EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR SUNDAY MARCH 5, 2023

Global NATO Is on Its Back Foot, But How Do We Avoid Nuclear War?

March 4, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was on to something when he stated last week that part of the “tectonic process” underway in world politics is that “the countries which feel independent and are guided by national interests,” as opposed to the diktats of Wall Street and the City of London, now constitute “the Global Majority ... [which] include giants such as China and India and many of our other international partners.”

That emerging reality was on display at the G20 Foreign Ministers meeting on March 1-2 in India, which was unable to even issue a joint communiqué because the U.S. and other G7 nations insisted that it had to contain an attack on Russia and a defense of Ukraine—which a number of nations refused to go along with. Something similar happened the next day at the so-called Quad meeting of the U.S., Japan, Australia and India foreign ministers, because the Indian government also refused to sign on to a statement attacking Russia. And at the prestigious Raisina Dialogue on global politics held in New Delhi also on March 3, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov tore into the duplicity of the West’s attacks on Russia, while driving NATO’s eastward expansion for over 20 years, up to Russia’s very border with Ukraine—and then feigning “surprise” that they had forced Russia to respond.

“You believe that the United States has the right to declare a threat to its national interests any place on Earth, like they did in Yugoslavia, in Iraq, in Libya, and in Syria—10,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean—it has the right to do so, and you do not ask them any questions,” a feisty Lavrov answered a provocative question from the host. But on the other hand, he continued,

“Russia was warning them—not just overnight like they did in Iraq and elsewhere, but for more than 10 years—you are doing something which is going to be very bad. And it was not across the ocean, but just on our borders, on the territories where the Russians have lived for centuries and centuries and centuries. If that is not a double standard, then I am not a minister.”

The audience of high-level political and business leaders applauded and cheered in approval.

Russia “isolated” from the world? Far from it. Rather it is the United States, and the EU and NATO, which has charted a course that is isolating it from two-thirds of humanity.

Along with this rising role in world politics of the Global South—or the Global Majority, as Lavrov calls it—consider three additional strategic factors: 1) the emergence of a significant, thoughtful anti-war movement in the United States and Europe; 2) a military stalemate on the ground in Ukraine which NATO cannot win without escalating to nuclear war; and 3) the onrushing disintegration of the trans-Atlantic financial system under the burden of Fed-induced soaring interest rates internationally.

In a word, Global NATO is on its back foot, strategically, having lost the initiative. But for that very reason, this is the most dangerous of moments, because it’s the kind of situation in which the British typically lash out with terrorism, wars, destabilizations, and other major provocations—including nuclear ones. It is the moment the One Humanity must push through for a fundamental solution to the entire global crisis, with a new international security and development architecture of the sort Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche has sketched out in her Ten Principles.

In a discussion with associates today, Zepp-LaRouche stressed the urgency of organizing the American population to demand that the U.S. join with the Global South, the Global Majority, in a new economic order of high-tech development. If the U.S. were to offer such cooperation—rather than war—to Russia and China, I’m 100% sure they would welcome that initiative, she stated.

If, on the other hand, the U.S. continues down the current path of demanding the destruction and dismemberment of Russia as a nation; of insisting on seizing Crimea for Ukraine (despite the vote of 90% of its population to be part of Russia); of planning a possible first nuclear strike against Russia to try to wipe out 65-70% of their nuclear warheads; of threatening China with Russia-style economic sanctions and warfare—if we stay this course, then we shall reap what we have sown, and will probably not even be around to tell the sorry tale to our children and grandchildren.

An exaggeration? Just read the report below on Russia’s new doctrine of Operation of Strategic Deterrence Forces, designed to address the clearly perceived threat of an American “decapitation” or first nuclear strike.