Behind this very real danger of war, and the cause of that danger, is the blowout of the entire trans-Atlantic financial system. A nearly $2 quadrillion speculative bubble of derivatives and debt is already blowing apart. A hyperinflationary process has been unleashed globally, with an accompanying collapse of the physical economies of the Western nations. The City of London and Wall Street, the owners of that bankrupt system, are desperate to destroy any functioning alternative to their system — such as Russia and China’s alliance around the Belt and Road Initiative, which now incorporates nearly 150 nations — and the financial Establishment has openly stated that this is what is at stake.

So has Vladimir Putin, who has correctly said that the U.S./U.K./NATO relentless expansion eastward up to Russia’s very borders, is driven by this economic policy, and that it threatens Russia’s national security in ways Russia cannot accept.

Therefore, to stop the drive to war, it is necessary to adopt a more fundamental approach, which is to establish an entirely New Paradigm that will ensure the security, and the economic development, of every nation on the planet. The only recent precedent for this in the West, is the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, which put an end to 150 years of religious wars in Europe. It was crafted only at the point that all parties realized that, if they continued on their current path, there would be no winners and very few survivors. They chose to create a New Paradigm based on the defense of the interest of the other, and on the premise that the security of all was the first requirement for the security of each party.

That is the key lesson of the Treaty of Westphalia for today. The world today stands at a similar crossroads. If the current geopolitical policies continue, nuclear war becomes a very real possibility — after which there would be no winners, and most probably no survivors.

Instead, an international conference must immediately be convoked along the lines of the Peace of Westphalia. The fundamental interest of all of the parties is to ensure that the central economic and security interests of each are taken care of — in other words, an order based on the benefit of the other, on the common good or the General Welfare, and on an underlying love of all Mankind.

The economic system must also be drastically reshaped to express this outlook. The renowned American economist Lyndon LaRouche specified in great detail how such a system would work, based on what he called his Four Laws:

• The immediate re-enactment of the Glass–Steagall law instituted by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, without modification, as to principle of action. This means putting the entire speculative financial bubble through bankruptcy reorganization.
• A return to a system of top-down, and thoroughly defined, National Banking, as specified by the U.S. first Treasury Secretary, Alexander Hamilton.
• The purpose of the use of such a Federal credit-system is to generate high-productivity trends in improvements of employment; with the accompanying intention, to increase the physical-economic productivity, and the standard of living, of the persons and households.
• Adopt a fusion-driver ‘crash program’ to promote the fundamental breakthroughs in science which unlimited economic growth and development require.

The Schiller Institute and its founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche issue this call to initiate the urgent international discussion that is needed to convoke such a conference, and stop the so-called “Doomsday Clock” before it strikes midnight. It is time for institutions and individuals from every nation to step forward and join the mobilization for an international conference to establish a new security and development architecture for all nations.

The petition is available in the following languages: Spanish, Italian, French, Swedish, Arabic, Danish, Portugese, German, Russian, Romanian, Greek and Chinese.

219 notable VIP signers, arranged in alphabetical order by continent, and within each continent, alphabetical order by country.