World Peace Hangs by a Thread—a New Security Architecture Is an Existential Issue

This is translated for publication in EIR from Helga Zepp-LaRouche’s lead article in the January 27, 2022 issue of Neue Solidarität

Jan. 23 (EIRNS)—After the hectic diplomacy of this week—Annalena Baerbock in Kiev and Moscow, Antony Blinken in Kiev, then in Berlin to meet with the foreign ministers of the United States, France, Great Britain and Germany, Blinken’s meeting with Chancellor Olaf Scholz and finally the meeting of foreign ministers Sergey Lavrov and Blinken in Geneva—the danger of a world war which could annihilate mankind has not been averted. After the last meeting, Lavrov stated that he expected to receive a written answer from the U.S. and NATO next week concerning the legally binding treaties demanded by Russia, which provide that NATO will not expand further east to Russia’s borders, that Ukraine will not be admitted to NATO, and that no offensive weapons systems will be placed on the Russian border. Blinken referred to further talks with “allies and partners in the coming days,” after which Western concerns and ideas could then be shared with Russia.

However, if the U.S. position remains what Blinken, according to RT, told journalists after his meeting with Lavrov—namely that there is no room for compromise on Moscow’s main demand, and that a non-negotiable principle of America and its allies is that the Ukrainian people have the right “to write their own future”—then the very short fuse threatens to burn very quickly. Indeed, the formulation used by Blinken is just a sophistical way of referring to Ukraine’s entry into NATO, which is part of the Anglo-American narrative on “Russia’s aggressions.” But for any honest historian, as well as for everyone who looks at a map, the facts are clear: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, it was not Russia that moved its borders some 1,000 km westward from the border of the then-Warsaw Pact to reach somewhere in France around Lille, but it was NATO that advanced to the east by 1000 km. Thus, it clearly broke the verbal commitments given to Gorbachev by the George H.W. Bush administration, and especially by then-Secretary of State James Baker III, that NATO would not move “one inch to the east.”

A closer look shows that the methods used by NATO to add 14 new member states in Eastern and Central Europe and in the Balkans were not always the most subtle. According to the Western narrative, it was the desire for freedom that pushed these countries into NATO. But the reality is different. After the shock therapy of Jeffrey Sachs and the brutal policy of privatization, with no concern for the social consequences, had drastically impoverished the populations of the former Comecon, a massive network of NGOs was set up with thick checkbooks, with the aim of effecting a paradigm change in favor of the West. In 1990, at the time prior to German reunification and during the upheavals in Eastern Europe, this author personally experienced how the first democratic attempts of self-organization by the people in the East were cold-bloodedly smothered and replaced by compliant opportunists, often enough in positions of government. “Corruption is good” became the motto in many places—then at least we know whom we can trust. So much for the principle of “letting peoples choose their own future.” The latest example just came from the—failed—attempt to carry off a color revolution in Kazakhstan, with the use of “Maidan techniques” as Vladimir Putin correctly pointed out.

If Putin is now demanding—in the context of what German Gen. Harald Kujat (ret.) told DLF radio/TV was not in preparation for a military attack, but rather as a threatening backdrop (i.e., the redeployment of about 100,000 Russian troops closer to the Ukrainian border although some of them are still hundreds of kilometers away)—legally binding written assurances that NATO will neither be extended further eastward to the borders of Russia, nor will ever accept Ukraine as a member, then this is simply a way of expressing that for Russia a red line has been reached. Given the fact that there are already 10,000 NATO troops in Ukraine, including some 4,000 U.S. troops, that private mercenary outfits are training Ukrainian military units in eastern Ukraine for false-flag operations, that the U.K. is supplying offensive lethal weapons to Ukraine, that U.S. and British warships and fighter jets are provoking incidents in the Black Sea aimed at providing the reconnaissance aircraft with information about Russian military capabilities—what conclusions is Russia supposed to draw from all these and many other policies? In reality, NATO is already operating practically in Ukraine, but formal NATO membership would definitively confirm that it was no longer possible to defend Russia’s fundamental security interests.

Even as the abovementioned diplomatic talks were ongoing, the British broadcaster Sky News reported that the U.K. had deployed 30 members of its “Special Operations Brigade” to Ukraine to train Ukrainian troops on anti-tank weapons that were also supplied by the British. According to the military spokesman for the Donetsk People’s Republic, more than 460 tons of various lethal weapons, including 2,000 NLAWs (anti-tank missiles), have recently been delivered by nine C17 aircraft to Ukrainian forces stationed on the line of contact with the Donbas, which include a considerable number of radical nationalists. Whether these weapons are defensive or offensive in nature depends, as always, on the specific combat situation.

Shortly after Moscow presented the two treaties to the United States and NATO on Dec. 15, Putin announced that Russia would respond to their rejection with “appropriate military-technical retaliatory measures.” In a Jan. 15 article in National Interest magazine, David T. Pyne, currently working for the Task Force on National and Homeland Security (a Congressional Advisory Board), cited Brussels-based U.S. analyst Gilbert Doctorow’s interpretation of what these “military-technical retaliatory measures” might entail. Doctorow assumes that it means the additional deployment of Russian nuclear-capable SS-26 Iskander-M short-range missiles to Belarus and Kaliningrad, which would threaten NATO front-line states and eastern Germany. Moreover, the new nuclear-armed Tsirkon sea-launched hypersonic cruise missiles could be stationed off the American coast near Washington. Earlier statements from Russian officials noted that such missiles could destroy the American capital faster than the President could escape on Air Force One.

Therefore, if the U.S. and NATO reject Russia’s demands for security guarantees, there is a real probability that we may have to deal very soon with a double Cuba crisis, but without a John F. Kennedy as U.S. President. Rather, we have a President Biden whom the war hawks in his entourage openly refuse to respect and who “correct” him if he says he does not seek war with Russia.

It should be clear to all thinking persons that in the event of a war waged with nuclear weapons—be it “limited” or not—no one in Germany would survive. For our new Foreign Minister Baerbock, it is obviously not clear, otherwise she would not fall into NATO jargon in such a synchronized manner with “dear Tony” as she just did at the Berlin press conference. The Greens have completely morphed into a war party. And if someone begins pondering, like former Defense Minister Annegret Kramp-Karrenbauer, what nuclear options there might be against Russia, then they should seek therapy against suicidal and homicidal thoughts.

Under such circumstances, Germany’s membership in NATO can no longer be defended. We immediately need a new international security architecture that takes into account the interests of all countries, explicitly including those of Russia and China. If we have learned anything from history, it is that only those treaties that include the interests of all the states involved, such as the Treaty of Westphalia, can be the basis for lasting peace. Peace treaties that do not do so, such as the Treaty of Versailles, contain the opening salvo for the next war, as we in Germany should have painfully learned. NATO, which unnecessarily excluded Russia from the European house after the dissolution of the Soviet Union and has since increasingly become an offensive alliance, not only no longer corresponds to Germany’s security interests, but has become the primary threat to Germany’s existence.

We need a new security architecture that overcomes the geopolitics responsible for two world wars in the 20th century, one that defines the common goals of mankind as its fundamental principle. And this includes, first and foremost, the elimination of the primary cause of war—which is the imminent collapse of the trans-Atlantic financial system—and the creation of a new credit system, a New Bretton Woods system, that vanquishes poverty and underdevelopment everywhere in the world.

All peace-loving people in the world are called upon to enter into an open dialogue on this issue.