Speir

Sept. 13—The Cape Canaveral launch facility, in central Florida—the primary rocket-launch facility in the United States—is rapidly approaching the milestone of 1,000 rocket launches, a goal it will likely reach by the end of this year. Combined with military facilities at Vandenberg Space Force Base in California (769 total launches) or the even more secretive facility on Wallops Island, Virginia, the U.S. has launched, according to Space Launch Schedule, almost 2,000 rockets since the space era first dawned in the 1960s.

(Sept. 12 marked the 62nd anniversary of President John F. Kennedy's speech at Rice University that committed the United States to place a man on the moon before the end of that decade.)

In second place are the Russians, who have launched (including the Soviet era) a total of 1,548 rockets, almost exclusively from the Baikonur Cosmodrome, in the modern Republic of Kazakhstan. Russia also launches specialized missions from any of several military-connected facilities, such as the far north Vostochny Cosmodrome in Siberia, and a few others. China has now launched more than 800 rockets into space from five different domestic locations, including 49 from a floating launch pad at sea.

At least a dozen other nations, including Japan, India, Australia, New Zealand, French Guiana (used by the European Space Agency), and Iran now have their own, active launch facilities, which have sent satellites into orbit. In the continent of South America, Argentina, Brazil, and Peru have limited active facilities, which currently launch satellites into orbit. Even the continent of Africa has a couple of space launch sites—in Algeria and Kenya—from which satellites have been launched, and several additional ones which are being courted, because of their advantageous location along the Equator.

Sept. 13—In an interview with Russian daily Kommersant, covered by RT  strategic analyst Sergey Karaganov (who is described as a former Kremlin advisor) responded to the discussion about Western approval of Kyiv’s use of long-range missiles to attack Russia, with a renewed call for Russia make sure the West knows that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons. The RT article recalls Karaganov’s public exchange with President Putin at the St. Petersburg International Economic Forum last June, where Putin allowed him to lay out his whole proposal to then reject it.

RT’s article is headlined “Enemies Must Be Sure Russia Is Ready To Use Nuclear Weapons—Former Kremlin Adviser,” and noted that “his words came amid the continued Ukrainian incursion into Russia’s Kursk Region and Kyiv’s attempts to receive permission for the use of Western long-range missiles to strike deep inside the country.”

Karaganov, who is the Honorary Chairman of the Presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy, argued that current Russian doctrine is “woefully outdated…. We have allowed the situation to deteriorate to a point when our adversaries believe we will not use nuclear weapons under any circumstances. Having nuclear weapons without being able to convince your enemies that you are ready to use them is suicide…. The main goal of a doctrine should be in convincing all current and future enemies that Russia is ready to use nuclear weapons.”

The absence of an effective nuclear deterrent policy “would plunge the world into a series of wars that would inevitably turn nuclear and end up with the World War III … within the span of several years.”

“It’s high time we stated that any massive strikes against our territory give us a right to respond with a nuclear strike,” insisted Karaganov. RT adds: “He also called on Moscow to clearly define the ‘nuclear escalation’ steps in the next doctrine to leave Russia’s adversaries no room for doubt about whether it is ready to use its nuclear arsenal and when.” 

Sept. 13—Making use of all the fancy language he learned at Harvard and Columbia Law to announce a criminally demented policy, U.S. Secretary of State Tony Blinken acknowledged during a Sept. 11 press conference with British and Ukrainian Foreign Ministers, that there is a risk of escalation stemming from providing the Kyiv regime with the capability of long-range strikes against Russia. But, he argued, that risk is worth taking:

He responded to a question from Michael Birnbaum of the Washington Post, saying: “You referenced escalation. Of course that’s one of the factors that we always consider, but it’s certainly not the only factor and it’s not necessarily a dispositive factor.” In other words, the risk of nuclear war is worth taking if it improves the prospects for the “strategic defeat” of Russia.

Earlier in the press conference, Blinken said that he and British Foreign Secretary David Lammy would be taking what they learned in their discussions in Kyiv back to their respective leaders, President Joe Biden and Prime Minister Keir Starmer, who will be meeting in Washington on Sept. 13. “Speaking for the United States, we have adjusted and adapted as needs have changed, as the battlefield has changed. And I have no doubt that we’ll continue to do that as this evolves,” Blinken said, suggesting that the U.S. intends to green-light the use of long-range missiles to attack deep into Russian territory from Ukraine.

“The escalator here is Putin. Putin has escalated with the shipment of missiles from Iran. We see a new axis of Russia, Iran and North Korea,” Lammy claimed. He urged China “not to throw in its lot” with what he called “a group of renegades.”

British government sources told The Guardian that a decision had already been made to allow Ukraine to use Storm Shadow cruise missiles on targets inside Russia, although it is not expected to be publicly announced when Starmer meets Biden tomorrow. The joint visit to Kyiv by Blinken and Lammy to meet Ukrainian President Zelenskyy would not have taken place had there been no positive decision regarding Storm Shadow, the sources added.

Blinken and Lammy meanwhile promised $1.5 billion in financial and economic aid to Ukraine, $700 million from the U.S. and $782 million from the U.K. At the same time, U.K. Defense Secretary John Healey announced another $600 million-worth of military support, “including air defense missiles, equipment for F-16 fighter jets, AS90 self-propelled guns and spare barrels, military boats, and maritime guns—have now been delivered,” according to the British statement. “On top of this, the Defense Secretary has today also announced that hundreds of additional air defense missiles, tens of thousands of additional artillery ammunition rounds, and more armored vehicles will be delivered to Ukraine by the end of the year.” 

Sept. 13—Russian President Vladimir Putin warned Sept. 12, in response to a reporter’s question, that if the U.S. and U.K. decide to authorize Ukrainian strikes on targets inside Russia with Western-supplied long-range weapons, that decision will mean that NATO is at war with Russia. The exchange, as rendered in the Kremlin transcript, was as follows:

“Question: Over the past few days, we have been hearing statements at a very high level in the U.K. and the United States that the Kiev regime will be allowed to strike targets deep inside Russia using Western long-range weapons. Apparently, this decision is either about to be made, or has already been made, as far as we can see. This is actually quite extraordinary. Could you comment on what is going on?

“President of Russia Vladimir Putin: What we are seeing is an attempt to substitute notions. Because this is not a question of whether the Kiev regime is allowed or not allowed to strike targets on Russian territory. It is already carrying out strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles and other means. But using Western-made long-range precision weapons is a completely different story.

“The fact is that—I have mentioned this, and any expert, both in our country and in the West, will confirm this—the Ukrainian army is not capable of using cutting-edge high-precision long-range systems supplied by the West. They cannot do that. These weapons are impossible to employ without intelligence data from satellites which Ukraine does not have. This can only be done using the European Union’s satellites, or U.S. satellites—in general, NATO satellites. This is the first point.

“The second point—perhaps the most important, the key point even—is that only NATO military personnel can assign flight missions to these missile systems. Ukrainian servicemen cannot do this.

“Therefore, it is not a question of allowing the Ukrainian regime to strike Russia with these weapons or not. It is about deciding whether NATO countries become directly involved in the military conflict or not.

“If this decision is made, it will mean nothing short of direct involvement—it will mean that NATO countries, the United States, and European countries are parties to the war in Ukraine. This will mean their direct involvement in the conflict, and it will clearly change the very essence, the very nature of the conflict dramatically.

“This will mean that NATO countries—the United States and European countries—are at war with Russia. And if this is the case, then, bearing in mind the change in the essence of the conflict, we will make appropriate decisions in response to the threats that will be posed to us.”

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made essentially the same point in a presentation today to the foreign diplomatic corps in Moscow. The message has been delivered. 

Sept. 11—What has caused an obscure French-based publication, Intelligence Online, to suddenly not only attack the Schiller Institute, but also to call for the U.S. Department of Justice to “shut Schiller up,” and down?  Was it something Schiller said? Not exactly, but close.

The Schiller Institute’s Sept. 3 publication of Ambassador Jack Matlock’s truthful assessment of the absurdity of current United States foreign and (self-defeating) military policy toward Russia, China and Southwest Asia—which, as of March of this year, includes a commitment to a three-front nuclear war against Russia, China and North Korea—is now being picked up by other news outlets. This has caused a small earthquake among the once-competent “elites” of the trans-Atlantic, who, unlike the “children of Madeleine Albright”—Antony Blinken, Victoria Nuland, Samantha Power et al.,—know that what Jack Matlock has said, is true. Matlock was President Ronald Reagan’s Ambassador to the Soviet Union from 1987 to 1991, and a true witness to, participant in and shaper of our current history, a different breed than today’s “junior varsity” at the State Department.

“It seems to me that it is extremely dangerous to attempt what is, in effect, an undeclared war against a nuclear armed power, which perceives, rightly or wrongly, that its sovereignty and even its political existence are being threatened,” Sputnik reported Matlock saying from his Sept. 3 interview with EIR's Michael Billington. Matlock remarked days later, at the Sept. 6 meeting of the International Peace Coalition, that “I think what we need to understand is that the expansion of NATO, and particularly the bases—and in this case, it was the bases that were planned in Poland and Romania for anti-ballistic missiles. It turned out that, although these were defensive weapons, they could easily be converted to offensive weapons. So, it was understandable that the Russian leader (Putin) would be quite opposed. And yet, we went ahead, and after progressively withdrawing from virtually every arms control agreement that we had negotiated in the 1980s and early ’90s, we began to try to influence the Ukrainian government and offer NATO membership. So I think that this was a complete reversal of the diplomacy we used in the Cold War….”

His Satanic Majesty’s NATO was, however, not pleased, either by Matlock’s candor, or his timing. After all, his remarks come just before the newly-selected British Prime Minister Keir Starmer of the Labour Party will arrive in the United States. He is coming here in part to certify that Joe “Being There” Biden, through a July 29 letter sent to Congress, makes sure that American nuclear weapons capabilities become fully accessible, through an alteration in the British-U.S. Mutual Defense Agreement of 1958, to de facto deployment by “British brains.” Neither any future President, nor the Congress, in blatant violation of the United States Constitution, will be able to challenge this arrangement. Some call this the “special relationship.” Others tell the truth, and call it treason against the United States Constitution.

In London yesterday, Secretary of State Tony Blinken, speaking together with British Foreign Secretary David Lammy said, “We talk about the special relationship. I like to call it essential—essential for our nations, essential for our people, essential for people well beyond our shores.” Like the Babylonian priesthood’s supervisory “advisory” role to the Persian military state, it is in the City of London and Wall Street, that decisions are now being centralized. Washington, D.C. and its Presidency are becoming merely a pass-through. Will thermonuclear war, either through miscalculation or design, be the result?

What, however, if the whole chessboard is simply turned over? What if voices of reason, like that of Jack Matlock, or Veterans Intelligence Professionals for Sanity co-founder Ray McGovern, or Col. Larry Wilkerson of the Eisenhower Media Network, are successfully amplified and heard in the United States, echoed by similar voices in Germany, France, Italy, Sweden and many other nations? That is the process that is now happening through the International Peace Coalition. It is the precondition for real Socratic dialogue about a new security and development architecture.

This is sorely needed, because the present diplomatic situation is at an impasse. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made clear yesterday that, in his view, “Once again, the problem is not about territories but people’s rights, which have been flouted—and all of the political initiatives floating around fail to mention them.”

It is Helga Zepp-LaRouche and the Schiller Institute’s proposed Ten Principles for a New International Strategic and Development Architecture that do, in fact, take the interests of all into account. The possibility that the Institute’s proposal might successfully catalyze a “Council of Reason” among trans-Atlantic nations, that would overthrow the “mad dogs and Englishmen” that are provoking nuclear war, has spooked the NATO thought-police. They have released, through the outfit called Intelligence Online, a story, “United States Washington-based non-profit continues spreading Kremlin message,” which begins, “The Schiller Institute has continued to cooperate with Russian media outlets, even while the U.S. cracks down on foreign influence.” While this is the same tactic used in the 1982 activation of the President’s Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (PFIAB) against economist, statesman and Schiller Institute co-founder Lyndon LaRouche, there is a difference.

Now, in 2024, forty-two years later, this “dirty trick” is doomed to fail—like the attempts to dismember Russia, or contain China, or exterminate the Palestinians. Then, BRICS-Plus did not exist, the Belt and Road Initiative of China did not exist, the advanced space programs of India, China, even the U.A.E., did not exist. The growing wave of government-based censorship of journalists is a vain attempt to produce a chilling effect against a volcano of discontent, discontent which grows with every attempt to diminish its voice and power. Tulsi Gabbard, once the vice chair of the Democratic National Committee, is placed (in her own words) “on a secret terror watch list…. Now the government calls me a terror threat.” Is that an awesome expression of power—or of weakness?

In a supersaturated environment, a single molecule, a “weak force,” can incite crystallization, the sudden appearance of well-defined, ordered structure, “as if from nowhere.” In that same way, an idea, based on a principle, dismissed as “impractical” only months before, can become the dominant intellectual currency in a time of crisis. That idea, representing a deeper, unseen, higher, “poetic” principle, can take the form of an effective policy, embraced by much, even all of humanity, such that imperfect people and leaders, “even whilst they deny and abjure, are yet compelled to serve, that power which is seated on the throne of their own soul.” That is why, despite all of our flaws and imperfections, Percy Shelley’s often-cited observation that “poets are the unacknowledged legislators of the world” tells us by what method we, and humanity, can hope to prevail. It is by the light of that truth, spoken by Ambassador Matlock and others, that the false authority presently wielded by the vampires of total and perpetual war is evaporated, as a vampire self-destructs in sunlight.