Permit me, our dear readers of this column, to present to you the below analysis which I find to be of utmost interest. The following, entitled “Who is threatening to launch nuclear war?”, was posted on the LaRouche Organization’s YouTube page on September 30, 2022. It is as follows:

Good morning. I’m Harley Schlanger from the LaRouche Organization with your daily video update for the last day of September 30, 2022. As it’s Friday, I’m taking your questions. I received a lot of them today, the last couple of days, and so let’s just jump right into it. The first question was, did Vladimir Putin threaten to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine? Now, in the wake of the explosions, disabling the Nord Stream pipelines and the discussion of the likely annexation of four regions of eastern Ukraine by Russia, there’s been a lot more discussion of the likelihood or the supposed likelihood that this could trigger the use of nuclear weapons by Russia, and many, many people in the West are discussing this question: would Putin use a tactical nuclear weapon? Would he engage in limited nuclear war in Ukraine? And of course, most of them say, since he’s a mad man, of course, he would. Now, the fact is, there’s a lot of talk of use of nuclear weapon, but most of it is coming from Western analysts, Western strategists, associates and officials of NATO, and among the things they’re saying—for example, the Atlantic Council, one of the leading think tanks of the West, said that the West must be prepared to respond in some way, including the likelihood of the possibility of a nuclear strike against Russia.

Now, this narrative was debunked in an article published in the National Interest on September 28 by the Russian ambassador to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, and I’m going to report on it to you, because it’s important that you hear what the Russians are actually saying, as opposed to what the Western media is saying about the Russians, what the Russians are saying. Now, Antonov started by saying that the talk of limited nuclear war being possible is a dangerous fallacy. The point being, that once you start the use of nuclear weapons, an escalation is virtually inevitable, and this risks the annihilation of the human race. Now, he then went into a review of U.S. action to withdraw from the arms agreements that had been negotiated since the 1980s beginning with Ronald Reagan, including the intermediate nuclear force agreement, the ABM agreement, the Open Skies and others, and he points out that there were unilateral decisions by the United States to withdraw from these treaties, and the U.S has been hesitant or unwilling to engage in renewing them or writing new treaties. So, he said, this has certainly contributed to the worsening of relations, but then he ended by saying that Putin did not threaten to use nuclear weapons and he quoted Putin as saying the following, quote, “Russia is ready to defend its sovereignty, territorial integrity and our people, with all weapon systems we have…” unquote. That’s from Putin. Then Antonov writes, “What is so aggressive about this statement? Would the U.S. not do the same if faced with an existential threat? That is, be prepared to use all existing weapons to defend the integrity, territorial integrity and the lives of Americans?”

Well, of course it would. All you have to do is look at the annual nuclear posture review which is part of the U.S. national defense strategy. Read it. It discusses the modernization of all weapons systems, especially the nuclear system, the so-called Triad that the U.S must modernize and upgrade its capacity to defend the United States and its allies. Does this mean the United States is preparing to use nuclear weapons? Now, keep in mind since 2001 U.S. forces have been engaged in wars all over the globe, that we have bases in more than 80 nations, that we’ve been deploying troops worldwide engaging in regime change and other kinds of aggressive activities against sovereign nations. Meanwhile, the continued flow of weapons into Ukraine from NATO, including the U.S, is heightening the danger of a World War III, especially when the West intervenes as it has, including in March and April, to tell the Ukrainians not to negotiate a diplomatic resolution. That’s where the threat of escalation is coming from, and it’s necessary to step back from that to engage in diplomatic talks, including back-channel discussions, before we have an accident that leads to a global nuclear conflagration.

Now, there are many, many questions that came in on the Nord Stream pipelines, the explosions which have disabled them. Of course, the media is saying that the Russians did it—that was the initial take, but many of you wrote and said, ‘why would Russia sabotage its own pipelines?’ Someone wrote, actually, several wrote: if Russia wanted to shut off the flow of gas it could do it by turning off the spigot, so why would it destroy the pipelines? Now, this raises a number of questions, including who has the capacity to do this and who benefits from shutting down the pipelines, and let me just take up a couple of aspects of it. One point is that by getting rid of the pipelines, it relieves the pressure on Germany, which otherwise is there, given the growing demonstrations that are taking place as a cold winter is coming that the Schultz government might make a decision to negotiate with Putin to agree to diplomatic resolution for the war in return for reopening the pipelines. That’s not an option right now, and as Ray McGovern and former CIA analysts said in the discussion with me the other night, this does take the pressure off Schultz, because now it’s not possible to do that.

Well, this is a threat for all of Europe, because all of Europe is facing shortages of energy. Most of it is self-inflicted: it’s the Green New Deal; it’s the sanctions against Russia, and it’s the unwillingness to engage in negotiation. So, this takes away one of the leverages that Putin had to convince the West to engage in negotiations so that you can keep oil and gas flowing into Europe. So, who has the most to gain from the sabotage of the Nord Stream 1 and 2? Well, the simple answer is that the United States, going back to President Trump, but also Biden, they’ve said that the U.S. is prepared to provide liquefied natural gas to Germany. The problem is, it will take a number of years before Germany has the facilities, the port capability and the storage to bring in such natural gas. It’s also questionable whether there’s adequate shipping capability, especially with the supply chain issues and everything else. So, if this is the intent to destroy the pipeline so that Germany has to rely on the United States, it’s foolish. Similarly, Schultz went to the Middle East to try to negotiate an upgrading of delivery of energy supplies and came back virtually empty-handed, and the idea of liquefied natural gas coming from Qatar, all the German analysts acknowledge that it will be four or five years before there’s the capability to do that.

So, what this means is something more profound that people should think about, that this is an attack on the potential for Germany and Russia to have rap or small—to repair their relationship. Now, why is that important? Well, who benefits from a Russian-German conflict? It’s the British. This goes back to Mackinder and the geopolitical doctrine from the early 1900s which identified a Russian-German alliance as an existential threat to the British Empire, and this is at the heart of geopolitics—that the integration economically through transport, through energy and development capability, the integration of Eurasia with Western Europe, through Russia is a threat to British control of the seas. Now, that was the beginning of the 20th Century, but today it’s not just the shipping capabilities where the British still are a very important force, but more importantly the financial power of the city of London, which is the new imperial power—of Wall Street, city of London and Brussels, unified to defend an existing bankrupt financial system and fearful of the potential that’s emerging with the global South, the developing sector that there will be a new financial system based on physical production and not paper money such as the dollar. This is behind most of the posturing going back to 1990, the attempt to destroy Russia through shock therapy, the attempt to isolate Russia and to undermine China’s belt and road initiative, that these are efforts underway from the West to ensure that there’s no alternative, to the sole superpower and control of a unipolar world order based on the dollar and the Petro dollar.

But that’s breaking up. That’s not going to exist in the near future. Both because of the idiocy of the policies of the Great Reset and the Green New Deal. The Green New Deal, as Putin has said. is a self-inflicted suicide for the West but also because many nations that wish to have development such as Indonesia, such as Brazil, Argentina, many African nations, South Africa, are turning to institutions such as the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, the Eurasian Economic Union, the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—because these are development institutions that are committed to investment in the future, in technology, in new platforms of infrastructure which, despite the rhetoric of build back better, has no intention to provide the credit that’s needed and the capital goods that are needed for the so-called Third World to develop. So, the fact that the potential exists for a German Russian and German China economic alliance is a threat to this bankrupt and collapsing system, and so exacerbating the tensions between Germany and Russia has been a part of British strategy, and now Anglo-American strategy going back to the beginning of the 20th Century.

Now, finally there’s a question. What can the U.S. do to regain credibility and be trusted again by non-aligned nations? Well, first, use the influence of the United States to end the war, to have a negotiated settlement that provides security guarantees for both Russia and Ukraine, as well as for every other nation in the world. That’s why Helga Zepp-LaRouche has called for a new security architecture and a new financial architecture outside of the control of a sole superpower centered in the city of London in Wall Street. Secondly, end the U.S-backed wars and deployment of forces, recognize the absolute right to sovereignty of all nations. This includes ending the sanctions and finally supporting the moves toward a new Bretton Woods, as I was just discussing. What nations want is the sovereign right to develop, to improve the conditions and lives of their nations. This has not been allowed under the control of the International Monetary Fund and the bankers regimes that have dominated the world, especially since the 1960s and 70s. That’s why institutions such as the BRICS and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization are so important, because their efforts to create development investment capabilities outside of the control of the Western banks, now support for a new Bretton Woods from the United States or better yet, the United States renouncing policies such as the Great Reset and the fake Green New Deal and instead committing themselves to work together with programs such as the belt and road initiative, such as the development of nuclear energy for African nations, such as the transportation corridors which would link nations in cooperation. That is the way the United States could not only regain credibility but restore its commitment to the traditions of the American founding fathers who were opposed to the idea of the United States serving as a global policeman. Now, toward this end, the Schiller Institute is sponsoring an international youth conference which will take place on October 15, and I’ll put a link to that to register for that conference at the bottom of the description section of today’s update. So, thanks for joining me. Thanks for your questions. Get active. You want to regain credibility for the West; it’s going to depend on citizens rejecting the control of the so-called deep state of the military-industrial complex over governments which not only are a threat to other nations but a threat to the people of our nations.

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October 2, 2022
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