Den 23. januar (EIRNS) – Med den britiske udenrigsminister Liz Truss’ lokketoner den 22. januar, om et “russisk kup på vej i Ukraine” – for at fremme det britiske krav om at ramme Rusland {nu}med de finansielle supersanktioner, som skulle true med at afskrække fra krig – er det blevet klart, at der ikke er nogen “enighed blandt NATO-allierede og partnere” om at håndtere Rusland i Ukraine-missilkrisen. 

Det er snarere et britisk fremstød for at tvinge Rusland til at invadere Ukraine eller kapitulere; en trængt, men klar tysk modstand mod den britiske krigskampagne; en fransk præsident, der ønsker at forhandle, men som forsøger at fremstå nydelig og blive genvalgt; og en svag amerikansk præsident, som helst vil undgå krig.

Hvis der udbryder krig, ja, endog verdenskrig, vil det være en krig, som City of London og Storbritannien påtvinger det svækkede amerikanske præsidentskab. Ikke en ny Krim-krig, men en krig for at hævne sig på Rusland og Kina, for at have ydet modstand og spoleret det store globale klimatopmøde i Glasgow i november, hvilket efterlod de britiske ministre, der ledede topmødet, med vredens tårer, da det endte som en fiasko. Det gjaldt også premierminister Boris Johnson, “BoJo”, den slemme klovn, som er miskrediteret og er meget tæt på en mistillidsafstemning fra sit eget konservative partis parlamentsmedlemmer. “Hans holdninger er blevet strengere” over for Rusland, meddelte hans talsmand den 22. januar. I {New York Times’} dækning af det “nye fake” var overskriften: “Storbritannien efterstræber en mere muskuløs rolle i opgøret med Rusland om Ukraine”, selv om det altid er amerikanske muskler, som Storbritannien anvender. (https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/23/world/europe/uk-russia-ukraine.html)

Selv den nervøst hyper-aggressive, amerikanske udenrigsminister, Antony Blinken, reagerede ikke på den nyeste britiske krigsfabel, ud over “Vi tager det alvorligt”, da det blev slynget efter ham i dag af “Face the Nations” ordstyrer, Margaret Brennan, der rablede, som om hun havde taget noget britisk meth-amfetamin i sin kaffe før programmet. Over for London-Kiev-kravet om, at de såkaldte finansielle “supersanktioner” skal indføres over for Rusland i morgen, bemærkede Blinken det indlysende: “Vi bruger dem som afskrækkelse. De ville miste deres afskrækkende virkning”. Han nævnte ikke det lige så indlysende: “og skubbe Rusland mod krig” – den britiske hensigt. Blinken understregede gentagne gange to punkter: “Vi har i de seneste dage, samlet allierede og partnere på en meget intens måde i hele Europa”; og “vi reagerer også på nogle af Ruslands bekymringer med yderligere samtaler, og vi forventer, at de reagerer på vores bekymringer.”

Den russiske ambassade i London understregede i dag, at briterne stod uden for forhandlingsprocessen med Rusland: “Det britiske udenrigsministerium fortsætter med en række provokerende udtalelser om situationen omkring Ukraine… Disse opråb kommer på baggrund af en åbenlys svækkelse af den britiske ekspertise om Rusland og Ukraine. …Udenrigsminister Elizabeth Truss’ udsagn om, at Ukraine har lidt under forskellige invasioner, ‘fra mongolerne til tatarerne’, er et eksempel herpå. Efterfølgende kom ‘nyheden’ om, at Rusland har til hensigt at etablere et marionetregime i Kiev, under ledelse af et tidligere ukrainsk parlamentsmedlem – en person, der tilfældigvis er under russiske sanktioner for at være en trussel mod den nationale sikkerhed”, med henvisning til Jevhenij Murajev. (https://www.rusemb.org.uk/fnapr/7059)

Tyskland ønsker ikke at lade den britiske krigsførelse lykkes. Dets flådechef, viceadmiral Kay-Achim Schönbach, blev tvunget til at træde tilbage på grund af angreb fra medierne, da han udtalte, at det Putin “ønsker er respekt”. Og min Gud, at give nogen respekt er en lav pris… Det er let at give ham den respekt, som han reelt kræver – og sandsynligvis også fortjener”. Det forlyder nu bredt, at kansler Olaf Scholz blev bedt om at tage til Washington til konsultationer med præsident Biden, men afviste at tage af sted til et senere tidspunkt. Tyskland vil ikke tillade, at de baltiske lande, som det har solgt tyske våben til, giver dem videre til Ukraine, og de hektiske britiske leverancer af dødbringende våben, flyves over dansk luftrum, fordi Storbritannien ikke tør bede Tyskland om tilladelse til overflyvning.

Biden-administrationen er i færd med at svare skriftligt, på den russiske præsident Putins foreslåede aftaler om at holde NATO’s missiler og krigsforberedelser ude af Ukraine og fra Ruslands grænse – “og at give udtryk for vores bekymring” over Rusland, sagde Blinken i dag. USA har besluttet, at det ønsker at Rusland skal acceptere at undlade offentliggørelse af disse svar, højst sandsynligt fordi en sådan offentliggørelse enten vil gøre krigsmagere omkring BoJos regering og inde i City of London rasende, eller skabe mere tvivl i Tyskland, Frankrig og måske hos andre “allierede og partnere”.

Det vigtigste spørgsmål er nu, hvad de amerikanske borgere vil gøre for at lede deres vaklende regering i retning af at løse de vigtigste problemer, som menneskeheden står over for? Det kræver samarbejde med i det mindste Rusland og Kina, som et middel til at vende den amerikanske industriøkonomis forfald hen imod “grønt” selvmord, og inddrage USA i opbygningen af nye offentlige sundhedssystemer og programmer for udvikling af infrastruktur overalt i verden. Londons malthusianske politik med afindustrialisering ved hjælp af krig kan ikke tolereres.

Udvalgt billede: Julius Silver

Den 22 januar (EIRNS) – Schiller Instituttet afholdt i dag et kritisk debatmøde under titlen: “En forskel i lederskab: Kan krig mod Rusland stadig undgås?” I en tale fra den russiske repræsentation ved FN, redegjorde ambassadør Dmitry Polyanskij, 1. permanente vicerepræsentant for Den Russiske Føderations faste mission ved FN, for den barske virkelighed i forbindelse med de vestlige lederes igangværende stormløb mod krig. “Det ser ud til,” sagde han, “at vores vestlige kolleger er forblændet af den såkaldte ‘sejr’ i Den kolde Krig, og fortsætter med at leve i disse minder og forsøger at tale ud fra en overlegen position og påtvungen dobbeltmoral. De bebrejder os for vores troppers tilstedeværelse og bevægelser på eget suveræne territorium, mens de hævder, at alt, hvad de gør på NATO’s territorium, ikke angår andre. Dette vil ikke længere kunne fungere.”

Helga Zepp-LaRouche fremlagde en tilgang til krisen ud fra et overordnet perspektiv: “Jeg insisterer meget indtrængende på, at vi har brug for en ny sikkerhedsarkitektur, som skal tage hensyn til de grundlæggende erfaringer fra historien. Man må undersøge de traktater, der førte til fred, og dem, der mislykkedes. Et godt eksempel på det første, er den Westfalske Fred, hvor folk efter 150 års religionskrig, især Trediveårskrigen, indså, at ingen ville være sejrherre ved en fortsættelse af krigen. Så de blev enige om de berømte principper i den Westfalske fred, hvoraf det vigtigste er, at man skal tage hensyn til den andens interesser, hvis man vil have fred. Hver gang det bliver praktiseret – og denne Westfalske Fred var i øvrigt begyndelsen til folkeretten og det, der udgør FN-Pagten i dag – fører det til fred. Det andet eksempel er Versailles-traktaten, som proklamerede, at Tyskland var den eneste skyldige part i Første Verdenskrig, hvilket ikke var sandt. Den var bestemt ikke retfærdig. Den lagde byrder på Tyskland, som ikke kun skulle betale krigens udgifter, men også erstatninger, hvilket overbelastede den tyske økonomi fuldstændigt. Så Rigsbanken begyndte at trykke penge, hvilket førte til hyperinflation, og det bidrog til depressionen.  Efterfølgende førte den dybe følelse af uretfærdighed, som folk, der kom ud for dette, havde, til nazisternes fremkomst og nationalsocialisternes omvæltende regeringsovertagelse, som førte til Anden Verdenskrig.”

Harley Schlanger, talsmand for LaRouche-organisationen, gennemgik arrogancen hos de neokonservative og neoliberale, som mente, at Vesten havde “vundet” Den kolde Krig, og at dette gav dem tilladelse til at påtvinge alle nationer, deres indbildte overlegne system af “demokrati og frie markedsøkonomier”, om nødvendigt med militære midler. Han fremlagde en oversigt over de ulovlige og folkemorderiske krige, der blev ført mod nationer – Afghanistan, Irak, Jugoslavien, Libyen, Syrien og dernæst kuppet mod Ukraine i 2014 – mod nationer, der ikke udgjorde nogen trussel mod nogen, krige baseret på falske anklager, som nu erkendes at være blevet fremstillet for at retfærdiggøre krigene. Dette omfattede den “chokterapi”, som blev pålagt selve Rusland, i et forsøg på at reducere en betydningsfuld videnskabelig og industriel nation til en “råstofeksportør” med en forarmet og svækket befolkning. Da Vladimir Putin omgjorde denne ødelæggelse, blev han stemplet som “autokrat”, mens begge partier i USA stod sammen om krigspolitikken. Tiden med unilateralisme og en unipolær verden er nu afsluttet, hævdede Schlanger, da det kinesisk-russiske samarbejde om national opbygning, for dem selv og de 140 nationer, der har tilsluttet sig Bælte- og Vej-Initiativet, ikke længere tager imod ordrer og ikke længere vil tillade farverevolutioner eller neokoloniale krige og undertrykkelse.

Paul Gallagher, EIR’s økonomiredaktør, gennemgik derefter nedbrydningen af det “Amerikanske System”, som var blevet genoprettet af Franklin Roosevelt gennem Glass/Steagall-bankregulering og efterkrigstidens Bretton Woods-system. Ødelæggelsen begyndte med Nixon-regeringens afkobling af dollaren fra guldet i 1971, hvilket omdannede banksystemet til et system baseret på spekulation i stedet for produktion. Med spekulationsboblens kollaps i 2008 blev Lyndon LaRouches forslag om at genindføre det amerikanske systems principper afvist til fordel for massiv pengeskabelse, for at redde bankerne, hvilket medførte den største “alting-boble” i historien. Bestræbelserne på at opretholde boblen på 275 billioner dollars gennem den grønne “New Deal”, der forvaltes af de samme bankfolk, som er ansvarlige for selve boblen, ved at afvikle fossile brændstoffer, mange industrier og landbrug, ville resultere i en massiv affolkning af verden, hvilket allerede er tydeligt globalt og selv i USA. Også her viser Ruslands, Kinas og Bælte- og Vej–Initiativet, at den unipolære verden, der ledes af City of London og Wall Street, ikke længere kan diktere denne destruktion over for resten af verden, med fare for at de vælger at starte en atomkrig, i stedet for at deltage som en ligeværdig partner i en ny verdensorden.

Richard Black, Schiller Instituttets repræsentant ved FN, fulgte op på ambassadør Polyanskijs opfordring, til at gøre op med den fremtvungne opdeling af verden i konfliktfyldte blokke, og søge de ting der forener os i stedet for at adskille os. Han gennemgik LaRouches arbejde med de videnskabelige kredse i Rusland, i traditionen fra denne nations store videnskabelige genier, og opfordrede borgerne i de vestlige nationer, til at inddrage deres politiske ledere og kandidater, for at tvinge deres regeringer til at opgive deres fobier og samarbejde om de store opgaver, som hele menneskeheden står over for.

Der fulgte en livlig diskussion med spørgsmål og svar. Du opfordres til at se dette vigtige og produktive møde og til at handle på de idéer, der blev præsenteret: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o32znt4i_zE

Den 21. januar (EIRNS) – Dette spørgsmål: “Kan en krig mod Rusland stadig undgås?”, er titlen på Schiller Instituttets internationale dialog, lørdag den 22. januar kl. 20.00 dansk tid, med det formål at styrke bestræbelserne på at stoppe USA’s, det britiske imperiums og NATO’s farlige krigsførelse mod Rusland og Kina og gøre plads til et fuldstændigt skift mod et globalt sikkerhedssystem, baseret på princippet om gensidig fordel for alle, og helt afgørende, den økonomiske fordel for alle. 

Resultaterne af dagens vigtige møde i Genève, mellem USA’s udenrigsminister Antony Blinken og den russiske udenrigsminister Sergej Lavrov, ændrer ikke dette fokus, men skærper det snarere. Mødet varede 90 minutter med bemærkninger før og efter fra repræsentanterne. Der forventes en opfølgning af drøftelserne – med en omtrentlig tidsplan for den næste uge til 10 dage; men man kan til enhver tid forvente sabotage fra fjender af denne forhandlingsproces. 

I korte træk fortalte Blinken, at præsident Biden havde bedt ham om at mødes med Lavrov, og at han efter dagens samtaler vil henvende sig til NATO og allierede samt Kongressen, og “vi vil være i stand til at dele vores bekymringer og idéer med Rusland mere detaljeret og skriftligt i næste uge, og vi er blevet enige om yderligere drøftelser derefter”. TASS rapporterede, at Blinken sagde, at USA og Rusland vil mødes igen, efter at Moskva har gennemgået Washingtons forslag til sikkerhedspolitiske foranstaltninger i næste uge. Udenrigsministeriet kastede imidlertid koldt vand på denne rapport og erklærede, at der ikke er planer om et møde, før Rusland modtager et “artikel for artikel”-svar, på sit krav om sikkerhedsgarantier. Ellers holdt Blinken sig til påstandene i sin opremsning af beskyldninger og krav, idet han formanede Rusland til at nedtrappe sin magtanvendelse, ikke invadere Ukraine osv. 

Lavrov sagde om Blinkens bemærkning, at USA vil svare skriftligt på Ruslands “bekymringer”, at: “Jeg tror, det vil være rigtigt at offentliggøre dette svar, og jeg vil spørge Antony Blinken, så de ikke har noget imod det.” Han sagde, at der ikke var nogen aftale om endnu et møde mellem ham selv og Blinken. Blandt mange andre emner sagde Lavrov, at USA gentager sine anklager mod Rusland “som et mantra” og pegede på vestlig “hysteri”, når det gjaldt Ukraine.

Særligt bemærkelsesværdigt var inddragelsen af Kina i det, der er på spil. Det russiske udenrigsministerium udsendte en erklæring i forbindelse med samtalerne, hvori det fremgår: “Det er på høje tid, at vores amerikanske kolleger forstår, at Washingtons dobbelte inddæmningspolitik over for Moskva og Beijing er fuldstændig utidssvarende og ikke indebærer nogle gunstige udsigter for USA. Amerikanerne ville gøre mere gavn for sig selv og hele verden, hvis de opgav deres arrogante krav om global dominans og gik ind i en ligeværdig og ærlig dialog med Rusland, Kina og andre vigtige aktører, for at søge afbalancerede løsninger på presserende globale sikkerheds- og udviklingsmæssige anliggender”….

Schiller Instituttets præsident, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, sagde i sin ugentlige strategiske webcast den 20. januar, at “jeg mener, at det er faren for krig, som folk bør være bekymrede over.” Men hun erklærede endvidere, at bekymringen bør være “ud fra dynamikkens synspunkt [hvis] orientering, går meget klart i retning af Bælte- og Vej-samarbejdet, fordi mange nationer ser det som en langt større fordel at samarbejde økonomisk i stedet for at føre geopolitiske spil.”

På denne måde er BRI-alliancer og -projekter antikrigspolitik….

Deltag i de bestræbelser, der forsøger at afværge en krig, ved at se og dele Schiller Instituttets internationale dialogkonference den 22. januar, “Kan en krig mod Rusland stadig undgås?”, og bliv aktiv i Schiller Instituttet. https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20220117-conference_20220122

Den 19. januar (EIRNS) – David T. Pyne offentliggjorde en artikel i det konservative National Interest i nummeret af 17. januar, under overskriften “Bidens mulighed for fred i Eurasien”. I den advarer Pyne om, at “de bilaterale forhandlinger mellem USA og Rusland brød sammen i denne uge, efter at den amerikanske delegation angiveligt nægtede at tilbyde Rusland nogen indrømmelser, eller anerkende nogen af dets legitime sikkerhedsbekymringer, vigtigst af alt i Ukraine”, og at krisen mellem de to lande som følge heraf er i fare for at ende i en spiral, der snurrer ud af kontrol, hen imod en termonuklear krig. (Den 18. januar talte USA’s udenrigsminister Tony Blinken og Ruslands udenrigsminister Sergej Lavrov i telefon og aftalte et hastigt arrangeret møde mellem dem i Genève den 21. januar).

Pyne er tidligere officer i den amerikanske hærs kampenheder, stabsofficer i hovedkvarteret og har en kandidatgrad i nationale sikkerhedsstudier fra Georgetown University. Han er i øjeblikket vicedirektør for nationale operationer for EMP Task Force on National and Homeland Security, hvis hjemmeside beskriver Pyne som “en autoritet med hensyn til USA’s, Ruslands og Kinas atomarsenaler, amerikanske og russiske missilforsvarssystemer og den stigende trussel fra elektromagnetiske pulsvåben (EMP)”.

Vi citerer det indledende afsnit af Pynes artikel, som taler for sig selv:

“I slutningen af december 2021 truede den russiske præsident Vladimir Putin med, at en afvisning af Ruslands foreslåede sikkerhedsaftaler med Vesten, ville blive mødt med “passende militær-tekniske gengældelsesforanstaltninger”. Gilbert Doctorow, en Bruxelles-baseret politisk analytiker, har oversat dette til at betyde, – opstilling af yderligere russisk militært udstyr, herunder atombevæbnede SS-26 Iskander-M-kortdistancemissiler til Hviderusland og Kaliningrad, for at true NATO’s frontlinjestater og Østtyskland. Han har også spekuleret i, at det kan hentyde til en mulig udstationering af atombevæbnede, hypersoniske, ubådsbaserede Zircon krydsermissiler ud for Washington D.C., som Rusland tidligere har sagt kunne bruges til at ødelægge USA’s hovedstad, før præsidenten kunne flygte med Air Force One.

“Når Ruslands andre masseødelæggelsesvåben lægges til, kunne det der står på spil for de bilaterale forhandlinger mellem USA og Rusland næppe være højere. Rusland har også truet med disse militær-tekniske gengældelsesforanstaltninger som svar på, at USA vedtager meget strengere økonomiske sanktioner mod landet. Hvis USA og NATO skulle flytte deres tropper til den ukrainske grænse som svar på en russisk invasion af Ukraine, ville det naturligvis, næsten helt sikkert, fremprovokere et russisk angreb på NATO’s frontlinjemedlemsstater, hvor disse tropper er stationeret, og potentielt starte en tredje verdenskrig. Det er således en russisk “rød linje”, som ikke må overskrides. Desuden kunne en eventuel russisk invasion af Ukraine og/eller udbrud af krig mellem USA og Rusland i Europa kortvarigt blive efterfulgt af en kinesisk invasion af Taiwan og en nordkoreansk invasion af Sydkorea – alt sammen noget, der sikrer, at USA ikke vil være i stand til effektivt at imødegå nogle af disse aggressioner.

“Desværre brød de bilaterale forhandlinger mellem USA og Rusland sammen i denne uge, efter at den amerikanske delegation angiveligt nægtede at tilbyde Rusland nogle indrømmelser eller anerkende nogen af dens legitime sikkerhedsproblemer, vigtigst af alt i Ukraine. Som svar herpå har Rusland erklæret, at det ikke har nogen planer om at genoptage bilaterale drøftelser med USA for at afslutte krisen og fortsætter med at optrappe sine krigsforberedelser. På nuværende tidspunkt, vil den eneste måde at give Rusland en oprejsning i Ukraine-krisen være, at Biden-administrationen tilbyder en betydelig indrømmelse, såsom udsættelse af USA’s militære bistand til Ukraine.”

Pyne slutter sin artikel med at opfordre USA til at ændre politik og i stedet skabe “omfattende fredsaftaler med Rusland og Kina”, og tilføjer, at de “ikke vil være uden udfordringer”. De ville imidlertid, fastslår Pyne, “give Biden en hidtil uset mulighed for at sikre sit præsidentielle eftermæle som en forandringens fredspræsident og samtidig tjene til at beskytte USA’s vitale nationale sikkerhedsinteresser”.

Tidsskriftet bag artiklen i National Interest er bemærkelsesværdigt. Det blev grundlagt af den neokonservative Irving Kristol og repræsenterer den dag i dag et “konservativt” synspunkt på udenrigspolitik. (https://nationalinterest.org/feature/biden%E2%80%99s-opportunity-peace-eurasia-199344)

I de sidste, og i de kommende dage, bliver der truffet beslutninger som vil afgøre, om menneskeheden har den moralske evne til at overleve. I sin ugentlige dialog præsenterede Helga Zepp-LaRouche en dramatisk tour d’horizon (gennemgang), idet hun flettede en analyse af topmøder, troppebevægelser og positive økonomiske udviklinger omkring Bælte-ogVej-Initiativet sammen, og formidlede både den enorme fare i nutiden og, hvad der er vigtigt, en vej ud af denne fare.

Hun understregede, at Blinkens trusler i Ukraine ikke er helt i tråd med Bidens udtalelser. Hun understregede desuden, at Putin har været klar over, hvorfor Rusland har brug for strategiske garantier, og at nogle i Vesten, såsom David Pyne, Gilbert Doctorow og general Kujat, åbent diskuterer dette. Vi har en delegation bestående af syv tåbelige senatorer, der efter en tur til Kiev skrålede op og krævede, at Biden skulle stramme sig an, og en af dem – som hun omtalte som senator Wicked – sagde, at Putin skal have en blodtud. Samtidig var den iranske præsident i Moskva for at underskrive en 20-årig aftale, og kineserne og syrerne færdiggjorde et aftalememorandum om samarbejde i BVI.

Endelig talte hun bevægende om Schiller Instituttets konference den 15. januar om Afghanistan, hvor den nuværende trussel om millioner af sultende mennesker, blev sat i kontrast til Indiens banebrydende beslutning om at sende hvede til Afghanistan gennem Pakistan.

Den 19 januar (EIRNS) – En embedsmand fra det amerikanske udenrigsministerium truede den 18. januar på et orienteringsmøde for journalister med at vælte præsident Alexander Lukasjenkos regering i Hviderusland, hvis Hviderusland tillader russiske tropper på sit territorium og/eller deltager i en formodet russisk invasion af Ukraine. Den højtstående embedsmand sagde ikke direkte: “Vi vil vælte jer”, men han brugte alle de kodeord, der er forbundet med operationer i forbindelse med farverevolutioner/regimeskift, for at levere et utvetydigt budskab.

“Vi har set advarselstegn på, at dynamikken i Hviderusland gør det muligt for Rusland at udnytte Lukasjenkas [sic] selvforskyldte sårbarhed yderligere. Rapporterne om russiske troppebevægelser mod Hviderusland, hvor disse bevægelser angiveligt sker i forbindelse med regelmæssigt planlagte fælles militærøvelser, er bekymrende. Timingen er bemærkelsesværdig og giver naturligvis anledning til bekymring for, at Rusland kunne have til hensigt at stationere tropper i Hviderusland under dække af fælles militærøvelser, med henblik på potentielt at angribe Ukraine fra nord”, sagde han ifølge Udenrigsministeriets referat af briefingen. “Jeg mener, at Hvideruslands medvirken til et sådant angreb, ville være fuldstændig uacceptabelt for hviderusserne og for mange inden for regimet samt for os og vores allierede og partnere. Og vi har bekendtgjort vores betænkeligheder til de hviderussiske myndigheder privat.”

Senere i briefingen udtrykte embedsmanden et dystert syn på Lukasjenkos fremtid, og gav skylden for hans formodede svagheder på hans forhold til Moskva. “Jeg tror det er vigtigt at se på, hvor han står efter halvandet år med at forsøge at ignorere, vende sig bort fra en politisk krise, som han stort set selv har skabt, ikke sandt,” sagde embedsmanden. “Og så er det vigtigt at erkende, at Lukasjenka selv har skabt denne reelle skrøbelighed i sin embedsperiode, fordi han først og fremmest var uvillig til at have afvigende synspunkter, som en del af kampagnen, at han var uvillig til at acceptere kritik af spørgsmål fra COVID til en slags grundlæggende spørgsmål om regeringsførelse, ikke sandt, og så ser man på noget som den enormt bedrageriske, den komisk bedrageriske afvikling af valget og så den tragiske vold, der fulgte, dødsfaldene, ikke sandt?

“Så det er vigtigt at erkende, at Lukasjenka har mistet troværdighed i den hviderussiske befolknings øjne i et ret dramatisk tempo siden dengang, og da han har forstået, hvor mere og mere isoleret han er, efterhånden som hans popularitet er blevet mindre, har han i stigende grad vendt sig hen imod Moskva.” (https://www.state.gov/briefing-with-senior-state-department-official-on-belarus/) [dns/cjo]

Billede: Belarus_in_Europe TUBS, CC BY SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

med formand Tom Gillesberg

Lyd:

Resumé:

USA´s og Ruslands udenrigsministre mødes i morgen. Er USA og NATO villige til at give Rusland de nødvendige sikkerhedsgarantier på skrift eller går man konfrontationsvejen? Rusland bakker ikke ned. Man gør op med årtiers svigt fra Vesten, hvor Vesten har ført krig imod Rusland og dets interesser med farvede revolutioner m.m. Nu er Rusland militært og økonomisk stærk mens Vesten er svag. Rusland og Kina kan klare sig uden Vesten, men Europa kan ikke klare sig uden russisk gas og kinesiske varer.

Eksperter advarer at hvis USA og NATO overskrider Ruslands røde linjer kan Rusland angribe fra Hviderusland og Kaliningrad med SS-26 Skander kortdistance atommissiler i hele Østeuropa. USA kan trues med ubådsbaserede Zircon atommissiler, der flyver 5-10 gange lydens hastighed, som USA ikke kan forsvare sig imod. Hvis det bliver krig mellem Rusland og USA vil Kina indtage Taiwan og Nordkorea angribe Sydkorea uden at USA kan gøre noget. Få derfor langsigtede fredsaftaler med Rusland og Kina, som alle kan leve med i stedet for konfrontation og krig. Rusland deltager i militærøvelser i Hviderusland fra den 9. februar så tag snakken med Rusland, evt. med et topmøde mellem Biden og Putin, inden de Olympiske Vinterlege i Beijing fra den 4.-20. februar er afsluttet og scenen sat for eskalation og mulig krig.

USA’s inflation på 7 % og USA’s Federal Reserve bliver tvunget til at hæve renten. Resultatet vil være en nedsmeltning på de finansielle markeder. Nedflyvningen er startet så spænd sikkerhedsbælterne. Europa er ikke bedre stillet. Forbered implementering af LaRouches fire økonomiske love så realøkonomien og samfundet kan beskyttes imod konsekvenserne af nedsmeltningen.

COVID-19: Pga. den høje vacinetilslutning er Omikron-variantens indtog en gamechanger på trods af sin meget større smitbarhed. Største problem for sundhedsvæsenet er ikke Coranapatienter men hjemsendelse og karantæne for ikke-syge ansatte. Vi må reducere karantænetiden, men vente en uge eller to inden vi sætter fuld fart på genåbningen, til vi har set konsekvenserne af at der er 4 gange så mange daglige smittede som for en måned siden.

FE-skandalen viser i lighed men mink-skandalen en stor villighed hos regeringen til at ville bestemme, men en dårlig evne til at sikre sig den fornødne rådgivning og ekspertise inden man træffer drastiske beslutninger med store og vidtrækkende konsekvenser. Efter hybris kommer nemesis. Det kan true regeringens fremtid. Det er ikke kun regeringens medlemmer der handler hurtigt og overilet, uden tanke på de langsigtede konsekvenser, men hele den nuværende regerende elite. Husk at hovmod står for fald.

Grib ind i historien. Vær med til at sikre et globalt sundhedssystem. Lad os samarbejde om at stoppe sultkatastrofen i Afghanistan og få opbygget hele verdens økonomiske sundhed. Gå med i Schiller Instituttets kampagne. Tænk som LaRouche.

Den 19 jan. (EIRNS) – USA’s udenrigsminister Antony Blinken indledte onsdag den 19. jan., tre dage med kritiske møder i Europa, for at diskutere Ukraine-krisen og Ruslands ufravigelige insisteren på, at hvis sikkerhedsforhandlingerne med USA skal fortsætte, skal Rusland modtage skriftlige svar på hvert af de punkter, der er rejst i de to udkast til traktatforslag, som de præsenterede for verden den 17. december. I disse traktatforslag, det ene med USA og det andet med NATO, fastslås det, at Ruslands nationale sikkerhed er alvorligt udfordret af den truende opstilling af NATO’s avancerede våbensystemer på deres egen grænse og af den foreslåede optagelse af Ukraine i NATO-alliancen, og at Rusland derfor skal have skriftlige garantier for, at ingen af delene vil forekomme – ellers vil de selv træffe “militær-tekniske gengældelsesforanstaltninger”.

Onsdag rejste Blinken til Kiev i Ukraine for at mødes med præsident Volodymyr Zelensky. Torsdag den 20. januar tager han til Berlin for at mødes med udenrigsministrene fra Tyskland, Frankrig og den krigsførende toneangivende britiske regering. Og fredag den 21. januar tager han til Genève for at mødes med den russiske udenrigsminister Sergej Lavrov.

Blinkens tur er ikke bare endnu en omgang diplomati: Krig eller fred mellem USA og Rusland er på vippen. Putin har gentagne gange advaret om, at Rusland egenrådigt bliver nødsaget til at vedtage “passende militær-tekniske gengældelsesforanstaltninger”, hvilket Gilbert Doctorow, en politisk analytiker med base i Bruxelles, mener vil omfatte opstilling af atombevæbnede SS-26 Iskander-M kortdistancemissiler til Hviderusland og Kaliningrad, for at true NATO’s frontlinjestater og det østlige Tyskland, samt muligvis placering af atombevæbnede Zircon hypersoniske krydsermissiler til søs ud for kysten af Washington, D.C., som, påpeger Doctorow videre, “Rusland tidligere har erklæret kunne bruges til at ødelægge USA’s hovedstad, inden præsidenten kunne flygte med Air Force One.”

I sine samtaler med Zelensky satte Blinken tonen for sin samtale med Lavrov den 21. januar, ved endnu en gang aggressivt, udelukkende at give Rusland skylden for krisen, og kræve at de “nedtrapper” ved at stoppe udstationeringen af tropper på deres eget territorium, nær grænsen til Ukraine, eller være forberedt på at blive ramt af den brændte jords økonomiske krigsførelse fra Vestens side. 

Lavrov gentog for sit vedkommende, den russiske holdning efter samtaler den 18. januar med den tyske udenrigsminister, Annalena Baerbock: “Vi afventer nu svar på disse forslag (de to traktatudkast), som lovet, for at fortsætte forhandlingerne.”

“Krigsfaren er større end nogensinde før, og vi står på randen af Tredje Verdenskrig”, advarede Helga Zepp-LaRouche i dag. “Det er ved at være sidste øjeblik, og tingene må udvikle sig på den ene eller den anden måde i de kommende dage.” Selv om der er et voksende kor af stemmer, der kalder på fornuft i USA og Europa, er briternes og deres amerikanske krigsparti-forbundsfællers kontrol over USA’s politik ikke blevet brudt. Desuden, erklærede Zepp-LaRouche, drives nedturen til krig af det systemiske sammenbrud i det transatlantiske finanssystem, som nu er ved at komme ud af kontrol, som Lyndon LaRouche gentagne gange forklarede.

Men der er en anden dynamik i gang i verden, nemlig den fremvoksende omgruppering af nationer på alle kontinenter omkring Kina og Rusland og Bælte- og Vej-initiativet som et alternativ til den malthusianske affolkningspolitik, der fremmes af det døende transatlantiske system. Et tegn på dette er Irans præsident Ebrahim Raisis besøg i Moskva, hvor en 20-årig pakke af udviklingsaftaler er til drøftelse. Et andet er det kommende besøg af den argentinske præsident Alberto Fernàndez i Moskva og derefter i Beijing, hvor han planlægger at underskrive et aftalememorandum om Bælte- og Vej-initiativet.

Hvis USA fortsat er fjendtligt indstillet over for dette politiske alternativ og fortsætter med at forsvare City of London og Wall Streets bankerotte system, vil verden efter al sandsynlighed glide i retning af en termonuklear krig. Hvis USA tilslutter sig Bælte og Vej-initiativet, som Lyndon LaRouche anbefalede fra starten, er udsigterne for fred og udvikling fremragende.

Vi tilslutter os Helga Zepp-LaRouches opfordring til at gøre 2022 til Lyndon LaRouches år og til at vedtage hans politik.

Billede: public domain

Helga Zepp-LaRouches hovedtale, Schiller Instituttets videokonference

Den 17. januar 2022. HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Goddag. Situationen i Afghanistan er virkelig ufattelig. I flere måneder, jeg vil sige i en måned efter Talibans magtovertagelse i august, var der et stort mediefokus – primært på de utrolige omstændigheder i forbindelse med USA’s tilbagetrækning, NATO’s tilbagetrækning og Talibans magtovertagelse. Men, ca. fire måneder derefter forsvandt Afghanistan praktisk talt fra de internationale medier. Nu er det pludselig tilbage. Alle medierne rapporterer om tal og fakta, som er helt forfærdelige. Ifølge FN’s Verdensfødevareprogram og andre FN-myndigheder, er der 24,4 millioner mennesker i fare for ikke at overleve denne vinter. Der er omkring 8,7 millioner mennesker, der sulter, mens vi taler her lige nu. Der er 50 % af alle børn under fem år i umiddelbar fare for at dø, 16 millioner børn i alderen fra fødslen til 16 år, som er i fødevareusikkerhed, og de fleste af dem er nødt til at arbejde, fordi familierne sulter. Det betyder, at disse børn ikke får nogen uddannelse, og at de er nødt til at arbejde for at kunne opretholde familien. Naturligvis er der et udbrud af mæslinger, diarré, polio, COVID-19 og malaria. Den underernæring, som disse børn lider under, gør dem selvfølgelig meget mere sårbare over for disse former for infektioner.

Katastrofen er så stor – og dette er ikke en rapport fra medierne, det kommer fra mange øjenvidner, som fortæller det til deres slægtninge – folk er så fattige og så desperate, at de efter mange dage uden mad sælger deres børn. For hvor meget? De sælges for mellem 950 og 1.300 dollars for et barn. Folk sælger deres nyrer. Nyrer er lidt dyrere; de sælges for 1.300-1.800 dollars.

Dette er ikke ukendt for Vesten. Vesten er lige nu mere optaget af at redde de afghanere, der samarbejdede med NATO-tropperne, mens de stadig var til stede. Så de gør en stor indsats, ligesom den tyske regering udtaler: “Åh, vi er nødt til at få disse mennesker ud og redde dem fra Taliban”. De forsøger at evakuere de sidste vigtige fagfolk og uddannede mennesker, som der er et presserende behov for derovre. Oven i det hele er valutaen styrtdykket med mere end 25 % siden august, hvilket betyder, at folk, selv om de har en lille sum penge, ikke har råd til at købe, fordi priserne bare galopperer ukontrollerbart. Vesten har naturligvis ikke kun indført sanktioner, men har også frataget den afghanske regering dens aktiver – 8,5 milliarder dollars i USA og jeg ved ikke, hvor mange hundrede millioner i europæiske banker. Disse penge er blevet indefrosset. De har også afkoblet Afghanistan fra SWIFT-aftalen, så selv afghanere i eksil ikke kan sende penge, fordi banksystemet er brudt sammen.

Det er helt overlagt Det er interessant, at der var en artikel i Foreign Affairs, som er en publikation fra Council on Foreign Relations, den 29. december, hvor der nu er en række artikler i New York Times og Financial Times, som pludselig hævder, at det måske var en fejltagelse, og at vi måske er nødt til at ændre den førte politik. Det, der står i denne artikel i Foreign Affairs, er, at i løbet af de mange år med samtaler på fine hoteller i Qatar mellem amerikanske embedsmænd og Taliban, har disse amerikanske embedsmænd hele tiden advaret Taliban og sagt: “Hør, hvis I nogensinde forsøger at overtage kontrollen i Afghanistan og Kabul med militære midler, vil I få en forfærdelig situation. Vi vil afskære jer fra penge; vi vil ødelægge jeres økonomi. I vil være i økonomisk isolation, I vil være fattige.” Derefter står der i artiklen: “Dette var, som vi nu kan se, ikke en tom trussel. Da Vesten stoppede bistanden”, som udgjorde 80 % af den afghanske regerings budget under disse 20 års NATO-tilstedeværelse, fordi de ikke opbyggede økonomien, de opretholdt blot den afghanske økonomi gennem international bistand. 80 % af budgettet var på denne måde. Så de vidste alle, at når donorlandene afbrød denne bistand, fordi de ikke var tilfredse med Talibans magtovertagelse, så brød den afghanske økonomi straks sammen. De indefrøs aktiverne, så selv de penge, der tilhører det afghanske folk, ikke var tilgængelige. Umiddelbart kastede de halvdelen af den afghanske befolkning ud i hungersnød. Nu siger de: “Åh, det var en fejltagelse. Det er i uoverensstemmelse med de vestlige mål. USA bør hjælpe med at genoplive den afghanske økonomi; dette er ikke godt for USA’s prestige. Vi er nødt til at arbejde sammen med Taliban”. Det er kendetegnende for realpolitik, at man en gang imellem er tvunget til at gøre noget sådant.

Jeg finder det helt forfærdeligt. Hvad det betyder, står der tydeligt beskrevet i denne artikel, og det blev i mellemtiden sagt af den pakistanske premierminister Imran Khan i en tale til OIC [Organisationen for islamisk Samarbejde] i Islamabad. Da NATO forlod landet, og 80 % af budgettet blev skåret væk, vidste alle, hvad der ville ske. Så det var ikke en fejltagelse. Nu er der gået fem måneder, og landet er ved at sulte ihjel. Det er den værste humanitære krise nogensinde, og alle vidste det. Alle medierne vidste det, alle regeringerne vidste det. Jeg tror virkelig, at dette er mere end et spørgsmål om amerikansk prestige. Jeg tror, at det, der er sket nu, er, at det er gået op for nogle mennesker, at på grund af OIC, er der 57 islamiske lande som ser på, hvad Vesten gør – USA og de europæiske lande, som var dér sammen med NATO i 20 år, og som efterlod landet i opløsning. Det viser sig nu, at hvis Vesten ikke ændrer sin adfærd meget hurtigt, vil dette blive det store liberale demokratis moralske undergang.

Man skal virkelig lade det bundfælde sig. Det er ikke Taliban, Rusland og Kina, der er ansvarlige. Dette er en bevidst handling, hvor Vesten ønskede at straffe regeringen i Afghanistan, men de straffede folket, befolkningen. Det er på grænsen til folkedrab. Jeg ønsker virkelig at sige dette i de skarpest mulige vendinger, fordi vi er nødt til at vække verdenssamfundet til at forstå, at denne utrolige uretfærdighed skal bekæmpes.

FN’s generalsekretær Guterres appellerede for blot et par dage siden til USA om, at de ubetinget skal frigive midlerne, at de skal hjælpe med at overvinde denne ufattelige humanitære krise.

Jeg vil gerne tilføje en dimension til dette, for det er naturligvis realpolitisk at sige, at Taliban er der, og ingen bør ønske, at Taliban skal omstyrtes, hvilket nogle mennesker også overvejer. Hvis man nu forsøger at slippe af med Taliban med de virkemidler, der ikke har fungeret i 20 år, ønsker man så at kaste dette fattige land Afghanistan ud i endnu en borgerkrig? Der må være en ende på denne geopolitik. Så jeg vil gerne præsentere en anden tilgang. Jeg har kaldt denne indsats for at redde Afghanistan for “Operation Ibn Sina”. I den muslimske verden behøver man ikke at forklare nogen, hvem Ibn Sina er. I Europa ville man ikke have været nødt til at forklare det – i hvert fald ikke før for et stykke tid siden – fordi Ibn Sina generelt var en af de store giganter i den universelle historie. Han var også meget velkendt i Europa som Avicenna. Han levede fra 980 til 1037, altså for omkring tusind år siden. Han var et vidunderbarn. Han kunne Koranen udenad, da han var 10 år gammel. Han blev født i Afshana, nær Bukhara, som i dag er Usbekistan. Hans far stammer fra Balkh, som ligger nær Mazar-e-Sharif, i det nuværende Nordafghanistan. Han blev uddannet i islams gyldne tidsalder – hvad der startede med det abbasidiske dynasti i Baghdad, omkring 750 e.Kr. I denne periode havde man så den utrolige oversættelse af alle de græske klassiske lærde. Der var mange mennesker, som enten tilhørte Aristoteles’ tradition, peripatetikerne, eller Platons tradition, neoplatonikerne. Og Avicenna, Ibn Sina, kendte mange af dem; især al-Kindi, al-Farabi, men han læste også Almagest fra Ptolemæus og Euklids bøger. Så han var yderst veluddannet, og meget hurtigt udviklede han et talent til at blive en fremragende læge. Han var i stand til at helbrede mange af de fremtrædende personer omkring sig, så han havde adgang til de øverste emirers vigtigste biblioteker.

Under alle omstændigheder udviklede han en meget vigtig filosofisk idé, nemlig forestillingen om den “nødvendige eksistens”. Det er et meget dybtgående begreb. I bund og grund er det en teologisk diskussion om universets evighed, og hvorfor der må være en endelig årsag, som er ansvarlig for alt, hvad der er betinget af universet. Dette ville føre for langt væk fra seminaret lige nu, jeg har netop holdt et indlæg om det, som du forhåbentlig snart kan finde på internettet. [Se “Operation Ibn Sina: Toward a World Health Program” https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/15/operation-ibn-sina-toward-a-world-health-program/] Men han er naturligvis mest berømt for det faktum, at han var en af de store læger gennem tiderne. Han var på samme niveau, hvis ikke større, end den græske læge Galen eller Hippokrates. Han udviklede en hel lægevidenskab, som han nedskrev i den berømte “Canon of Medicine”, som straks i det 12. århundrede blev oversat til latin og spansk. Den påvirkede den europæiske og islamiske lægevidenskab indtil det 18. og 19. århundrede. Han udviklede viden om mange nye sygdomme som kræft og diabetes. Han havde en absolut viden om anatomi, og han udviklede 760 lægemidler. Under alle omstændigheder var han en helt enestående læge

Og det var ham, der opdagede vigtigheden af karantæne. Det er sådan, jeg husker ham, fordi vi har en pandemi. Vi har COVID-19, og karantæne er en af de vigtigste måder at bekæmpe infektioner på. Det var Ibn Sina, der opdagede det. Der findes en smuk gammel film fra 1956, som jeg kun kan råde jer til at se. Den hedder “Ibn Sina”, og det er historien om Ibn Sina, der forklarer sine samtidige, hvordan man skal isolere sig, hvordan man skal vaske hænder, hvordan man skal udvise hygiejne. Den er blevet offentliggjort af den usbekiske regering, og hvis du vil have et sanseligt indtryk af Ibn Sina, bør du se denne film og lytte til min præsentation af hans liv.

Jeg sagde, at vi er nødt til at gøre denne indsats for at redde Afghanistan, Operation Ibn Sina, for hvad har Afghanistan brug for? De har brug for et moderne sundhedssystem, de har brug for moderne hospitaler til at behandle alle disse sygdomme. Og opbygningen af et moderne sundhedssystem skal være begyndelsen til at overvinde underudviklingen og det ufattelige sammenbrud i økonomien ved at genopbygge Afghanistans økonomi i forhold til nabolandenes store projekter – Bælte- og vejinitiativet, udvidelsen af CPEC, den økonomiske korridor mellem Kina og Pakistan, fra Pakistan gennem Kabul til Usbekistan – gennem Khaiber Pas og andre projekter. Der er behov for en international indsats for ikke kun at redde befolkningen nu. Vi må appellere til verden; FN har krævet, at der omgående sendes 5 milliarder dollars. Det er det største beløb, som FN nogensinde har anmodet om til en øjeblikkelig humanitær krise. Disse penge skal stilles til rådighed. Aktiverne må frigøres. Men derefter appellerer jeg til alle lande, men især til europæerne og USA, som har et enormt moralsk ansvar, fordi vi var der i 20 år. Man kan ikke bare forlade et land, bare fordi man ikke kan lide det politiske system, der har overtaget magten, og straffe befolkningen ved at dræbe halvdelen af den eller mere.

Jeg appellerer til hele verden om at deltage i Operation Ibn Sina. Ikke kun for at yde den umiddelbare humanitære bistand, men også for at opbygge den afghanske økonomi sammen med nabolandene, de centralasiatiske republikker, Pakistan, Iran, men naturligvis også Kina, Rusland og Indien, som alle har en interesse i at stabilisere denne region. Afghanistan befinder sig på et geopolitisk helt afgørende sted, hvilket er grunden til, at briterne udformede ”Det store Spil” som en måde at destabilisere først det zaristiske Rusland, derefter Sovjetunionen og nu forhåbentlig efter deres mening, Rusland og Kina. Det må stoppe. Afghanistan har fortjent en lys fremtid. Derfor mener jeg, at Operation Ibn Sina er den bedste måde at samle kræfterne til dette formål. Man har brug for en spændende figur som Ibn Sina, som er alle islamiske folks stolthed i hele regionen, til at samle sig om og gøre det til symbolet på en smuk fremtid for Afghanistan.

Hvis vi kan mobilisere den moralske modstandskraft og den moralske robusthed til at gøre dette, tror jeg samtidig, at vi vil gøre det bedste for at redde vores egen civilisation, for det er endnu ikke afgjort, hvad der kommer ud af denne særlige periode i historien. Hvis vi kan være gode i et område som Afghanistan, så er der håb om, at vi kan løse de større strategiske kriser. Hvis vi hjælper Afghanistan nu, er dét det bedste, vi kan gøre, ikke kun for det afghanske folk, men for hele civilisationens fremtid. Så jeg appellerer til jer, deltag i Operation Ibn Sina.

Den 14. jan. (EIRNS) – På tidspunktet for denne udsendelse, afventer man besked fra et møde (virtuelt) i dag, der skal afholdes mellem USA’s udenrigsminister Antony Blinken og topembedsmænd fra FN om Afghanistan, som blev annonceret i går af FN’s generalsekretær Antonio Guterres, på grund af den forestående massedød. Guterres opfordrede ikke kun til at mobilisere omfattende bistand, men også til presserende genetablering af centralbanken, valuta likviditet og et finansielt system, ellers vil landet ophøre med at eksistere. Han sagde, at millioner af afghanere er på “dødens rand”, og at “kolde temperaturer og indefrosne aktiver er en dødelig kombination”. Regler og betingelser, der forhindrer penge i at blive brugt til at redde liv og økonomi, skal suspenderes i denne nødsituation”, advarede han.

Guterres fremhævede USA og sagde, at USA har “en meget vigtig rolle at spille, fordi det meste af det finansielle system i verden opererer i dollars”, og USA tilbageholder størstedelen af de indefrosne afghanske valutareserver. Til mødet i dag med udenrigsminister Antony Blinken forventes, ud over Guterres selv, at Peter Maurer, formand for Den Internationale Røde Kors- Komité, og Martin Griffiths, FN’s undersekretær for humanitære anliggender og nødhjælp, at være til stede.

Den 11. januar udsendte Griffiths på vegne af alle FN’s humanitære organisationer og hjælpepartnere en international appel om finansiering på 4,4 milliarder dollars i år til Afghanistan, hvilket er den største appel af denne art til en enkelt nation i FN’s historie.

Blandt de nødvendige foranstaltninger, der nævnes i appellen, er ophævelse af sanktionerne mod Afghanistan, som forhindrer vigtige kommercielle funktioner, samt nødhjælp og ophævelse af indefrysningen af de 9,5 mia. dollars i aktiver, der tilhører Afghanistans nation og befolkning, og andre foranstaltninger, der gør det muligt at få bank-, valuta- og vekseltransaktioner til at fungere. Forarmelsen har nået et stadium af elendighed, hvor knap 5 % af den samlede befolkning på 38 millioner mennesker har tilstrækkeligt at spise. 23 millioner lever i forskellige grader af ekstrem sult, og af dem er 8,9 millioner mennesker ved sultestadiet.

Blandt Taliban-regeringens begrænsede nødløsninger er programmet “mad for arbejde”, hvor en person, der stadig er i stand til at arbejde, tilbydes 10 kg hvede for et bestemt antal arbejdstimer. Det er ubærligt. I går beskrev FN’s Fødevareprograms landechef for Afghanistan, Mary-Ellen McGroarty, situationen over for AP som en “tsunami af sult”.

At reagere på denne nødsituation er en moralsk prøve for “Vesten”, hvis amerikanske og NATO-styrker trak sig ud for fem måneder siden efter 20 års besættelse. Ingen løgne om “demokrati” og “værdidrevne” udenrigsrelationer kan dække over skylden i den massedød, der vil være resultatet, hvis der ikke gribes ind omgående.

Den samme moralske test er involveret i spørgsmålet om krig eller fred, i USA’s og NATO’s nuværende konfrontation med Rusland. I går var den sidste af de tre samtaler i denne uge mellem Rusland og “Vesten”: Den 9.-10. januar fandt samtalerne sted mellem USA og Rusland (Genève), den 12. januar mellem NATO og Rusland (Bruxelles) og den 13. januar samtalerne mellem OSCE og Rusland (Wien). På initiativ af Rusland, som i december fremlagde to tekster om sikkerhedsgarantier med henblik på konkret handling, blev potentialet for et produktivt arbejde, næsten uden undtagelse, ikke overraskende, blokeret af en kollektiv positionering med løgne og trusler fra USA og NATO.

Ikke desto mindre talte den russiske udenrigsminister Sergej Lavrov i dag, da han leverede sin årlige gennemgang af sidste års diplomati, om at fortsætte disse principielle sikkerhedsforhandlinger og med velvillighed, samtidig med at han strengt betonede, at det, der nu forventes, er skriftlige svar på de russiske forslag til tekster, og det skal ske snart. Rusland har ikke uendelig tålmodighed, understregede han.

Næsten samtidig med afslutningen af gårsdagens OSCE-forhandlingerne i Wien, signalerede USA’s nationale sikkerhedsrådgiver, Jake Sullivan, imidlertid et nyt angreb på Rusland, som siden er blevet ført ud i livet. Sullivan sagde på et pressemøde, at “efterretningstjenesten har indhentet oplysninger” om, at Rusland lige nu “forbereder en anledning, til at have mulighed for at opfinde et påskud for en invasion” af Ukraine, på samme måde som de gjorde det i 2014. Han sagde, at Rusland bruger den samme “drejebog”, som de benyttede i 2014, og “administrationen vil have yderligere detaljer om, hvad vi ser som denne potentielle udlægning af et påskud, som vi vil dele med pressen i løbet af de næste 24 timer.”. Lige på Sullivans stikord kom “pressen” i morges med tre bølger af artikler – med Washington Post og New York Times i spidsen – om at Rusland har aktiver indlejret placeret i Ukraine, klar til at iscenesætte et “false flag”-stunt, for at retfærdiggøre en russisk invasion. For det andet, at USA hellere må overveje at lede, ikke blot støtte, Ukraines forsvar mod Rusland i tilfælde af et angreb. For det tredje kommer rapporterne om, at der netop er sket et nyt cyberangreb på ukrainske ministerier, hvor Rusland formodes at være gerningsmanden.

Hvis denne vanvittige udenrigspolitik får lov til at fortsætte, vil resultatet blive massedød som følge af krig. Kremls talsmand Dmitrij Peskov er allerede gået ud og har fordømt disse beskyldninger som fuldstændig ubegrundede og baseret på “rygter”.

Schiller Instituttet har sammen med samarbejdspartnere mobiliseret alle mulige tiltag for at afsløre og stoppe denne dødbringende fremgangsmåde og dens bagmænd. For at få øjeblikkelig opmærksomhed på Afghanistans nødsituation vil der mandag den 17. januar kl. 11.00 (kl. 17 dansk tid) blive afholdt et webinar på i Schiller Instituttet med titlen “Stop mordet på Afghanistan”. https://schillerinstitute.nationbuilder.com/20220117-conference

Schiller Instituttets præsident Helga Zepp-LaRouche udtalte i går på sin ugentlige webcast: “Hvis du har noget hjerte tilbage i kroppen, så deltag i denne kampagne. For jeg tror, at hvis Vesten ikke kan mobiliseres for at hjælpe med at løse den situation, som vi har forårsaget – jeg mener, ‘vi’, Vesten, NATO var der i 20 år – hvis vi ikke kan løse det, vil hele verden se på Vesten med fuldstændig foragt. Så dette er en sidste chance for at vende dette, ved nu at gå sammen med alle naboerne, herunder Rusland og Kina, men europæerne og USA er de mest påkrævede. For hvis vi ikke kan gøre det, tror jeg, at dette vil være symbolet på vores undergang. Og det må vi ikke tillade, men må tage det som historiens vendepunkt.” (https://schillerinstitute.com/blog/2022/01/13/webcast-replace-nato-with-a-security-architecture-based-on-the-westphalian-principle/)

Den 12. januar (EIRNS) – Mellem mandag og onsdag i denne uge er verden rykket dramatisk tættere på randen af en termonuklear krig.

USA og NATO satte sig på tværs, i deres respektive sikkerhedsforhandlinger på højt niveau med Rusland den 10. og 12. januar og proklamerede deres hensigt om at fortsætte med at udvide NATO østpå, helt op til Ruslands grænse og at opstille truende atomangrebssystemer ligeledes ved denne grænse, fem minutters flyvetid fra Moskva. Den russiske viceudenrigsminister Alexander Grushko kom ud fra dagens møde i Rusland-NATO-Rådet for at meddele, at der ikke blot manglede en forenende positiv dagsorden mellem Rusland og NATO, men at USA og NATO er vendt tilbage til Den kolde Krigs fulde strategi om “inddæmning” over for Rusland, herunder “fuldspektret dominans”. Rusland har ingen anden mulighed end at svare igen på inddæmnings-, afskrækkelses- og intimideringspolitikken, erklærede han.

Mandagens drøftelser mellem USA og Rusland sluttede på lignende måde.

Disse resultater er ikke overraskende, kommenterede Schiller Instituttets grundlægger, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, i dag. Bortset fra en eventuel privat kommunikation, eller bag kulisserne, mellem præsident Biden og Putin, som måske er i gang, og som tilbyder en mere rationel tilgang, kunne der meget vel komme en hurtig modreaktion fra Ruslands side. Som Putin og mange af Ruslands øverste ledere gentagne gange har advaret om i de seneste uger, kan Rusland ikke kapitulere over for de trusler, der er rettet mod dets suverænitet og eksistens. Rusland står over for en omvendt Cuba-krise, denne gang blot med en meget kortere lunte til krig.

Husk på JFK’s ord for 60 år siden: “I løbet af den sidste uge har umiskendelige beviser fastslået, at en række offensive missilanlæg nu er under forberedelse på den indespærrede ø (Cuba).” At gøre dette, mindede han verden om, “i et område, der er kendt for at have et særligt og historisk forhold til USA, er en bevidst provokerende og uberettiget ændring af status quo, som ikke kan accepteres af dette land”.

 Zepp-LaRouche advarede om, at hvis de krigeriske udtalelser og konfrontationer fortsætter, så står verden højst sandsynligt over for et pludseligt opgør – som næsten øjeblikkeligt kan eskalere til den termonukleare tærskel. Der er et presserende behov for en bred mobilisering af kræfter verden over for at standse denne nedtur til helvede og hurtigt udvikle nye muligheder, der vil garantere sikkerhed og velfærd for alle parter.

 – Der er behov for en ny, global sikkerhedsarkitektur til straks at erstatte NATO’s organisation og politik, som har bragt verden på krigens rand.

Den drivkraft, der presser verden mod en termonuklear krig, er sammenbrudskrisen i hele det transatlantiske finanssystem. For at deres system kan overleve, må de røveriske spekulanter i City of London og Wall Street indføre fascistiske niveauer af økonomisk udplyndring og bringe Rusland og Kina i knæ, for at sikre at der ikke er nogen reel modstand mod den førte politik.

Det transatlantiske system må underkastes en konkursbehandling efter de retningslinjer, som Lyndon LaRouche angav i sine Fire love fra 2014. Hvis dette system aflives, fjernes faren for Tredje Verdenskrig.

Gennem hele sit liv har Lyndon LaRouche gentagne gange forklaret denne nære forbindelse mellem det kollapsende finansielle system og tilskyndelsen til krig. En af hans klareste udlægninger var i en erklæring fra 23. december, 2011: “For at stoppe termonuklear krig, må man sætte gang i det økonomiske opsving på verdensplan”, som vi tidligere har citeret her på siden, og som i uddrag er den leder, der er udgivet i Executive Intelligence Review af 7. januar, 2022.  Som denne leder konstaterer, bekræfter LaRouches bemærkninger fra 2011 “dette genis forudseenhed, og viser hvorfor Helga Zepp-LaRouche har opfordret til, at året 2022 – 100-årsdagen for hans fødsel – skal være kendt som “Lyndon LaRouches år”.”

LaRouche advarede i sin præsentation fra 2011: “Det vil være en termonuklear tredje verdenskrig – hverken præ-atomkrig eller atomkrig, men termonuklear krig. Målene er først og fremmest Rusland og Kina. Det er de to vigtigste mål….

Spørgsmålet er som følger: Det nuværende verdenssystem, det økonomiske system, er i færd med at gå i opløsning. Præcis hvordan dette vil foregå, er usikkert, men det vil ske. Hensigten er at tilintetgøre to nationer – Rusland og Kina – og det betyder atomvåben; det betyder termonukleare våben. Den del er involveret….

På nuværende tidspunkt er USA, Europas nationer, Rusland, Kina og andre lande klar til præcis denne krig.

Baggrunden for krigen er den kendsgerning, at hele verden er ved at gå fallit, især den transatlantiske region, specielt Europa, og også USA, og nationerne i Sydamerika og andre steder også …

Bankerotten fra USA’s perspektiv blev sat i gang tilbage i 2007, da man indledte processen med redningspakker. Siden da har hele den transatlantiske region, i særdeleshed USA og Europa, været fanget i en redningskrise, en hyperinflationær redningskrise. På nuværende tidspunkt er den gæld, der er blevet akkumuleret siden 2007 under dette program, af en sådan størrelse, at alle dele af Europa på nuværende tidspunkt under de nuværende regler og de nuværende ordninger er håbløst bankerotte! De vil aldrig kunne komme sig som eksisterende nationer under den nuværende gældsætning. Det samme gælder for USA; Europa er lidt mere akut. Det er hvad der er sket…. Ophavsmanden til dette forhold er briterne….

Se, hvad vi er nødsaget til at gøre – der er løsninger på denne konkurs. Først og fremmest må vi sætte verden under konkurs – det vil sige en lovlig konkursbehandling. Det kan vi for det første gøre ved, i USA for eksempel – og andre nationer kan kopiere denne foranstaltning i samarbejde med USA – at vi anvender en Glass/Steagall-lovgivning, en amerikansk Glass/Steagall-lov. Og der er nationer i Europa, som overvejer at vedtage den samme Glass/Steagall-lov.

Under en Glass/Steagall lov vil størstedelen af de europæiske nationers og USA’s og andre landes gæld blive slettet, i realiteten, fordi under Glass-Steagall vil spillegælden, som er den største del af USA’s gæld, simpelthen blive placeret i en særlig kategori, hvor nogen vil forsøge at finde ud af, hvordan man får denne gæld betalt – og den vil aldrig blive betalt! De vil simpelthen blive slettet af regnskaberne; der er ingen anden løsning.

At slette denne gæld fra bøgerne, at annullere redningsgælden vil betyde, at USA, og Europa, hvis de tilslutter sig, vil være i stand til at reorganisere deres finanser, skabe et kreditsystem og faktisk gå ind i en ny form for hamiltonsk kreditsystem, et banksystem, som vil sætte USA, og også Europa og andre nationer, hvis de tilslutter sig, i stand til at organisere en finansiel genopretning.

Med andre ord, hvad der ville ske omgående: Husk, at det meste af denne redningsgæld, Wall Street-gælden, London-gælden og den øvrige redningsgæld er absolut værdiløs! Den kan aldrig tilbagebetales! Den kunne aldrig tilbagebetales: Og den eneste løsning på dette var naturligvis at føre denne krig. Og hvis det britiske imperium kom ud som sejrherre i en sådan krig, med støtte fra USA, så ville de eftergive deres gæld og fortsætte deres forretninger. Men verdens befolkning ville blive reduceret kraftigt gennem sult, udsultning og så videre, hvilket alligevel er ved at ske.”

KØBENHAVN, 13. januar (EIRNS) – I dag, den samme dag som tidsskriftet EIR offentliggjorde et længere interview med Ruslandsekspert Jens Jørgen Nielsen med titlen “Hvorfor USA og NATO bør underskrive de traktater, som Putin foreslår”, var han blandt de otte deltagere i Debatten på DR2. Emnet var: Kold Krig med Putin?

Se Debatten her.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen anfægtede nogle af de andre debattørers udsagn om, at Rusland var en slyngelstat, som ikke kun truede Ukraine, men også de baltiske lande. De vigtigste ting, som han sagde, var:

– Problemet var, at vi ikke skabte en ny sikkerhedsarkitektur efter Sovjetunionens sammenbrud, da tiden var moden til det. Putin ønskede, at Rusland skulle blive medlem af NATO, men landet blev efterladt isoleret, og NATO udvidede sig mod øst.

– Hvis Paris-aftalen, som en anden debattør nævnte, var blevet gennemført, ville NATO ikke have udvidet sig mod øst. [Fra1997: Det Stiftende Dokument om Fælles relationer, samarbejde og Sikkerhed mellem NATO og Den Russiske Føderation]

– Det er utænkeligt, at Rusland ville angribe de baltiske lande.

– Rusland optræder som en stormagt med interesser i sit nærområde, ikke som en ideologisk magt, og landet optræder faktisk bedre end USA gjorde i Mellemøsten eller Latinamerika.

– Krim: Overdragelsen af Krim til Rusland i 2014 var ikke en klassisk annektering. Der blev ikke affyret skud, og befolkningen støtter Rusland.

– Problemet med at Ukraine er en delt nation blev ikke løst. Minsk II-aftalen (2015), som blev formidlet af Tyskland og Frankrig, ville have lavet en ny forfatning med en særlig status for det østlige Ukraine. Vesten pressede ikke på for at få den gennemført, men sendte i stedet våben til Ukraine. Det er klart, at russerne ville reagere.

Eva Flyveholm, Enhedslistens forsvarsordfører, understregede, at det var vigtigt at føre seriøse forhandlinger med Rusland.

I sin gennemgang af den igangværende række af diskussioner i denne uge mellem Rusland, USA og NATO – som hun vurderede indtil videre “ser forfærdeligt ud” – vendte Helga Zepp-LaRouche tilbage til det, hun beskrev som de to alternative tilgange til forholdet mellem nationerne. Versailles-traktaten ved afslutningen af Første Verdenskrig har det til fælles med USA’s og NATO’s holdning i dag, at sejrherrerne i krig, som en unipolær magt, kan diktere fredens vilkår. Denne åbenlyse påstand om verdensdominans tilsidesætter andre nationers legitime ønsker og insisterer på, at de skal underordne sig den unipolære magt. Dette er typisk “magtarrogance” hos nutidens globalistiske krigshøge, som hævder, at USA “vandt Den kolde Krig” og derfor har ret til at være den dominerende verdensmagt.

I modsætning hertil var den Westfalske Fred, som afsluttede Trediveårskrigen i 1648, baseret på den idé, at anerkendelse af “andres interesser” er nøglen til en varig fred. Den direkte afvisning indtil videre, fra de amerikanske forhandleres side, af legitimiteten af præsident Putins sikkerhedshensyn, vil Rusland ikke acceptere. Selv om det er bedre at tale end ikke at tale, sagde hun, har USA’s generelle holdning i disse forhandlinger “sænket den nukleare tærskel”, hvilket gør det mere sandsynligt, at der vil blive anvendt atomvåben, hvis der skulle udbryde krig.

NATO, som skulle have været opløst ved afslutningen af Den kolde Krig, må erstattes, især fordi dets nuværende politiske kurs fører til en krig, hvor dets medlemmer i Europa vil blive ødelagt. Det giver ingen mening at tilhøre en sikkerhedsalliance, som fører til krig. At dæmonisere Putin og angribe Bælte-ogVej-Initiativet, når det vestlige finanssystem er ved at bryde sammen, giver heller ikke mening. Hun sluttede med at opfordre vores seere til at deltage i Schiller Instituttets online-seminar om nødsituationen den 17. januar med temaet: “Stop mordet på Afghanistan”.

Læs afskriftet på engelsk nedenunder.

KØBENHAVN — I lyset af den eskalerende spænding mellem USA/NATO og Rusland, som kan føre til en varm krig, ja endog atomkrig, foretog Schiller Instituttet i Danmark et timelangt engelsksproget video/lydinterview med Rusland-ekspert Jens Jørgen Nielsen den 30. december 2021.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen er cand. mag. i idéhistorie og historie, og var i slutningen af​​ 1990’erne Politikens Moskva-korrespondent. Han er forfatter til flere bøger om Rusland og Ukraine, leder af Russisk-Dansk Dialog og lektor i kommunikation og kulturelle forskelle på Niels Brock handelshøjskole. Jens Jørgen Nielsen underviser på Folkeuniversitetet og andre steder, ligesom han arbejder med danske eksportvirksomheder, der vil ind på det russiske, ukrainske og hviderussiske marked. Han har i mange år arrangeret rejser til Rusland.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen, med mange års erfaring i at analysere Rusland, Ukraine og vestlige holdninger og handlinger i forhold til Rusland, taler tydeligt om konsekvenserne, hvis ikke Vesten er villig til seriøst at forhandle en diplomatisk løsning på de “røde linjer”, som Putin og andre førende russiske talsmænd har udtalt er ved at blive krydset: Hvis Ukraine tilslutter sig NATO, og hvis NATO’s ekspansion mod øst fortsætter, og hvorfor USA og NATO burde underskrive Putins foreslåede traktater om disse spørgsmål.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen tager fat på de ændringer, der er nødvendige på den vestlige side, som vil afgøre, om de kommende forhandlinger mellem USA og Rusland om disse “røde linjer” den 10.-13. januar vil lykkes med at trække verden tilbage fra randen af krig.

Interviewet er endnu vigtigere efter bekendtgørelsen den 3. januar 2022 for første gang af en fælles erklæring fra stats- og regeringscheferne for de fem atomvåbenstater, som også er de permanente medlemmer af FN’s Sikkerhedsråd om, at “atomkrig ikke kan vindes og aldrig må udkæmpes”, og dermed anerkendelsen af hvad der er på spil under den nuværende krise.

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 Nogle højdepunkter:

Et højdepunkt er Jens Jørgen Nielsens personlige diskussion i 1989 med Mikail Gorbatjov om NATO-udvidelse mod øst:

“Faktisk havde jeg en lang snak med Mikhail Gorbatjov, den tidligere leder af Sovjetunionen, i 1989, lige da NATO begyndte at bombe Serbien, og da de indlemmede Polen, Tjekkiet og Ungarn i NATO. Man bør huske på at Gorbatjov er en meget rar person. Han er en meget livlig person, med godt humør og en erfaren person. Men da vi begyndte at snakke, spurgte jeg ham om NATO-udvidelsen, som foregik præcis den dag, hvor vi snakkede. Han blev meget dyster, meget trist, fordi han sagde: Altså, jeg talte med James Baker, Helmut Kohl fra Tyskland og flere andre personer, og de lovede mig alle ikke at flytte en tomme mod øst, hvis Sovjetunionen ville lade Tyskland forene DDR (Østtyskland) og Vesttyskland, for at blive ét land, og komme til at blive medlem af NATO, men ikke bevæge sig en tomme mod øst.’… Det stod ikke skrevet, for, som han sagde, “Jeg troede på dem. Jeg kan se, at jeg var naiv.” 

Et andet vigtigt afsnit er, hvad Jens Jørgen Nielsen ville sige til Biden, og andre NATO-statschefer, i en privat diskussion før de kommende forhandlinger mellem USA/NATO og Rusland. “Jeg ville sige, ’Se, Joe, jeg forstår dine bekymringer. Jeg forstår, at du ser dig selv som en forkæmper for frihed i verden, … men ser du, det spil, du nu spiller med Rusland, er et meget, meget farligt spil. Og russerne, som et meget stolt folk, man kan ikke tvinge dem’, angående USA’s og nogle europæiske landes politik, til at skifte Putin ud med en anden præsident. “Jeg kan forsikre dig, Joe Biden, vær sikker på, at hvis det lykkes, eller hvis Putin dør i morgen, eller de på en eller anden måde får en ny præsident, kan jeg forsikre dig om, at den nye præsident vil være lige så hård som Putin, måske endda hårdere… Jeg tror,​​det ville være klogt for dig, lige nu, at støtte Putin, eller at handle med Putin, engagere sig med Putin og lave noget diplomati, fordi alternativet er en mulighed for krig, og du burde ikke gå over i historien som den amerikanske præsident, der sikrede menneskehedens udryddelse. Det ville være et dårligt, meget dårligt eftermæle for dig.’ 

Han forholder sig til den reelle mulighed for, at vi søvngængeragtigt går ind i atomkrig, som før 1. Verdenskrig, som svar på Schiller Instituttets memorandum Er vi søvngængeragtigt på vej til atomar 3. verdenskrig? den 24. december 2021.

“[Man] kan forestille sig, hvad der vil ske, hvis Kina, Iran og Rusland havde en militær alliance, der gik ind i Mexico, Canada, Cuba, måske også opstillede missiler dér… [T]anken om en atomkrig er forfærdelig for os alle, og det er derfor jeg synes, at politikere må komme til fornuft… for milliarder vil dø i dette. Og det er et spørgsmål, om menneskeheden vil overleve. Så det er et meget, meget alvorligt spørgsmål. Og jeg tror vi bør spørge om Ukraines ret til at have NATO-medlemskab, som dets egen befolkning egentlig ikke ønsker, er det virkelig værd at risikere en atomkrig for? Sådan vil jeg sige det.”

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Interviewet har andre afgørende afsnit: 

Baggrund om NATO’s udvidelse mod øst.

Fuld støtte til seriøse forhandlinger med Rusland og underskrivelse af de to foreslåede traktater, som opfordret af Schiller Instituttets grundlægger og internationale præsident, Helga Zepp-LaRouche.

Forkerte forestillinger i vesten om Rusland og Putin, og manglen på vilje til at håndtere andre kulturer som ligeværdige, medmindre de er ligesom os.

Hvordan pro-vestlige holdninger i Rusland, herunder af Jeltsin og Putin, blev afvist, og Rusland derefter vendte sig mod Kina.

Hvordan Ukraine-krisen ikke startede med “annekteringen” af Krim, men med det han kalder “et kup” mod den ukrainske præsident Janukovitj, som ønskede økonomiske forbindelser både med EU og Rusland; plus baggrunden for Krim-spørgsmålet.

Vigtigheden af​​ en dialog mellem kulturer, herunder “Musikalsk dialog mellem Kulturer”-koncerterne i København, arrangeret af Schiller Instituttet, Russisk-Dansk Dialog og Det kinesiske Kulturcenter i København. 

Jens Jørgen Nielsens opbakning til mange af Schiller Instituttets idéer og indsatser.

Mere information, eller for at aftale et nyt interview, kontakt:

Michelle Rasmussen fra Schiller Instituttet i Danmark: 53 57 00 51, si@schillerinstitut.dk, www.schillerinstitute.com; www.schillerinstitut.dk

Afskrift på engelsk: (Kortet på side 15 viser NATO, hvis Ukraine og Georgien bliver medlemmer.)

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Den 10. januar (EIRNS) — Så mange institutioner i det amerikanske intellektuelle etablissement er nu på linje med Schiller Instituttet og kræver frigivelse af Afghanistans bistands- og reservemidler – 15 tænketanke og organisationer i et fælles brev til præsident Biden den 8. januar og andre på deres egne hjemmesider – at der helt klart er en forfærdelig erkendelse: USA’s finansielle og økonomiske sanktioner er ved at myrde et uskyldigt folk, grundet utilstrækkelig loyalitet over for NATO’s besættelsesstyrker. Enhver borger der tror, at denne forbrydelse ikke har noget at gøre med truslen om en overhængende, meget større konflikt om Ukraine, forveksler moralsk poseren med moral.

På de møder mellem USA og Rusland, der nu finder sted i Genève om NATO i Østeuropa og Ukraine, har amerikanske diplomater hurtigt og fuldstændigt erstattet det personlige diplomati mellem præsident Biden og præsident Putin, som synes at give håb om en løsning, med moralsk komediespil. Efter den bilaterale fase af møderne mellem USA og Rusland den 10. januar sagde talsmand for Udenrigsministeriet, Ned Price, at USA aldrig ville overveje at holde Ukraine ude af NATO, {“ikke havde til hensigt at indgå nogen aftale”} med Rusland og ikke engang “betragtede samtalerne som en forhandling”. Han afsluttede sin briefing med en liste over diskussionsemner om russiske “ondsindede aktiviteter” for at hævde, at Rusland, og kun Rusland, måtte nedtrappe og gøre indrømmelser, så NATO’s styrker og missiler kunne fuldføre deres lange fremrykning helt til Ruslands grænser – mens russiske tropper måtte forlade deres egne vestlige grænseregioner og “vende tilbage til deres permanente baser”. Udenrigsminister Tony Blinken tilføjede samtidig et umotiveret forsøg på at hovere over Ruslands bistand til Kasakhstans regering for at kontrollere optøjer og forsøg på oprør.

Medmindre præsident Joe Biden igen griber personligt ind, er Ruslands foreslåede aftaler blevet blankt og permanent afvist. Det svarer til, at Nikita Khrusjtjov nægtede at overveje at trække sovjetiske missiler tilbage fra USA’s sydlige grænse under den frygtindgydende Cuba-krise i oktober 1962. På det tidspunkt havde millioner af skræmte mennesker verden over allerede forestillet sig, hvad denne afvisning ville betyde.

Selv om konsekvensen nu “blot” er en konventionel konflikt i Ukraine, giver USA’s tidligere chefvåbeninspektør og militære ekspert Scott Ritter en idé om, hvorfor det ikke ville gå godt for NATO-styrkerne.

(https://consortiumnews.com/2022/01/10/what-war-with-russia-would-look-like/ )

Hvad nu hvis konsekvensen kun er det “fuldstændige brud på forbindelserne”, som Putin truer med, og en dyb og umiddelbar kold krig. Nationen med verdens hurtigst ekspanderende og teknologisk mest avancerede økonomi og med den største indflydelse på bekæmpelse af fattigdom og udvikling i Afrika, Syd- og Østasien [Kina] er fast partner med Rusland. Dette fremgår endnu en gang tydeligt af undertrykkelsen af det tilsyneladende mislykkede forsøg på en “farverevolution” i Kasakhstan.

Hvis Biden-regeringen har besluttet, at USA vil angribe og konfrontere Rusland og Kina sammen i en ny kold krig – modarbejde dem i rummet, bekæmpe deres politik med at eksportere atomkraft til tredjelande, kræve at de holder op med at bruge kul til energiproduktion, angribe Kinas politik for Bælte & Vej og udryddelse af fattigdom osv. – hvem vil de så have i sit hjørne? Det britiske imperium, naturligvis – de grønne kongelige og klovnen Bojo og Hendes Majestæts styrker, der er ivrige efter at blive indsat i Ukraine. Hvad vil Amerika have i reserve? Ingen udviklingskreditinstitution; et svagt økonomisk opsving efter en dyb recession; en arbejdsstyrke på 3 millioner arbejdere og 3,5 millioner arbejdspladser mindre end for to år siden; faldende realindkomster; en centralbank, der skaber økonomiske katastrofer verden over, som IMF advarede den 9. januar, og som forsøger at stoppe inflationen, den har forårsaget.

Men langt værre end alt dette er den fortsatte kvælning af Afghanistans befolkning på grund af de amerikanske sanktioner. Det forårsager en voksende kaskade af dødsfald som følge af sult og forfrysninger i hjem uden vinterbrændstof, i en nation som USA helt klart bærer ansvaret for efter 20 års krig og besættelse. Myrdet for den synd, at man ikke opretholdt en marionetregering, da NATO forlod det. {Disse} sanktioner er en forbrydelse mod menneskeheden.

Med dette Afghanistan som “banner” vil nationer instinktivt undgå et angloamerikansk forsøg på at fastsætte reglerne for verden. Der vil være en pervers ny betydning, som Schiller Instituttets præsident, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, sagde i dag, for udtrykket “Afghanistan, imperiernes kirkegård”.

Det skal forhindres, det må vendes. Politikken må ændres til en udviklingspolitik, ved hjælp af Helga LaRouches Operation Ibn Sina. Schiller Instituttets presserende organisering for dette mål vil tage sit næste skridt fremad med et webinar på Martin Luther King-dagen, mandag den 17. januar.

Med kun et par dage tilbage før de planlagte forhandlinger 10. januar mellem russiske og amerikanske diplomater på højt niveau, om Ruslands krav om “øjeblikkelige” skriftlige sikkerhedsgarantier fra USA og NATO, har magtfulde kredse i London og Washington, som ikke vil bevæge sig bort fra at være på randen af atomkrig, lanceret endnu en provokation mod Rusland: den voldelige destabilisering af Kasakhstan. Tony Blair, George Soros og utallige internationale ngo’er medvirker i hele operationen.

En “farverevolution” i Kasakhstan har klare sikkerhedsmæssige konsekvenser for Rusland. Kasakhstan har den længste grænse til Rusland. Det er placeringen af ​​Ruslands vigtigste rumopsendelsesanlæg, Baikonur Cosmodrome, en by, som Rusland i dag lejer af Kasakhstan.

Det ser ud til, at magtfulde kredse i London og Washington er opsat på at provokere den russiske bjørn til at reagere med undertrykkende vold i Kasakhstan, eller til at gøre det samme i det østlige Ukraine, for derefter at vende om og bruge dette som en færdigpakket undskyldning for at starte destruktiv økonomisk krigsførelse imod Rusland. Kort sagt, hvis de kan få Rusland til at gå i “bjørnefælden”, så vil de give Rusland “Afghanistan-behandlingen” – økonomiske sanktioner og krigsførsel så alvorlig, at de sulter landet til underkastelse … eller forsøger at gøre det. I den forstand er det forestående afghanske folkedrab på mere end 20 millioner mennesker også en forløber for 3. Verdenskrig.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche fremhævede den strategiske betydning af denne udvikling i sin ugentlige webcast: “Hvis du ville have spurgt mig for en uge siden, hvis jeg forventer en indsats for at forstyrre den diplomatiske offensiv, der hovedsageligt kommer fra Rusland og Kina, for at uskadeliggøre det, der tydeligvis byggede op som en dobbelt “cubamissilkrise” med udviklingen omkring Ukraine og Taiwan, så ville jeg have sagt, at man så absolut bør forvente en provokation til at forstyrre disse møder, og her er vi så …

“Lad mig nu først nævne det positive aspekt:​​Der var et vist gennembrud for blot et par dage siden, i mandags, da P5 FN-nationerne, det vil sige de permanente fem atomvåbenstater, for første gang blev enige om at bekræfte den meget vigtige erklæring, som blev forhandlet mellem Gorbatjov og præsident Reagan i Reykjavik i oktober 1986, om at en atomkrig aldrig kan vindes og derfor aldrig må udkæmpes.”

Det er positivt, sagde Zepp-LaRouche, men nu “skal ordene følges op af gerninger. Og den udtalelse som sådan, selv om den er ekstremt vigtig, dæmper endnu ikke krisen omkring Ukraine og heller ikke krisen omkring Taiwan, men, som jeg sagde, så er det et meget vigtigt første skridt….

“Men vi har brug for en vending på hundrede procent, fordi denne konfrontation mod Rusland og Kina er selvmorderisk … Jeg tror,​​vi har brug for en fuldstændig ændring af prioriteringer, og befolkningen er nødt til at vågne op. Deres ligegyldighed, ligegyldigheden – hos nogle af jer – over for Afghanistan er det der åbner for, at disse rådne politikker fortsætter i vores egne lande. Og vi skal have en mobilisering for et nyt paradigme, både i vores egne lande og også i relationer mellem nationer, fordi det er udtryk for samme problem i systemet.”

Udvalgt billede: Esetok, CC BY-SA 4.0 via Wikimedia Commons

Memorandum fra Schiller Instituttet

Læs den opdterede version på engelsk nedenunder.

Den 24. december. Man lyver overfor dig. Rusland planlægger ikke at indtage Ukraine. Putin er ikke en »ondsindet aktør«, der er ude på at genskabe det sovjetiske imperium. Ukraine er ikke et fremspirende demokrati, som blot fokuserer på sig selv. Som en sammenfatning af de dokumenterede gerninger viser, bliver Ukraine brugt af geopolitiske magter i Vesten, der står til regnskab for det bankerotte, spekulative finanssystem, som er gnisten, der kan udløse et strategisk opgør med Rusland, et opgør som allerede er farligere end Cuba–krisen, og som nemt kunne ende med en atomkrig, som ingen ville hverken vinde eller overleve.

 Overvej kendsgerningerne, som vi præsenterer dem her i den forkortede tidslinje nedenfor. Rusland, ligesom Kina, er i stigende grad blevet udsat for truslen om at blive tilintetgjort gennem to særskilte former for ”atomkrig”af det krigeriske og bankerotte angloamerikanske finansetablissement: 1) »Et atomart førsteslag«, som udtalt mest direkte af den vanvittige senator Roger Wicker (republikaner fra Mississippi), og 2) den ”atomare valgmulighed” i finansiel krigsførelse, tiltag så ekstreme, at de ville svare til en finansiel belejring af Rusland for at prøve at udsulte nationen til at  underkaste sig, som dette gøres mod Afghanistan.

 Rusland har nu bekendtgjort, så hele verden kunne høre det, at dets røde streg er ved at blive overskredet, hvorefter Rusland vil blive tvunget til at svare tilbage med »militær-tekniske gengældelsestiltag«. Denne røde streg, gøres det klart, er den yderligere fremfærd af USA’s og NATO’s militærstyrker helt op til selve Ruslands grænse, herunder opstillingen af defensive og offensive missilsystemer i stand til at bære atomsprænghoveder med blot 5 minutters flyvetid fra Moskva. Rusland har fremlagt to forslag til internationale traktater – én med USA, den anden med NATO –som ville give lovbundne garantier om, at NATO’s østlige udvidelse ville ophøre, at især Ukraine og Georgien ikke ville blive inviteret til at blive en del af NATO og at avancerede våbensystemer ikke vil blive opstillet på Ruslands dørkam. Disse forslag er hverken mere eller mindre end de verbale garantier, som blev givet til Sovjetunionen i 1990 af de løgnagtige Bush- og Thatcher-regeringer, garantier som er blevet brudt systematisk lige siden. De er hverken mere eller mindre end det, som præsident John F. Kennedy krævede af Khrusjtjov i løbet af Cuba–krisen i 1962, der blev afmonteret med succes af de behændige forhandlinger bag scenen af Kennedy’s personlige udsending, hans brorBobby Kennedy, skjult fra det krigsvillige, militær-industrielle kompleks.

 Det er højst nødvendigt, at USA og NATO omgående underskriver de forslåede traktater med Rusland – og tager et skridt tilbage fra den atomare udryddelses afgrund.

 Hvad vi skildrer nedenfor har fundet sted, skridt for skridt, imens de fleste mennesker rundt om i verden sov påvagten. Det er på tide at vågne op før vi, søvngængeragtigt, påbegynder en tredje, atomar verdenskrig.

Den militære side

De sidste tredive års strategiske relationer mellem USA og NATO, på den ene side, og Rusland, på den anden, er fulde af brudte løfter, begyndende umiddelbart efter Berlin-murens fald i november, 1989. Allerede i februar 1990 var den daværende udenrigsminister, James Baker, i Moskva, hvor han, i kølvandet på den påbegyndende tyske genforening, som ville finde sted senere det samme år, lovede den sovjetiske leder, Mikhail Gorbatjov, og udenrigsminister Eduard Sjevardnadze, at hvis amerikanske tropper blev i Tyskland, ville NATO ikke udvide sig »én tomme mod øst«. Men det tog ikke lang tid før USA’s forsvarsministerium planlagde præcist dette, og processen fik fuld fart i løbet af præsident Bill Clintons administration.

 Den første runde af NATO-udvidelse, efter Tysklands genforening, fandt sted i 1999 med indeslutningen af Polen, Ungarn og Den tjekkiske Republik, efterfulgt i 2004 af alle tre baltiske lande, Bulgarien, Rumænien, Slovakiet og Slovenien. Endnu fire lande blev medlemmer i de efterfølgende år, hvilket bragte antallet af NATO-medlemmer op på tredive lande. I midten af denne proces, i løbet af George W. Bushs administration, begyndte USA også at afmontere det system af strategisk våbenkontrol, der var blevet opbygget gennem Den kolde Krig, begyndende med USA’s tilbagetrækning fra ABM-traktaten fra 1972. Trump-administrationen fremskyndte processen ved at trække USA tilbage fra INF-traktaten og Åben Himmel-traktaten, hvilket betød at kun den Nye START-traktat var tilbage, der blev forlænget af præsident Joe Biden kort efter han påbegyndte sit embede, som værende den eneste traktat om atomvåbenkontrol, der er i kraft mellem USA og Rusland.

 Vendepunktet, hvad den nuværende krigsfare angår, kom i 2014. De fortsatte anstrengelser for at indlemme Ukraine i EU’s fælles marked, gennem den Ukrainsk-Europæiske Associeringsaftale, blev afvist som værende umulig at acceptere af Ukraines regering under Viktor Janukovitj sent i 2013, da det blev klart, at Ukraine de facto ville blive associeret med NATO og give europæiske varer ubegrænset adgang til det russiske marked. Janukovitjs drejning væk fra EU førte til »Euromaidan«-protesterne af dem, som støttede et tættere fællesskab mellem Ukraine og EU, hvilket i januar eskalerede til dødelige sammenstød, eftersom disse demonstrationer blevet taget over af pro-nazistiske grupperinger, herunder dem associeret med personen Stepan Bandera, den berygtede ukrainske nazist, som arbejde tæt sammen med Hitler i løbet af 2. Verdenskrig. I februar måned eskalerede volden, og Janukovitj blevet drevet ud af sit embede, og den nye regering begyndte at vedtage stærke tiltag mod det russisk-talende mindretal i Ukraine, særligt på Krim og Donetsk- og Lugansk-regionerne i Østukraine. Alt dette blev gjort med den fulde støtte fra London og Washington, hvor USA’s udenrigsministeriums embedskvinde, Victoria Nuland, spillede en vigtig rolle. EIR udgav et detaljeret »informationspapir« og flere dybdegående rapporter i sin udgave fra den 7. februar. Informationspapiret kan findes via dette link.

 Den 16. marts 2014 blev et referendum afholdt i Krims autonome Republik og Sevastopols lokale regering, som spurgte befolkningerne om de ønskede at blive en del af Den russiske Føderation eller bevare Krims status som en del af Ukraine. På Krim stemte 97% for at blive integreret med Den russiske Føderation, med en valgdeltagelse på 83%; i Sevastopol var der også 97%, som stemte for at blive integreret med Den russiske Føderation, med en valgdeltagelse på 89%.

 Der var hverken en »russisk invasion af Ukraine« eller en tvungen forandring af nogle grænser.

 I løbet af denne periode protesterede Rusland hele tiden mod NATO’s østudvidelse, men til ingen nytte. »På trods af vores talrige protester og anmodninger, er den amerikanske maskine sat i bevægelse, og transportbåndet ruller fremad«, sagde den russiske præsident, Vladimir Putin, i sin dramatiske tale den 1. marts til Den føderale Forsamling, hvor han offentliggjorde en ny generation af strategiske våben, som Rusland havde haft under udvikling, hvoraf mindst to af disse, det hypersoniske Avangard-våben beregnet til brug i interkontinentale ballistiske missiler og Kinzhal-luftaffyrede ballistiske missiler, er siden blevet en del af det russiske militær.

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Her er den opdaterede version på engelsk. Der er ændringer i versionen ovenfor, flere kapitler og tidslinjen.

Schiller Institute Memorandum [Updated]
December 31, 2021

You are being lied to. Russia is not planning to invade Ukraine. Putin is not a “bad actor” out to recreate the Soviet Empire. Ukraine is not a fledgling democracy just minding its own business.

As a summary review of the documented record shows, Ukraine is being used by geopolitical forces in the West that answer to the bankrupt speculative financial system, as the flashpoint to trigger a strategic showdown with Russia, a showdown which is already more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and which could easily end up in a thermonuclear war which no one would win, and none would survive.

Consider the facts as we present them in the abbreviated timeline below. Russia, like China, has been increasingly subjected to the threat of being destroyed by two distinct kinds of “nuclear war” by the bellicose and bankrupt UK-U.S. financial Establishment: (1) “first-use nuclear action,” as stated most explicitly by the demented Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS); and (2) the “nuclear option” in financial warfare—measures so extreme that they would be laying financial siege to Russia to try to starve it into submission, as is being done against Afghanistan.

Russia has now announced, for the whole world to hear, that its red line is about to be crossed, after which it will be forced to respond with “retaliatory military-technical measures.” That red line, it has made clear, is the further advance of U.S. and NATO military forces up to the very border with Russia, including the positioning of defensive and offensive nuclear-capable missile systems to within a scarce five minutes’ flight time to Moscow.

Russia has presented two draft documents—one, a treaty with the United States, the other, an agreement with NATO—which together would provide legally binding security guarantees that NATO’s eastward march will stop, that Ukraine and Georgia in particular will not be invited to join NATO, and that advanced weapons systems will not be placed at Russia’s doorstep.

These are neither more nor less than the verbal guarantees the Soviet Union was given in 1990 by the duplicitous Bush and Thatcher governments, guarantees that have been systematically violated ever since. They are neither more nor less than what President John F. Kennedy demanded of Chairman Nikita Khrushchev during the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, which was successfully defused by the deft back-channel negotiations of JFK’s personal envoy, his brother and Attorney General, Robert Kennedy, out of sight of the pro-war military-industrial complex.

It is urgently necessary that the United States and NATO promptly sign those proposed documents with Russia—and step back from the edge of thermonuclear extinction.

What we chronicle below has been happening, step by step, while most Americans have been asleep at the switch. It is time to wake up, before we sleepwalk into thermonuclear World War III.

The Military Component

The collapse of the socialist states of Eastern Europe and then the Soviet Union in 1989-91 was a moment of great hope, for an end of the Cold War and the potential for the parties of the Cold War to cooperate in building a new world order based on peace through development. That moment was lost when the Anglo-American elite chose instead to declare itself “the only superpower” in a unipolar world, looting Russia and the former Soviet states, while seeking to either take Russia over, or to crush it. 

Promises were made to the Soviet Union—and thus to Russia as its recognized legal successor as a nuclear-weapons power—at the outset of this period, all of which have been broken over the past thirty years. Already in February of 1990 in Moscow, then Secretary of State James Baker promised Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachov and Foreign Minister Eduard Shevardnadze that, in the wake of German reunification which came about later that year, if U.S. troops remained in Germany there would be no expansion of NATO “one inch to the East.” (This was confirmed in official U.S. files released in 2017.)

At that time, Soviet force structure in East Germany consisted of around 340,000 troops and extensive military infrastructure, weapons, and equipment. The terms of their withdrawal (eventually completed in 1994) and whether or not, under German reunification, NATO forces would replace them in that formerly Soviet-occupied section of Germany, were on the table. Other Eastern European countries, located to the east of East Germany, were still members of the Warsaw Treaty Organization (Warsaw Pact), whose dissolution was not then anticipated; that dissolution happened in July 1991, the month before the Soviet Union itself broke up. 

But the U.S. Department of Defense was plotting the expansion of NATO eastwards already by October of 1990. Although there were different policies being debated within the U.S. political leadership, planning for expansion was proceeding behind the scenes. 

On the surface, Russian relations with the trans-Atlantic powers remained non-adversarial for most of the 1990s. In the economic sphere, however, the “takeover” proceeded apace, with the adoption of London- and Wall Street-engineered economic reforms that resulted in the large-scale deindustrialization of Russia, and could have led to the annihilation of its military might. There was some planned dismantling of nuclear weapons in both East and West, with U.S. specialists providing on-site assistance in the transfer of nuclear weapons from Ukraine, Belarus and other now independent ex-Soviet areas back to Russia, as well as in the disposal of some of Russia’s own weapons.

On May 27, 1997, the NATO-Russia Founding Act¹ was signed, establishing the NATO-Russia Council and other consultation mechanisms. Among other things, the document declared that “NATO and Russia do not consider each other as adversaries.” (Sec. 2, Para. 2) NATO described the document as “the expression of an enduring commitment, undertaken at the highest political level, to build, together, a lasting and inclusive peace in the Euro-Atlantic area.” (Sec. 2, Para. 2) 

Nonetheless, a shift began to occur in the late 1990s, driven by several events. One was that the imported economic reforms, promoting enormous financial speculation and the looting of Russian resources, led to a blow-out in August 1998 of the Russian government bond market (nearly triggering a meltdown of the global financial system because of bad bets placed on Russian securities by Wall Street and other hedge funds, as ex-Director of the International Monetary Fund Michel Camdessus later acknowledged).

In the wake of that collapse, Russia’s London- and Chicago-trained liberal “young reformers” were replaced by a government under the leadership of former Foreign Minister Yevgeny Primakov and military-industrial planner Yuri Maslyukov, who acted swiftly to stem the collapse of the remainder of Russia’s industry.

A second factor in Russia’s troubles at that time was the escalation of terrorist separatist movements in Russia’s North Caucasus region, which Russian intelligence services had solidly identified as being backed and egged on not only by Wahhabite Islamic fundamentalists from Saudi Arabia, but also by U.S. and UK intelligence agencies directly. In summer 1999, these networks attempted to split the entire North Caucasus out of Russia.

Also in the late 1990s, NATO boosted its involvement in the Bosnian War and other Balkan Peninsula conflicts among the former components of Yugoslavia, which had broken up. This meddling peaked with NATO’s bombing of Belgrade, the capital of Serbia, in March-June 1999 without authorization of the United Nations Security Council. This action shocked Moscow with the realization that NATO was prepared to act unilaterally, as it wished, without international consensus. 

In July 1997, at a NATO Summit in Madrid, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic were invited to join NATO, which they formally did in 1999. This was the first of five rounds of NATO expansion. In 2004, all three Baltic countries (formerly republics within the Soviet Union proper), and Bulgaria, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia were admitted. Four more Balkan countries joined in the years following, bringing NATO’s membership up to its current level of 30 countries. 

Vladimir Putin, in his Dec. 21, 2021 address to an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board, expressed Moscow’s view of the importance of the NATO-Russia Founding Act and its subsequent betrayal by NATO:

Take the recent past, in the late 1980s and early 1990s, when we were told that our concerns about NATO’s potential expansion eastwards were absolutely groundless. And then we saw five waves of the bloc’s eastward expansion. Do you remember how it happened? All of you are adults. It happened at a time when Russia’s relations with the United States and main member states of NATO were cloudless, if not completely allied.

I have already said this in public and will remind you of this again: American specialists were permanently present at the nuclear arms facilities of the Russian Federation. They went to their office there every day, had desks and an American flag. Wasn’t this enough? What else is required? U.S. advisors worked in the Russian government—career CIA officers, [who] gave their advice. What else did they want? What was the point of supporting separatism in the North Caucasus, with the help of even ISIS—well, if not ISIS, there were other terrorist groups. They obviously supported terrorists. What for? What was the point of expanding NATO and withdrawing from the ABM Treaty?

As Putin noted, the United States, under the George W. Bush Administration, began to dismantle the system of strategic arms control assembled during the Cold War, beginning in 2002 with the U.S. withdrawal from the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty, just a few months after Putin had extended an offer of strategic cooperation with the United States following the 9/11 attacks.

The U.S. administration quickly began planning for a global ballistic missile defense system (BMDS) in Europe and Asia, which in Europe led to the first sailing of an American guided missile destroyer equipped with the Aegis anti-missile missiles (the USS Arleigh Burke) into the Black Sea in the spring of 2012. In 2016 would come the inauguration of an “Aegis Ashore” installation—the same system, but land-based—in Romania, and the start of construction of a similar site in Poland.

At a conference in Moscow in May of 2012, then Deputy Chief of the Russian General Staff Gen. Valery Gerasimov provided extensive documentation, with video animations, of the fact that the BMDS was not aimed primarily at Iran, but did, in its intended later phases, represent a threat to Russia’s strategic deterrent. Putin and other Russian officials have also emphasized the possibility of the defensive (anti-missile) systems being quickly reconfigured as missile launchers for direct attack.

An increasingly sharper Russian response to the U.S./NATO pursuit of these programs and to the rejection of Russia’s offers of cooperation was also evident in the contrast between two speeches President Putin gave in Germany: before the Bundestag (Parliament) on September 25, 2001, and at the Munich Security Conference in 2007.

 Putin spoke to the Bundestag, in German, just two weeks after the 9/11 terrorist attack on the U.S. in 2001. He had called President Bush within hours of that attack—he was the first foreign leader to call—offering full Russian support for the U.S. in the moment of crisis. He told the Germans: “The Cold War is over,” and posed a vision of global collaboration in building a new paradigm based on collaboration of the nations of the world. 

Then on February 10, 2007, Putin delivered a landmark speech at the annual Munich Security Conference. The Western media and some people who were present, including the war-monger U.S. Senator John McCain, denounced it as belligerent, and it became a point of departure for the subsequent demonization of Putin. But it was not an aggressive speech. Putin simply made clear that Russia was not going to be trampled underfoot, as a subjugated nation in a unipolar imperial world.

Almost all international media ignored how he opened the speech, with a carefully chosen quotation from Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s Fireside Chat of September 3,1939, two days after the Nazi invasion of Poland that had marked the outbreak of World War II. FDR said, and Putin quoted, “When peace has been broken anywhere, the peace of all countries everywhere is in danger.” This speech was the signal that, speaking in strategic terms, Russia was “back.”

In July 2007, Putin attempted to avert the crossing of a line that Moscow defined as a fundamental threat to Russian security, namely the installation of the American BMDS directly at Russia’s borders. Visiting President George W. Bush in Kennebunkport, Maine, he proposed joint Russian-American development and deployment of anti-missile systems, including an offer to the U.S. administration to use the Russian early-warning radar in Gabala, Azerbaijan as part of a mutual Russian-American missile defense system for Europe, instead of the American BMDS planned for installation in Poland and the Czech Republic (the latter was changed to Romania). Putin also offered to give the U.S. access to a radar facility in southern Russia, and to place coordination of the process with the NATO-Russia Council.

Sergei Ivanov, then a deputy prime minister, said that the Russian proposals signified a fundamental change in international relations, and could mean an end to talk about a new Cold War:

If our proposals are accepted, Russia will no longer need to place new weapons, including missiles, in the European part of the country, including Kaliningrad.

Negotiations between Russian and American officials over the Russian proposal were conducted throughout 2008, before petering out. Key to their failure was the vehemence of Washington’s refusal to abandon construction of the BMDS. In the words of then Acting Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs Stephen Mull:

What we do not accept is that Gabala is a substitute for the plans that we’re already pursuing with our Czech and Polish allies. We believe that those installations are necessary for the security of our interests in Europe.

Clearly, the target was not Iran, but Russia, and the opportunity for a new paradigm was lost. 

At the April 2008 NATO summit in Bucharest, Georgia and Ukraine were promised future NATO membership, although they were not offered formal Membership Action Plans (MAP). Their bids, nonetheless, were welcomed by many and they were left with hopes of MAPs in the future, maybe the near future—enough so that the Georgians declared:

The decision to accept that we are going forward to an adhesion to NATO was taken and we consider this is a historic success.

In August 2008, while President Dmitri Medvedev was on vacation and then Prime Minister Putin was at the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, Mikheil Saakashvili’s Georgia attacked Russian peacekeepers in the breakaway Georgian province of South Ossetia, leading to a short but ferocious war, which Georgia lost. The fact that Saakashvili acted on the assumption he would have full NATO backing, although it proved wrong in the event, was not lost on Moscow and has influenced subsequent Russian thinking about what would happen with Georgia or Ukraine becoming full NATO members.

Ukraine

In December 2008, in the wake of Georgia’s military showdown with Russia, Carl Bildt and Radek Sikorski, the foreign ministers of Sweden and Poland, respectively, initiated the European Union’s “Eastern Partnership.” It targeted six countries that were formerly republics within the Soviet Union: three in the Caucasus region (Armenia, Azerbaijan, Georgia) and three in East Central Europe (Belarus, Moldova, Ukraine). They were not to be invited to full EU membership, but were nevertheless drawn into a vise through so-called EU Association Agreements (EUAA), each one centered on a Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement (DCFTA).

The prime target of the effort was Ukraine. Under the EUAA negotiated with Ukraine, but not immediately signed, the country’s industrial economy would be dismantled, trade with Russia savaged (with Russia ending its free-trade regime with Ukraine to prevent its own markets from being flooded via Ukraine), and EU-based market players would grab Ukraine’s agricultural and raw materials exports. 

Furthermore, the EUAA mandated “convergence” on security issues, with integration into European defense systems. Under such an arrangement, the long-term treaty agreements on the Russian Navy’s use of its crucial Black Sea ports on the Crimean Peninsula—a Russian area since the 18th Century, but administratively assigned to Ukraine within the USSR in the early 1950s—would be terminated, ultimately giving NATO forward-basing on Russia’s immediate border.

Turning Ukraine against Russia had been a long-term goal of Cold War Anglo-American strategic planners, as it was earlier of Austro-Hungarian imperial intelligence agencies during World War I. After World War II, up until the mid-1950s, the U.S.A. and UK supported an insurgency against the Soviet Union, a civil war that continued on the ground long after peace had been signed in 1945.

The insurgents were from the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and remnants of the Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA). The OUN had been founded in 1929 from a template similar to that which produced the Italian and other European fascist movements. Its leader, Stepan Bandera, was an on-again/off-again ally of the Nazis, and the OUN-UPA, under an ethnic-purist ideology, committed mass slaughter of ethnic Poles and Jews in western Ukraine towards the end of World War II. In Europe after the War, Bandera was sponsored by British MI6 (intelligence), while CIA founder Allen Dulles shepherded Gen. Mykola Lebed, another OUN leader, into the U.S.A., despite strong opposition from U.S. Army Intelligence, based on Lebed’s record of collaboration with the Nazis and war crimes.

Next-generation followers of Lebed, whose base of operations—the Prolog Research Corporation in New York City—was funded by Dulles’s CIA for intelligence-gathering and the distribution of nationalist and other literature inside the U.S.S.R., staffed the U.S. Radio Liberty facility in Munich, Germany for broadcasting into Ukraine, up into the 1980s.²

When the U.S.S.R. broke up in August 1991, key Banderite leaders dashed into Lviv, far western Ukraine—a mere 1,240 km from Munich, 12 hours by car—and began to rebuild their movement. Lviv Region, which for many years had been part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, not the Russian, was the stronghold of the OUN’s heirs.

The Banderites’ influence got a boost after the 2004 Orange Revolution in Kiev. Backed by the U.S. National Endowment for Democracy and the private foundations of financier George Soros, this was a so-called “color revolution,” which overturned the results of a Presidential election and, in a second vote, installed banker Victor Yushchenko as President. He was voted out in 2010 because of popular opposition to his brutal austerity policies (generated by IMF-dictated formulae for privatization and deregulation), but not before overseeing a revision of the official history of Ukraine’s relations with Russia in favor of a radical, anti-Russian nationalism (whereas, historically, there had been a strong tendency among Ukrainian patriots and advocates of independence to prefer a long-term alliance with Russia).

The Lviv-based Banderites, meanwhile, recruited and strengthened their movement, and held paramilitary summer camps for young people in the Ukrainian countryside and elsewhere in Eastern Europe. At times, the instructors included off-duty military officers from NATO countries. In 2008, Yushchenko first applied for NATO to grant Ukraine a Membership Action Plan.

The turning point for Ukraine’s status as a potential trigger in the current war danger came in 2014. Ongoing efforts to get Ukraine to finalize its EUAA were rejected as untenable by the Viktor Yanukovych government in November 2013, when it became clear that free-trade provisions giving European goods unlimited access to the Russian market through Ukraine would bring retaliatory measures by Ukraine’s biggest trade partner, Russia, to counter this assault on Russia’s own producers, and thus would backfire against the Ukrainian economy. When Yanukovych on November 21 announced postponement of the EU deal, long-laid Banderite plans to turn Ukraine into a tool for isolating and demonizing Russia were activated. 

Protesters against Yanukovych’s EUAA postponement decision immediately began to assemble in Kiev’s Maidan (central square). Large numbers of ordinary people turned out, waving EU flags, because of the destruction of the Ukrainian economy under “shock” deregulation in the 1990s and the IMF-dictated policies of privatization and austerity throughout the Orange Revolution years. Many had desperately believed, as Ukrainian economist Natalia Vitrenko once put it, that the EUAA would bring them “wages like in Germany and benefits packages like in France.” A disproportionately high number of the demonstrators hailed from far western Ukraine, and pre-planned violence by the Banderite paramilitary group Right Sector was then used for systematic escalation of the Maidan.

Bloodshed and victims, all blamed on the regime, were then used to keep Maidan fervor and outrage going through to February 2014.³ Neo-Nazi and other fascist symbols defaced building walls and placards in the Maidan, but they did not deter public U.S. support of this process. Sen. John McCain addressed the mob in December 2013, while Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland passed out cupcakes and negotiated with the U.S. Ambassador to Ukraine Geoffrey Pyatt regarding whom to place in office once Yanukovych was ousted. A Nuland-Pyatt phone discussion of this was caught on tape and circulated worldwide. 

On February 18, 2014, Maidan leaders announced a “peaceful march” on the Supreme Rada (parliament), which turned into an attack and touched off three days of street fighting. Peaking on February 20—a day of sniper fire from high buildings that killed both demonstrators and police—these clashes killed more than 100. Scrupulous research by Ukraine-born Prof. Ivan Katchanovski at the University of Ottawa, using video recordings and other direct evidence of these events, has convincingly shown that the majority of the sniper fire came from the Maidan’s paramilitary positions, not the government’s Berkut special police forces.⁴ 

On February 21, 2014, a trio of Maidan leaders, including Arseniy Yatsenyuk, the man hand-picked by Nuland to be Ukraine’s next prime minister, signed an agreement with President Yanukovych, committing both sides to a peaceful transition of power: constitutional reform by September, presidential elections late in the year, and the turning in of weapons. The foreign ministers of France, Germany and Russia helped negotiate it, with a representative from Moscow as an observer. When this document was taken to the Maidan, a young Banderite militant seized the onstage microphone to lead its rejection by the mob, and threatened Yanukovych’s life if he didn’t step down by morning. Yanukovych left Kiev that night. The Rada unconstitutionally installed an acting president. 

Among the new government’s first measures was for the Rada to strip Russian and other “minority” languages of their status as regional official languages. (As of the 2001 census, Russian was spoken throughout the country and considered “native” by one-third of the population.) This, with other measures announced from Kiev, fanned major opposition to the coup, centered in eastern Ukraine—the Donetsk and Luhansk regions (the Donbas) and Crimea. Civil conflict erupted in both areas, with local groups seizing government buildings. 

In Crimea, the insurgency against the coup-installed Kiev regime prevailed. A referendum held March 16, 2014 in the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol (a separate jurisdiction on the peninsula), asked voters whether they wanted to join the Russian Federation or retain Crimea’s status as a part of Ukraine. In Crimea, 97% of the 83% of eligible voters who turned out, voted for integration into the Russian Federation; in Sevastopol, the result was likewise 97% for integration, while the turnout was even higher, at 89%.

There was no “Russian military invasion of Ukraine.” On March 1 President Putin sought and received authorization from the Federal Assembly (the legislature) to deploy Russian forces on Ukrainian territory, citing threats to the lives of Russian citizens and Russian-ethnic residents of Crimea; these were troops from the Russian Black Sea Fleet facilities in and around Sevastopol, already stationed in Crimea. 

The fate of two Donbas self-declared republics in Donetsk and Luhansk Oblasts (Regions), was not settled so quickly. Support from within Russia for these insurgents was unofficial, including the involvement of Russian military veterans on a volunteer basis. The Donbas conflict turned into heavy fighting in 2014-15, continuing at a lower level until now; more than 13,000 people have been killed in the past seven years. Defeats of Kiev’s forces by the Donbas militia, including their gaining full control of the Donetsk International Airport in January 2015, set the stage for Kiev’s agreement to a ceasefire.

After one false start—the so-called Minsk Protocol in September 2014—an interim state of affairs in the Donbas was agreed to in the February 2015 “Minsk II” accord between the regime in Kiev, then under President Peter Poroshenko, and representatives of the self-declared Donbas republics, which was negotiated by Kiev, France, Germany and Russia with support from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). It provided for a ceasefire, pullback of weapons, prisoner exchanges, and humanitarian relief, as well as a political settlement within Ukraine. This envisaged a special status for the Donbas, with extensive regional autonomy including the “right of linguistic self-determination.” Re-establishment of Ukraine’s “full control” over its border with Russia in the Donbas was to occur following provisional granting of the special status and after local elections. The special status was to be enshrined in the Ukrainian Constitution by the end of 2015. 

The UN Security Council endorsed Minsk II on February 17, 2015. It remains unimplemented, because Kiev almost immediately refused to conduct the elections or fully legalize the special status, until first being given control over the Donbas-Russia border. Today, President Volodymyr Zelensky’s government in Kiev refuses even to meet with Donbas leaders for negotiations, and continues to claim that the Donbas is under Russian “occupation,” and therefore Kiev should talk only with Russia, not the Donbas leaders. Sporadic fighting has continued, with a new escalation of shelling across the “line of contact” between the Donbas entities and the rest of Ukraine.

A New U.S. War Posture

The Trump Administration accelerated the take-down of the entire architecture of international arms-control agreements by withdrawing the U.S. from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, signed by President Ronald Reagan and Mikhail Gorbachov in 1987, and the Open Skies Treaty, negotiated by NATO and the Warsaw Pact nations in 1992. This left the New START Treaty (Measures for the Further Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms, signed by the U.S. and the Russian Federation in 2010) as the last of the existing arms control agreements—the one covering heavy intercontinental missiles. Upon taking office this year, President Joe Biden extended the New START Treaty for five years, a decision welcomed by Moscow. 

On January 19, 2018, the U.S. Department of Defense released its new National Defense Strategy. “Great power competition—not terrorism—is now the primary focus of U.S. national security,” said the then Secretary of Defense James Mattis in a speech describing the document:

We face growing threats from revisionist powers as different as China and Russia, nations that seek to create a world consistent with their authoritarian models—pursuing veto authority over other nations’ economic, diplomatic, and security decisions.

Hours later, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said, in response to the release of the new Pentagon strategy:

We regret that, instead of conducting a normal dialogue, instead of relying on international law, the United States seeks to prove its leadership through confrontational concepts and strategies.

All throughout this time period, Moscow has protested these confrontational actions, but to no avail. “Despite our numerous protests and pleas, the American machine has been set into motion, the conveyer belt is moving forward,” Russian President Vladimir Putin said in his dramatic March 1, 2018 address to the Federal Assembly, in which he publicly announced the new generation of strategic weapons that Russia had under development, at least two of which, the Avangard hypersonic glide vehicle for ICBMs and the Kinzhal aeroballistic missile, have since been introduced into service.

The Economic Component

Beginning in March 2014, right after the February 2014 coup in Kiev, the United States imposed financial and economic sanctions on Russia, purportedly over Crimea and the Donbas republics. These sanctions have included five Acts of Congess, six Presidential Executive Orders, ten “Directives pursuant to Executive Orders” and two additional Presidential “Determinations.” This, according to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list. There have of course been other sanctions, property seizures, diplomatic expulsions for other alleged reasons, as well as other forms of economic warfare. All of the Ukraine/Crimea-related sanctions remain in effect; none have been lifted. The last major new round of sanctions was imposed in 2018 (the CAATSA Act), coinciding with new sanctions over the Sergei Skripal poisoning case.

According to various estimates, the resultant cost to Russia’s economy of all of these sanctions (in GDP accounting) has been in the range of $250-400 billion, with comparable losses imposed on European economies.

In addition, in 2016 and 2017, President Putin accused the Barack Obama Administration of having conspired with Saudi Arabia to lower the price of oil and thereby damage the Russian economy. During the Trump Administration, that appeared not to continue, as Russia and Saudi Arabia made two significant production-pricing agreements on oil, the second in 2019 with Trump Administration participation of some kind. 

In 2021, the crisis came to a head.

2021 Timeline

February 2: The U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings published an article by Adm. Charles A. Richard, Commander of the U.S. Strategic Command, in which he claimed that the risk of nuclear war with Russia or China was increasing and called for action. 

There is a real possibility that a regional crisis with Russia or China could escalate quickly to a conflict involving nuclear weapons, if they perceived a conventional loss would threaten the regime or state. Consequently, the U.S. military must shift its principal assumption from “nuclear employment is not possible” to “nuclear employment is a very real possibility,” and act to meet and deter that reality.

March 15: The U.S. Army-led DEFENDER-Europe 21 exercise began and ran through the month of June, involving 28,000 troops from 27 different countries. The exercise included “nearly simultaneous operations across more than 30 training areas” in a dozen countries, reported Army Times. 

March 16: The UK Government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson released its Integrated Review of security, defense, development, and foreign policy. The report, among other things, announced that the UK nuclear warhead stockpile would be increased from 180 to 260 warheads. This was decided “in recognition of the evolving security environment, including the developing range of technological and doctrinal threats….” 

April 1: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin called Ukrainian Defense Minister Andriy Taran “to discuss the regional security situation,” the Pentagon reported, condemning the supposed “escalations of Russian aggressive and provocative actions in eastern Ukraine.” Austin assured Taran:

Washington will not give up on Ukraine in case Russia escalates aggression. [And] in the event of an escalation of Russian aggression, the United States will not leave Ukraine to its own devices, and neither will it allow Russia’s aggressive aspirations toward Ukraine to be realized.

April 13: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited Northern Fleet headquarters in Severomorsk, where he said that the United States and its NATO allies were building up naval and land forces in the Arctic, increasing the intensity of combat training, and expanding and modernizing military infrastructure.

This activity is typical not only for the Arctic region. Over the past three years, the North Atlantic bloc has increased its military activity near the Russian borders.

Shoigu then commented on the DEFENDER-Europe 21 exercise:

Now American troops are being transferred from the continental part of North America across the Atlantic to Europe. There is a movement of troops in Europe to the Russian borders. The main forces are concentrated in the Black Sea region and the Baltic region…. In total, 40,000 military personnel and 15,000 units of weapons and military equipment, including strategic aviation, will be concentrated near our territory…. In response to the Alliance’s military activities threatening Russia, we have taken appropriate measures.

Within three weeks, two Russian armies and three formations of the airborne troops were successfully transferred to the western borders of the Russian Federation performing combat training tasks.

The troops have shown full readiness and ability to perform tasks to ensure the military security of the country.

April 15: The Biden White House issued an Executive Order (EO 14024) proclaiming that Russia’s various so-called malign actions “constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.”

That EO contained a series of new sanctions against Russia, including expelling ten diplomats, blacklisting six Russian technology companies, sanctioning 32 entities and individuals, and—most importantly—prohibiting U.S. financial institutions from participating in the primary market for ruble or non-ruble denominated bonds issued after June 14, 2021, by the Russian government and its financial institutions.

The explicitly stated purpose of the measures was to trigger voluminous capital flight and a “negative feedback loop” that would wreak havoc on the Russian economy. A background briefing by an unnamed senior administration official elaborated:

There are elements of this new EO that give us additional authorities that we are not exercising today … We are prepared, going forward, to impose substantial and lasting costs if this [Russian] behavior continues or escalates … We’re also delivering a clear signal that the President has maximum flexibility to expand the sovereign debt prohibitions if Russia’s maligned [sic] activities continue or escalate.

The latter was widely understood as a threat that further sanctions could follow barring participation in the far more important secondary bond market, and even escalate to the so-called “nuclear option” of expelling Russia from SWIFT.⁵

June 14: The EO announced on April 15, 2021 officially went into effect—two days before the June 16, 2021 summit between presidents Biden and Putin. 

June 23: The Russian Defense Ministry announced that a Russian warship fired warning shots at the Royal Navy destroyer HMS Defender, which it said had violated Russia’s maritime border around Crimea in the Black Sea. HMS Defender had entered waters in the vicinity of Crimea’s Cape Fiolent that are within Russian sovereign territory, and it had ignored warnings to depart the area. Not mentioned in the press coverage but visible on flight tracking websites was an U.S. Air Force RC-135V electronic intelligence aircraft, which was rounding the west coast of Crimea at the time of the Russian naval encounter with the Defender.

The BBC, which had one of its own reporters on board the British warship, confirmed that the HMS Defender deliberately entered waters claimed by Russia in order to provoke a response from Russian forces:

This would be a deliberate move to make a point to Russia. HMS Defender was going to sail within the 19 km (12 mile) limit of Crimea’s territorial waters.

June 23: Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu again warned of the strategic danger facing Europe in an address to the Moscow Conference on International Security:

As a whole, the situation in Europe is explosive and requires specific steps to de-escalate it. The Russian side has proposed a number of measures. For example, it put forward a proposal to move the areas of drills away from the contact line. 

Shoigu also pointed to Russia’s proposal for a moratorium on the deployment of intermediate- and shorter-range missiles in Europe, calling them “a special danger” for Europe because their deployment in Europe “will return to the situation, when the Europeans were hostage to the confrontation between the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.”

Speaking at the same conference, Gen. Valeriy Gerasimov, the chief of the Russian General Staff, pointed to NATO as a destabilizing factor:

NATO’s naval activity near our borders has grown considerably. Warships outfitted with long-range precision weapons are operating in the Black and Baltic Seas constantly, while reconnaissance, patrol and attack aircraft and also unmanned aerial vehicles are performing their flights. The operations by the warships of the United States and its allies are clearly of a provocative nature…. Preconditions are being created for the emergence of incidents, which does not contribute to reducing military tensions.

September 20: NATO kicked off Exercise Rapid Trident 21 at the Yavoriv training range in western Ukraine, with 6,000 troops from 15 countries, including 300 from the U.S. The drills are “an important step towards Ukraine’s European integration,” said Brigadier General Vladyslav Klochkov, co-director of the exercises. 

October 6: NATO ordered the expulsion of eight diplomats from the Russian mission at NATO headquarters in Brussels, alleging that they were “undeclared Russian intelligence officers.” Moscow retaliated Oct 18 by announcing that Russia’s mission to NATO would shut down and the NATO information office in Moscow would be closed and its staff stripped of their accreditation.

“If anyone ever believed in the sincerity of those statements [from NATO], there are none left today. Their true price is clear for everyone,” said Russian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Alexander Grushko, in response to the NATO action.

October 19: U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin landed in Kiev and, speaking at a press conference at the Defense Ministry, promised the regime’s leaders that the U.S. will back it in its conflict with Russia:

Let me underscore what President Biden said during President Zelensky’s recent visit to Washington. U.S. support for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity is unwavering. So, we again call on Russia to end its occupation of Crimea … to stop perpetuating the war in eastern Ukraine … to end its destabilizing activities in the Black Sea and along Ukraine’s borders … and to halt its persistent cyber-attacks and other malign activities against the United States, and our Allies and partners.

He noted that the U.S. has spent $2.5 billion in support of Ukraine’s military forces “so that they can preserve their country’s territorial integrity and secure its borders and territorial waters.”

“I think our posture in the region continues to present a credible threat against Russia and it enables NATO forces to operate more effectively should deterrence fail,” Austin said the following day in Romania. “And I think this is borne out of our commitment to sustaining a rotational U.S. force presence.”

October 21: The NATO defense ministers, on the first day of their meeting in Brussels, endorsed “a new overarching plan to defend our Alliance.…” The new plan includes: “significant improvements to our air and missile defenses, strengthening our conventional capabilities with fifth generation jets, adapting our exercises and intelligence, and improving the readiness and effectiveness of our nuclear deterrent.” NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said that the alliance has been increasing its presence on the Black Sea, “because the Black Sea is of strategic importance for NATO.” 

October 21: Putin warned in a speech to the Valdai Discussion Club in Sochi that Ukraine doesn’t even have to be formally brought into the NATO alliance to pose a strategic threat to Russia:

Formal membership in NATO ultimately may not happen, but the military development of the territory is already underway. And this really poses a threat to the Russian Federation … Tomorrow, rockets could appear near Kharkov, what are we going to do about it? It’s not us placing our missiles there, it’s them shoving theirs under our nose.

Putin cited NATO’s promise not to move its infrastructure eastwards after the reunification of Germany, a promise which it did not keep:

Everyone from all sides said that after the unification, in no circumstances would NATO infrastructure move toward the East. Russia should have been able to at least rely on that. That’s what they said, there were public statements. But in practice? They lied … and then they expanded it once, and then they expanded it again.

October 30: The Washington Post, citing unnamed officials, reported that the Russians were engaged in another buildup of troops along the border with Ukraine. The article’s authors said the troop movements have reignited concerns that arose in April.

“The point is: It is not a drill. It doesn’t appear to be a training exercise. Something is happening. What is it?” said Michael Kofman, Program Director of the Russia Studies Program at the Virginia-based nonprofit analysis group CNA. 

November 1: Politico published satellite imagery purporting to show a Russian troop buildup near the Ukrainian border, including armored units, tanks, and self-propelled artillery, along with ground troops massing near the Russian town of Yelnya close to the border with Belarus. Elements of the 1st Guards Tank Army were spotted in the area. The army “has been designed to conduct operations at every level of combat from counterinsurgency to mechanized warfare,” Jane’s analysis reported. 

Even the Ukrainian Defense Ministry denied the reported Russian military buildup, stating officially: “As of November 1, 2021, an additional transfer of Russian units, weapons and military equipment to the state border of Ukraine was not recorded.”

November 2: The Russian Security Council announced that CIA Director William Burns was in Moscow for two days of talks with Nikolai Patrushev, Secretary of the Security Council. According to leaks reported by CNN on November Nov. 5, Biden sent Burns to Moscow to tell the Russians to stop their troop buildup near Ukraine’s border, which the U.S. was monitoring closely. 

November 8: For the first time, a Resolution passed by both Houses of Congress voiced the demand for “crushing sanctions” on Russia’s economy, purportedly to stop the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, because, in the words of Sen. James Risch, “Russia is creating and weaponizing this energy crisis.” Sen. Ron Johnson said the U.S should “use crushing sanctions to stop the pipeline.” Sen. Tom Cotton added: “The Nord Stream 2 pipeline will expand Russian influence and threaten energy security throughout Europe. Since the Biden administration won’t hold Putin accountable, Congress must take action to ensure our NATO allies aren’t hostage to Russian energy.”

November 11: Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov warned that Russia is prepared to act against any NATO provocations:

If necessary, we will take measures to ensure our security if there are provocative actions by our opponents near our borders. I’m referring to NATO and NATO forces that are taking rather active and assertive actions in close proximity to our borders, be it in the air, on water, or on land.

November 16: British Defense Secretary Ben Wallace met in Kiev with Ukrainian President Zelensky, and signed a joint statement with Ukraine Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov. Zelensky “thanked Ben Wallace for the unwavering support of the UK for the independence and territorial integrity of our country within its internationally recognized borders,” according to a statement issued by his office. Zelensky “also praised the signing of the Ukrainian-British Bilateral Framework Agreement on official credit support for the development of the Ukrainian fleet’s capabilities:

The United Kingdom has become our key partner in building the Ukrainian fleet. I expect that future security projects planned under this agreement will be effectively implemented.

November 18: During an address to a meeting of the Russian Foreign Policy Board, President Putin protested the repeated flights of U.S. bombers close to Russia’s borders:

Indeed, we constantly express our concerns about these matters and talk about red lines, but of course, we understand that our partners are peculiar in the sense that they have a very—how to put it mildly—superficial approach to our warnings about red lines.

Putin repeated that Russian concerns about NATO’s eastward expansion “have been totally ignored.”

November 19: U.S. Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines landed in Brussels to brief NATO ambassadors on U.S. intelligence on the situation and the possibility of a Russian military intervention in Ukraine. 

NATO’s Stoltenberg suggested that if the new German government (which was still the subject of coalition negotiations) were to pull out of the NATO nuclear sharing arrangement, the B61 nuclear bombs currently stored in Germany could be moved eastwards:

Of course, it’s up to Germany to decide whether the nuclear arms will be deployed in this country, but there’s an alternative to this; the nuclear arms may easily end up in other European countries, including these to the east of Germany. 

That is, even closer to Russia’s border.

November 20: Ukrainian military intelligence chief Brig. Gen. Kyrylo Budanov told Military Times, on the sidelines of the Halifax International Security Conference, that Russia has more than 92,000 troops massed near Russia’s border with Ukraine and is preparing for an attack by the end of January or beginning of February 2022.

November 21: Bloomberg published a report citing unnamed sources saying that the U.S. had shared intelligence including maps with European allies that shows a buildup of 100,000 Russian troops and artillery to prepare for a rapid, large-scale push into Ukraine from multiple locations, should Putin decide to invade.

November 30: Radio Free Europe reported that U.S. Republicans had blocked voting on the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) until Nord Stream 2 sanctions were added to it, objecting that the Russia-to-Germany Baltic Sea pipeline will deny billions in annual revenue to “ally” Ukraine. (The overland pipeline from Yamal in Siberia to Europe traverses Ukraine, which collects transit fees.) 

December 5: Neo-con Democrat Michèle Flournoy, former Under Secretary of Defense for Policy under President Barack Obama, appeared on “Fox News Sunday” and declared that President Biden, in his upcoming December 7 video-conference summit with Putin, was going to threaten “much more severe” financial/economic sanctions on Russia than anything previously done:

[What] the administration is actively considering with our allies, is an escalating set of sanctions that go beyond what’s been done before. I’m sure they are looking at sanctioning the banking system, sanctioning the energy sector, possibly cutting off Russia from the SWIFT system,@5 which enables all of their international financial transactions. So, they’re looking at much more serious means … much greater level of pain than anything [that Russia has faced to date]. 

December 6: The day before the Biden-Putin video conference, an anonymous senior White House official briefed the press that all NATO allies had agreed on a package of “financial sanctions that would impose significant and severe economic harm on the Russian economy” should Russia invade Ukraine:

We believe that there is a way forward here that will allow us to send a clear message to Russia there will be genuine and meaningful and enduring costs to choosing to go forward—should they choose to go forward—with a military escalation…. We have had intensive discussions with our European partners about what we would do collectively in the event of a major Russian military escalation in Ukraine, and we believe that we have a path forward that would involve substantial economic countermeasures by both the Europeans and the United States, We have put together a pretty damn aggressive package.

In its coverage, CNN raised the “nuclear option” directly:

Officials have also been weighing disconnecting Russia from the SWIFT international payment system, upon which Russia remains heavily reliant, according to two sources familiar with the discussions. This is being considered a “nuclear” option. The European Parliament passed a nonbinding resolution in the spring calling for such a move should Russia invade Ukraine, and the U.S. has been discussing it with EU counterparts.

Later the same day, after Biden had personally spoken with European leaders, the White House issued a statement which did not mention financial sanctions or significant economic damage to Russia. It said, “diplomacy is the only way forward to resolve the conflict in Donbas through the implementation of the Minsk Agreements.”

December 7: Presidents Biden and Putin held a video conference summit, after which National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan assured the media that Biden—

told President Putin directly that if Russia further invades Ukraine, the United States and our European allies would respond with strong economic measures, and would provide additional defensive material to the Ukrainians, above and beyond that which we are already providing, [and that the United States] would fortify our NATO allies on the eastern flank, with additional capabilities in response to such an escalation.

Biden himself emphasized later that he was considering Putin’s demand for security guarantees, which later resulted in Russia’s proposals (see below).

December 12: The new German Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, declared on a national television interview that the Nord Stream 2 pipeline could not become operational because, according to the German government coalition agreements, the pipeline was not consistent with European energy law.

The previous government of Chancellor Angela Merkel had found the opposite. Baerbock, a war-hawk Green Party leader, did not explain the reversal. The Hill pointed out that the Greens want Ukraine in NATO.

December 17: The Russian Foreign Ministry released two draft treaties specifying guarantees for Russia’s security, one, an agreement between Russia and NATO, and the other, a treaty between Russia and the United States.

Both documents call for recognizing a principle of “non-interference in the internal affairs” of each other, acknowledge that a “direct military clash between them could result in the use of nuclear weapons that would have far-reaching consequences,” reaffirm “that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” and recognize “the need to make every effort to prevent the risk of outbreak of such war among States that possess nuclear weapons.”

The operative part of the U.S.-Russia treaty calls for refraining from taking actions “that could undermine core security interests of the other Party.” Cognizant of the drive for NATO-ization of Ukraine, Article 4 states:

The United States of America shall undertake to prevent further eastward expansion of NATO and deny accession to the Alliance to the States of the former U.S.S.R.

And,

The United States of America shall not establish military bases in the territory of the States of the former U.S.S.R. that are not members of NATO, use their infrastructure for any military activities or develop bilateral military cooperation with them.

It goes on to state that the Parties (the U.S. and Russia) will not take military actions outside their own borders that threaten each other’s national security, or fly bombers or sail warships outside of their territorial waters in ways that would threaten each other. On the U.S.’ expansion of its nuclear weapons to include those stored in such locations of Germany, the treaty states,

The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed … to their national territories.

December 19: An anonymous senior White House official told CNN and other media that there was “only about a four-week window” to compel Russia to de-escalate and that U.S.-planned sanctions “would be overwhelming, immediate, and inflict significant costs on the Russian economy and their financial system.”

December 21: In an extensive report delivered to an expanded meeting of the Defense Ministry Board, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated:

Tensions are growing on the western and eastern borders of Russia. The United States is intensifying its military presence at Russian borders. 

The United States and NATO are purposefully increasing the scale and intensity of military training activities near Russia. Increasingly, they involve strategic aviation, carrying out simulated launches of nuclear missiles at our facilities. The number of their flights near the Russian borders has more than doubled.

NATO pays special attention to the issues of the transfer of troops to the eastern flank of the alliance, including from the continental part of the United States. The exercises are practicing various options for using coalition groups against Russia with the use of non-aligned states—Georgia, Moldova and Ukraine. 

The presence of more than 120 employees of American PMCs [private military companies] in Avdeevka and Priazovskoe settlements in Donetsk region has been reliably established. They equip firing positions in residential buildings and at socially significant facilities, prepare Ukrainian special operations forces and radical armed groups for active hostilities. To commit provocations, tanks with unidentified chemical components were delivered to Avdeevka and Krasny Liman cities.

Speaking at that same meeting of the Defense Ministry Board, Russian President Putin himself sounded the alarm:

What they [the United States] are doing on the territory of Ukraine now—or trying to do and going to do—this is not thousands of kilometers away from our national border. This is at the doorstep of our home. They must understand that we simply have nowhere to retreat further…. Do they think we don’t see these threats? Or do they think that we are so weak-willed to simply look blankly at the threats posed to Russia?

As I have already noted, in the event of the continuation of the obviously aggressive line of our Western colleagues, we will take adequate retaliatory military-technical measures, and react toughly to unfriendly steps. And, I want to emphasize, we have every right to do so, we have every right to take actions designed to ensure the security and sovereignty of Russia…. We are extremely concerned about the deployment of elements of the U.S. global missile defense system near Russia.

Den 3. januar (EIRNS) — Imens året 2022 åbnede, der markerer økonomen og statsmanden Lyndon LaRouches 100-års fødselsdag, rådførte stats- og regeringscheferne for de fem atomvåbenstater, som også er de permanente medlemmer af FN’s Sikkerhedsråd (P5), sig med hinanden, som Helga Zepp-LaRouche har insisteret på, at de må gøre, og udstedte for første gang en erklæring om, at »atomkrig ikke kan vindes og aldrig må udkæmpes« (se hele erklæringen nedenunder). Ordene blev brugt af præsidenterne Biden og Putin efter deres videokonference den 7. december 2021; og denne erklæring vil nu være in mente, når USA-Rusland-NATO-forhandlingerne om Ukraine-krisen finder sted den 10.-13. januar.

Men den grundlæggende årsag til optimisme her er ikke så meget ordene i denne erklæring, men at lederne af de fem magter handlede sammen mod global krig. Helga Zepp-LaRouche havde offentligt opfordret dem til at gøre dette for præcis to år siden – den 3. jan. 2020, i den farlige periode efter USA’s mord på den iranske general Qassem Soleimani – og har opfordret dem til det mange gange siden. Den 15. januar 2020, to uger efter Helga LaRouches første appel, opfordrede Ruslands præsident Putin til et P5-statsoverhoved-topmøde for at behandle problemerne med fred, sikkerhed og terrorisme – og han har også gentaget det forslag adskillige gange siden; og hans talsmand understregede i dag, at det stadig er nødvendigt efter denne »aldrig atomkrig«-erklæring.

Allerede i begyndelsen af marts 2020 havde Helga LaRouche identificeret COVID-pandemien – med krav om et moderne sundhedssystem opbygget i alle lande – som den nye betingelse for et sådant stormagtstopmøde. Dette må ske som en nødforanstaltning i Afghanistan sammen med fødevarehjælp og strømforsyningsgarantier for at redde millioner af liv. Det er starten på, gennem fysisk-økonomisk udvikling, det rigtige navn for fred; og det peger på et nyt internationalt kreditsystem, som Franklin Roosevelts Bretton Woods, i stedet for det krakkende kasino, vi har nu. Det er disse missioner, der er unikt tilgængelige gennem det Lyndon LaRouche kaldte »fire-magtsaftalen« mellem USA, Rusland, Kina og Indien. Det gør dagens »P5«-erklæring væsentlig ud over dets ordlyd.

Erklæringen blev offentliggjort samtidigt omkring kl. 11:00 amerikansk østlig tid på alle fem præsidenters/premierministres hjemmesider. »Vi bekræfter, at en atomkrig ikke kan vindes og aldrig må udkæmpes,« siger erklæringen. »Da brug af atomvåben ville have vidtrækkende konsekvenser, bekræfter vi også, at atomvåben – så længe de fortsætter med at eksistere – bør tjene defensive formål, afskrække aggression og forhindre krig. Vi er overbevist om, at yderligere spredning af sådanne våben må forhindres«. Dette irettesætter de gale krigshøge som USA’s senator Roger Wicker, der har rejst »muligheden« for et første atomangreb på Rusland i forbindelse med Ukraine.

De fem underskrivere bekræfter også vigtigheden af at imødegå atomare trusler, såvel som deres forpligtelser i forhold til traktaten om ikke-spredning af atomvåben (NPT) og dens forpligtelse til »at føre forhandlinger i god tro om effektive foranstaltninger vedrørende standsning af atomvåbenkapløbet snarligt«. De »bekræfter, at ingen af vores atomvåben er rettet mod hinanden eller mod nogen anden stat«.

De erklærede også: »Vi har til hensigt at fortsætte med at søge bilaterale og multilaterale diplomatiske tilgange for at undgå militære konfrontationer, styrke stabilitet og forudsigelighed, øge den gensidige forståelse og tillid og forhindre et våbenkapløb, der ikke ville gavne nogen og bringe alle i fare. Vi er fast besluttet på at føre en konstruktiv dialog med gensidig respekt og anerkendelse af hinandens sikkerhedsinteresser og bekymringer«.

Det russiske udenrigsministeriums talskvinde, Maria Zakharova, sagde: »Vi håber, at godkendelsen af en sådan politisk erklæring under de nuværende vanskelige forhold for international sikkerhed vil hjælpe med at reducere niveauet af internationale spændinger«. Kreml-talsmand Dmitry Peskov understregede, at Moskva stadig betragtede et topmøde mellem verdens store atommagter som »nødvendigt«. Kinas viceudenrigsminister, Ma Zhaoxu, blev citeret af det officielle nyhedsagentur, Xinhua, at løftet »vil hjælpe med at øge den gensidige tillid og erstatte konkurrence mellem stormagter med koordinering og samarbejde«.

Men det er kun et skridt, som disse nationers ledere skal holdes til. Det transatlantiske bank- og finanssystem er på vej mod hyperinflation og krak. Det, verden absolut har brug for, er en stormagtsforhandlingsproces, som i det mindste også involverer Indien, for at iværksætte et nyt internationalt kreditsystem, der er i stand til at finansiere reel økonomisk udvikling, »TVA-lignende«, gennemgribende udvikling af fattigere regioner (TVA var et statsligt udviklingsagentur i USA til udvikling af Tennessee-dalen under depressionen i 1930’erne –red.), avanceret udvikling af atomkraft, teknologiske fremskridt drevet frem af lynprogrammer inden for rumvidenskab og fusionskraft. Vejlederen og planlæggeren af denne proces, og verdens førende i kampen for den, var Lyndon LaRouche. Dette begynder LaRouches år.

Udgivet på Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) tidsskrift bind 49, række 2 den 14. januar 2022. Her er en pdf-version:

Download (PDF, Unknown)

Kortet på side 15 viser NATO udvidelse, hvis Ukraine og Georgien bliver medlemmer.

The following is an edited transcription of an interview with Russia expert Jens Jørgen Nielsen, by Michelle Rasmussen, Vice President of the Schiller Institute in Demark, conducted December 30, 2021. Mr. Nielsen has degrees in the history of ideas and communication. He is a former Moscow correspondent for the major Danish daily Politiken in the late 1990s. He is the author of several books about Russia and the Ukraine, and a leader of the Russian-Danish Dialogue organization. In addition, he is an associate professor of communication and cultural differences at the Niels Brock Business College in Denmark.

Michelle Rasmussen: Hello, viewers. I am Michelle Rasmussen, the Vice President of the Schiller Institute in Denmark. This is an interview with Jens Jørgen Nielsen from Denmark.

The Schiller Institute released a [[memorandum]][[/]] December 24 titled “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III.” In the beginning, it states, “Ukraine is being used by geopolitical forces in the West that answer to the bankrupt speculative financial system, as the flashpoint to trigger a strategic showdown with Russia, a showdown which is already more dangerous than the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, and which could easily end up in a thermonuclear war which no one would win, and none would survive.”

Jens Jørgen, in the past days, Russian President Putin and other high-level spokesmen have stated that Russia’s red lines are about to be crossed, and they have called for treaty negotiations to come back from the brink. What are these red lines and how dangerous is the current situation?

%%Russian ‘Red Lines’

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Thank you for inviting me. First, I would like to say that I think that the question you have raised here about red lines, and the question also about are we sleepwalking into a new war, is very relevant. Because, as an historian, I know what happened in 1914, at the beginning of the First World War—a kind of sleepwalking. No one really wanted the war, actually, but it ended up with war, and tens of million people were killed, and then the whole world disappeared at this time, and the world has never been the same. So, I think it’s a very, very relevant question that you are asking here.

You asked me specifically about Putin, and the red lines. I heard that the Clintons, Bill and Hillary Clinton, and John Kerry, and many other American politicians, claim that we don’t have things like red lines anymore. We don’t have zones of influence anymore, because we have a new world. We have a new liberal world, and we do not have these kinds of things. It belongs to another century and another age. But you could ask the question, “What actually are the Americans doing in Ukraine, if not defending their own red lines?”

Because I think it’s like, if you have a power, a superpower, a big power like Russia, I think it’s very, very natural that any superpower would have some kind of red lines. You can imagine what would happen if China, Iran, and Russia had a military alliance, going into Mexico, Canada, Cuba, maybe also putting missiles up there. I don’t think anyone would doubt what would happen. The United States would never accept it, of course. So, the Russians would normally ask, “Why should we accept that Americans are dealing with Ukraine and preparing, maybe, to put up some military hardware in Ukraine? Why should we? And I think it’s a very relevant question. Basically, the Russians see it today as a question of power, because the Russians, actually, have tried for, I would say, 30 years. They have tried.

I was in Russia 30 years ago. I speak Russian. I’m quite sure that the Russians, at that time, dreamt of being a part of the Western community, and they had very, very high thoughts about the Western countries, and Americans were extremely popular at this time. Eighty percent of the Russian population in 1990 had a very positive view of the United States. Later on, today, and even for several years already, 80%, the same percentage, have a negative view of Americans. So, something happened, not very positively, because 30 years ago, there were some prospects of a new world.

There really were some ideas, but something actually was screwed up in the 90s. I have some idea about that. Maybe we can go in detail about it. But things were screwed up, and normally, today, many people in the West, in universities, politicians, etc. think that it’s all the fault of Putin. It’s Putin’s fault. Whatever happened is Putin’s fault. Now, we are in a situation which is very close to the Cuban Missile Crisis, which you also mentioned. But I don’t think it is that way. I think it takes two to tango. We know that, of course, but I think many Western politicians have failed to see the compliance of the western part in this, because there are many things which play a role that we envisage in a situation like that now.

The basic thing, if you look at it from a Russian point of view, it’s the extension to the east of NATO. I think that’s a real bad thing, because Russia was against it from the very beginning. Even Boris Yeltsin, who was considered to be the man of the West, the democratic Russia, he was very, very opposed to this NATO alliance going to the East, up to the borders of Russia.

And we can see it now, because recently, some new material has been released in America, an exchange of letters between Yeltsin and Clinton at this time. So, we know exactly that Yeltsin, and Andrei Kozyrev, the Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs at this time, were very much opposed to it. And then Putin came along. Putin came along not to impose his will on the Russian people. He came along because there was, in Russia, a will to oppose this NATO extension to the East. So, I think things began at this point.

And later on, we had the Georgian crisis in 2008, and we had, of course, the Ukraine crisis in 2014, and, also, with Crimea and Donbass, etc.

And now we are very, very close to—I don’t think it’s very likely we will have a war, but we are very close to it, because wars often begin by some kind of mistake, some accident, someone accidentally pulls the trigger, or presses a button somewhere, and suddenly, something happens. Exactly what happened in 1914, at the beginning of World War I. Actually, there was one who was shot in Sarajevo. Everyone knows about that, and things like that could happen. And for us, living in Europe, it’s awful to think about having a war.

We can hate Putin. We can think whatever we like. But the thought of a nuclear war is horrible for all of us, and that’s why I think that politicians could come to their senses.

And I think also this demonization of Russia, and demonization of Putin, is very bad, of course, for the Russians. But it’s very bad for us here in the West, for us, in Europe, and also in America. I don’t think it’s very good for our democracy. I don’t think it’s very good. I don’t see very many healthy perspectives in this. I don’t see any at all.

I see some other prospects, because we could cooperate in another way. There are possibilities, of course, which are not being used, or put into practice, which certainly could be.

So, yes, your question is very, very relevant and we can talk at length about it. I’m very happy that you ask this question, because if you ask these questions today in the Danish and Western media at all—everyone thinks it’s enough just to say that Putin is a scoundrel, Putin is a crook, and everything is good. No, we have to get along. We have to find some ways to cooperate, because otherwise it will be the demise of all of us.

%%NATO Expansion Eastward

Michelle Rasmussen: Can you just go through a little bit more of the history of the NATO expansion towards the East? And what we’re speaking about in terms of the treaties that Russia has proposed, first, to prevent Ukraine from becoming a formal member of NATO, and second, to prevent the general expansion of NATO, both in terms of soldiers and military equipment towards the East. Can you speak about this, also in terms of the broken promises from the Western side?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Actually, the story goes back to the beginning of the nineties. I had a long talk with Mikhail Gorbachev, the former leader of the Soviet Union, in 1989, just when NATO started to bomb Serbia, and when they adopted Poland, the Czech Republic and Hungary into NATO. You should bear in mind that Gorbachev is a very nice person. He’s a very lively person, with good humor, and an experienced person.

But when we started to talk, I asked him about the NATO expansion, which was going on exactly the day when we were talking. He became very gloomy, very sad, because he said,

[[[begin quote indent]]]

Well, I talked to James Baker, Helmut Kohl from Germany, and several other persons, and they all promised me not to move an inch to the East, if Soviet Union would let Germany unite the GDR (East Germany) and West Germany, to become one country, and come to be a member of NATO, but not move an inch to the East.

[[[end quote indent]]]

I think, also, some of the new material which has been released—I have read some of it, some on WikiLeaks, and some can be found. It’s declassified. It’s very interesting. There’s no doubt at all. There were some oral, spoken promises to Mikhail Gorbachev. It was not written, because, as he said, “I believed them. I can see I was naive.”

I think this is a key to Putin today, to understand why Putin wants not only sweet words. He wants something based on a treaty, because, basically, he doesn’t really believe the West. The level of trust between Russia and NATO countries is very, very low today. And it’s a problem, of course, and I don’t think we can overcome it in a few years. It takes time to build trust, but the trust is not there for the time being.

But then, the nature of the NATO expansion has gone step, by step, by step. First, it was the three countries—Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic—and then, in 2004, six years later, came, among other things—the Baltic republics, and Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria. And the others came later on—Albania, Croatia, etc. And then in 2008, there was a NATO Summit in Bucharest, where George Bush, President of the United States, promised Georgia and Ukraine membership of NATO. Putin was present. He was not President at this time. He was Prime Minister in Russia, because the President was [Dmitry] Medvedev, but he was very angry at this time. But what could he do? But he said, at this point, very, very clearly, “We will not accept it, because our red lines would be crossed here. We have accepted the Baltic states. We have retreated. We’ve gone back. We’ve been going back for several years,” but still, it was not off the table.

It was all because Germany and France did not accept it, because [Chancellor Angela] Merkel and [President François] Hollande, at this time, did not accept Ukraine and Georgia becoming a member of NATO. But the United States pressed for it, and it is still on the agenda of the United States, that Georgia and Ukraine should be a member of NATO.

So, there was a small war in August, the same year, a few months after this NATO Summit, where, actually, it was Georgia which attacked South Ossetia, which used to be a self-governing part of Georgia. The incumbent Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili did not want to accept the autonomous status of South Ossetia, so Georgia attacked South Ossetia. Russian soldiers were deployed in South Ossetia, and 14 of them were killed by the Georgian army. And you could say that George W. Bush promised Georgian President Saakashvili that the Americans would support the Georgians, in case Russia should retaliate, which they did.

The Russian army was, of course, much bigger than the Georgian army, and it smashed the Georgian army in five days, and retreated. There was no help from the United States to the Georgians. And, I think, that from a moral point of view, I don’t think it’s a very wise policy, because you can’t say “You just go on. We will help you”—and not help at all when it gets serious. I think, from a moral point of view, it’s not very fair.

%%A Coup in Ukraine

But, actually, it’s the same which seems to be happening now in Ukraine, even though there was, what I would call a coup, an orchestrated state coup, in 2014. I know there are very, very different opinions about this, but my opinion is that there was a kind of coup to oust the sitting incumbent President, Viktor Yanukovych, and replace him with one who was very, very keen on getting into NATO. Yanukovych was not very keen on going into NATO, but he still had the majority of the population. And it’s interesting. In Ukraine, there’s been a lot of opinion polls conducted by Germans, Americans, French, Europeans, Russians and Ukrainians. And all these opinion polls show that a majority of Ukrainian people did not want to join NATO.

After that, of course, things moved very quickly, because Crimea was a very, very sensitive question for Russia, for many reasons. First, it was a contested area because it was, from the very beginning, from 1991, when Ukraine was independent—there was no unanimity about Crimea and it´s status, because the majority of Crimea was Russian-speaking, and is very culturally close to Russia, in terms of history. It’s very close to Russia. It’s one of the most patriotic parts of Russia, actually. So, it’s a very odd part of Ukraine. It always was a very odd part of Ukraine.

The first thing the new government did in February 2014, was to forbid the Russian language, as a language which had been used in local administration, and things like that. It was one of the stupidest things you could do in such a very tense situation. Ukraine, basically, is a very cleft society. The eastern southern part is very close to Russia. They speak Russian and are very close to Russian culture. The western part, the westernmost part around Lviv, is very close to Poland and Austria, and places like that. So, it’s a cleft society, and in such a society you have some options. One option is to embrace all the parts of society, different parts of society. Or you can, also, one part could impose its will on the other part, against its will. And that was actually what happened.

So, there are several crises. There is the crisis in Ukraine, with two approximately equally sized parts of Ukraine. But you also have, on the other hand, the Russian-NATO question. So, you had two crises, and they stumbled together, and they were pressed together in 2014. So, you had a very explosive situation which has not been solved to this day.

And for Ukraine, I say that as long as you have this conflict between Russia and NATO, it’s impossible to solve, because it’s one of the most corrupt societies, one of the poorest societies in Europe right now. A lot of people come to Denmark, where we are now, to Germany and also to Russia. Millions of Ukrainians have gone abroad to work, because there are really many, many social problems, economic problems, things like that.

And that’s why Putin—if we remember what Gorbachev told me about having things on paper, on treaties, which are signed—and that’s why Putin said, what he actually said to the West, “I don’t really believe you, because when you can, you cheat.” He didn’t put it that way, but that was actually what he meant: “So now I tell you very, very, very, very clearly what our points of view are. We have red lines, like you have red lines. Don’t try to cross them.”

And I think many people in the West do not like it. I think it’s very clear, because I think the red lines, if you compare them historically, are very reasonable. If you compare them with the United States and the Monroe Doctrine, which is still in effect in the USA, they are very, very reasonable red lines. I would say that many of the Ukrainians, are very close to Russia. I have many Ukrainian friends. I sometimes forget that they are Ukrainians, because their language, their first language, is actually Russian, and Ukrainian is close to Russian.

So, those countries being part of an anti-Russian military pact, it’s simply madness. It cannot work. It will not work. Such a country would never be a normal country for many, many years, forever.

I think much of the blame could be put on the NATO expansion and those politicians who have been pressing for that for several years. First and foremost, Bill Clinton was the first one, Madeline Albright, from 1993. At this time, they adopted the policy of major extension to the East. And George W. Bush also pressed for Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO.

And for every step, there was, in Russia, people rallying around the flag. You could put it that way, because you have pressure. And the more we pressure with NATO, the more the Russians will rally around the flag, and the more authoritarian Russia will be. So, we are in this situation. Things are now happening in Russia, which I can admit I do not like, closing some offices, closing some media. I do not like it at all. But in a time of confrontation, I think it’s quite reasonable, understandable, even though I would not defend it. But it’s understandable. Because the United States, after 9/11, also adopted a lot of defensive measures, and a kind of censorship, and things like that. It’s what happens when you have such tense situations.

We should just also bear in mind that Russia and the United States are the two countries which possess 90% of the world’s nuclear armament. Alone, the mere thought of them using some of this, is a doomsday perspective, because it will not be a small, tiny war, like World War II, but it will dwarf World War II, because billions will die in this. And it’s a question, if humanity will survive. So, it’s a very, very grave question.

I think we should ask if the right of Ukraine to have NATO membership—which its own population does not really want— “Is it really worth the risk of a nuclear war?” That’s how I would put it.

I will not take all blame away from Russia. That’s not my point here. My point is that this question is too important. It’s very relevant. It’s very important that we establish a kind of modus vivendi. It’s a problem for the West. I also think it’s very important that we learn, in the West, how to cope with people who are not like us. We tend to think that people should become democrats like we are democrats, and only then will we deal with them. If they are not democrats, like we are democrats, we will do everything we can to make them democrats. We will support people who want to make a revolution in their country, so they become like us. It’s a very, very dangerous, dangerous way of thinking, and a destructive way of thinking.

I think that we in the West should study, maybe, a little more what is happening in other organizations not dominated by the West. I’m thinking about the BRICS, as one organization. I’m also thinking about the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, in which Asian countries are cooperating, and they are not changing each other. The Chinese are not demanding that we should all be Confucians. And the Russians are not demanding that all people in the world should be Orthodox Christians, etc. I think it’s very, very important that we bear in mind that we should cope with each other like we are, and not demand changes. I think it’s a really dangerous and stupid game to play. I think the European Union is also very active in this game, which I think is very, very—Well, this way of thinking, in my point of view, has no perspective, no positive perspective at all.

%%Diplomacy to Avert Catastrophe

Michelle Rasmussen: Today, Presidents Biden and Putin will speak on the phone, and important diplomatic meetings are scheduled for the middle of January. What is going to determine if diplomacy can avoid a disaster, as during the Cuban Missile Crisis? Helga Zepp-LaRouche has just called this a “reverse missile crisis.” Or, if Russia will feel that they have no alternative to having a military response, as they have openly stated. What changes on the Western side are necessary? If you had President Biden alone in a room, or other heads of state of NATO countries, what would you say to them?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: I would say, “Look, Joe, I understand your concerns. I understand that you see yourself as a champion of freedom in the world, and things like that. I understand the positive things about it. But, you see, the game you now are playing with Russia is a very, very dangerous game. And the Russians, are a very proud people; you cannot force them. It’s not an option. I mean, you cannot, because it has been American, and to some degree, also European Union policy, to change Russia, to very much like to change, so that they’ll have another president, and exchange Putin for another president.”

But I can assure you, if I were to speak to Joe Biden, I’d say, “Be sure that if you succeed, or if Putin dies tomorrow, or somehow they’ll have a new President, I can assure you that the new President will be just as tough as Putin, maybe even tougher. Because in Russia, you have much tougher people. I would say even most people in Russia who blame Putin, blame him because he’s not tough enough on the West, because he was soft on the West, too liberal toward the West, and many people have blamed him for not taking the eastern southern part of Ukraine yet—that he should have done it.

“So, I would say to Biden, “I think it would be wise for you, right now, to support Putin, or to deal with Putin, engage with Putin, and do some diplomacy, because the alternative is a possibility of war, and you should not go down into history as the American president who secured the extinction of humanity. It would be a bad, very bad record for you. And there are possibilities, because I don’t think Putin is unreasonable. Russia has not been unreasonable. I think they have turned back. Because in 1991, it was the Russians themselves, who disbanded the Soviet Union. It was the Russians, Moscow, which disbanded the Warsaw Pact. The Russians, who gave liberty to the Baltic countries, and all other Soviet Republics. And with hardly any shots, and returned half a million Soviet soldiers back to Russia. No shot was fired at all. I think it’s extraordinary.

“If you compare what happened to the dismemberment of the French and the British colonial empires after World War II, the disbanding of the Warsaw Pact was very, very civilized, in many ways. So, stop thinking about Russia as uncivilized, stupid people, who don’t understand anything but mere power. Russians are an educated people. They understand a lot of arguments, and they are interested in cooperating. There will be a lot of advantages for the United States, for the West, and also the European Union, to establish a kind of more productive, more pragmatic relationship, cooperation. There are a lot of things in terms of energy, climate, of course, and terrorism, and many other things, where it’s a win-win situation to cooperate with them.

“The only thing Russia is asking for is not to put your military hardware in their backyard. I don’t think it should be hard for us to accept, certainly not to understand why the Russians think this way.”

And we in the West should think back to the history, where armies from the West have attacked Russia. So, they have it in their genes. I don’t think that there is any person in Russia who has forgot, or is not aware of, the huge losses the Soviet Union suffered from Nazi Germany in the 1940s during World War II. And you had Napoleon also trying to—You have a lot of that experience with armies from the West going into Russia. So, it’s very, very large, very, very deep.

Michelle Rasmussen: Was it around 20 million people who died during World War II?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: In the Soviet Union. There were also Ukrainians, and other nationalities, but it was around 18 million Russians, if you can count it, because it was the Soviet Union, but twenty-seven million people in all. It’s a huge part, because Russia has experience with war. So, the Russians would certainly not like war. I think the Russians have experience with war, that also the Europeans, to some extent, have, that the United States does not have.

Because the attack I remember in recent times is the 9/11 attack, the twin towers in New York. Otherwise, the United States does not have these experiences. It tends to think more in ideological terms, where the Russians, certainly, but also to some extent, some people in Europe, think more pragmatically, more that we should, at any cost, avoid war, because war creates more problems than it solves. So, have some pragmatic cooperation. It will not be very much a love affair. Of course not. But it will be on a very pragmatic—

%%The Basis for Cooperation

Michelle Rasmussen: Also, in terms of dealing with this horrible humanitarian situation in Afghanistan and cooperating on the pandemic.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Of course, there are possibilities. Right now, it’s like we can’t even cooperate in terms of vaccines, and there are so many things going on, from both sides, actually, because we have very, very little contact between—

I had some plans to have some cooperation between Danish and Russian universities in terms of business development, things like that, but it turned out there was not one crown, as our currency is called. You could have projects in southern America, Africa, all other countries. But not Russia, which is stupid.

Michelle Rasmussen: You wrote two recent books about Russia. One is called, On His Own Terms: Putin and the New Russia, and the latest one, just from September, Russia Against the Grain. Many people in the West portray Russia as the enemy, which is solely responsible for the current situation, and Putin as a dictator who is threatening his neighbors militarily and threatening the democracy of the free world. Over and above what you have already said, is this true, or do you have a different viewpoint?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Of course, I have a different point of view. Russia for me, is not a perfect country, because such a country does not exist, not even Denmark! Some suppose it is. But there’s no such thing as a perfect society. Because societies are always developing from somewhere, to somewhere, and Russia, likewise. Russia is a very, very big country. So, you can definitely find things which are not very likable in Russia. Definitely. That’s not my point here.

But I think that in the West, actually for centuries, we have—if you look back, I have tried in my latest book, to find out how Western philosophers, how church people, how they look at Russia, from centuries back. And there has been kind of a red thread. There’s been a kind of continuation. Because Russia has very, very, very often been characterized as our adversary, as a country against basic European values. Five hundred years back, it was against the Roman Catholic Church, and in the 17th and 18th Centuries it was against the Enlightenment philosophers, and in the 20th century, it was about communism—it’s also split people in the West, and it was also considered to be a threat. But it is also considered to be a threat today, even though Putin is not a communist. He is not a communist. He is a conservative, a moderate conservative, I would say.

Even during the time of Yeltsin, he was also considered liberal and progressive, and he loved the West and followed the West in all, almost all things they proposed.

But still, there’s something with Russia—which I think from a philosophical point of view is very important to find out—that we have some very deep-rooted prejudices about Russia, and I think they play a role. When I speak to people who say, “Russia is an awful country, and Putin is simply a very, very evil person, is a dictator,” I say, “Have you been in Russia? Do you know any Russians?” “No, not really.” “Ok. But what do you base your points of view on?” “Well, what I read in the newspapers, of course, what they tell me on the television.”

Well, I think that’s not good enough. I understand why the Russians—I very often talk to Russian politicians, and other people, and what they are sick and tired of, is this notion that the West is better: “We are on a higher level. And if Russians should be accepted by the West, they should become like us. Or at least they should admit that they are on a lower level, in relation to our very high level.”

And that is why, when they deal with China, or deal with India, and when they deal with African countries, and even Latin American countries, they don’t meet such attitudes, because they are on more equal terms. They’re different, yes, but one does not consider each other to be on a higher level.

And that’s why I think that cooperation in BRICS, which we talked about, and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, I think it’s quite successful. I don’t know about the future, but I have a feeling that if you were talking about Afghanistan, I think if Afghanistan could be integrated into this kind of organization, one way or another, I have a feeling it probably would be more successful than the 20 years that the NATO countries have been there.

I think that cultural attitudes play a role when we’re talking about politics, because a lot of the policy from the American, European side, is actually very emotional. It’s very much like, “We have some feelings—We fear Russia. We don’t like it,” or “We think that it’s awful.” And “Our ideas, we know how to run a society much better than the Russians, and the Chinese, and the Indians, and the Muslims,” and things like that. It’s a part of the problem. It’s a part of our problem in the West. It’s a part of our way of thinking, our philosophy, which I think we should have a closer look at and criticize. But it’s difficult, because it’s very deeply rooted.

When I discuss with people at universities and in the media, and other places, I encounter this. That is why I wrote the latest book, because it’s very much about our way of thinking about Russia. The book is about Russia, of course, but it’s also about us, our glasses, how we perceive Russia, how we perceive not only Russia, but it also goes for China, because it’s more or less the same. But there are many similarities between how we look upon Russia, and how we look upon and perceive China, and other countries.

I think this is a very, very important thing we have to deal with. We have to do it, because otherwise, if we decide, if America and Russia decide to use all the fireworks they have of nuclear [armament] power, then it’s the end.

You can put it very sharply, to put it like that, and people will not like it. But basically, we are facing these two alternatives: Either we find ways to cooperate with people who are not like us, and will not be, certainly not in my lifetime, like us, and accept them, that they are not like us, and get on as best we can, and keep our differences, but respect each other. I think that’s what we need from the Western countries. I think it’s the basic problem today dealing with other countries.

And the same goes, from what I have said, for China. I do not know the Chinese language. I have been in China. I know a little about China. Russia, I know very well. I speak Russian, so I know how Russians are thinking about this, what their feelings are about this. And I think it’s important to deal with these questions.

%%‘A Way to Live Together’

Michelle Rasmussen: You also pointed out, that in 2001, after the attack against the World Trade Center, Putin was the first one to call George Bush, and he offered cooperation about dealing with terrorism. You’ve written that he had a pro-Western worldview, but that this was not reciprocated.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes, yes. Afterwards, Putin was criticized by the military, and also by politicians in the beginning of his first term in 2000, 2001, 2002, he was criticized because he was too happy for America. He even said, in an interview in the BBC, that he would like Russia to become a member of NATO. It did not happen, because—there are many reasons for that. But he was very, very keen—that’s also why he felt very betrayed afterward. In 2007, at the Munich Conference on Security in February in Germany, he said he was very frustrated, and it was very clear that he felt betrayed by the West. He thought that they had a common agenda. He thought that Russia should become a member. But Russia probably is too big.

If you consider Russia becoming a member of the European Union, the European Union would change thoroughly, but they failed. Russia did not become a member. It’s understandable. But then I think the European Union should have found, again, a modus vivendi.

Michelle Rasmussen: A way of living together.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes, how to live together It was actually a parallel development of the European Union and NATO, against Russia. In 2009, the European Union invited Georgia, Ukraine, Belarus, Armenia, Azerbaijan, to become members of the European Union, but not Russia. Even though they knew that there was really a lot of trade between Ukraine, also Georgia, and Russia. And it would interfere with that trade. But they did not pay attention to Russia.

So, Russia was left out at this time. And so eventually, you could say, understandably, very understandably, Russia turned to China. And in China, with cooperation with China, they became stronger. They became much more self-confident, and they also cooperated with people who respected them much more. I think that’s interesting, that the Chinese understood how to deal with other people with respect, but the Europeans and Americans did not.

%%Ukraine, Again

Michelle Rasmussen: Just before we go to our last questions. I want to go back to Ukraine, because it’s so important. You said that the problem did not start with the so-called annexation of Crimea, but with what you called a coup against the sitting president. Can you just explain more about that? Because in the West, everybody says, “Oh, the problem started when Russia annexed Crimea.”

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, if you take Ukraine, in 2010 there was a presidential election, and the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] monitored the election, and said that it was very good, and the majority voted for Viktor Yanukovych. Viktor Yanukovych did not want Ukraine to become a member of NATO. He wanted to cooperate with the European Union. But he also wanted to keep cooperating with Russia. Basically, that’s what he was like. But it’s very often claimed that he was corrupt. Yes, I don’t doubt it, but name me one president who has not been corrupt. That’s not the big difference, it’s not the big thing, I would say. But then in 2012, there was also a parliamentary election in Ukraine, and Yanukovych’s party also gained a majority with some other parties. There was a coalition which supported Yanukovych’s policy not to become a member of NATO.

And then there was a development where the European Union and Ukraine were supposed to sign a treaty of cooperation. But he found out that the treaty would be very costly for Ukraine, because they would open the borders for European Union firms, and the Ukrainian firms would not be able to compete with the Western firms.

Secondly, and this is the most important thing, basic industrial export from Ukraine was to Russia, and it was industrial products from the eastern part, from Dniepropetrovsk or Dniepro as it is called today, from Donetsk, from Luhansk and from Kryvyj Rih (Krivoj Rog), from some other parts, basically in the eastern part, which is the industrial part of Ukraine.

And they made some calculations that showed that, well, if you join this agreement, Russia said, “We will have to put some taxes on the export, because you will have some free import from the European Union. We don’t have an agreement with the European Union, so, of course, anything which comes from you, there would be some taxes imposed on it.” And then Yanukovych said, “Well, well, well, it doesn’t sound good,” and he wanted Russia, the European Union and Ukraine to go together, and the three form what we call a triangular agreement.

But the European Union was very much opposed to it. The eastern part of Ukraine was economically a part of Russia. Part of the Russian weapons industry was actually in the eastern part of Ukraine, and there were Russian speakers there. But the European Union said, “No, we should not cooperate with Russia about this,” because Yanukovych wanted to have cooperation between the European Union, Ukraine, and Russia, which sounds very sensible to me. Of course, it should be like that. It would be to the advantage of all three parts. But the European Union had a very ideological approach to this. So, they were very much against Russia. It also increased the Russian’s suspicion that the European Union was only a stepping-stone to NATO membership.

And then what happened was that there was a conflict, there were demonstrations every day on the Maidan Square in Kiev. There were many thousands of people there, and there were also shootings, because many of the demonstrators were armed people. They had stolen weapons from some barracks in the West. And at this point, when 100 people had been killed, the European Union foreign ministers from France, Germany and Poland met, and there was also a representative from Russia, and there was Yanukovych, a representative from his government, and from the opposition. And they made an agreement. Ok. You should have elections this year, in half a year, and you should have some sharing of power. People from the opposition should become members of the government, and things like that.

All of a sudden, things broke down, and Yanukovych left, because you should remember, and very often in the West, they tend to forget that the demonstrators were armed. And they killed police also. They killed people from Yanukovych’s Party of the Regions, and things like that. So, it’s always been portrayed as innocent, peace-loving demonstrators. They were not at all. And some of them had very dubious points of view, with Nazi swastikas, and things like that. And Yanukovych fled.

Then they came to power. They had no legitimate government, because many of the members of parliament from these parts of the regions which had supported Yanukovych, had fled to the East. So, the parliament was not able to make any decisions. Still, there was a new president, also a new government, which was basically from the western part of Ukraine. And the first thing they did, I told you, was to get rid of the Russian language, and then they would talk about NATO membership. And Victoria Nuland was there all the time, the vice foreign minister of the United States, was there all the time. There were many people from the West also, so things broke down.

%%Crimea

Michelle Rasmussen: There have actually been accusations since then, that there were provocateurs who were killing people on both sides.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Yes, exactly. And what’s interesting is that there’s been no investigation whatsoever about it, because a new government did not want to conduct an investigation as to who killed them. So, it was orchestrated. There’s no doubt in my mind it was an orchestrated coup. No doubt about it.

That’s the basic context for the decision of Putin to accept Crimea as a part of Russia. In the West, it is said that Russia simply annexed Crimea. It’s not precisely what happened, because there was a local parliament, it was an autonomous part of Ukraine, and they had their own parliament, and they made the decision that they should have a referendum, which they had in March. And then they applied to become a member of the Russian Federation. It’s not a surprise, even though the Ukrainian army did not go there, because there was a Ukrainian army. There were 21,000 Ukrainian soldiers. 14,000 of these soldiers joined the Russian army.

And so, that tells a little about how things were not like a normal annexation, where one country simply occupies part of the other country. Because you have this cleft country, you have this part, especially the southern part, which was very, very pro-Russian, and it’s always been so. There’s a lot of things in terms of international law you can say about it.

But I have no doubt that you can look upon it differently, because if you look it at from the point of people who lived in Crimea, they did not want—because almost 80-90% had voted for the Party of the Regions, which was Yanukovych’s party, a pro-Russian party, you could say, almost 87%, or something like that.

They have voted for this Party. This Party had a center in a central building in Kiev, which was attacked, burned, and three people were killed. So, you could imagine that they would not be very happy. They would not be very happy with the new government, and the new development. Of course not. They hated it. And what I think is very critical about the West is that they simply accepted, they accepted these horrible things in Ukraine, just to have the prize, just to have this prey, of getting Ukraine into NATO.

And Putin was aware that he could not live, not even physically, but certainly not politically, if Sevastopol, with the harbor for the Russian fleet, became a NATO harbor. It was impossible. I know people from the military say “No, no way.” It’s impossible. Would the Chinese take San Diego in the United States? Of course not. It goes without saying that such things don’t happen.

So, what is lacking in the West is just a little bit of realism. How powers, how superpowers think, and about red lines of superpowers. Because we have an idea in the West about the new liberal world order. It sounds very nice when you’re sitting in an office in Washington. It sounds very beautiful and easy, but to go out and make this liberal world order, it’s not that simple. And you cannot do it like, certainly not do it like the way they did it in Ukraine.

Michelle Rasmussen: Regime change?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes, regime change.

%%The Importance of Cultural Exchanges

Michelle Rasmussen: I have two other questions. The last questions. The Russian-Danish Dialogue organization that you are a leader of, and the Schiller Institute in Denmark, together with the China Cultural Center in Copenhagen, were co-sponsors of three very successful Musical Dialogue of Cultures Concerts, with musicians from Russia, China, and many other countries. You are actually an associate professor in cultural differences. How do you see that? How would an increase in cultural exchange improve the situation?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, it cannot but improve, because we have very little, as I also told you. So, I’m actually also very, very happy with this cooperation, because I think it’s very enjoyable, these musical events, they are very, very enjoyable and very interesting, also for many Danish people, because when you have the language of music, it is better than the language of weapons, if I can put it that way, of course. But I also think that when we meet each other, when we listen to each other’s music, and share culture in terms of films, literature, paintings, whatever, I think it’s also, well, it’s a natural thing, first of all, and it’s unnatural not to have it.

We do not have it, because maybe some people want it that way, if people want us to be in a kind of tense situation. They would not like to have it, because I think without this kind of, it’s just a small thing, of course, but without these cultural exchanges, well, you will be very, very bad off. We will have a world which is much, much worse, I think, and we should learn to enjoy the cultural expressions of other people.

We should learn to accept them, also, we should learn to also cooperate and also find ways—. We are different. But, also, we have a lot of things in common, and the things we have in common are very important not to forget, that even with Russians, and even the Chinese, also all other peoples, we have a lot in common, that is very important to bear in mind that we should never forget. Basically, we have the basic values we have in common, even though if you are Hindu, a Confucian, a Russian Orthodox, we have a lot of things in common.

And when you have such kind of encounters like in cultural affairs, in music, I think that you become aware of it, because suddenly it’s much easier to understand people, if you listen to their music. Maybe you need to listen a few times, but it becomes very, very interesting. You become curious about instruments, ways of singing, and whatever it is. So, I hope the corona situation will allow us, also, to make some more concerts. I think it should be, because they’re also very popular in Denmark.

Michelle Rasmussen: Yes. As Schiller wrote, it’s through beauty that we arrive at political freedom. We can also say it’s through beauty that we can arrive at peace.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes, yes.

%%The Role of Schiller Institute

Michelle Rasmussen: The Schiller Institute and Helga Zepp-LaRouche, its founder and international President, are leading an international campaign to prevent World War III, for peace through economic development, and a dialogue amongst cultures. How do you see the role of the Schiller Institute?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Well, I know it. We have been cooperating. I think your basic calls, appeals for global development, I think it’s very, very interesting, and I share the basic point of view. I think maybe it’s a little difficult. The devil is in the details, but basically, I think what you are thinking about, when I talk about the Silk Road, when I talk about these Chinese programs, Belt and Road programs, I see much more successful development that we have seen, say, in Africa and European countries developing, because I have seen how many western-dominated development programs have been distorting developments in Africa and other parts of the world. They distort development.

I’m not uncritical to China, but, of course, I can see very positive perspectives in the Belt and Road program. I can see really, really good perspectives, because just look at the railroads in China, for instance, at their fast trains. It’s much bigger than anywhere else in the world. I think there are some perspectives, really, which I think attract, first and foremost, people in Asia.

But I think, eventually, also, people in Europe, because I also think that this model is becoming more and more—it’s also beginning in the eastern part. Some countries of Eastern Europe are becoming interested. So, I think it’s very interesting. Your points of your points of view. I think they’re very relevant, also because I think we are in a dead-end alley in the West, what we are in right now, so people anyway are looking for new perspectives.

And what you come up with, I think, is very, very interesting, certainly. What it may be in the future is difficult to say because things are difficult.

But the basic things that you think about, and what I have heard about the Schiller Institute, also because I also think that you stress the importance of tolerance. You stress the importance of a multicultural society, that we should not change each other. We should cooperate on the basis of mutual interests, not changing each other. And as I have told you, this is what I see as one of the real, real big problems in the western mind, the western way of thinking, that we should decide what should happen in the world as if we still think we are colonial powers, like we have been for some one hundred years. But these times are over. There are new times ahead, and we should find new ways of thinking. We should find new perspectives.

And I think it goes for the West, that we can’t go on living like this. We can’t go on thinking like this, because it will either be war, or it’ll be dead end alleys, and there’ll be conflicts everywhere.

You can look at things as a person from the West. I think it’s sad to look at Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and those countries, Syria to some extent also, where the West has tried to make some kind of regime change or decide what happens. They’re not successful. I think it’s obvious for all. And we need some new way of thinking. And what the Schiller Institute has come up with is very, very interesting in this perspective, I think.

Michelle Rasmussen: Actually, when you speak about not changing other people, one of our biggest points is that we actually have to challenge ourselves to change ourselves. To really strive for developing our creative potential and to make a contribution that will have, potentially, international implications.

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: Yes. Definitely

Michelle Rasmussen: The Schiller Institute is on full mobilization during the next couple of weeks to try to get the United States and NATO to negotiate seriously. And Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called on the U.S. and NATO to sign these treaties that Russia has proposed, and to pursue other avenues of preventing nuclear war. So, we hope that you, our viewers, will also do everything that you can, including circulating this video.

Is there anything else you would like to say to our viewers before we end, Jens Jørgen?

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: No. I think we have talked a lot now. Only I think what you said about bringing the U.S. and Russia to the negotiation table, it’s obvious. I think that it should be, for any prudent, clear-thinking person in the West, it should be obvious that this is the only right thing to do. So of course, we support it 100%.

Michelle Rasmussen: Okay. Thank you so much, Jens Jørgen Nielsen

Jens Jørgen Nielsen: I thank you.

Foto: Geneva

På engelsk:

Dec. 27 (EIRNS)–According to the latest available reports, talks between Russia and the United States, and Russia and NATO will begin before mid-January, on the texts of the two draft agreements on security guarantees presented by Russia to the U.S. and NATO on Dec. 15. January 12 in Geneva is under consideration for the NATO-Russia talks, and before that, possibly January 10, for the bilateral U.S.-Russia meeting. This is critical diplomacy, which Russia has initiated. But also critical to stopping the countdown to World War III is the activation of citizens everywhere against the policy of brinksmanship and encroachment against Russia and China.

A barrage of warnings has come from Russia in the past 36 hours. President Vladimir Putin told Rossiya-1 TV on Dec. 26, that the talks dare not have a “destructive agenda” in which the United States and NATO, “will indulge in endless talk about the necessity of negotiations, but will do nothing but pump a neighboring country with state-of-the-art weapons systems and build up threats to Russia, and we will have to do something with these threats.” 

Putin explicated the meaning of the “red line” which he has set. He said, “I want everyone both in our country and abroad, our partners to clearly understand: the matter is not in a line we don’t want anyone to cross. The matter is that we have nowhere to step back.” He stressed, “They have driven us to such a line, excuse my language, that we have nowhere to move.” He pointed to the risks of new missile systems deployed at a distance of four to five minutes’ flight to Moscow. “Well, where are you going to go now? They have simply driven us to the state when we must say: stop!” Putin went on, that this is the reason Russia’s initiative on security guarantees was made public for all nations to see.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov spoke sternly on Dec. 26, saying that January “is when it will become clear whether the Americans are ready to give a substantive response, or they will opt for protracting the process and for seeking to initiate a policy of years-long talks.” We need “an urgent, concrete solution.…”

Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov said today, in an interview published today in the Russian {Mezhdunarodnaya Zhizn} ({Foreign Policy}) journal, among other points, that, “when we say that NATO facilities and all kinds of activities which are provocative for Russia need to be rolled back to the positions that existed in 1997, when the NATO-Russia Founding Act was signed, we are not bluffing.”

Reviewing these remarks and other developments today, Schiller Institute President Helga Zepp-LaRouche stressed that our job is to make sure that a large portion of people in every country possible, understands what is going on. We are in a countdown of extreme danger, with no “wiggle room” left. We are “close to a point of no return.”

The Schiller Institute posted a rush memorandum, “Are We Sleepwalking into Thermonuclear World War III?” on Christmas Eve, for circulation during the holiday period. This is currently being updated as an even more comprehensive dossier of the actual chronology of what created the dangerous strategic showdown with Russia.

Zepp-LaRouche stressed the need to make known the extreme danger, and also that there are solutions. The best anti-war policy involves working together on common, urgent tasks, and that means a modern health system in every nation. Look at the Afghanistan emergency in that way. Afghanistan “is a branching point.” Either there will be the necessary interventions to save lives and save the nation, or it will be an “unmitigated disaster … that marks a decay into barbarism.” We will lose all of our humanity, knowing what is coming and not doing anything about it. Acting on this, and on other humanitarian crises, as well as on the war danger, is one and the same task, as the Committee for the Coincidence of Opposites addresses.

The situation is grave. The Russian leaders are speaking out in unmistakable terms. If we co-mobilize with a growing number of people, we can bring about MAS—mutually assured survival.

Foto: fr:Utilisateur:Ork.ch

Den 22. december (EIRNS) – I sin ugentlige webcast i dag opfordrede Schiller Instituttets stifter, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, USA, NATO og Europas nationer til øjeblikkeligt at underskrive de to strategiske traktater præsenteret af Vladimir Putins russiske regering, som et presserende første skridt til at få verden væk fra sin nuværende bane mod atomkrig.

”Jeg tror ​​det er en absolut presserende nødvendighed for NATO, USA og europæiske lande at blive enige om at underskrive en sådan juridisk bindende aftale med Rusland”, sagde Zepp-LaRouche. “Det Rusland nu kræver i skriftlige juridiske termer, er intet andet end det der blev lovet dem i 1990 af USA og NATO”, løfter, som aldrig blev holdt. I stedet blev NATO ved med at udvide sig østpå op til selve Ruslands grænser; og defensive og offensive våbensystemer samt tropper, har ledsaget denne udvidelse.

“Situationen er ekstremt bekymrende”, sagde hun, “fordi der er mennesker, der er fast besluttet på denne balancegang på randen af krig , i håb om at Rusland og Kina vil trække sig. Men jeg tror ikke, at det ligger i kortene. Politikken med at omringe Rusland og Kina fortsætter, selv om Rusland har sagt, at deres røde streger er nået… Der må være en erkendelse af, at vi er på en frygtelig farlig vej, og folk må udtrykke deres modstand mod denne politik, højt og klart, før det er for sent.”

Zepp-LaRouche opfordrede sine lyttere til at bruge denne juleperiode til at hjælpe med at organisere andre til at udtale sig imod denne truende katastrofe og relaterede kriser – såsom faren for at titusindvis af millioner af mennesker sulter i Afghanistan som følge af Storbritanniens, USA’s og NATO’s finanskrigsførelse – og at mobilisere til fordel for de politiske alternativer, som Lyndon LaRouche længe slog til lyd for.

The Brinkmanship of Trans-Atlantic Cannot Be Tolerated

Weekly Strategic Webcast with Helga Zepp-LaRouche,

Wednesday December 22, 2021

HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello I’m Harley Schlanger. Welcome to our weekly dialogue with Schiller Institute founder and Chairwoman Helga Zepp-LaRouche. It’s Dec. 22, 2021.

And Helga, as we’ve been reporting over the recent weeks, the drumbeat for war continues coming from trans-Atlantic powers. The Russians are making proposals to try and address it. They seem to be getting little or no response from the West. What’s the latest that you have on this?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, it is extremely worrisome, because it seems there are people committed to make a brinksmanship. Obviously, they hope that Russia, and China for that matter, will back down, but I don’t think that that’s in the cards. So two weeks ago, we spoke about this unbelievable statement by Sen. Roger Wicker, that he doesn’t want to take the first use of nuclear weapons off the table.

Now, in the meantime, the whole thing has escalated. There was a CNN report, with an unnamed U.S. high-ranking official, the suspicion was that it was National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan, who said we only have a window of four weeks left before we have to get a breakthrough, and somehow referring to a possible plan of Russia to invade Ukraine. Which Russia has denied many times, emphatically. But if you look at the chronologically of the last several weeks—it started much earlier—but let’s take the visit of the Director of the Office of National Intelligence of the United States Avril Haines to Brussels, where she briefed the NATO ambassadors about so-called hard evidence intelligence that Russia would plan and invasion of Ukraine at the beginning of 2022.

As I said, it was denied by Russia. Then there are obviously troops being gathered at the Russian side of the Ukrainian border, which has been commented on many times by Russia, that it’s their good right to do on their territory whatever they want. According to Maria Zakharova, the spokeswoman of the Foreign Ministry, there are at least 10,000 troops from NATO in Ukraine, 4,000 from the U.S. and 6,000 from other countries; and in the middle of all of that—I mean, there was the discussion between Putin and Biden on Dec. 7 on videoconference—which again looked as if this would move forward. But then, immediately, the people around Biden went back to their bellicose statements, so one never knows exactly what the U.S. policy is exactly.

And then Putin proposed two treaties, to the U.S. and to NATO. Now, these are not proposals for negotiations but ready-made treaties, one for the United States to sign, that they will basically not insist that Ukraine be in NATO, and the other one for NATO to sign, that NATO will not move any farther eastward. And the Russians, Putin, they said this is not negotiable; this pertains to the very national security interests of Russia, and they insist that these treaties be signed.

Now the reaction from the West, from [NATO Secretary General Jens] Stoltenberg, from Lambrecht, the new German defense minister, various other people, they said, they will not let Russia dictate what to do, and so forth, but there was no serious response so far. And various Russian spokesmen, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov, Grushko, Lavrov, and various other people, they all said that this is very serious. If there is no response from the West, and if there is any more move to either move weapons into Ukraine, or to expand NATO in any way more eastward, there will be a military answer coming from Russia. And the bottom line has been reached, the red line has been reached.

So we are sort of in a countdown, where it’s very clear that whoever is pulling the strings in NATO in the end, and sometimes one is not quite clear if it’s Biden or not, or rather not, they’re obviously set that this policy of encirclement against Russia and China continue. And Russia has said, the red line has been reached.

Now, this is very, very dangerous, because —

Oh yeah, then I think it was also Sullivan, said that if there is any move from Russia in respect to Ukraine, that they will punish the economy of Russia so terribly that it—anyway, so there are all these threats in the air.

And there is now a very interesting statement by Leonidas Chrysanthopoulos, a former Greek ambassador, who commented on all of that, by basically saying the West should not be so hypocritical (I’m now using my own words), but that the West should recognize that all Russia is demanding, in written, legal terms, is what was promised in 1990 to them by the United States, by NATO, in the negotiations concerning the German reunification. And this is actually a matter of record: There are now documents which everybody can look up, that on Feb. 9, 1990, Secretary of State James Baker promised Gorbachev that NATO would not move “one inch eastward,” and this was also the content of the famous speech by then German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, in his speech in Tutzing, where he basically said the same thing. Naturally, everybody knows these promises, which unfortunately were not made in written form, but just verbally, they were broken almost immediately and altogether 14 countries of the former Soviet Union and Warsaw Pact were integrated into NATO; and recently, and many times earlier, Russia has made the point that to have Ukraine and Georgia in NATO is unacceptable for the very simple reason that if you look at the border between Ukraine and Russia, it leaves only a few minutes, maybe as little as 5 minutes for a missile system to reach Moscow, which obviously is much too short a time to have an effective defense.

So, Russia makes the point that its national security interest is absolutely threatened by these moves by NATO. So we are on a countdown. And we should just keep in mind, if it comes to any war between Russia and Ukraine, which would involve any kind of—even without Western involvement—and this would escalate, Germany would immediately be the target. And if you have such statements like that of Senator Wicker, that the first use of nuclear weapons cannot be taken off the table, people should be aware of the fact, that if it comes to this, Germany ceases to exist!

So, this is one of the reasons why I have been saying NATO is no longer a security pact which is in the self-interest of Germany, because if in the case of any military conflict, Germany ceases to exist, obviously, this is not a good defense strategy.

So, I think, first of all people must make themselves familiar with this danger. According to the reports, we are in a four-week countdown, and I think it is absolute, urgent necessity that NATO and the United States and European countries do agree to sign such legally binding agreements with Russia, even if Putin, in a just-conducted meeting with some of his top military people said that even a legally binding, signed document does not give full security, because the United States has now a very long record that they pull out of treaties without any problem, overnight. But there must be a recognition that we are on a terribly dangerous road, and people must voice their opposition to this policy, loud and clear, before it is too late.

SCHLANGER: There have been some voices speaking out in the West, but not nearly enough, and then, instead, they’re drowned out by people like Sullivan, who said Russia must deescalate, when the escalation is coming from the West. And the U.S. has not even responded yet to this request for these treaties to be negotiated.

Now, unless you have something more on that, I think we need to move on to the situation in Afghanistan, where there have been some developments with the Organization for Islamic Cooperation meeting over the weekend, a potential for possible motion on unfreezing the funds. I think 46 congress members have written a letter to Biden. What’s your sense? Is there some momentum building on this, especially given the reports of the danger to millions of people, including children, of starvation and freezing this winter?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes, this is the second, absolutely heartbreaking and extremely upsetting story. You know, the West talks about moral values, value-based order, human rights, democracy, all of these beautiful words, but the reality is quite ugly. Because the World Food Program representatives, I think, the head Beasley and Mary-Ellen McGroarty in Afghanistan, visiting Kabul and Kandahar in the last several days, and they come back and say that 98% of the Afghanistan population is in dire poverty, more than 90% are food insecure, without medical supplies: 24 million people are in danger of dying this winter, 3 million children, babies are dying already—and this is the 21st century and the whole world should know about it, but if you look at the Western media, after the Taliban took over in August, there was a short period when Afghanistan was in the news, but since several months you hardly hear anything about it.

Now, there was a very important conference over Friday, Saturday, Sunday in Islamabad, Pakistan, of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC); this is with 57 states, the second largest international organization after the United Nations, and they had a meeting which was addressed by the Prime Minister of Pakistan, Imran Khan. I listened to his speech and I was—not that everything was new what he said, but he said it very distinctly. He said, when the Taliban took over and the West withdrew, everybody knew that 75% of the budget of Afghanistan came from international aid, and since that aid was immediately cut—the donor countries cut the aid right away, because the Taliban had taken over—everybody knew that the entire budget of Afghanistan was all of a sudden practically nonexistent. Then you had the freezing of the funds by the U.S. Treasury, by European banks, so there was a complete cash crisis: People could not import anything, they could not pay salaries, the whole thing broke down, and this has been going on for four months, with the result I just mentioned before.

But this is not the Taliban: When you hear the Western media, if they report anything at all, they say, “Oh yeah, the economy is now terrible, because of the Taliban.” It is not because of the Taliban! Because if you have, after 20 years of NATO war, NATO leaves, and the United States forces leave in a sudden fashion, the country in which they conducted war for 20 years: They leave the country, nothing has been built, no economy, no infrastructure, nothing is functioning, and then, they cut off the international lifeline, the donor monies, which make up 75% of the Afghanistan budget, they cut this off, they freeze the central bank’s funds, and then naturally a catastrophe erupts which nobody, not the Taliban or anybody else, can handle, because you have sanctions, and have a complete freeze of everything! And the West knows that! And they don’t react!

I mean, this is unbelievable! If you look at the Afghanistan situation, this is the end of any credibility of the West, and just to think that because the Western media are not reporting that, people should not think that it goes unnoticed. For example, the 57 OIC nations noticed; all the neighbors of Afghanistan noticed; all the third world noticed. So I think if this is not reversed very, very quickly, this will be of a lasting impact of a demise of the West. This is why I have said that the fate of Afghanistan and the fate of humanity are much more closely linked than most people are willing to think through.

I find this absolutely horrendous.

What the OIC conference decided: they will set up a fund, I don’t know exactly the amounts that will be available, but they will set up an office in Kabul, and the OIC has offered to coordinate international aid. So something is being done, for sure, but the problem is so gigantic that it really requires all the neighbors of Afghanistan to cooperate, and I think that the United States and the European countries—I mean, they were for 20 years in this country, and then they walk away. This is from the standpoint of international law, completely unacceptable. So Europe and the United States have an absolute moral obligation to reverse that and cooperate with the neighbors of Afghanistan and not only have immediate humanitarian aid, to alleviate the hunger, the lack of medical supplies, but then, participate in the economic buildup of the country, which can only occur by integrating Afghanistan into the Belt and Road Initiative projects—you know, the CPEC corridor from Pakistan to Kabul to Uzbekistan; the building of the Khyber Pass, and other well-defined projects which would immediately start building up the economy.

So that is what needs to be done. There are 39 congressmen who made an appeal to Biden to unfreeze the funds which are held by the Treasury: I think this is important. Obviously, this must immediately happen because the winter is already there.

SCHLANGER: And toward that end of accelerated humanitarian aid, you made the proposal which you call “Operation Ibn Sina,” that is, while specific to Afghanistan, actually reflects the need for the whole world in the midst of the COVID crisis, the economic breakdown, which is the necessity for a world health system, as the front end of a massive infrastructure investment program, which could include the Belt and Road Initiative and so on. How does that look as a prospect from your standpoint?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Operation Ibn Sina, because one has to start with Afghanistan, and Ibn Sina comes from a place nearby Bukhara which is Uzbekistan, but his father was born in Balk, which is Afghanistan, and people are very proud of him. He’s probably the greatest doctor who ever lived, so there is no better name to give this effort to build a modern health system in Afghanistan, than to call it after Ibn Sina. And there already has been great interest in this idea coming from several places in the region.

But more largely, we have now a new wave of the COVID-19, the Omicron variant, and, again, there is such an unwillingness by the establishment of the Western system to recognize that we have been on the wrong track, and I said in the very beginning, when it was clear this was a pandemic, in March 2020, I said we need a world health system or else this pandemic will not go away. Since then we’ve had all these mutations, and now we have Omicron, and there is no guarantee there will not be new mutations. And it’s also clear that the idea that the rich countries are producing and hoarding vaccines, and leaving the developing countries without is not helping anybody, because if you leave entire continents without vaccinations and without modern health equipment, then this virus will mutate, as it has done so far, and it will come back and may even make the existing vaccines obsolete.

So, either we go in earnest, and say that the fact that billions of people do not have modern hospitals is unacceptable, don’t have clear water, don’t have enough electricity, this is something which could be done; there is no reason why we could not immediately start to build modern infrastructure, like we have it in Germany—it may be rotting, but it’s still there because previous generations were a little bit smarter than the present crop of politicians—but there is no reason in the world why not technically, why not technologically, we could not start building hospitals: We need about 30,000 new hospitals around the world. That would be easy! We could even make these hospitals prefabricated, in the United States, in Europe, and then ship the modules to the respective countries. The Chinese proved in Wuhan that you can build a modern hospital in two weeks. It could be done this way.

We could start a crash training program for medical personnel. I have called for the youth, the young people in the world to be trained to help build such an effort, like it was done by Franklin D. Roosevelt with the CCC program in the New Deal. You can train young people on the job, give them a vision and a mission in life.

And I think this is really something—you know, we cannot continue this way! The idea that every time something happens, the rich countries only take care of themselves, and the developing countries are left in the dark, that has to stop and we have to start to really think in terms of a new paradigm if humanity is supposed to come out of this crisis. And given the fact that we have now the Christmas period, the holiday season, people have some days to think. And rather than just going about your business as usual—I mean, this is a breaking point of civilization: Either we really can shape up as a human species, or it may not look so great for our perspective.

SCHLANGER: I think your last point, that in the spirit of Christmas, of generosity and love of mankind, peace and good will toward men, this would be the time to move ahead with the shift to the new paradigm.

Helga, thanks for joining us today, and I know you wish all your viewers a merry Christmas, as do I, and we’ll see you again next week.

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Yes. I wish you a Merry Christmas, and the first topic we discussed, I really want you to think about, because what we face in Europe between Russia, Ukraine, and Europe and NATO, is like a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis. In the Cuban Missile Crisis, Kennedy pointed to the fact that an island which is only 160 miles from the coast of Florida, the idea that you could deploy nuclear missiles in such a close vicinity, obviously could not be tolerated. But nuclear missiles in NATO, in the Baltic, missile defense system in Poland, in Romania, and the idea to move lethal weapons into Ukraine, from the standpoint of the Russians, this is exactly like the Cuban Missile Crisis.

So, I really want you to use this Christmas period to really work with the Schiller Institute, and help us to stop something which could really be fatal for all of humanity. And at the same time, there are all the resources, there are so many beautiful contributions to civilizations, Beethoven’s music, all the great poets, the great philosophers—read these things over these days and rethink how we should go about it, because we definitely need to change course urgently

Den 20. december (EIRNS) – Farten på de voksende amerikansk-russiske spændinger over Ukraine tog til over den sidste uge, således at det som lignede et håb om stabilisering for to uger siden, da præsidenterne Biden og Putin afholdt en videokonference, nu til stadighed ligner en nedtælling til krig i Europa mellem de atomare stormagter.

En højtstående embedsmand fra Det hvide Hus – sandsynligvis den nationale sikkerhedsrådgiver, Jake Sullivan – fortalte CNN søndag den 19. december, at der kun er et »tidsvindue på fire uger« til at forhindre Rusland i at invadere Ukraine. »Det som vi har foretaget os er meget kalkuleret«, sagde embedsmanden. »Men vi har blot cirka et tidsvindue på fire uger fra nu af«. Embedsmanden sagde, at USA’s planlagte sanktioner »ville være overvældende, øjeblikkelige og have betydelige omkostninger for den russiske økonomi og deres finanssystem«.

Den næste dag, den 20. december, fortalte den russiske viceudenrigsminister, Sergej Ryabkov, journalister, at Biden-administrationen ikke havde svaret på Rusland foreslåede traktater om sikkerhedsgarantier i løbet af forhandlingerne den 15. december i Moskva mellem Ryabkov og den amerikanske viceudenrigsminister for europæiske og eurasiske anliggender, Karen Donfried. Forslagene inkluderede forsikringen om, at Ukraine ikke ville blive et medlem af NATO, og at yderligere opstillinger af amerikanske og NATO-styrker, samt missilsystemer tættere på Ruslands grænser, ville ophøre…

Og både viceudenrigsminister Alexander Grushko og forhandler af våbenkontrol, Konstantin Gavrilov, henviste ildevarslende til »Ruslands militær-tekniske og militære midler« som det eneste alternativ til forhandlinger om Ruslands traktatforslag. Ukraines egen regering fortsatte, i form af udenrigsminister Dmytro Kuleba, med at tale med Washington Post den 19. december og kræve flere »militære midler« og tropper fra USA og Storbritannien og krævede, at USA offentligt gør det klart hvor »overvældende og øjeblikkelig« den skade er, som det amerikanske finansministerium forbereder sig på at påføre den russiske økonomi og finanssystem, og at gøre dette i samarbejde med London, hvad enten de kontinentale, europæiske allierede er enige med dette eller ej.

I oktober 1962 var det USA’s sydlige grænse, der var truet, på nært hold, af sovjetiske soldater og missiler i Cuba, som truede med et ødelæggende førsteslag. I dag er det NATO’s uophørlige fremmarch, tættere og tættere på Ruslands grænser. (Læs John F. Kennedys udtalelse på engelsk nedenfor.)

Ydermere krævede USA’s militærchefer en invasion af Cuba for at ødelægge missilerne og andre styrker, og præsident Kennedy holdte dem tilbage – med megen møge.

Hvis ikke Kennedy og Khrusjtjov havde fundet en forhandlet løsning på Cuba-krisen, hvad ville da sandsynligvis være sket? Hundrede millioner af mennesker verden over var rædselsslagne over en umiddelbar atomkrig.

Hvordan var præsident Kennedys krav anderledes end dem fra præsident Vladimir Putins foreslåede aftale den 7. december til præsident Joe Biden? …Kennedy og Khrusjtjov ønskede begge en løsning, og ikke én, hvor den anden præsident og hans nation blev ydmyget eller tilintetgjort gennem »overvældende, øjeblikkelig«, national beskadigelse!

Det er det, som nu må forhandles mellem præsident Biden og Putin, ved at tilsidesætte krigshøgene – nogle af dem der er så klinisk sindssyge, at de foreslår et atomart førsteslag mod Rusland, som senator Roger Wicker gjorde det den 7. december. Men en løsning må og kan opnås, hvis borgere nu rejser sig og kræver dette, og forbliver optimistiske om, at disse to nationer kan blokere den faretruende vej mod optrapning og stormagtskrig. Lad dem i stedet bruge deres energi på at forsyne Afghanistan med mad, sundhedspleje og genopbygning.

For 60 år siden fortalte præsident John F. Kennedy nationen følgende i en direkte, national TV-tale: “Within the past week, unmistakable evidence has established the fact that a series of offensive missile sites is now in preparation on that imprisoned island. The purpose of these bases can be none other than to provide a nuclear strike capability against the Western Hemisphere.” The President concluded: “But this secret, swift, and extraordinary buildup … in an area well known to have a special and historical relationship to the United States and the nations of the Western Hemisphere … this sudden, clandestine decision to station strategic weapons for the first time outside of Soviet soil–is a deliberately provocative and unjustified change in the status quo which cannot be accepted by this country….”

Den 15. december (EIRNS) – Den russiske præsident, Vladimir Putin, og den kinesiske præsident, Xi Jinping, afholdt det som svarede til et hastetopmøde i dag i en videokonference. Topmødet, offentliggjort for kun to dage siden, tog fat om to forskellige slags »atomkrige«, som de to lande trues med gennem det krigsgale og bankerotte britisk-amerikanske finansetablissement:

 1) Opfordringen den 7. december fra senator Roger Wicker (republikaner fra Mississippi) om at overveje militære angreb baseret på »førstebrugen af atomvåben« (»first-use nuclear action«), og bruge krisen omkring Ukraine som retfærdiggørelsen. Wicker er den næsthøjest rangerende republikaner i Senatets Komité for væbnet Tjeneste. På trods af den storm af protester, fra venstre og højre side af det politiske spektrum, som hans udtalelse udløste, har senatoren stadig ikke trukket sin hovedløse provokation tilbage. Samtidig fortsætter NATO sin østlige udvidelse, samt at væbne Ukraine og andre nationer der ligger helt op til Ruslands grænse – en udvidelse, som ifølge Ruslands advarsler, krydser en rød streg og vil føre til et svar fra russisk side.

 2. Gentagne opfordringer til at aktivere den »atomare valgmulighed« i finansiel krigsførelse mod Rusland – at smide dem ud af det globale finansielle betalingssystem, SWIFT. Dette ville svare til en finansiel belejring af Rusland for at forsøge at sulte dem til at underkaste sig, som dette i øjeblikket gøres mod Afghanistan. Den amerikanske viceudenrigsminister, Victoria Nuland, arkitekten af det nazistiske kup i Ukraine i 2014, opfordrede blot forrige uge til denne »atomare valgmulighed«, og udenrigsminister Tony Blinken truede offentligt med dette lige efter topmødet mellem Biden og Putin den 7. december. Lignende trusler blev udtrykt af præsident Biden selv umiddelbart før sit møde med Putin i juni 2021.

 Hvad diskuterede Putin og Xi i dag, efter pressens kameraer var blevet slukket? De gennemgik naturligvis krigsfaren og deres fælles forpligtelse i at hjælpe med at styrke hinandens sikkerhed i lyset af truslerne omkring Ukraine og Taiwan. Dertil giver den offentlige gennemgang, leveret af Kreml-rådgiveren, Yuri Ushakov, yderligere indsigt: »Særlig opmærksomhed blev givet af de to ledere på nødvendigheden af at intensivere anstrengelserne for at skabe en uafhængig, finansiel infrastruktur for at muliggøre handelsoperationer mellem Rusland og Kina. Det vil sige at skabe en infrastruktur, som ikke kan påvirkes af tredje lande.«

 Betyder dette, at Rusland og Kina snart vil meddele, at de er i færd med at træde ud af dollarsystemet og afkoble deres økonomier fra Vesten? Sandsynligvis ikke. Betyder det, at de har forberedt defensive tiltag for at kunne håndtere en finansiel »atomar valgmulighed«, igangsat mod dem? Sandsynligvis.

 Helga Zepp-LaRouche kommenterede i dag, at hvis Rusland og Kina tvinges til at vedtage storstilede modforanstaltninger imod SWIFT-systemet, da kunne dette meget vel være dråben, der fik hele det transatlantiske finanssystems bære til at flyde over. Heldigvis eksisterer potentialet i forbindelse Kinas Bælte- og Vejinitiativ til at overtage dettes rolle, og at erstatte nutidens malthusianske afindustrialiserings- og affolkningspolitik med et nyt system, fokuseret på højteknologisk, fysisk-økonomisk vækst.

 Tag et skridt tilbage og overvej Putins nylige diplomatiske initiativer – den samme Putin, som Lyndon LaRouche ofte beskrev som et »strategisk geni«, der ikke burde undervurderes. Putin sørgede for at flankere sit kritiske topmøde den 7. december med præsident Biden: inden dette, med et topmøde den 6. december i New Delhi med Indiens premierminister Modi, og efter dette, med dagens hastetopmøde med præsident Xi. Et andet emne, diskuteret mellem Putin og Xi, ifølge Ushakov, var intentionen om at afholde et topmøde mellem Rusland, Indien og Kina i den nærmeste fremtid.

 Og USA? Præsident Biden, sammen med kredse, der måske kunne beskrives som »realisterne« i Washington, virker tilbøjelige til at søge en forhandlet løsning til krisen omkring Rusland og Ukraine. Men hans politiske paladsgarde – Blinken, Sullivan, Nuland, m.fl. – er ikke, og indtil videre er de de dominerende skikkelser i Washington. Ej heller er ejerne af det vestlige, spekulative finanssystem i forhandlingsstemning – det er ikke en mulighed for dem. Deres system er i gang med at bryde sammen, og deres eneste håb er at gennemtvinge en overgang til en fascistisk, malthusiansk verdensorden.

 For at Amerika skal kunne overleve og blomstre, må det vedtage retningen, længe foreslået af Lyndon LaRouche, der etablerer en firemagts-alliance med magten til at indlede et Nyt Paradigme i global udvikling – en alliance blandt USA, Rusland, Kina og Indien, som handler på vegne af hele menneskeheden.

Billede: www.kremlin.ru