EIR LEAD EDITORIAL FOR TUESDAY JULY 25, 2023

Tensions Escalate in Eastern Europe: Join the Fighting Movement for Peace

July 24, 2023, 2022 (EIRNS)—Escalations over the recent few days have made it clear that the growing danger of war will not go away until a qualitative change occurs among Western nations. Any thought that, because nothing disastrous has happened yet in 17 months of conflict in Ukraine, therefore everything will continue to be fine—is absolute idiocy.

Last Friday, July 21, at a meeting of the Russian Security Council, Russia’s Director of Foreign Intelligence Sergey Naryshkin, put out a warning that the truth of the inevitable defeat of the Ukrainian military is beginning to dawn on many in the West, and new plans are being crafted. According to Naryshkin, Poland is

“getting more intent on taking the western parts of Ukraine under control by deploying their troops there.” President Putin followed these remarks with a thorough history of Poland’s territorial aspirations, as parts of Ukraine, Lithuania, and Belarus were incorporated by Poland before World War II, and which many in Poland would eagerly like to swallow up again today. “We believe that it is necessary to keep a close eye on these dangerous plans of the Polish authorities,”

Naryshkin had said.

When Putin met with Belarus’s President Lukashenko on July 23, this danger was put even more at the forefront. Lukashenko warned Putin of major changes in Poland’s military positions, currently moving eastward towards Belarus and Ukraine, saying: “They want to chop off western Ukraine and join it to Poland. This is the payment for the active participation of the Poles in this operation.” Lukashenko also told Putin that Belarus would not hesitate to step in to defend against this. Clearly, these scenarios would trigger an entirely new theater in the proxy war between Global NATO and Russia, and a much more dangerous one at that.

Add to this the increased rhetoric around the Black Sea Grain Initiative. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called NATO chief Stoltenberg over the weekend to discuss NATO’s participation in a security corridor in the Black Sea following Russia’s withdrawal from the agreement. As one senior diplomat noted of these developments, “storm clouds” are gathering over the Black Sea, and Russia will only perceive this in one way.

In discussions with associates today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche made the point that the danger of war does not come from developments around Ukraine, or even around Taiwan. Rather the drive for war comes from the previously dominant “rules-based order,” which is now being confronted with the reality of a whole new system in the emergence of the Global South and the key role of China. The majority of the world is asserting its right to have a new, just world economic system that addresses the fundamental interests of every nation, most importantly economic development. The fact that some refuse to accept this is the core of today’s crisis. And don’t think the tensions in the Korean Peninsula are not coming from the same place.

At the same time, the existence of this new system is becoming increasingly clear and substantial. President Putin wrote an article in preparation for this week’s Russia-Africa Summit, which appeared all across newspapers in Africa. In it, he stressed Africa’s “worthy place” in a new, “more just and democratic” world order. He went on to elaborate many avenues of economic cooperation that Russia intends to deepen with the continent. At the same time, China’s top diplomat, Wang Yi, is touring several African countries during his trip to meet with his BRICS counterparts this week in South Africa, and has had many warm and friendly discussions so far at stops in Ethiopia and Kenya. It was also reported that Russia has proposed the creation of a new module for their space station that will be dedicated to scientific cooperation with other BRICS nations, and a special offer has been extended to African and other nations to participate as well.

Western nations and leaders must give up their arrogance at trying to control the world, and work cooperatively with this emerging new system. The Global South can only benefit from the valuable expertise held by the U.S. and Europe.

An all-out mobilization is needed now in the runup to the international peace demonstrations on August 6. Most of the population does not know what is being done in their names, and must be awakened to the dangers faced by the continued use of wars to solve our problems. Also, the release of the new movie “Oppenheimer” across the world last weekend is causing a heightened mood within the population, that this existential danger is still unresolved. It is up to us to make it concrete, and its solutions known.

Join the mobilization, and become a catalyst for this new policy that is so urgently needed.