Harley Schlanger gave a presentation on Saturday, January 29, at the LaRouche Organization Manhattan Project. Here is the transcript from the presentation.
THE BRITISH HAND BEHIND THE U.S./NATO WAR DRIVE
HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello, everyone. I want to just give a little bit more background on the reasonable nature of the Russian demand for a new security guarantee, and then look at that from the standpoint of the threats and the bullying that Helga was talking about, and then go back to the deeper question of what’s really going on here, who really is behind the war drive. Because it’s really very difficult to believe that the Russians have any intention to invade Ukraine, for reasons that were just explained by Helga.
So, what’s going on here? Putin’s proposal was a highly reasonable one. After 30 years of broken promises, after 30 years of Western moves toward the Russian border, wars launched, regime-change operations carried out, psychological warfare inside Russia, blaming Russia for use of chemical weapons, and on and on. After 30 years of that, Putin basically said, look we want legally binding written guarantees on three major points, which you just heard from Helga. No further eastward motion of NATO. This was promised in 1990 and again in 1994, and it’s been violated ever since. No membership in NATO for Ukraine. There are a lot of reasons for this, but basically Ukraine is a divided country, there’s no unity inside the country. It’s not a secure country; there’s a corrupt oligarchy. Its membership in NATO would require overriding most of the requirements that exist for NATO membership. So, why the push to bring Ukraine into NATO? That gets to the third point. The danger of the deployment of offensive weapons in Ukraine on the Russian border, as Putin has said, within 5-7 minutes of Moscow launch time. So, the Russian proposal is, let’s go back to the end of the Cold War. Let’s go back to 1997 in particular, and write an agreement which will give security guarantees to Russia, which include a guarantee that Russia will not be the target of a surprise attack from the West.
In response to this, we’re seeing, as Helga pointed out, Blinken going into the meeting with Lavrov a week ago, saying we’re not going to give in to your requests. We’re not taking NATO membership for Ukraine off the table. You can’t tell us what to do. You don’t have a right to spheres of influence; no nation has a right to spheres of influence. Well, what kind of sophistry is that? The United States sphere of influence is the whole world. We have troops and bases in close to 100 countries around the world, many of which are far removed from the geographic location of the United States. This idea of sphere of influence—what about the Monroe Doctrine? This is where you see the sophistry, but it goes further, because they’re making very serious threats. In particular, there was a January 25th meeting at the White House, and a memo from this meeting was produced. What they said is, they defined what they mean by severe economic measures. They said they will hit Putin’s strategic ambitions to industrialize the economy. So, the sanctions that would be imposed—and there are some people who say these sanctions should be imposed preemptively, before Russia invades Ukraine. Well, the idea that you’re going to stop the industrialization or the modernization of the Russian economy? That’s economic warfare. That’s what’s being talked about in the White House. To deny Russia access to modern technologies. Well, the Russians are coming up with some of their own, like the hypersonic missiles, they’re working with the Chinese. But they say to prevent Putin’s intention to diversify from exporting oil and gas. This goes back to the argument that Russia is basically a gas station; that it makes all its money with the profile of a Third World country from raw materials. And let’s keep it that way so they can’t develop modern technology.
That’s a wartime, aggressive prewar operation coming from the White House. Is that really what Biden intends? We don’t know. We hear this from Blinken, we hear this from spokesmen from the administration. Biden himself said the United States will not get involved in a war in Ukraine, but that our allies are totally united behind the U.S. desire to protect Ukraine’s sovereignty and democracy. Which as I pointed out before, is a joke, given that the sovereignty of Ukraine was violated by the United States and its allies, including people like George Soros and non-governmental organizations in the February 2014 coup.
But the other question that’s coming up now: Is NATO really unified? Well, there’s a discussion between Macron and Putin where the main discussion topic was reviving the Normandy Four proposals for the Minsk Accord, which essentially is being violated by Ukraine. Ukraine signed an agreement in which they said they would negotiate with leaders of the breakaway republics, so-called. The Donbas region. But they refused to do it; they say they want to negotiate with Russia. But Russia says, this is part of your country. Instead of deploying half the Ukrainian army on the river facing the Donbas, why don’t you meet and discuss this with the leaders of the people who are demanding more autonomy? So, Macron said that he agrees with Putin that this process should be strengthened. What that means is that Germany and France, who are the other two signers besides Russia and Ukraine, must put pressure on Ukraine.
Then you had a video conference between Putin and the Italian-Russian Chamber of Commerce, or the Russian-Italian Chamber of Commerce. A dialogue in which Putin said again, Russia has no intention to invade Ukraine. But mostly, they talked about trade issues. This did not sit well with the European Union, which initially tried to dissuade the Italians from having this, and then responded that this was an inopportune thing to do, given the Russian threat to invade Ukraine. There’s another group, the German Committee on East European Economic Relations, which wants to have a similar video conference with Putin. It’s apparently coming under pressure also. In their request, they cited former German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who once said, “The highest good is the maintenance of peace.” This is what is the intent behind these kinds of discussions.
We’re seeing the emergence in Germany of something very interesting. The old tendency towards Ostpolitik—Eastern politics—which goes back to the Willy Brandt administration from 1969 to 1974. Where the discussion was of a change in relations through rapprochement, détente, negotiations. This, of course, was something that was very antithetical at the time to the British-U.S. control over NATO, although Nixon himself then launch certain discussions with Russia. These are a little more murky, but in any case, this tendency is now re-emerging in Germany in spite of the vitriolic tendency of the war party in the Greens who are in the Cabinet.
I’ll just review very quickly this Zelenskyy-Biden call, because it gets to the question that I want to go into in more depth, which is: Who is trying to sabotage a peaceful resolution? A reporter from CNN named Matthew Chance, who by the way just happens to be a British subject. We haven’t investigated this enough yet, but that in itself is telling. He apparently either made up a source, or found a source who told him something that was not true. That Biden said to Zelenskyy during the meeting that the Russians will come in and sack Kiev; there will be harmful impact, and you better be prepared for that. It was also said from a CNN editor that Biden said that Russia will definitely invade when the ground freezes. A Zelenskyy spokesman denied that Biden said that. A National Security Council official named Emily Horn said that CNN is citing anonymous sources who are spreading falsehoods about the call. Why should we be surprised that something like this comes from a British subject through CNN, which is a totally disreputable psychological warfare operation rather than a news network. This comes at a moment when the U.S. is talking about withdrawing the family members of diplomatic personnel in Kiev, which a Ukrainian former Defense Minister mocked by saying, “They’re safer in Kiev than they would be in Los Angeles or any of the other cities in the United States under siege.” Zelenskyy himself said this kind of talk is causing panic. It creates the perception that there’s a war underway. He said, “That’s not the case.”
Also, Zelenskyy in his response said this is harming Ukraine’s ability to get foreign aid, which they need. They need $4-5 billion in aid to stabilize the economy. Well, maybe instead of asking for billions of dollars of weapons, they should see if they can get new loans. But why are they in trouble? Why do they have such a large debt? When the coup took place in February 2014, one of the first things the new government of oligarchs did was to bring in the International Monetary Fund, which imposed a form of shock therapy on Ukraine. The idea of a transition to a free market economy, which drove the living standards down, shut down a lot of industry in Ukraine, and created a problem that the loans that they had taken previously could not be covered. They had to borrow more, and now they’re one of the 54 nations that is heavily indebted that the World Bank and others say could be headed toward a debt default which could trigger a global financial crisis.
So, if you put this together, what you see is Ukraine, which was always a difficult country because of the ethnic divisions, because of the post-Soviet period, and so on, was worsened by the coup by bringing in the IMF, and by making the demand that it be brought into NATO to increase the tension that exists already between the Russian population in eastern Ukraine and the majority so-called Ukrainian population in Kiev, which includes in very important positions in its defense and security forces open neo-Nazis who are out to kill Russians. That’s the situation on the ground at present.
Let me just do a little bit of brief background on why it’s important that this is a British-initiated story. Because it comes at the same time that the British intelligence agencies put out a report saying that they have evidence that the Russians are trying to pull a kind of reverse Maidan; a coup in Kiev to put in a pro-Russian president to replace Zelenskyy. This was heavily covered in Europe, heavily covered in the United States. When the Ukrainians said they don’t believe it, and the person British intelligence named as the target, or the one who would be brought in by the Russians, when he denounced it and denied it, those stories were never covered. But the fact that the Russians supposedly were organizing a coup was given heavy coverage.
Now, what’s the British interest here? Many people say, well, you LaRouche people always talk about the Brits, but Britain is a collapsed country. The United Kingdom is no longer very significant. Well, it is still a nuclear power, but more importantly, the British Commonwealth is a political force in the world. The City of London is the dominant financial force in terms of setting the policies. People who are focussed on Klaus Schwab and the World Economic Forum in Davos, their policies for the Great Reset come from the City of London. Klaus Schwab is not an original thinker; he works closely with Mark Carney, the former director of the Bank of England who is the person overseeing for the United Nations the Green New Deal and the Great Reset. So, this is a British operation.
But, what’s the British interest here? This goes back to the 19th century, what was known as the Great Game, which is the background to the Afghan war. But more importantly, the overall strategy of empire is called geopolitics. And I’m not going to go through the history of that, Mackinder; I’ve done that before, you can find that on YouTube. But the important conception behind British policy from the 1890s to the present, is the greatest threat to the ability of the British and now the United States to dictate the terms of the post-Cold War order, would be the same threat that they had in 1900: That of Eurasian integration. And by that, they mean Western Europe, France, Germany, Italy, the countries of Eastern Europe uniting economically with Russia, with China, with the Asian countries. Because that would undermine the power of the City of London. Why? Because of what you just heard from Lyndon LaRouche before.
The City of London bases its supremacy on monetarism, on neo-liberalism, on the ability to speculate, and in opposition to investing funds into physical economy. That’s always been the fighting issue between the American colonies and the new American republic against the British Empire. The Brits are for free market policies, free trade policies. The United States was founded on policies of protectionism, investment in physical economy, and in favor of industry based on science and technology as opposed to looting and predatory policies based on speculation, which is the core of monetarism and has been from the time of the British East India Company in the 18th century.
Let’s look at the recent history of this to get a sense of the British role in controlling U.S. policy. I’m going to look very quickly at two prominent British figures, who themselves were just spokesmen for the City of London and the oligarchy, but are known for their policies. Let’s look at that. First, you have Margaret Thatcher, who in 1983 in an ongoing fight that the City of London was having with people who were saying the City has too much power, she came down along with high court on the side of the City of London. The result was what was called the Big Bang, which was a deregulation policy which did away with much of the control that the government had over the banks and the financial institutions. This opened the door for a bigger speculation that goes back to the 1971 decision by Nixon to end the Bretton Woods system. The next step in this was 1983 in Britain. Ronald Reagan took leadership from Margaret Thatcher on this, and the Reagan economic policy, even though there was somewhat of an economic impact from the big spending on defense, nevertheless in October 1987 we had giant stock market crash, which had been forecast by LaRouche earlier that year. Why did that happen? Because of the shift to a speculative economy under Thatcher. Nigel Lawson, who was the Chancellor of the Exchequer under Thatcher when the Big Bang took place, and after the 2008 crash, in a moment of candor, said that the crash of 2007-8 was an unintended consequence of the Big Bang.
Thatcher’s policy, as I said, was adopted by Reagan, Bush. In 1999, the repeal of Glass-Steagall, and the United States is right there with the United Kingdom, that is Wall Street and Silicon Valley with the City of London, as a deregulated money center for monetarism and neo-liberalism.
Also with Thatcher was the neo-con policy of war, the fight to protect the Empire. There’s a really interesting story: In 1991, when Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, and the question was, would the United States do anything or not? Margaret Thatcher was staying with the U.S. Ambassador to Britain in Aspen, Colorado for a vacation. She was visiting the U.S. Ambassador to Britain in Colorado, and George H.W. Bush, the President of the United States, flew to Aspen to meet with her to discuss what should be done about Saddam. She made this famous comment to him, “Remember, George, this is no time to go wobbly.” She encouraged him to invade. Later, she said it more colloquially, she said she “stiffened his spine” at that meeting. Just of interest, the Ambassador to Britain that she went to visit was Raymond Seitz, who had spent three years before being the Ambassador to Britain as the Executive Assistant to Secretary of State George P. Shultz, a British monetarist to his core. So, that’s the Thatcher policy—neo-liberalism, neo-con, U.S.-British Empire must set the rules of the rules-based order.
The next step in that was Tony Blair. Blair was also a neo-liberal and a neo-con. His neo-liberalism was called the Third Way, democratic socialism, but also free-market policy. Blair always represented the City of London. He was just given the Noble Order of the Garter, the highest honor that you can get from Queen Elizabeth. Blair’s policies were deregulation and neo-liberal economics: Tear down the role of the government, make everything a stakeholder society, shareholder values. That’s what Klaus Schwab is talking about now.
LaRouche was attacking this back in the 1980s, when it started with Thatcher, but under Blair, the impact was especially profound with the Clinton-Gore administration, where Bill Clinton signed on, and this goes back again to the ’80s when Gore set up the Democratic Leadership Council which said Democrats have to move to the center, shouldn’t be left wing, and so on. They fully embraced the deregulated economic system. In fact, Clinton, under the influence of Robert Rubin, signed the repeal of Glass-Steagall in 1999, which took away any prohibition against speculation for the commercial banks. The Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act, which opened the door to the crash of 2007-2008, as Nigel Lawson said.
William Black, who is a very prominent columnist, analyst, former bank regulator, said that the Third Way pretends to be a center-left policy, but is actually completely a creation of Wall Street. He called it a “false flag operation” of Wall Street. That’s what Clinton embraced; that’s what Obama was full-fledged. That’s why Obama bailed out the banks in 2008 instead of listening to LaRouche and putting them through bankruptcy reorganization.
On the war question, Blair is the same as Thatcher. Blair is the outspoken proponent of getting rid of the idea of the principle of Westphalia, which is that you must recognize the security interests of other nations. You must act toward other nations as you wish they would act toward you: no interference in the internal affairs of other nations. That was signed in 1648 as the Peace of Westphalia. Blair in 1999 said, “no, no, no, no, no, we can’t have that anymore.” There’s too much evil that has to be taken on, that’s why we have to get rid of the Westphalian principle. What he put forward instead was the idea of Responsibility to Protect, which is essentially a justification for regime-change coups. This was brought into the United States by people like Samantha Power (who by the way is a Brit) and others who insisted that the Clinton administration get involved in the Balkan war, in which the U.S. and NATO bombed Yugoslavia. And especially regime change in Iraq, in Syria, in Libya, and in Ukraine.
In April 2002, there was a meeting at Blair’s country home, Chequers, which included Lord Boyce, the Chief of the Defense Staff; it included Richard Dearlove, the Chief of MI6; and Sir John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee. They met to discuss Iraq. This was in April 2002, just after the U.S. and NATO invaded Afghanistan. Then on April 6th and 7th, four days after this meeting, Blair flew to Crawford, Texas to the Bush ranch, and had two days of meetings with Bush, Jr. in which they discussed Iraq. Less than a year later, the U.S. invaded Iraq. But before the invasion, in September of 2002, Sir Richard Dearlove provided the original dodgy dossier =, which claimed Saddam Hussein was building weapons of mass destruction, getting yellow cake uranium from Niger in Africa, and that this was to show that Saddam Hussein had a capability, according to that report, to hit the United Kingdom with nuclear bombs, nuclear weapons within 45 minutes whenever they decided to do it. This was cited by the United States when they went to the United Nations to get support for the invasion of Iraq, in the February 2003 discredited presentation by Sir Colin Powell.
There’s more you could go into on this British question. The Syrian chemical weapons charges which came from the White Helmets, which were essentially a British operation working for the overthrow of Assad. You had the Skripal affair, the claims from Porton Down, the British chemical weapons lab, that Putin was deploying agents to kill off Russian defectors with a highly poisonous chemical. Same thing against Navalny. And then the most recent example again being this British report, at the height of the tension over whether Russia is going to invade or not, claiming that Russia had a plan to overthrow the Zelenskyy government and put in a pro-Russian government.
I want you to think about this question, because this British question is real. The British Empire’s power is the power of shifting the narrative, of creating new narratives, and of invading your mind to convince you that the greatest threat to peace and security in the world is the demon, Vladimir Putin, and the authoritarian dictator Xi Jinping in China. And not the fact that, under British direction, the United States has taken the lead in shifting the world to a neo-liberal economic system, which is responsible for poverty, for absolutely unsustainable debt, putting us on a pathway toward an economic crash, and at that same time, one war after another, and now targetting Russia and China.
So, what’s the lesson from all this? Join with the Schiller Institute. Find out how the world really works. This was Lyndon LaRouche’s great contribution to humanity. Not just being able to find out who the bad guys are, but to provide an understanding of how the human mind is the battlefield, and that the British are highly sophisticated in their ability to shift the way you think; including the development from Silicon Valley of social media networks and so on, the spy operations and so on. The running of Russia-gate; on and on and on. This has to end. The United States has to stop being a dangerous ferocious beast on a British leash. That’s why the hope is that we can pull back from this situation with Ukraine. But more importantly, move toward a new security arrangement for the world, which does not start from the City of London and Washington and NATO.
That’s what I wanted to present today.