EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR THURSDAY MAY 25, 2023

City of London Admits It Has a Major Strategic Problem with the Global South

May 24, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—It’s often a good idea to look at the world through your enemy’s eyes, to see what he sees—and what he fails to see.

A Financial Times Editorial Board statement published on May 22 under the headline “Taking Stock of the G7 Hiroshima Summit,” provides a useful bird’s-eye-view of the global strategic situation from the standpoint of the thoroughly bankrupt City of London and Wall Street financial interests. A fair summary would be: Things are going ok for us in the West with our gameplan of orchestrating a showdown with Russia and China, but we have a huge problem with the Global South. They are not on board with that policy, at all, and we’d better come up with something to deal with that. However, the “something” that the Financial Times proposes—significant investment in the nations of the South—is not achievable under today’s trans-Atlantic financial system.

The subhead on the editorial identifies the problem: “Show of unity on Russia and China needs to be followed up with concrete actions.” They note that the G7 summit “had some notable achievements.... The summit made a welcome effort at broadening international support for Ukraine.” The meeting also “gave Zelenskyy a global platform.... The U.S. decision to back allies in supplying F-16 fighter jets and help train Ukrainian pilots, alongside a new $375 million military aid package from Washington, was a particular boost for Kiev too.”

But, but, but...

“Garnering support from the so-called ‘global south’ will however continue to be a major challenge for the G7. Economic ties between these nations and Russia and China are a barrier. Indeed, India has been gorging on cheap Russian oil, and bilateral trade between Brazil and China has surged. With China also building ports and doling out billions in aid and investment across Latin America, Africa, and South East Asia, stronger dialogue will only go so far.” The editorial concludes that “the G7 will need to follow through on promises to support developing nations with investment and climate finance.”

But that is precisely what the G7 nations—all today under the thumb of the bankrupt City of London and Wall Street financial interests—cannot do. On the other hand, China, Russia, and the emerging bloc of the BRICS, Shanghai Cooperation Organization, and Eurasian Economic Union can. The two-day Eurasian Economic Forum summit underway in Moscow is exemplary, as are the groundbreaking meeting of the heads of state of Iran and Indonesia, and the visit of Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin to China—including a meeting with the new president of the BRICS New Development Bank Dilma Rousseff.

With that wind in their sails, there is an unrelenting campaign for a negotiated solution in Ukraine being carried out by a diversity of forces, both singly and jointly: the Vatican, Brazilian President Lula, China, and a half-dozen African heads of state. This, despite the adamant refusal of London, Washington, and their Kiev puppet government to do anything but escalate the war, up to and including a direct thermonuclear showdown with Russia.

The crucial swing factor in this entire strategic equation is the voice of those sane political forces in the United States and in Europe who understand the urgency of avoiding a nuclear confrontation with Russia, and who realize that their objectives and those of the Global South are fully consonant. Their voice is that of President John F. Kennedy, and his historic American University speech on June 10, 1963, which the Schiller Institute will recall and revive through an international videoconference on June 10, 2023.