Schiller Institute Weekly Dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche

Biden Regime Prepares for Three-Front War as Germans Vote for Peace

The following is an edited transcript of the September 4, 2024, weekly Schiller Institute dialogue with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche. Embedded links and subheads have been added. The video is available here.

Harley Schlanger: Hello, and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She is the founder and chairwoman of the Schiller Institute. Today is September 4, 2024. I’m Harley Schlanger, and I will be your host. You can send us your comments and questions via email to questions@schillerinstitute.org, or you can post them on the chat.

During last Friday’s Zoom call of the International Peace Coalition (IPC), you spoke of the urgent necessity of citizens to act so that they can have their voices heard to stop the steady march by the NATO establishment toward a nuclear World War III. Two components of that march were the NATO-run incursions into the Kursk territory of Russia, and secondly the release of what was described as a new, secret nuclear doctrine by the Biden administration to prepare the United States to fight a three-front nuclear war. But in the midst of this NATO escalation, there were signs from the results of elections in two German states that voters are rejecting this march to World War III, as the parties of the ruling coalition in Germany were decimated by the voters. There are signs of a revival of the peace movement in Germany.

Our first question for you comes from a German viewer who asks, “What is the significance of the vote in Germany, and will it change anything?”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche: I think it is quite significant, first of all because the ability of the Berlin government to continue to ignore everything that is going on in the minds of the people has suffered a severe blow. I watched the election program on the different programs on Sunday evening [Sept. 1], and even the moderators were quite speechless. This was not an unexpected vote; the polls had basically predicted such an outcome. Nevertheless, it sinks in that eventually the voters will take away the legitimacy from the government if the government continues to violate the basic interests of the country and the people. So, I think this is a definite warning shot; not only in the two states—Saxony and Thuringia—but also for Berlin, for the national government. There will be another vote coming up in Brandenburg which I think will go in a similar direction. But I think it does require a lot more, because we have never been in such mortal danger as right now.

While I agree with you, Harley, that the peace movement is sort of reawakening, and there are signs people are preparing for demonstrations, but the strategic danger is so enormous. And I do not see a real reflection of that in the conscience of the debate. What you were referring to, this upgrade of the U.S. nuclear doctrine, this happened already, according to the New York Times, in March. Biden signed on to it in March, and only at the end of August did we find out about it from the New York Times. That is incredible! I was not aware that this was a big issue in the public domain, at least in the context of the [July] NATO summit. And after the NATO summit, Chancellor Scholz announced the U.S. had decided to put long-range missiles into Germany starting in 2026. Scholz said “I think this was a good decision.” What is that? This was not discussed in parliament; it was not discussed among the public in the newspapers or in any forum which would mean that the population knows about it. If one thinks about it, if Biden signed this updated nuclear doctrine in March, committing the United States to prepare for a three-front nuclear war against Russia, China, and North Korea, then for sure that overshadowed and was causing the framework of the NATO summit. That means also the “U.S. decision” to put long-range missiles into Germany starting in 2026—which is, by the way, the exact same point when the New START Treaty [New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty] runs out, with presently no sign that it will be updated—so that means the decision to put long-range missiles into Germany is part of this upgraded nuclear doctrine. Because when you are preparing for a potential war against Russia, China, and North Korea, that means the Atlantic and the Indo-Pacific, and obviously the U.S. missiles in Germany are an integral part of such a deployment. But there was zero discussion about that.

I think this is, therefore, a much more serious problem than most people have an inkling of, because I think the election vote in Saxony and Thuringia— I know that from our own organizing in these two states, people are very concerned about the Ukraine war, the relationship to Russia, the collapse of the German economy as a result of the sanctions, and all the questions around the Nord Stream pipeline sabotage, and so forth. But I don’t think the population has the clarity of how great the danger actually is. I think it does require a lot more discussion and a lot more clarity. I think we must demand a debate in the Bundestag, the German parliament, about the implications of this. Because the idea to put long-range missiles into Germany makes Germany a prime target. If it ever comes to war, Germany will be the first place to go. The last time when a comparable situation existed was in the beginning of the 1980s with the Pershing II and SS-20 [missiles], which were on launch-on-warning, with only a few minutes [flight time] apart from each other. You had hundreds of thousands of people in the street, and eventually, one million people who thought we were on the verge of World War III—and we were. But this mobilization, this demonstration then created an environment which helped to bring about the INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) Treaty limiting the deployment of such missiles. But that was abandoned by the Trump administration, so now we have an open field for a new nuclear arms race. I think the situation is super-dangerous, and therefore we need a lot more discussion and a lot more debate and demonstrations.

The Russian Response

Schlanger: What’s been the reaction from Russia? Because apparently the Russians were aware of this change before it was publicly announced by the New York Times.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, both Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov have spoken to it. Peskov said that because of the destructive action of the collective West, Russia feels compelled to upgrade its own nuclear doctrine responding to that. I think that the implication of this is gigantic. There was a very interesting article by Ted Postol, who is probably one of, if not the most important nuclear expert. He is a former MIT professor; now he is retired. He wrote an article in Responsible Statecraft where he—not surprisingly for anybody who is studying these matters—said this idea of a preemptive nuclear strike has existed de facto over two decades. Therefore, this present revelation—admittedly North Korea is a new phenomenon—but basically the only difference is that it was made public. Because Biden, in the election campaign when he was running for President, had promised he would do away with the idea of potential U.S. preemptive strike, or he would make sure that the U.S. would have a no-first-strike policy, but he never came through with that.

So, Russia had up to now the doctrine that they would only use nuclear weapons if the existence of Russia and the territorial integrity of the Russian Federation is at stake. That’s what they are now apparently in the process of modifying. China has a policy of no-first-use under any circumstances. But this creates an incredible imbalance in the strategic situation, which I think, if people would just think about how close we are to a potential mistake, some occurrence which in a very short period of time could lead to a global nuclear war, after which there would be absolutely nothing: a nuclear winter and the end of all life on the planet.

I think we urgently need reflection about that, and we need to change it, because it’s clear that some powers intend to keep that regime of de facto nuclear terror. They are trying to change mutually-assured destruction, but not in the direction of getting rid of nuclear weapons, but in the direction of making nuclear war thinkable again. That is something which is not sufficiently in the awareness of the public at all.

Schlanger: Helga, we have a couple more questions on this so-called new strategic doctrine. From Martin, who is from Virginia: “I saw coverage on your website of the new nuclear doctrine in the United States, and also heard Judge Napolitano speaking about this. Is there a response from anyone in Congress to this? Have you tried to get Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. to speak about this, or Trump? They’re warning about the possibility of nuclear war. Shouldn’t they bring this up?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, definitely. I think my American friends will for sure try everything possible to both reach Robert Kennedy, Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Donald Trump, all of the above. I think they have talked about the danger of nuclear war already, and that means there is a certain perception about that. But I can only say that we need very quickly a broad, inclusive debate; especially, also, about the implications of what it means to move in the direction of a thinkable nuclear war to be fought. Recently several Russians have made very clear that the idea that such a war would be limited to Europe, and that you could have a regional nuclear war which then would stop, that that is a complete illusion and that such a war would reach American cities. Tulsi Gabbard, some years ago already, had named all the different U.S. cities which would be hit. There are so many factors. For example, the Russian doomsday insurance, in which they have Poseidon submarines that would be off the coasts of some cities in the United States. I remember a presentation by one of the nuclear experts, saying that these missiles would reach Washington more quickly than the President would have time to reach Air Force One. I think that is what people have to know, when people are playing with the idea of a winnable and fightable nuclear war.

Schlanger: We have another question on this general topic from an activist in the anti-war movement from London. She writes, “The British press keeps writing that NATO should provide whatever weapons Zelensky is requesting”—by the way, he’s been requesting more and more weapons—“without any concern of a Russian response, as Putin’s red lines have been crossed repeatedly and his lack of response shows that he’s bluffing.” She’s saying that’s what the British press is saying. “Are such stories meant to provoke Putin? Or is the British establishment so crazy that they believe what they are saying?”

And on this same topic, we have a question from Charles: “Do you think the U.S. will give Zelensky the long-range missiles he’s requesting?”

Zepp-LaRouche: A lot of what the questions imply, unfortunately, is that the answer is yes. The collective West, the establishment, is putting out the line again and again, that, since Putin has not yet reacted when the West was crossing red lines, it means that he’s bluffing. This, in my view, is the most dangerous lie, or fake news, or whatever you want to call it, because it is very quickly reaching the point of no return. I would say the people throughout the whole world can be thankful about the patience of Putin, because he could have reacted much more strongly, much earlier. People forget that the very special military operation in Ukraine itself was a reaction to the West having crossed a red line, not least the demand by Putin from December 2021, when he had demanded from the U.S. and NATO ultimate security guarantees, legally binding security guarantees that Ukraine would not be part of NATO and there would be no offensive weapons at the Russian border. And these demands were ignored.

So, the special military operation was clearly a response by Putin to such red lines being crossed. And this whole talk that the purpose of it is that people should just agree, it’s like what the British had said: Malcolm Chalmers, the deputy head of the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), had made this line a couple of years ago in May 2022, “boiling the Russian frog” by increasing the level of more weapons, more long-range weapons. And now, the Ukrainians have presented a list of targets, of cities in Russia they think should be hit. And, there is right now— The United States is very close to approving the deployment and sending of long-range missiles into Ukraine: the AGM-158 Joint Air-to-Surface Standoff Missiles, the so-called JASSMs. These are missiles which can reach very deep into Russian territory, and it would mean that the staging area for Russia would be pushed back by several hundred miles. It would make it very difficult for Russia to keep up any offensive operations. It could potentially give the Ukrainians a strategic advantage, especially because there is talk that the United States wants to produce a large stockpile of such missiles and give Ukraine hundreds of them. There is even talk that there is an inventory order of 12,000 such missiles. This is quite massive. I don’t think the Ukrainians have enough pilots—at least not in the short term, unless you supply NATO pilots. But obviously we are closer and closer to the point of no return because there will be a final response by Russia: There is no question about it.

New Model for Southwest Asia

Schlanger: We have a question that takes up the other active war zone which is right now in Southwest Asia, from someone in Bristol, the United Kingdom, who writes in response to the tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands of Israelis who have been marching against Netanyahu the last couple of days. Israel’s Histadrut issued a call for a general strike, which was partially successful. This person writes: “I’m not all that impressed by the Israeli citizens marching against Netanyahu, because they are saying nothing about stopping the genocide or ending the Occupation. And even if the International Criminal Court issues an indictment against Netanyahu, who will make sure that he stands trial?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Well, I think the question is absolutely right, because the latest reports from the genocide going on in Gaza are just beyond description! More than 20% of the population is dying of starvation and similar effects. The total number of casualties is already probably far beyond 200,000, that’s according to figures from the British medical journal The Lancet, not counting probably all the people who are under the rubble in various bombed-out areas.

So, the situation is absolutely incredible. I don’t have a good perspective on what will happen, but there are various motions to bring the whole matter to the UN General Assembly, and there is actually the provision that if the UN Security Council is blocked for one reason or another, and this one is blocked by the continuous veto from the United States blocking any action by the UN Security Council.

I think people are not considering the long-term erosion this has. The credibility of the collective West is at a zero-point! I think if you look at the situation, you have the Global South moving in a completely different direction. You have the Eastern Economic Forum going on in Vladivostok, where you have 6,000 participants. Lots of economic deals are being concluded. There are many, many development projects being concluded in the vast area of the Far East of Russia, which a lot of developing countries or Global South countries are participating in. Russia is completely oriented towards the East; they have abandoned the West.

Then you have the Forum on China-Africa Cooperation, FOCAC summit in Beijing, where 50 out of 54 African heads of state are there. Xi Jinping had several bilateral meetings. There are very important bilateral and multilateral treaties being concluded on nuclear energy, on all kinds of development plans.

So, if you look at the world, you have the vast majority of the human species moving in a different direction, trying to create an economic system to the mutual benefit of everybody. You can be sure there are tons of discussions among all these people. And then, they look at the West, and they see the West is doing nothing to stop this [genocide in Gaza]! To the contrary, the weapons continue to be sent, with no action to restrain the genocide at all. Now, apart from the tragedy this means for the Palestinian people who are being slaughtered, this has a corrosive effect on the credibility and the moral standing of the West, which cannot be remedied, I think, for a very long time. What that does to the global order, to the security of the whole world? I think that that is something completely overlooked by the Western establishments, because they are so concerned with holding onto their particular privileges and power; I think they are completely, really blind, and tragically incapable of understanding the consequences of what they are doing.

So, I don’t have a good prognosis of how this will play out. But I think you could have an explosion in the UN General Assembly, where the topic will be put on the table in ways that cannot be suppressed. So, that is why I think that anybody who is concerned about world peace and the condition of the world, I can only ask you to join our efforts to get a broad discussion about the need for a new security and development architecture for the whole world. Because I think, because of nuclear weapons, because of pandemics, because of the internet, mankind is sitting in one boat: You cannot have parts of the world go under and other parts of the world prosper and be in peace. That is why my approach has been, for several years, that we absolutely have to move to the idea of a new global security and development architecture. I think that is in the interest of the majority of the people, and I’m not totally unoptimistic that it can be accomplished.

A ‘New Bretton Woods’

Schlanger: I think that’s an important point to emphasize, that you’ve made from the beginning: The idea that peace depends on a mutually beneficial economic agreement, a new architecture. I would urge people to set aside the time this coming Friday at 11 a.m. Eastern Time to join the Zoom call of the International Peace Coalition, to hear the discussion that has been provoked by the work that especially Helga has done.

I have a question; you brought up the Eastern Economic Forum a minute ago. We have a question from a retired UN employee, human rights activist, now living in Australia. He writes, “There are so many meetings going on relating to a new economic system, the Eastern Economic Forum, the Forum of China-Africa Cooperation, the BRICS, and so on. All of this is good, but shouldn’t there be a united effort behind a call for a global assembly to establish a new system, like the original Bretton Woods conference in 1944?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes! Emphatically yes! Because you have on the one side the effort to build a new economic system, a new credit facility—especially with the New Development Bank. You have the effort to provide credit for development, so if you would look at that just by itself, you could say that that is good and fine. The only problem is that the neoliberal, trans-Atlantic system is in an extremely fragile situation. If you had a repetition of 2008 and the Lehman Brothers crisis on steroids, because all the so-called tools of the central banks have been used up in the meantime, you could have a crash bringing down a lot of structures. If you look at world trade, it’s still very mixed; a lot of it is in dollars. Any banking crisis in the West could affect the emerging markets. It could cause havoc, with a lot of people dying as a result.

So, I think the idea of a New Bretton Woods conference is extremely important. I think it’s quite interesting that Robert Kennedy, Jr. brought this up, on August 15 I think, two weeks ago. This was before he dropped out of the Presidential race. He said that he would bring up the need for such a New Bretton Woods conference, with the absolutely important difference that this time the need to overcome the underdevelopment of the Global South should be a key feature of such a New Bretton Woods system. I can only fully agree.

The idea to have a New Bretton Woods system was one of the key demands of Lyndon LaRouche when he designed the Four Laws, which is the idea of re-introducing Glass-Steagall to deal with the $2 quadrillion outstanding derivatives bubble, which is an incredible Damocles’ Sword hanging over the world. But then having national banking and providing credit for a crash program for fusion power, space cooperation, increases the productivity of the world economy; all of that must be part of such an approach. I embedded this idea of a New Bretton Woods system in my Ten Principles, which were, and are meant, as food for thought of such a new global security and development architecture: because you need to take care of all aspects. You need to go to absolute sovereignty of all nations, to have elimination of poverty, to provide universal health care for everybody on the planet, to have universal education, to have a security system. All of these are elements which I think really need to be taken on as a totality. I think the model, in my view, can be the Peace of Westphalia, where in four years people were sitting together hammering out, not only basic principles of peace—namely that you have to pursue the interests of the other, and that for the sake of peace you have to forgive all crimes committed on both sides; and that in the reconstruction of the damaged economy, the state has to play an important role, which was the beginning of cameralism. But apart from these principles, the conference participants also discussed a lot of detailed questions, like territorial challenges, and all kinds of such questions.

So, I think once there would be a commitment to have such a new security architecture, one could sit down in a conference and solve all of these problems, but as a totality with the idea, that the end result must be to create an economic system, which is in the interest of the human species as a whole and in cohesion with the laws of the universe.

So, anybody who is concerned should help. Get in contact with us; help us to mobilize and contact all relevant groups. We are trying to unite the peace movement internationally, because there are many people now waking up to the danger, but I think if you compare the closeness of the catastrophe with the degree of mobilization, it’s a huge gap. So, please contact us. Work with us to implement these approaches for a solution.

Schlanger: As you were speaking, we just got another question. Someone writes: “I’ve been having trouble making the connection between the economic crisis and the war danger. Can you speak about the relationship between the economic crisis, the deindustrialization, the crushing debt, the collapse of infrastructure and so on: The relationship between that and the launching by the Western establishment of these permanent wars?”

Zepp-LaRouche: Look at the military-industrial complex, or, as Ray McGovern calls it, the MICIMATT—the military-industrial-congressional-intelligence-media-academia-think tank complex. With the shift started by Nixon in 1971, which my late husband prophetically recognized as being the launching point for a road which would end with the war danger—this is now more than 50 years ago—and now we are at that point. What you see is that the replacement of productive capacity, economic capacity that was devoted to the well-being of the people, has been replaced more and more and more to the advantage of the military sector, while a lot of production—especially in the United States—was outsourced to so-called cheap labor markets. The industrial production chain is not complete in the United States. It is complete with respect to the military capacity, and that becomes a self-feeding process. You see the same tendency in Great Britain, for sure.

You see the effort by the European Union to militarize the European economy. It’s crazy! Germany just now is collapsing—the economy is falling through the floor. VW, the most famous car maker in Germany, is announcing that they will close down factories; they will lay off large numbers of workers. All because of an idiotic combination of a green policy, the Green Deal, [with] the sanctions. But it is collapsing, and the only thing which is being pushed is the militarization of the economy. Since you are not producing weapons to decorate your house, you are producing weapons to be used, and that is why we have had one of these so-called interventionist wars after the other: Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, and I think the total number of wars is somewhere around 50 smaller or bigger wars, and that is a self-feeding machine. We have a friend who made the point that, if in the 20 years that NATO was in Afghanistan and $2 trillion was spent from the United States alone— If only 3% of that money would have been used to build up the economy of Afghanistan, it would be a flourishing country right now. Obviously, this was not done, and a similar equation you can put up anywhere: Military production, wars, are the destruction of actual physical capacity! Things which would be used for health care, for schools, for exploration of new technologies and sciences.

I think we have to have a general understanding that this is an aberration. It’s a wrong way of humanity. I think we have to go in the other direction and get popular support for retooling these military-industrial capacities to rebuild the economy. The United States needs a lot of infrastructure. The United States has zero fast trains! Zero. China has more than 40,000 km of fast train systems which go 350 kilometers per hour. They are now building test runs for 600 kph and maglev trains which go beyond that, and also other technologies. The United States needs to repair its bridges, roads, new cities. And otherwise, what a waste! But as long as the population goes along with it and doesn’t demand such a change, it will not happen. So, that is why we need an educated population demanding such a change to occur before it is too late.

Which Way for Türkiye?

Schlanger: I have one final question for you, Helga. Someone writes in, “Would you say something of the significance of Türkiye, which is a member of NATO, applying for BRICS membership?”

Zepp-LaRouche: That’s very interesting, because Türkiye was frustrated for many years by the EU. They had applied for EU membership. The thinking in the internal EU circles was never really serious to take Türkiye in, just to keep them on a string, because they have some usefulness for NATO. But obviously now, with the emergence of the BRICS, the Eurasian Economic Union, ASEAN [Association of Southeast Asian Nations], the SCO [Shanghai Cooperation Organization], there are much more interesting options.

In the statement which Türkiye put out announcing their intention to become part of the BRICS, they said, we will remain in NATO, but we can also be a bridge between the BRICS and Asian development and Europe. Naturally, it will not work, because as long as NATO remains on this Global NATO, fighting a three-front war against Russia, China, and North Korea—not to forget Iran—how can you be in both BRICS and NATO? But I think Türkiye is offering a way for the West to look at it differently, because if they would agree to give up this confrontation, trying to keep a dominant position in the world—which is in any case no longer possible, because the power center has already shifted. It’s just that the Western elites have not reconciled themselves to that fact. It could be a model to change the whole world and go from confrontation to cooperation. That is the absolute sine qua non for humanity to survive. So, I think we have to get that shift. If the United States and European nations would say, “We want to be part of it; we don’t insist to dominate it any longer, because it’s gone anyway, but we want to cooperate,” it would be so absolutely easy to come to an agreement. I give you my word, and I believe that with every aspect of my knowledge that would be really easy. So, let’s do it.

Schlanger: Helga, on that note, why don’t you tell us a little bit about what you’re expecting with the Zoom call on Friday of the International Peace Coalition?

Zepp-LaRouche: I can tell you, this will be probably the most important call we ever had, because the topic is this changed nuclear doctrine; the changing nuclear doctrine of Russia and what that implies for the security of all nations. We will have very important speakers. One of them is going to be Professor Ted Postol, who is—and I have studied this matter quite a bit—I think he is the top expert on nuclear weapons and nuclear war. So, he will give from his expertise a background discussion on that. You should get anybody who is concerned with the condition of the world with respect to war and peace, get them to join. Make this coming call really the point where you draw in all your neighbors, your colleagues. Let’s really get the kind of mobilization going to make clear that the world wants peace and to not be destroyed in war.

Schlanger: You can find more information about it at schillerinstitute.com. Helga, thanks for joining us, and hopefully a lot of us will be seeing you on Friday.

Zepp-LaRouche: Yes, till Friday.