– Invitation –
Schiller Institute International Online Conference
The Schiller Institute will hold an international online conference on Saturday, February 19 to reassert the very sane declaration, “A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought," by the five nuclear powers and permanent members of the UN Security Council, which they affirmed in a joint statement on Jan. 3 of this year. The conference will also present a solution to the current crisis: the establishment of a new security architecture that guarantees all nations the right to security, and to economic and cultural development. To do that, a dialogue about the causes and the cures of the current crisis is urgent.
In the last week of January, the U.S. Strategic Command launched the Global Lightning exercise to test the readiness of US nuclear forces under a nuclear war plan, operative since 2019, based on the assumption 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.
President Putin had announced Russia's new nuclear weapons systems in 2018, including the Avangard hypersonic missile, the hypersonic cruise missile Kinzhal, nuclear-powered cruise missiles, fast underwater drones, and laser weapons. This was an enormous shock to the western military establishment.
But President Putin was responding to the 2004-2014 color revolutions and so-called "humanitarian" wars against all governments who opposed having their own nations looted. The $5 billion spent on NGOs in Ukraine alone is well known, which eventually became the Nazi Maidan coup of February 2014, on Russia’s very doorstep.
On Dec. 17, 2021, Putin presented two draft treaties to the United States and NATO, insisting that there be no further eastward expansion of NATO (especially into Ukraine), and no offensive weapon systems stationed on Russia's borders. Given the lack of serious response so far, Putin has announced "military-technical measures" in the event of a definitive refusal.
One American expert has written that he thinks Russia’s “military-technical measures” may include deploying 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.
More and more people are waking up to the fact that there are only the proverbial hundred seconds before midnight left on the Doomsday Clock.
To stop the clock, the causes of war must be addressed: 1) The hyperinflationary final phase of the trans-Atlantic neoliberal financial system; and 2) the deadly fantasy of the financial establishment in the City of London, Wall Street and Silicon Valley that they can impose their "rules-based order" in their eternal unipolar world.
The root causes trace back to the 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. This caused the increasing shift away from investments in the productive physical economy and towards speculation in increasingly exotic derivative-based financial products, and now "shifting the trillions" into the Green New Deal.
From the standpoint of the physical economy, this policy of driving investments into 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.
Far too many people are confused about monetary values, as distinct from real wealth. They have bought into the illusion that the share values of listed companies say something about the productivity of the economy – which they do not.
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.
Some more level-headed voices have spoken out in favor of a new pan-European security architecture including Russia and Ukraine, 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 indivisibility 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.
Just such a proposal is elaborated in a recent article published by Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “100 Seconds to Midnight on the Doomsday Clock: We Need a New Security Architecture!” 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 requires a total and definitive renunciation of Malthusian politics, and requires universal 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 classical traditions of all cultures at the highest humanistic level.
Who can deny that we are an indivisible community of destiny?
We have a choice: Either we let the clock tick away 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.
Panel 1: Who and what are driving the rush towards world war? How close are we?
(Sat., February 19, 10:00 am EST; 4:00 pm CET)
Moderator: Dennis Speed (US), The Schiller Institute
Keynote: Harley Schlanger (US), The Schiller Institute: “What Happens After D-Day? Will Russia Invade Ukraine?”
Natalia Vitrenko (Ukraine), Chairwoman, Progressive Socialist Party of Ukraine (PSPU): “Ukraine’s Role in Present World Affairs”
Col. (ret). Alain Corvez (France), International Consultant, former Counselor for the French Defense and Interior Ministries, “Evaluation of the Strategic Situation; a French Perspective”
Jens Jorgen Nielsen (Denmark), former Moscow correspondent for the Danish daily Politiken; author; Director, Russian-Danish Dialogue and assistant professor, communication and cultural differences. Niels Brock Business School. “Why We Need a New Security Architecture.”
James Jatras (US), diplomat, former advisor to U.S. Senate Republican leadership: “The Evolution of NATO in the Post-Soviet Period”
Shakeel Ahmad Ramay (Pakistan), Political Economist: “Imran Khan’s Proposal for Pakistan to Mediate the U.S. and China”
Q&A Session
Panel 2: Crafting a new strategic architecture: The Russian—Chinese Feb. 6 joint agreement, the World Land-Bridge economic development perspective
(Sat., Feb. 19,, 2:00 pm EST; 8:00 pm CET)
Moderator: Dennis Small (US), Ibero-American Director, Executive Intelligence Review
Keynote: Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Founder and chairwoman of The Schiller Institute: “Long-Term Survival: A New International Security Architecture”
Dr. Wang Wen (China), Executive Dean, Chongyang Institute for Financial Studies; Professor of Silk Road School, Renmin University: “The China-Russia Agreement of Feb. 4, 2022”
Alejandro Yaya (Argentina), Civil Institute of Space Technology: “Argentina Joins the Belt and Road Initiative”
Graham Fuller (US), 25-year career as a CIA operations officer, author: “The Validity of the Concept of Spheres of Influence”
Dr. Carlos Gallardo (Peru), President, Christian Democratic Party of Peru: “Development Is the Name of Peace in South America”
Tony Magliano (US), Internationally syndicated Catholic social justice and peace columnist. “War Is Not Inevitable! We Have a Moral Obligation To Save Afghans from Starving! The Need To Create a New, Human-Centered Paradigm”
Q&A Session
BACKGROUND MATERIAL