International Peace Coalition, Week 132

A New System for All Humanity
Can Solve All Problems

Dec. 13—The International Peace Coalition’s (IPC) 132nd consecutive weekly meeting featured a dramatic discussion on the turning point in history caused by the release of the 2025 U.S. National Security Strategy (NSS) by President Donald Trump’s Administration, which as co-moderator Dennis Small put it, has “kicked over the chessboard.” The opening speakers were Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute leader and initiator of the IPC; Alastair Crooke, a retired British diplomat who served nearly 30 years in MI6; Graham Fuller, 20 years in the CIA and former vice-chairman of the CIA’s National Intelligence Council; Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana (2011-2015); and Dennis Small, IPC co-moderator and Ibero-American Intelligence Director of Executive Intelligence Review. Crooke and Fuller had been collaborators through their work in the Arab world.

Zepp-LaRouche discussed the “hysteria” provoked by the NSS, which, despite its problematic points, breaks with the pro-war policies of NATO and elsewhere. She encouraged people to read and circulate her recent statement, “Withdraw from NATO! New National Security Strategy Requires New Security Architecture.”

Alastair Crooke noted that the NSS marks a U.S. turn, away from the focus on China and the war in Ukraine, and openly attacks the policies of the European leaders and NATO. He said what was needed was for the United States to acknowledge that its sanctions policies had utterly failed in their intended goal of isolating China and Russia from the global community.

U.S. Tariffs Are a ‘Shakedown’

In regard to Trump’s use of tariffs, which claim to be based on Alexander Hamilton’s promotion of tariffs for the new United States, Crooke said Trump was using them as a “shakedown,” intended to coerce nations to invest in the United States or buy the U.S. debt. This will not work, he said, because of the massive growth of the debt bubble in the United States.

On the Ukraine war, Crooke is concerned that Trump’s envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner are not representing any institutional interests in the country; one is a real estate friend, and the other is a personal family member of Trump. This is part of the fact that Trump is looking at the relations with Russia and Ukraine in terms of money, be it BlackRock or the EU, as demonstrated by the insane European seizure of the Russian financial assets. The Europeans have become “psychotic,” he said, in their wildly false contention that they could “defeat Russia.”

On Venezuela, Crooke noted that President Nicolás Maduro had offered to allow U.S. oil and mining companies to essentially take over the natural wealth of the country, but Trump said “no.” Why would he turn this down, Crooke asked. It must be seen in the context of China’s counteroffer during the Shanghai Expo in November, to implement a zero-tariff trade policy and invest in the Venezuela oil and mining sector itself, without the conditionalities demanded by the United States, which insists on being an “ally” and maintaining dollar hegemony. The United States now wants to establish something like a blockade, keeping China (and others) out. Crooke doubts that China will simply accept this.

Speaking next, Graham Fuller said that he was “shocked” by the NSS, calling it the biggest shift in world affairs since the fall of the Soviet Union. Despite this, he said, there had been no warning that this was in the works, not from the press nor from the pundits. He was also amazed that Europe appears to have lost its sense of history and is ignoring the dramatic shift in Asia.

‘Davos Values’ Took Over NATO

Crooke responded that Europe’s change of heart to embrace NATO began with the NATO bombing of Belgrade in 1999, without any approval from the United Nations. That led to the transformation of NATO from being a force for military defense into an offensive force based on political criteria, which Crooke called “liberal values, the Davos values.” That became universal, with the leaders of NATO and Western nations all coming from the same clique. This was reinforced when U.S. President Joe Biden gave his “Manichean” speech at Independence Hall in September 2022, which was soon followed by EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen giving an almost verbatim speech. Thus, the mention of “good vs. evil,” “light vs. darkness,” “autocracy vs. freedom” became the standard replacement for serious intelligence and diplomacy, a “lever” for a conflict with Russia—“irrational, and dangerous.” The irony is that Europe now has no democracy at all. Even the European Commission leadership is unelected.

Crooke reported that he had been in both Russia and China over the past weeks, and they know this about the West. The Russians, in particular, know that Europe has no money, no weapons, and no manpower to fight a war with Russia, yet they promote war all the time. Crooke says he believes they can’t fight such a war, “but they can provoke a war,” and even small countries like Estonia can do so. The intention is similar to British Prime Minister Winston Churchill’s use of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor to bring the United States into a war against Germany. The population in Europe is not ready for war—“they are more interested in holidays and designer shoes.” The preconditions for a solution have been taken down. They are the autocracy they complain about.

Zepp-LaRouche expressed agreement with both Crooke and Fuller. Europe suffers from the neoliberal system, which is getting worse. There are attacks on the Classics, against truth and beauty, and instead, attention is paid to minor things that are “interesting.” The West has become “more and more insane, pornographic.” She referenced Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov’s comment that the West has turned against the morals of their grandparents, adopting a “post-Christian ideology.” The great poets and scientists are gone. Our friends in the Global South “can’t understand why the West is destroying itself.” We must be more like Asia, which is reaching back to its best (Confucian) traditions for a new cultural era: “We must look back to the Italian Renaissance, the German high culture, to rediscover our earlier contributions to the human species.”

Danger of the U.S. in the Caribbean

Former Guyana President Donald Ramotar then spoke, posing the great danger inherent in the NSS concept of America throwing out international law and threatening to take over South America and the Caribbean. He said that the leaders in the region are terrified, afraid to speak out for fear of American economic or military attacks. “The silence is deafening,” he said. The effort is to push China out, even though it is China that is “building the infrastructure which we have been denied for so long.” It appears that the oil and mining companies are running policy in Washington. Trump’s approach to Russia is admirable, but he doubts that any future President will sustain it. He appreciates the migration problem, “but they must understand that they created this themselves.”

EIR’s Dennis Small pointed out that the virtue of the NSS is that it is “kicking over the chessboard,” and is putting a hold on the rush to nuclear war. But it lacks any idea of what to replace it with. He pointed to Crooke’s emphasis on the debt crisis. He reviewed his work on the massive debt of the United States and the world, in addition to the $2 quadrillion in financial derivatives debt, demonstrating that the Western financial system is bankrupt. Either this is put through bankruptcy reorganization, or there will be collapse and war. That is the story behind the attack on Venezuela: The real target in South America is Brazil and the BRICS.

Crooke noted that China and others are trying to find a way to work with the West to deal with this debt crisis, but they can’t find the means for discussion. If the U.S. bubble bursts, it will cause political and economic crises around the world. Russia and China, in the meantime, must consider means of defending themselves from this threat. He said that he saw in China that they could easily expand their successful development system to the rest of Eurasia, to everyone’s benefit. However they are reluctant to do that lest they provoke a response from the West— “they are attacking the dollar!” Given that Trump changes his mind every day, it makes it difficult to work with him.

In the Q&A session, Zepp-LaRouche answered questions on Nicholas of Cusa, and on the tenth of her Ten Principles.

She stressed in conclusion that the Peace of Westphalia followed 150 years of war and general chaos, which continued until the belligerents recognized that it must stop, or there would be no one left. That is more real today, in the nuclear age, than even back then. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s patience will eventually come to an end, she said. If the West were to get together with Russia and China, “all the problems of the world could be solved.” The only way the looming global financial blowout can be prevented, she said, is to signal that there is a willingness among nations to have an orderly reorganization of the completely bankrupt system the way Franklin Roosevelt did it with the Glass-Steagall Banking Act of 1933 and move towards a system of cooperation between the United States, China and other countries to develop Latin America, Africa, Asia and the world.