INVITATION
Schiller Institute Online Conference
December 7-8, 2024

In the Spirit of Schiller and Beethoven:
All Men, Become Brethren!

The reported decision by the lame duck President Biden administration to allow Ukraine to use American ATACMS ballistic missiles for strikes into Russian territory, starting with the targeting of the Kursk region, brings the world into the immediate range of being possibly a few days away from a strategic, unstoppable escalation. Given the fact that these missiles, like the German Taurus and the British Storm Shadow missiles, technically cannot be operated by the Ukrainians, but must be aided by specialists from NATO countries, this means that the moment they are deployed, we are in a full war of NATO against Russia.

It was exactly in response to such escalations, including the deployment by the nations of the Collective West of increasingly powerful weapons to Ukraine, that in September 2024, Russian President Putin announced proposed changes in Moscow’s “nuclear doctrine” to include the possible use of nuclear weapons in response to an attack that poses a critical threat to the sovereignty of Russia, including attacks by a non-nuclear state when backed by a nuclear state. Putin explained this change in the following, very precise way:

“The updated version of the [Basic Principles] document is supposed to regard an aggression against Russia from any non-nuclear state but involving or supported by any nuclear state as their joint attack against the Russian Federation.…We will consider such a possibility once we receive reliable information about a massive launch of air and space attack weapons and their crossing our state border.”

He added: “I mean strategic and tactical aircraft, cruise missiles, UAVs, hypersonic and other aircraft. We reserve the right to use nuclear weapons in the event of aggression … including the case when the enemy, using conventional weapons, creates a critical threat to our sovereignty.”

The widely reported announcement of the Biden administration ATACMS decision clearly crosses that red line. Nevertheless, Western politicians and so-called military experts keep ignoring the Russian warnings, and continually talk about “Russia is bluffing,” “defeating Russia militarily,” etc. In a delusionary way, they ignore the fact that Russia is presently the strongest nuclear power and therefore cannot be defeated on the battlefield. What can very well happen in the short term, instead, is that all life on the planet could be annihilated in a global thermonuclear war.

We have at the same time the escalation of the crisis in Southwest Asia. The Israeli military action in Gaza, which the International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the International Criminal Court (ICC) have characterized as ongoing genocide, has led to catastrophic hunger, which threatens the lives of 400,000 Palestinians. The international community has essentially remained idle while watching this. Lebanon is now experiencing a similar fate. If this war were to expand to Iran, targeting its nuclear facilities, that war would quickly draw in larger powers. We would then be at the cusp of a global nuclear war.

The previously dominant unipolar world has crumbled, and the effort to prevent a multipolar world from establishing itself is futile. That is the main reason for the strategic crisis.

In October of this year, the annual summit of the BRICS took place in Kazan, Russia, with the participation of the 9 BRICS member states and 13 new partner states (as well as additional guests), representing 4.7 billion people, or 57% of the world population. These countries are determined to overcome 500 years of colonialism and establish a new just world economic order, new development platforms, and a new credit system and trade mechanism, in order to stop being raw materials exporting countries, develop the full value chain in their own countries, and overcome poverty and underdevelopment forever.

Why do the forces in the West not rejoice at this fantastic perspective? Because the West is experiencing a profound cultural crisis; the West has lost its way; and because the Western financial system is laboring under a deadly $2 quadrillion speculative bubble that demands global genocide.

If we don’t overcome the evil of geopolitics, which resulted in two world wars in the 20th Century, there is the danger of the world dividing into two separate blocs: a Global NATO on the one side, and a BRICS-Plus Global Majority on the other side. In that case, we will face not only economic chaos, but also the immediate danger of a global nuclear conflagration.

The obvious and easy way to overcome the danger of war and confrontation is to convince the countries of the Collective West—the European nations and even the U.S.—to stop confrontation and adopt a mode of cooperation with this growing Global Majority. If the West would join hands with the BRICS and help the Global South to industrialize, we could not only stop the geopolitical competition, but we could also start to overcome the migrant crisis in the only human way possible: namely to create conditions where the people who are now refugees, instead have a perspective to be involved in the buildup of their own home countries.

Rather than condemning millions of people to go on death marches through the Sahara to then drown in mass watery graves in the Mediterranean, or end up in refugee camps, which Pope Francis has called concentration camps; or to cross many countries, facing hunger, drug gangs and terrorism, to then be pushed back at the Mexican-American border; we must help them to industrialize their nations.

We are calling on the UN or the BRICS to initiate a working dialogue between the BRICS and the countries of the West (since the G20 neglects this urgent challenge), to declare their intent to create 1.5 to 2 billion new productive jobs in the countries of the Global South in the short term, and to create a total of 3 billion new productive jobs by 2050. Such an announcement, followed by concrete steps to ensure the complete electrification of all the countries of Africa, Asia and Latin America, as well as the immediate beginning of the realization of game-changer infrastructure and other development projects, would be a powerful message to announce an era of hope.

The building of the largest deepwater port in Latin America, the Chancay Port in Peru, with the prospect of building a bi-oceanic railway connecting the Atlantic and the Pacific, is such a project. Likewise, the building of the Grand Inga Hydroelectric Project and the Transaqua project, which will help to irrigate and industrialize several countries in the heart of Africa, are such projects.

In order to overcome the danger of war for good, we need to establish a new international security and development architecture, which takes into account the interests of every single country on the planet. This should be done in the tradition of the Peace of Westphalia, which ended 150 years of religious wars in Europe, because the warring parties realized that there would be nobody left alive if the fighting continued. How much more is that true in the age of thermonuclear weapons!

In order to put such a new architecture before humanity, the Schiller Institute plans to convene an international online conference on Dec. 7-8, with leading representatives and experts of the Collective West and the Global South to discuss the principles on which such a new architecture must be based. We will also provide an example of the dialogue of cultures and civilizations, with beautiful samples of great art from various nations, to show the way to establish a civilization based on, not hatred, but love.

There will be simultaneous interpretation in German, Spanish and French (via Zoom). The conference will also be live-streamed.