to straighten out their balance sheets on their own without taxpayer money. Then, each country must create their own national bank, because credit creation must be under the sovereign control of the governments. These national banks must then cooperate to create a new credit system, which is only devoted to investments in projects serving the common good of the people. There are already efforts going on in this direction among many countries of the Global South — also, to create a new international currency.

While it is very difficult to predict the exact time when the systemic crisis of the neo-liberal system will come to a head, it cannot be excluded that the decision to have a complete reorganization of the international financial system could force itself on the agenda in this year of 2023.

Geopolitical Conflict Triggering a Chain of Reactions

Right now, unfortunately, the crisis over Ukraine — which is not a crisis between Russia and Ukraine, but between NATO and Russia — is accelerating in a dangerous way. I think it is extremely urgent that a diplomatic solution is found quickly to end the war. There are various efforts, like Pope Francis has offered the Vatican as a venue for negotiations, and I and a group of Latin American legislators have written an open letter to the Pope to mobilize people around the world to support this idea. We are also asking people to sign that letter. Also, President Lula from Brazil has been asked to mediate by several countries from the Global South; and also President Erdogan from Turkiye has made some efforts.

I think all of these proposals should be merged, because too much is at stake. But, I think because the crisis around Ukraine is so dangerous, the initiatives made by President Xi Jinping with the Global Security Initiative, together with the Global Development Initiative are probably the most important angle to solve the crisis. The Global Security Initiative is really a proposal for a new international security architecture, and obviously that must take into account the security interests of every single country on the planet for it to work.

I am aware that right now it does not look very likely that the countries of the so-called West would be willing to discuss such a new international security architecture, given the fact that NATO is trying to become Global NATO, and Japan and Great Britain have just signed the so-called “Reciprocal Access Agreement,” and the US, the UK, and Australia have signed the AUKUS pact. But the BRICS countries already have a higher GDP than the G-7; and 17 countries of the Global South are applying for membership in the BRICS. So, they are in the process of representing the vast majority of the human species. And the countries of the Global South have made it quite clear that they don’t want to be drawn into a geopolitical conflict between the West on the one side, and the China and Russia on the other side.

I think it is therefore quite possible that in the course of 2023, the financial crisis erupts even more dramatically, and that that will be the right moment to put the combination of the Global Security Initiative and the Global Development Initiative on the international agenda. I think President Xi is very right that security can only exist if there is development. So, I am sure that the vast majority of the countries who are striving to overcome the relics of colonialism, and who really want to develop into become modern and prosperous countries, would support such an intervention.

And then hopefully, the countries of the West can see that it would be in their best interest to cooperate with the Global Security Initiative, the Global Development Initiative, and the Belt and Road Initiative.

Global Risks in the Next Two Years

There are policy initiatives which can overcome the inflation by reorganizing the financial system, by addressing the root causes for the crisis. The excessive profit orientation at the expense of the physical economy clearly did not work. And what the World Economic Forum calls the geo-economic confrontation can be stopped the moment these CEOs recognize that win-win cooperation with the majority of the countries in the world would also be in their best interest; since to cooperate with growing markets with billions of people with growing buying power is for sure better than to go bankrupt in a crash. And the best way to cope with natural disasters and extreme weather events is to invest in basic infrastructure, water management, and scientific and technological progress in order to develop the technologies to have early warning systems, secure housing construction, and other means of adaptation.

Disagreements on Cybersecurity in Major Countries

There have been various attempts to have agreement between major countries on cybersecurity. There was an agreement for example in 2013 between Russia and the United States to establish a secure phone connection, and a working group to mitigate cybersecurity threats. In 2017, in light of the allegation of election interference made against Russia, Trump and Putin agreed to create a cybersecurity unit to prevent election interference and other cyber threats. Trump praised it as a big step forward, but was forced to backtrack only 12 hours later, due to massive pressure from Congress and the mainstream media. Then, in preparation work for the 2018 meeting in Helsinki between Trump and Putin, Russia offered the United States cooperation in the field of preventing cyberattacks on critical infrastructure — power plants, water supply and transport management systems, hospitals, banks, and so on. The corresponding provision was included in the joint statement of the Presidents of the two countries prepared by the Russian side for adoption at the summit in Helsinki. While the summit between the two Presidents worked well, all hell was unleashed against Trump afterwards by the same forces, and the agreement was not signed.

At this point, the trust between the West and Russia and China is at an historic low point. Under these circumstances, an isolated agreement on cybersecurity seems very unlikely. Therefore, a great vision is required on how a solution can be put on the table which addresses all the major problems together, such as a new, just world economic order based on such concepts as the Global Security Initiative in combination with the Global Development Initiative.

I think that we have reached a point in the history of mankind where we really must get serious about the international order of relations among nations, and how we can organize them in such a way that we can self-govern as a species which is gifted with creative reason. In an existential crisis, [such] as the one we are experiencing right now, and which is very likely going to get much worse, it is not the amount of money one owns that counts; but it is the quality of political leadership of exceptionally wise and moral men and women who have the ability to shape the future for the benefit of all humanity.

In Davos, there will be a great number of billionaires, millionaires, and hangers-on to power. It will be very interesting to watch if they are also up for the larger job required.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Briefs EIR on Urgency To Implement New Paradigm in Face of World War and Economic Crash Threat

October 23, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Our economic development events, Our initiatives (petitions, etc), Sanctions, World war danger updates

Pre-release of EIR interview:

PAUL GALLAGHER: Today is Saturday, October 22, 2022, and this is the 60th anniversary of the day that President John F. Kennedy of the United States made a speech which told the world that it was in a nuclear warfare crisis, a countdown to nuclear war which could conceivably destroy civilization. Kennedy announced that the United States had determined evidence of Soviet provision of nuclear missiles to Cuba, and said that the United States would not tolerate this, absolutely, under any circumstances, and a crisis was on, which gripped the attention of the world and held people in fear of it for more than two weeks. [JFK speech is here.]

So now, this is Paul Gallagher of EIR. I’m speaking with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, founder of the Schiller Institute, and a frequent lead candidate of the BüSo political party in Germany, about the extraordinary situation which is developing there, and internationally.

So Helga, good afternoon to you.

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Hello.

GALLAGHER: Let me start by saying, just in terms of setting our situation here, the Nord Stream natural gas pipeline is a submarine pipeline project of Russia and Germany under the Baltic Sea, that they worked on jointly for more than 15 years. It was suspended in 2022 under U.S. pressure, and on Sept. 26, it was sabotaged, by powerful explosions which were aimed to destroy it completely. It appears that this has had an impact on German political life, despite the fact that it’s being covered up.

Helga, can you analyze for EIR what has happened here, and what does it mean for Germany and the threat of war between NATO and Russia?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, the first thing to say is that the official media and channels are obviously trying to say as little as possible about it, which is already extremely ominous, given the fact that this worsens the energy situation of Germany for some time to come. Military experts have stated that the sabotage was of such a kind that it could only have been done by a state; it could not have been done by private divers, and that naturally limits the number of states which had access. Now the questions to ask is the cui bono, who had the capacity, who had the opportunity, and who had the motive? And then, as some military experts are saying, well, if it would have been Russia, it would have meant that Russia would have to go with submarines and other devices for 300 km through the Baltic Sea under the total surveillance and control of NATO, and therefore, if it would have been Russia, it would prove that they had a huge superiority in undersea warfare, in order to do that, practically under the nose of total surveillance of NATO. If that would be the case, it would have completely other implications about military balances.

But there are also now many people saying, if there would be any proof that it was Russia, you would have seen a barrage of press conferences by NATO, by the EU, by the governments; all the tabloids would have been full of it. But since nothing of this sort has happened, it doesn’t look like it was Russia.

Instead, in an answer to a question from a parliamentarian, the German government put out an official answer, which is also extremely odd: They said that they know it was sabotage—now how did they know that if there was no official investigation? Sweden, by the way, pulled out, and so there was some strange investigation involving only Germany and Denmark, but the German divers didn’t have the diving equipment to go to the depth of 70 and 80 meters, so the whole thing is very ominous. And the statement by the German government says that, for the sake of the wellbeing of the state, they will not reveal any other information.

Now, that is extremely strange: For a sabotage of such enormous economic, and therefore social and political implications, to leave it at that, naturally raises the suspicion which is being said by many people, that this was done by another state which is not friendly to the German government. Now, given the fact that the only states which could have done it would have been the U.S., the British, Poland, maybe Lithuania, but everybody says—also and knows—that nothing in this highly surveilled area of the Baltic Sea could have been done without the control and OK of the United States.

So why is the German government not saying anything? People more and more have the feeling, this present German government is not defending the interests of the German people, and that despite the fact that the German economy is going to crash against the wall this fall and winter, in a dramatic way, to which the sabotage of these pipelines will have played a crucial part.

GALLAGHER: Is anyone in Germany, given the tremendous escalation of prices and the sabotage of the German economy as the result of the loss of natural gas supplies, and oil supplies—but particularly natural gas—is anyone arguing there that Russia and Germany should fix this pipeline? Or are there actions at all against this NATO policy of full warfare against Russia?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I would say so! Just today, there are many demonstrations, and there have been many demonstrations in the last days and weeks, not only in East Germany, but especially there, but also, today, in many West German cities. And what people were saying in these demonstrations is that it is exactly like it was in 1989: This was the demonstrations in which the Berlin Wall came down as a result. And the demands are, stop the sanctions against Russia, stop the weapons sales to Ukraine; this is not our war, we demand a diplomatic solution. And most interesting is, the action of the city of Stralsund, where the parliamentary groups of the Christian Democrats (CDU), the Free Democrats (FPD), and the Linke (the Left Party) and the Social Democrats (SPD), and a citizens alliance called “Citizens for Stralsund,” all signed up for an initiative, offering the city of Stralsund to be the site for Ukraine peace talks. And they say that there’s nothing more important than peace on our Earth, and they refer to the great history of creating the Peace of Stralsund, which is a reference to the conflict resolution from 1370, when a war between Denmark and the Hanseatic League (including Stralsund) ended in the so-called Peace of Stralsund. So, more than 650 years later, they want to have a new Stralsund Peace, and that is just a most spectacular intervention, and I think the spirit of 1989 is clearly revived in these demonstrations. And they’re also demanding the resignation of the present German government.

GALLAGHER: Ah, so there is the spirit of 1989 for sure! There’s one well-known blogger and strategic expert, Alexander Mercouris, who argued in a video that this coverup of the situation with the pipelines, despite some very clear indications of what happened, that it means that the German government is under the control of a foreign power, which is unfriendly to Germany—that was the way that he put it. What’s your view of this argument? Does it bear on these demonstrations that are coming up and the behavior of the government?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. There are many calls for this government to resign, which many people think is the worst government Germany has had in the entire post-war period. That applies for sure, for the Green Party—this is a so-called “streetlight coalition” involving the Greens, the Liberals [FDP], and the Social Democrats, of which the Greens are really the war party, the NATO party, with the most hawkish, belligerent policy, and you cannot differentiate what they say from Stoltenberg or Blinken. And the so-called Economic Minister Robert Habeck, who used to be very popular in the polls, has now plunged and has become an object of public contempt, because he is clearly pushing a policy which means the deindustrialization of Germany. And we are therefore facing a huge social explosion, not “facing,” we are in the middle of a huge social explosion in Germany.

GALLAGHER: Interesting. We’ve seen this recently in the United Kingdom, where Liz Truss, who was ready to push the nuclear button and a real warrior, she came in like hell on wheels into the prime ministership, and then very quickly her wheels fell off, and now she’s resigned, and they’re in a government crisis as well as a financial crisis. So, we see these things across Europe.

Let me ask you: You’re frequently featured and interviewed in the media in China, again yesterday, on CGTN’s “Dialogue” broadcast. In one interview, they focussed on your assessment of the situation in France and Germany, what can you convey to the Chinese people about the situation in Europe? What do you think is most important that they understand?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, they are looking at Germany, in particular, with complete disbelief: A once-proud people of poets and thinkers, and admired for its scientific and technological excellence in the whole world, is committing economic suicide in front of the world’s eyes. And it’s very difficult for people in Asia in general to understand why Europe is on such a self-destructive course.

What they are doing as a consequence is to speed up the construction of a new economic system, which consists of the countries of the BRICS, the SCO, the CICA [Conference on Interaction and Confidence Building Measures in Asia], and other organizations of the Global South, where they building an economic system which is focussed on the alleviation of poverty in the entire developing sector; and cooperation in mutual benefit; and it has to be said, to the grace of China, or to (there’s a word I’m missing), that they continuously offer to the United States and the European countries that they should cooperate rather than try to fight. But right now, it doesn’t look like people in the West have the wisdom to respond to this offer.

GALLAGHER: Well, if German business and households’ access to natural gas coming from Russia has been destroyed, as a result of this economic warfare on Russia, are the Biden administration’s economic measures against China reaching that same scale of the all-out economic warfare on Russia? And what do you think China’s reaction will be?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: You know, if you look at the policy of the Biden administration and such people as German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who have said many times that they want to (quote) “ruin Russia,” or (quote) “prevent Russia from diversifying from oil and gas”—this was said already on Jan. 25 by some unnamed White House official—it did not work out so well.

The effect of this was that Russia turned to Asia and did relatively better than Germany, where you now have a complete blowback, and the country is under the immediate danger of deindustrialization, and given the size of the German economy, this will have a devastating effect for all of Europe.

Now, therefore, the threat to now do the same with China, what was done with Russia, I think it would only occur at the complete price of deindustrialization of the West, at least the European part of it. And China is working with about 150 countries in the context of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), the Global Development Initiative; and just at the present ongoing party conference of the 20th party congress of Communist Party of China (CPC), the report that was delivered there proudly states that Chinese economic policy is focussed on continuous innovation, scientific and technological progress, and furthering the creativity of their citizens. And the result has been a continuously prosperous economy. So, if the West wants to decouple from China, they will do so at their cost, leading to their own self-destruction: So, hopefully, they will wake up before it is too late.

GALLAGHER: Well, that was the last thing I wanted to ask you about: That the Schiller Institute is obviously mobilizing a large number of leading people around the world, and also young people around the world, to stop this nuclear war threat. And you’re the one that has launched these mobilizations: What do you think can make it possible to reach a situation of peace, and perhaps even development, before we are in an unsurvivable nuclear war?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, if you look around the world and ask normal people, like normal parliamentarians, elected officials, trade unionists, industrialists, farmers, fishermen, and so forth, nobody wants World War III! It’s a very small apparatus which is pushing this geopolitical confrontation which threatens the annihilation of the human species. So, this initiative you’re referring to comes out of meeting with Latin American parliamentarians and ex-parliamentarians, and we recognized that a similar desire for world peace and against this confrontation is prevalent all over the world. [Live event: Stope the War Before It is Too Late, Eliminate the Causes of the War Danger.] So the fact that what is at stake is the possible destruction of mankind, that makes, automatically, every citizen on the planet, to be a world citizen who has the right to speak out for the interest of humanity as a whole. And given the fact that the Schiller Institute is named after the poet Friedrich Schiller, who argued that there is no contradiction between a patriot and a world citizen—or that there doesn’t have to be—basically, we are now appealing to world citizens from all over the world to stand up against this war, and make sure that people understand that we have to make a jump in the thinking, to think in terms of a new paradigm, where everybody learns to think as a world citizen; which doesn’t mean you’re not a patriot, it just means you have to make one more step, you have to take the interest of humanity as a whole into account, and make sure that your understanding of your national interest is not in contradiction to that larger interest of humanity as a whole.

Because only if we all start thinking about the fact that we are sitting in one boat, and that if there is a nuclear war, nobody will live, and that we have, and that we have to find a new model of international relations as the precondition to get out of this crisis, that we will actually make it. And the response so far has been tremendous, because I think everybody who is concerned about world peace and the danger of war, is responding very well about this initiative, once they know about it. So help to spread the knowledge about it. [Second Seminar of Current and Former Elected Officials of the World: For World Peace, Stop the Danger of Nuclear War.]

GALLAGHER: OK, so five days from now, on Oct. 27, there is a second conference of those present and former elected officials whose deliberations you’ve been describing, and of course, at the same time, there are other meetings and discussions of potentially a new money system, a new credit system internationally, which are going on within the BRICS and elsewhere. Do you think that this can lead to an actual formation of development, an actual economic architecture, which can make development possible in the developing sector?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think the need to implement that could arrive very suddenly: Because if you look at the panicky reactions in Great Britain, the desperate action to go for quantitative easing, jump to quantitative tightening, go back to quantitative easing—there’s a rapidity like that of Liz Truss going into 10 Downing Street, out of 10 Downing Street, and now they’re talking about Boris Johnson—“BoJo”—to come back, which is the farce of the century: I think the system of the City of London, and by implication the entire trans-Atlantic financial system, is teetering on the verge of dissolution. So the need to put a New Bretton Woods system, a new credit system on the international agenda may erupt more quickly than people think.

GALLAGHER: Great! OK, for EIR, I’ve been talking with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, head of the Schiller Institute, about those prospects and about this extremely complicated and dangerous situation around Europe, and Germany in particular. With that, I think we’ll wrap up our interview. Helga, thank you very much for your answers, and for taking the time with us for today.

Sanctions Crippling the Syria that Was Once Proudly and Steadily Growing

August 10, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in Economic development updates, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Sanctions, Syria

Aug. 9, 2022 (EIRNS)—The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) released a study, “Syrian Arab Republic: Access to Electricity and Humanitarian Needs,” in March 2022, documenting meticulously, respecting Syria, what Helga Zepp-LaRouche contends in her July 12, 2022 statement, “Lift Sanctions Against Russia Immediately!”: that sanctions are a “brutal form of warfare” that kill, and must be lifted everywhere they are currently enforced.

In 2011, the European Union enforced sanctions against Syria with the intent to overthrow the country’s President, Bashar al-Assad, following the Bernard Lewis Plan overthrow and eventual killing of the leaders of Iraq and Libya. Britain, the U.S., and other nations joined the sanctions regime, and the range of sectors of the Syrian economy against which they were applied was expanded. The U.S. and other nations carried out military intervention in Syria in 2011, first using proxy terrorist groups, then directly.

Syria’s electricity sector was brutally targeted. The OCHA study reports, “Two of the country’s 13 major power plants were fully destroyed: the Zeyzoun Power Plant in Idlib governate (487 MW installed capacity) and the Aleppo Thermal Power Station (1,065 MW installed capacity).” The World Bank reported that six other power plants were partially destroyed.

“As a result of this damage, the country’s electricity generation capacity fell from 5,800 MW in 2010… to 4,000 MW in 2018.” The further tightening of sanctions caused Syria’s installed electricity generation capacity to fall to 2,000 MW in 2021, a collapse of 63%! Obtaining replacement parts and maintaining the surviving plants, due to sanctions, has become even more acute. Whereas, in 2010, “93% of the country had access to electricity,” that is sharply down today. Compared to 2010 standards, today’s Syrian population consumes 85% less electricity per capita, twelve years later. Thirty percent of Syria’s population has access to electricity for only 2 hours per day. That slashes electricity to industry, and households, and all the equipment that goes with that.

But electricity is the source for powering all other features of society. Around 2010, “access to safe drinking water in Syria was estimated at 92% in rural communities and 98% in urban centers. Seven major water systems serve the country’s eight largest cities…. However,” the study emphasizes, “by 2019 annual public water production in Syria had fallen by 40% relative to pre-crisis levels (from 1,700 Mn cubic meters in 2010 to 1,020 Mn cubic meters in 2019.” But to use water from groundwater and springs, or most rivers, requires continuous electricity to pump water and distribute it, a commodity Syria now lacks as the study highlights.

The lack of electricity (and water) also means there is sometimes insufficient power to run medical facilities and health clinics. Because of damage to infrastructure, Syria runs its schools on two shifts. In the second shift, in particular, often there is no clean water in the bathrooms, and not enough electricity to heat the schools. Some students study at home by candlelight.

The OCHA’s ReliefWeb website reported March 12, 2022, “this year, 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line, and more than 80 percent are food insecure. Families say they are eating less, cutting meals, and going into debt to meet their basic needs.” {Emphasis added.}

As Zepp-LaRouche says in her July 12 statement, sanctions “are a brutal form of warfare against the respective populations of the sanctioned states with the aim of making their living conditions so intolerable that they rise up against their respective leaderships, and overthrow them. But the victims are always the people.” It is past time to lift them in Russia, Syria, and everywhere.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche Responds to German Heavy Weapons to Ukraine

May 1, 2022by Mary Jane Freeman in General, General updates, Geopolitics updates, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, World war danger updates

Faced with a Looming Nuclear War with Russia: Has the Bundestag Lost Its Mind?

An Appeal to Citizens: Don’t Let Germany Get Drawn Into Nuclear War with Russia —

April 30, 2022 (EIRNS)—Helga Zepp-LaRouche wrote the following as the lead article in the German weekly newspaper Neue Solidarität for the May 5, 2022 issue, which has been translated from the German original. (https://www.solidaritaet.com/neuesol/2022/18/hzl.htm)

The irresponsible and highly dangerous decision of the German government and Bundestag to give into the pressure from the U.S. government, NATO, and the warmongers in their own ranks, and agree to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine, must immediately be reversed! It represents an acute danger for the existence of Germany, as it makes us—together with the United States, Great Britain and other NATO member states that are also providing a vast arsenal of weapons to Ukraine and training Ukrainian troops in their own countries or, according to Figaro journalist Malbrunot even inside Ukraine—a party to the war. It is also a big step in a spiraling escalation toward a nuclear Third World War! Instead, Germany and France must push, with great force, for an immediate cease-fire and a diplomatic solution.

The Biden Administration is trying to mask its participation in the proxy war against Russia, with repeated statements by President Joe Biden that the military option in Ukraine is not on the table, because no one wants to trigger World War III. But given the massive arms shipments, the various aid amounting to $14 billion in the past two months, and now another $33 billion on top of that, and given the sharing of intelligence with the Ukrainian armed forces, as is openly admitted by the White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki, the United States is already de facto a participant in the war.

Bruce Fein, an American constitutional law expert and former associate Attorney General in the Reagan administration, argues that the U.S. and NATO member countries are already co-belligerents in the war. John B. Henry, the Chairman of the Committee for the Republic, which includes well-known former diplomats and members of government, is of the view that, under international law, this gives Vladimir Putin the right to take military action against the U.S. and those countries.

After Chancellor Scholz had refused on April 22 to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine, because he wanted to do everything possible to avoid an escalation that could lead to World War III, just three days later, his intention had evaporated. German Defense Minister Lambrecht announced just in time for the major meeting at the U.S. air base in Ramstein on April 26, to which U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin had invited military leaders from 40 countries, that the government coalition had decided the day before to supply Gepard anti-aircraft tanks to Ukraine. So much for statements by the Chancellor or for Germany’s sovereignty—they are obviously meaningless.

Secretary Austin announced that from now on, such meetings would be held once a month at the Ramstein air base, which houses the headquarters of the “United States Air Forces Europe” and “Air Forces Africa,” the NATO “Allied Air Command Ramstein,” as well as the “U.S. Air and Space Operations Center,” which controls drone strikes in the Middle East and Africa. The purpose of such meetings will be to optimize and coordinate the weapons production by arms industries in the various countries. Interestingly, the largest and most modern American military hospital outside the U.S., which is largely financed by Germany, is also located there. Obviously, decisions of greater import are taken in Ramstein than in Berlin, including as to whether or not Germany will be a party to the war in Ukraine.

So far, NATO and Western governments have turned a deaf ear to Putin’s warnings about crossing red lines, although he has repeatedly shown that his words are followed by deeds. This time, we should heed the warnings. In a meeting with lawmakers in St. Petersburg on April 27, one day after Lambrecht’s announcement, Putin said that in the event of outside intervention and the creation of an unacceptable threat to Russia, retaliatory strikes will be lightning-fast. Russia, he added, has the tools for that purpose that no one else has at this point, and they will be used. All the decisions, he said, have already been made.

On the same day, April 27, the Wall Street Journal carried an article titled “The U.S. Should Show It Can Win a Nuclear War,” in which former Undersecretary of the Navy Seth Cropsey maintained that the U.S. should prepare to win a nuclear war if it did not want to lose it. U.S. warships should be armed with nuclear weapons, he wrote, and destroy Russian nuclear-missile submarines that are the main base of Russian second-strike capability. A similarly insane fantasy underlay the U.S. “Global Lightning” exercise, held in late January, which practiced an extended maneuver involving a hybrid of conventional and nuclear methods of warfare.

The idea that a limited nuclear war is possible and that it could be “won,” and that small nuclear weapons that are “usable” should be deployed, is madness. Nuclear arms expert Ted Postol has made an absolutely compelling case, most recently in a dialogue, on why the use of even a single nuclear weapon will inevitably lead to a general nuclear war, leading to the use of all existing nuclear weapons. And all the political morons who lightly talk about the need to deliver heavy weapons to Ukraine, even if it means the risk of nuclear war cannot be ruled out, belong in a locked hospital ward, not in positions of political responsibility. (The Postol remarks were made in a recent interview with Robert Scheer.)

Postol describes the effect of nuclear weapons: “We’re talking about a wall of fire that encompasses everything around us at the temperature of the center of the Sun. That will literally turn us to less than ash, if this thing gets going. I can’t emphasize how powerful these weapons are. When they detonate, they’re actually four or five times hotter than the center of the Sun, which is 20 million degrees Kelvin. They’re 100 million degrees Kelvin at the center of these weapons.”

Human beings can’t imagine the scale of such heat, he explains. He himself has written articles repeatedly about the consequences of nuclear weapons on cities, for example. Postol said, “This is something beyond anything that human beings have been able to imagine. And I don’t know how to emphasize how dangerous this is.”

He further describes that a single nuclear weapon would wipe out an urban area with a radius of 5 miles, or an area of about 75 square miles, that it would take only 20% of the American ICBMs available “to destroy all of Russia’s ICBM, land-based ICBMs—maybe a thousand,” and thus 80% of the warheads could be used for other purposes (for example against targets in Russia, China or Germany). Russia, he goes on, because of its less capable early warning system, had to set up an automated response in the event the Russian leadership were killed in a surprise U.S. nuclear first strike. Russia’s unfortunate inability to improve its early warning system, according to Postol, has resulted in a “doomsday weapon” that makes the situation much more dangerous because a fatal error could trigger a nuclear war.

It should be clear to every thinking person—and the 586 members of the Bundestag who voted for the delivery of heavy weapons to Ukraine are obviously not among them—that the Federal Republic of Germany becomes a co-belligerent because of that, and thus becomes a target in the event of war. Ramstein, Stuttgart, Wiesbaden, Büchel, Pirmasens, Baumholder, to name just a few targets, would burn up.

Rather than pursuing a course of suicide and the end of humanity in a misconceived loyalty to the Alliance, Germany must work for an immediate ceasefire and diplomatic negotiations. Rather than letting ourselves be whipped up into a hatred of Russia (and China) by commissioned war-mongering journalists and gun-toting women, we need to start doing our own thinking again. It is not the policy of détente that has led to the current crisis—it allowed for the peaceful reunification of Germany after all, it is the expansion of NATO five times to the East and the obstinate refusal of the political and military establishment to respond to Putin’s demand for legally binding security guarantees.

We are indeed living through a turning point, but not in the way the “narratives” of mainstream politicians and media would have us believe, rather the attempt to maintain a unipolar world in which only the U.S. and U.K. are in charge, has failed. The majority of nations in the world are in the process of building a world order based on the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence, and enabling the economic development of all.

Germany will remain non-sovereign and an occupied country for only as long as we allow it to be so in our minds. We must work now for real peace, for a diplomatic solution, and beyond that for a new international security and development architecture that guarantees the survival of humanity. Become active with us to make that happen!

—zepp-larouche@eir.de

Add your name to the petition To Convoke an International Conference to Establish A New Security and Development Architecture for All Nations ; and watch, and circulate the April 9, four-panel international conference which was a crucial initiating step in bringing that new architecture into being.

100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!

February 7, 2022by David Dobrodt in General, Helga statement, article, transcript, Helga Zepp-LaRouche

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche · February 6, 2022

PDF of this statement

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council affirmed in a joint statement on Jan. 3 of this year. Since the use of nuclear weapons always involves the risk of using the entire nuclear arsenal, a percentage of which is enough to cause the extinction of the human species, the confirmation of this fundamental insight should actually have practical implications for the military strategy of all nuclear powers.

Notwithstanding this joint statement, in the last week of January, the U.S. Strategic Command launched the Global Lightning exercise, designed to test the readiness of U.S. nuclear forces.

Although this was a so-called “routine” maneuver integrated this year with the U.S. Indo-Pacific Command and thus aimed at a possible confrontation with China, in the context of heightened tensions between Russia and the United States and NATO, it can be seen as just another—but perhaps the most dangerous—element in the way that the West is playing with fire with respect to Russia and China.

The timing of the maneuver coincided with hitherto unproven allegations by the United States and UK that Russia was planning a military attack on Ukraine between late January and mid-February, which the Russian government has repeatedly denied. The nuclear command-and-control exercise is based on the U.S. Strategic Command’s current nuclear war plan. Hans M. Kristensen, Director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists, was able, under the Freedom of Information Act, to obtain the cover page of this plan, entitled Stratcom Conplan 0810-12, Strategic Deterrence and Force Deployment, Change 1. Kristensen, one of the most competent specialists in the field of nuclear strategy and weapons, explained to Newsweek that the Global Lightning exercise does not simply assume a nuclear first strike by one side or the other, but an extended nuclear war that will continue after the first exchange of strikes.

Even though the individual components of this new war plan, which has been operational since April 30, 2019, are subject to the highest levels of secrecy, the outlines of this conception emerge. The assumption is that the United States and NATO would be able to survive a nuclear first strike by Russia or China, then retaliate, absorb further attacks, retaliate again, etc., in an ongoing military confrontation. This nuclear war plan includes not only nuclear weapons but various other lethal systems such as missile defense systems, directed energy weapons such as electromagnetic pulse weapons and lasers, cyberattacks, and Space Force attacks from space. Who would be able to survive such a prolonged nuclear war? The few people who can nest in deep underground bunkers? It makes the morbid fantasies of Dr. Strangelove look like a child’s birthday party.

Last year’s Global Lightning maneuvers in April 2021 focused on a potential conflict with Russia; this year it was devoted to a possible confrontation with China. The Pentagon’s various strategy papers since 2017 had increasingly defined Russia and China as geopolitical rivals and adversaries, replacing the fight against global terrorism with great-power competition as a strategic priority. At the same time, the modernization of the nuclear triad begun by the Obama Administration continued and the threshold for the use of nuclear weapons was increasingly lowered by the stationing of low-yield warheads on Trident submarines, among other things.

The Strategic Conflict

Although there was little official comment, President Putin’s March 1, 2018 announcement was about Russia’s new nuclear systems. These included the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle (launched from an ICBM, it travels at 20 times the speed of sound and boasts excellent maneuverability that renders the American missile defense system essentially obsolete;” the hypersonic aeroballistic missile Kinzhal; as well as nuclear-powered cruise missiles, fast underwater drones and laser weapons—a shock to the western military establishment. Meanwhile, China has also developed its own hypersonic missiles with infrared homing technology, a capability that the American military may not have for two to three years. American satellite imagery has also located about 300 missile silos under construction in scattered locations across China, some of which may remain empty, but others would have nuclear missiles in a state of “launch on warning” to forestall a disarming surprise attack.

This is broadly the strategic background against which Putin presented two treaties to the United States and NATO on Dec. 17, demanding that they be legally binding: no further eastward expansion of NATO, and no offensive weapon systems stationed on Russia’s borders; plus guarantees that Ukraine would not be admitted to NATO.

Unlike many trans-Atlantic politicians and media outlets, Gen. Harald Kujat, the former Inspector General of the German Armed Forces, believes that the gathering of some 120,000 Russian troops near the Ukrainian border—some of them, however, hundreds of kilometers away—is not indicative of an impending attack on Ukraine, but that Russia wants to demonstrate strength with this threatening backdrop in order to force negotiations with the U.S.A. and NATO on an equal footing.

So far, the United States and NATO have refused to make any commitments on Putin’s key demands, and appear only willing to make what Russia considers secondary commitments on new disarmament talks. Putin has announced “military-technical measures” in the event of a definitive refusal. In view of the fact that the stationing of potentially offensive weapon systems in the vicinity of the Russian borders in connection with NATO’s eastward enlargement—this includes, for example, the Aegis missile defense system stationed in Poland and Romania—created a situation for Russia comparable to the stationing of Soviet missiles in Cuba, the question arises as to what these “measures” might look like.

The American Russia expert Gilbert Doctorow suspects that they could include the stationing of nuclear-armed SS-26 Iskander-M short-range missiles in Belarus and Kaliningrad in order to threaten the NATO front-line states and eastern Germany in return. He further suspects Russia may plant sea-launched hypersonic Zircon nuclear-armed cruise missiles off the coast of Washington, D.C., which Russian experts have previously said could destroy the American capital so quickly the President would not have time to board Air Force One to escape. Theoretically, the Zirkon hypersonic missiles could, of course, also be used anywhere on the seven seas and are very difficult for conventional air defense to detect and intercept in view of their velocity—nine times the speed of sound—and maneuverability in flight.

So it is only logical that the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists’ Doomsday Clock on Jan. 20, 2022 showed only 100 seconds to midnight. That’s only about a minute and a half until the nuclear apocalypse. Even though, since the escalation of the Ukraine crisis, after a deep sleep of almost 40 years, the anti-war movement has issued a whole series of appeals, public calls and open letters—most recently from 100 organizations in the U.S.A. demanding that President Biden de-escalate the tensions with Russia—the enormous extent of the threat has by no means penetrated the public consciousness.

Uncertainty about the Causes

But even among most Westerners who recognize the imminent danger, there is a lack of clarity about the underlying causes of the existential danger to human existence. They are to be found, on the one hand, in the systemic character of the crisis of the neoliberal financial system, which has now entered its hyperinflationary final phase; and on the other hand, in the claim of the financial establishment in the City of London, Wall Street and Silicon Valley to a unipolar world in which only the power interests of this establishment determine what shall happen in the “rules-based order.”

The dilemma now arises from an opposing dynamic. Since the paradigm shift of August 1971, prophetically recognized by Lyndon LaRouche—when Nixon effectively ended the Bretton Woods system by abolishing fixed exchange rates and thus paving the way for speculative profit maximization—there has been an increasing shift in the trans-Atlantic world away from investments in the productive physical economy and towards speculation in increasingly exotic derivative-based financial products, of which the most recent folly is “shifting the trillions” into the Green New Deal.

From the standpoint of the physical economy this policy—of making investments in industries with the lowest possible energy-flux density—ultimately represents an extensive destruction of capital, just like investments in the military production of weapon systems and the army. The fact that this effect is usually not recognized has to do with the confusion about monetary values, money vs. real wealth, and the illusion that the share values of listed companies say something about the productivity of the economy. Of course, it is in the interest of the yacht-owning billionaires, some of whom have long since acquired condominiums in deep-seated bunkers in Australia and elsewhere, that the bubble economy be sustained for as long as possible, even as the proportion of the population that is impoverished continues to increase, and the middle class shrinks.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991 and the trans-Atlantic establishment, despite all warnings—for example from Pope John Paul II—succumbed to the fantasy of having “won” the Cold War, and interpreted the “end of history” to mean that the whole world must now subject itself to the neoliberal rules-based order, there was no longer any need to keep any promises made to Russia not to expand NATO eastward. The whole spectrum of instruments for cementing the unipolar world was used: regime change, either through color revolutions or “humanitarian” wars against all governments that held other values. Victoria Nuland publicly boasted that the State Department had spent $5 billion on NGOs in Ukraine alone, which initially led to the 2004 “Orange Revolution.” When President Yanukovych refused to join the EU Association Agreement in late 2013, not least because the EU is fully linked to NATO in terms of treaties and security, the not-so-democratic side of the rules-based order came to the fore in the form of the Nazi Maidan coup of February 2014. This did not result in any annexation of Crimea by Putin, but rather a referendum by the people of Crimea, who wanted to withdraw from Kiev’s fascist policies. Even then, Putin stated that the West was actually concerned with containing Russia and that, if not in Ukraine, they would have found another excuse for doing so.

The decisive hardening towards Russia and China became visible, in 2017 at the latest, in the changed language in the security doctrines of the Pentagon and the characterization of these two countries as “enemies” and “autocracies.” While the Western institutions initially reacted to the announcement of the New Silk Road by Xi Jinping in September 2013 with an extensive blackout for an amazing four years, these institutions have now reacted to this largest infrastructure project in human history as if it were an existential threat—namely to the unipolar world!

Virtually all sanctions that have been imposed anywhere in the world unilaterally, i.e., without UN Security Council resolutions, ultimately had the chief purpose of preventing China’s economic rise and Russia’s regaining the status of world player.

The transcript of the Jan. 25 background press briefing by two unnamed White House officials shockingly reveals this intention. They present a whole spectrum of “serious economic measures”—starting at the highest level of escalation—to thwart Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialize his economy, by denying him access to all modern, advanced technologies, such as AI, quantum-computers, and any technology related to defense or aerospace, to prevent him from “diversifying” the economy beyond exporting oil and gas. The objective is the atrophy of the Russian economy.

This policy, formulated in incredibly brutal language, is nothing more than a continuation of Jeffrey Sachs’ so-called “shock therapy” of the 1990s, which had the explicit aim of reducing Russia from the status of a superpower at the time of the Soviet Union to that of a commodity-exporting Third World country. That policy was then, as it is now, a declaration of war—the only difference being that Putin is not a pathetic figure like Boris Yeltsin, pampered by the West for geopolitical motives, but a brilliant strategist who knows how to defend Russia’s interests.

The no less hateful tirades against China, which can be heard today from court scribblers of the Empire, as well as from former Maoists of the SDS era who have now risen to top positions in the Green Party, cannot change the outstanding success of the Chinese economy, which recorded a growth rate of over 8% in 2021 despite coronavirus. China has done more for human rights than any country of the so-called Western community of values, lifting 850 million people out of poverty domestically— including the Uyghurs, who now enjoy vastly better living standards and faster-than-average population growth—and offering many developing countries for the first time the chance to overcome poverty.

The silence of the same circles on the largest of all humanitarian catastrophes, triggered by Western sanctions in Afghanistan, in which one million children are starving and a total of 24 million people are at risk of dying this Winter, seals their complete discrediting.

Joint Statement by Putin and Xi

If various authors have warned that the campaigns against Russia and China could lead to even closer ties between these two countries, then rest assured that this is exactly what has now happened during Putin’s visit to the Olympic Games in China. However, there is an urgent need to remove the ideological spectacles and recognize the extraordinary opportunity presented for the whole world by the joint declaration of Presidents Putin and Xi in this extremely dangerous world situation.

The 16-page document entitled, “Joint Declaration of the Russian Federation and the People’s Republic of China on International Relations Entering a New Era and Global Sustainable Development,” calls for replacing geopolitical confrontation with economic cooperation as the basis for a common security policy. Both nations are calling on NATO to refrain from further expansion plans, to move beyond Cold War thinking, and to enshrine the long-term security guarantees that Russia is demanding. The role of international organizations such as the G20, BRICS, APEC and ASEAN should be strengthened, they say. Russia will cooperate in realizing China’s proposed “Global Development Initiative” and emphasizes the importance of the concept of the “community of a common destiny for mankind.”

Let’s think back to the hundred seconds before midnight on the doomsday clock: Who can deny that we are an indivisible community of destiny? In recent weeks, more level-headed voices have spoken out in favor of a new pan-European security architecture including Russia and Ukraine, which could be enshrined in a new Helsinki agreement. However, in view of the complexity of the world situation, the threat to world peace affecting all states, and the inseparability of the security of all, it is necessary to go beyond Helsinki and create an international security architecture that encompasses the security interests of all states on Earth.

This architecture must be based on the principles of the Peace of Westphalia; i.e., it must guarantee the interests of all states and, above all, their right to economic and cultural development. The maintenance of world peace presupposes a total and definitive renunciation of Malthusian politics, and requires undivided access to the achievements of scientific and technological advance for all nations. This new order— the prerequisite for the survival of the human species—requires a new paradigm of thought that must draw upon the best traditions of all cultures at the highest humanistic level.

We have a choice: Either we keep the clock ticking until the last of the hundred seconds has struck, and then there will be no one left to comment on the result; or, we can remember that we are the only known creative species in the universe, and shape our common future together.

zepp-larouche@eir.de