World News
March 3—Let us first recall, for all those that have, in the last two days, either been deluged with commentaries and “takes” on the eruption that occurred in the White House Vance-Zelenskyy-Trump exchange of Feb. 28, or have, for some reason, not yet viewed it, and evaluated it for themselves, the single most important matter that was discussed there. This matter is so far widely, almost hysterically under-reported, and under-emphasized. It far outweighs anything that was raised, or could have been raised, in the exchange. It was enunciated, several times, by President Donald Trump: “You’re gambling with World War Three!”
In this 250th anniversary of the American Revolution, and after the explosive events of last week, and, most emphatically, last Friday, at the White House, the practice and standard of American diplomacy pioneered by Secretary of State, later President, and, still later, Congressman and fierce anti-slavery advocate, John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) is the proper standard to which our nation must now return. That standard is incommensurate with that of most recent American Presidential Administrations, particularly after Franklin Roosevelt’s death in April of 1945. President Eisenhower, in the Suez Crisis of 1956; President John F. Kennedy, in the October 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis actions, and in his American University speech, June 10, 1963; President Ronald Reagan’s March 23, 1983 announcement of the Strategic Defense Initiative, are examples of that John Quincy Adams standard. Note that in all three cases, the actions taken by those Presidents were in response to war, or the looming danger of war. In a thermonuclear age, war, particularly war involving nuclear powers, must be made obsolete.
Both Vice-President Vance and President Trump gently alluded to the small matter—a matter also never honestly reported—that Ukraine has been decisively defeated on the battlefield, and has no military capability to win the war—as it never had, and never could have had—without causing the United States to escalate to a possible World War Three against Russia “on its behalf.” “You don’t have the cards,” Trump said to Zelenskyy on Friday.
Zelenskyy has asked, several times now, for thermonuclear weapons. Ukraine has attacked the pre-2014 territory of Russia withAmerican made and NATO directed long-range missiles several times. It would be unreasonable, as of now, to think that a Ukraine, outfitted with nuclear weapons, would not use them “in a heartbeat” against Russia. President Trump made it clear that the goal of his Administration is an immediate peace. “You’re gambling with World War Three!!” is one of the central reasons, if not the principal reason, that he is doing that.
Presidents Eisenhower, Kennedy and Reagan seriously negotiated, or initiated negotiations with the then-Soviet Union to prevent the outbreak, accidental or intentional, of World War Three. Now, President Donald Trump has assembled a team, with flaws to be sure, but with the understood central intention of preventing World War Three, by replacing war with diplomacy, to unravel the Gordian knot of certain thermonuclear extinction that was otherwise to be the fate of the human race in the not-too-distant-future. In a Sunday exchange with a Fox News reporter, the new Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard responded this way to the question, “So what is the intelligence community’s assessment of Vladimir Putin and his future ambitions?”
Gabbard: “Well, I want to focus, first of all, on President Trump’s goal and the reality that’s on the ground. That’s the thing that seems to be getting lost in what we’re seeing in President Zelenskyy’s statements in the White House and the European leaders’ response to this. President Trump recognizes the urgent need to end this war after three long, bloody years, and has proven that he is the only person that can do this. President Zelenskyy has different aims in mind. He has said that he wants to end this war, but he will only accept an end, apparently, that leads to what he views as Ukraine’s victory, even if it comes at an incredibly high cost of potentially World War Three, or even a nuclear war. President Trump is committed to peace and to freedom. We’re seeing this big divergence here between his position and his commitment to these values and the interests of the American people, and the interests of President Zelenskyy and these European leaders. This is an issue that has to be resolved. I know President Trump is committed to doing this, and that’s really where the next step needs to lead.”
Later, she added, “Really, there’s two viable paths here. One is that this war continues as it has for over three years. More and more Ukrainians will lose their lives. More and more of the country of Ukraine will be decimated and destroyed, in what will continue to be essentially a war of attrition. And to what end? To what outcome? President Trump sees this reality. So the alternative to this, which he is so intent on, which he talked about continuously throughout his campaign, (and) the American people voted for, is his commitment to ending this war and bringing about peace.”
In the question posed, and in Gabbard’s answer, as well as in the post-Friday exchanges of other Administration members with the intelligence agents embedded in what goes under the name “media,” we are seeing the potential emerging of a higher level of diplomatic thought, leading to a higher order resolution of conflict. These 180 degrees “bootlegger’s turn” by America away from its three-decades, trillions-dollar policy of perpetual war, must be bolstered. It must be strengthened by the American people gaining a clear understanding of why the international community, which is not “Europe,” but the “Global Majority”—the nations of Asia, Africa, South and Central America, and then, the trans-Atlantic sector—must also be given the knowledge that there is, now, another direction to American diplomacy. But it is not unprecedented: It is the American diplomacy of John Quincy Adams, Abraham Lincoln, Franklin Roosevelt, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy and the President Ronald Reagan who adopted the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) policy of economist and statesman Lyndon LaRouche on matters of war and peace.
Of course, breaking with the British-U.S. “special relationship,” particularly with regard to matters of intelligence-sharing, is, if not prerequisite, certainly coterminous with any successful negotiation for peace anywhere on the planet. In a June 27, 2009 webcast, “Britain Delenda Est,” Lyndon LaRouche explained, 16 years ago, the actual problem we witnessed, from France’s Macron, from Britain’s Starmer, and Zelenskyy on Friday, Feb. 28—which was not a “Ukraine problem”—and how to solve it:
“Europe has no power, Western and Central Europe, no power whatsoever. They lost their sovereignty to the British Empire. Margaret Thatcher took the initiative, supported by President Mitterrand of France, and supported by George H.W. Bush, who’s a real kisser of the bottom of the British—his father, after all, put Hitler into power in Germany; that’s where the real Bush League started, and it’s been the same ever since. So, these three characters: Margaret Thatcher, the Witch of London, François Mitterrand, the longstanding enemy, hater of Charles de Gaulle, and the President of the United States, poor, simpering, silly George H.W. Bush, as President, made an agreement in which they imposed imperial management over all of Western and Central Europe. Europe has no freedom. They are not allowed to create their own currency; they’re not allowed to create national credit. They have industries and capacities, still, which if they could organize national credit, properly, continental Europe could unify its efforts among nations and actually start a recovery program. They are forbidden to do that! By the British Empire! Which now holds all of Western and Central Europe as a colony of the British Empire….
“We are an anti-oligarchical nation. We have nothing to do in our tradition, with the monetary systems of Europe. We came here, and founded this nation, to be free of the monetary systems of Europe! To be free of things like the IMF, today! To be free of the British Empire. People came from Europe in particular, to this territory, to join and participate in building a nation, which would carry forward the best of European civilization, its best heritage, but free of the oligarchical problem which still sat on top of the people of Europe. People came here, not to get away from Italian culture, not to get away from French culture, not to get away from German culture—but, quite the contrary: to free these cultures, by bringing these cultures here, to bring the best of them here! And to develop, here, the best of European civilization. But free of the oligarchical systems of Europe.
“Therefore, we have, embedded in our history, and in traditions of an organic type, which we can evoke any time we have the guts to do so, we can evoke, again, the European heritage which is specific to the United States, a United States which was created to get free of the evil in Europe, the incompetence in Europe. We can launch that again, from the United States, under our Constitution, which was designed for this mission.” [Emphases in original.]
American diplomacy, freed from its British influence, can now fulfill that mission for which the nation was originally founded—should the people of the United States, in collaboration with a Global Majority for peace, act to make a new security and development architecture.
Feb. 27—Earlier this week, both President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin made remarks to the press confirming that the U.S. and Russia are also discussing areas of possible economic cooperation as part of their dialogue to normalize relations.
It began with Trump’s comments to journalists after his Monday, Feb. 24 meeting with French President Emmanuel Macron, according to RT:
“Before I came here, there was no communication with Russia whatsoever… But when I got here, one of the first calls I made was to President Putin, and we were treated with great respect. They want to end this war, so that’s a big thing…. I think it’s very much to Russia’s benefit to make a deal and to continue leading Russia in a very positive way. I mean, that’s what I do. I do deals. My whole life is deals…. And I know when somebody wants to make it and when somebody doesn’t.”
Trump was asked about his plans to visit Moscow: “If all this gets settled down, which I think it will, sure, I would go there, and he’d come here too.” Asked if he might attend Russia’s Victory Day celebrations on May 9, Trump said that was “pretty soon,” but that a visit would occur “at the appropriate time.” (Planning is in the advanced stages for a meeting between the two in Saudi Arabia, perhaps as soon as next week.)
Trump later posted on Truth Social: “I am in serious discussions with President Vladimir Putin of Russia concerning the ending of the war, and also major economic development transactions that will take place between the United States and Russia. Talks are proceeding very well!”
Later that day, President Putin was answering questions from Russian TV journalist Pavel Zarubin, who asked: “By the way, a few minutes ago I read another piece of news from the U.S.: President Trump stated that the U.S. and Russia are discussing major economic projects as part of negotiations on Ukraine.” To which Putin responded: “Yes, some of our companies are in contact with each other and are discussing such projects.”
Earlier in the interview Putin had commented on the prospects for cooperation on rare and rare-earth minerals between the two countries.
Feb. 27—“The end is nigh” is the substance of the common wails issuing from the major British media these days. Take the case of an article in the Feb. 25 Financial Times by their Chief Economic Commentator, CBE Martin Wolf, which carries the blunt headline: “The U.S. Is Now the Enemy of the West.” In it, Wolf bemoans the fact that “Washington has decided to abandon both Ukraine and its postwar role in the world,” and as a result “today, not only are autocracies increasingly confident. The U.S. is moving to their side. That is the lesson of the last two weeks.” His desultory conclusion: “The ‘west’ is dead…. In response, Europe will either rise to the occasion or disintegrate. Europeans will need to create far stronger co-operation embedded in a robust framework of liberal and democratic norms. If they do not, they will be picked to pieces by the world’s great powers. They must start by saving Ukraine from Putin’s malevolence.”
London’s The Economist was not to be outdone, writing: “Faced with a collapsing transatlantic alliance, stunned European leaders this week began a diplomatic effort to salvage what is left of it, and try to bring Donald Trump back from the brink over Ukraine…. Previously partial to unilateral diplomacy, Mr. Macron this time spoke to 30 European and allied leaders ahead of his visit to Washington and has worked closely on security plans with Britain.”
A second, lengthier article in The Economist asked “Can Europe Confront Vladimir Putin’s Russia on Its Own?” The short answer was “no.” “In truth, it could take a decade before Europe is able to defend itself without America’s help.”
The article quoted Anders Fogh Rasmussen, a former secretary-general of NATO, who wrote an essay for The Economist: “The security architecture that Europe has relied on for generations is gone and is not coming back. Europe must come to terms with the fact that we are not only existentially vulnerable, but also seemingly alone.”
Feb. 27—British geopolitical strategy to prevent peace with Russia at all costs depends on the demonization of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and roping the U.S. into backing the British intention of marching off to war against Russia. Both elements were present in a statement by U.K. Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer, issued Feb. 25 and in a speech to the House of Commons, in which he announced an accelerated plan to increase military spending to 3% of GDP while justifying it as necessary against that intractable enemy of Britain, Russia. Both statements were delivered two days before Starmer is set to fly off to Washington to meet with President Donald Trump today.
Topmost on Starmer’s agenda is to try to salvage the U.S.-U.K. special relationship, which has been at the heart of the unipolar world order since the demise of Franklin Roosevelt. Starmer is also desperate to make sure that real peace does not break out in Ukraine.
“Putin’s aggression does not stop in Ukraine,” said the Labour fool rpresenting the bloodiest empire in modern history. "Russian spy ships menace our waters. Russian planes enter our airspace. Russian cyber-attacks hit our NHS. And just seven years ago—there was a Russian chemical weapons attack, in broad daylight. On the streets of Salisbury. We can’t hide from this.
“I know people have felt the impact of this conflict through rising bills and prices,” Starmer went on. “But unless Ukraine is properly protected from Putin then Europe will only become more unstable—and that will hurt us even more. Furthermore, the great lesson of our history is that tyrants like Putin only respond to strength.”
As for what Britain will do about it, “We will keep our manifesto commitment to spend 2.5% of our GDP on defense,” Starmer said. “But in light of the grave threats we face, we will bring that target forward so we meet it in 2027. That is an increase of £13.4 billion year on year compared to where we are today. And we will go further…. We will also set a clear ambition for Defense spending to rise to 3% of GDP in the next Parliament.”
But it’s not just a military buildup. It’s also a jobs program. “We will make sure this investment maximizes British jobs, British growth, British skills and British innovation,” he said.
And initially, at least, the military buildup will be paid for by a reduction in British foreign aid from 0.5% of GDP to 0.3%.
Aside from repeating all of the foregoing in his Commons speech, Starmer also argued that the U.S. is key to British strategy. “We must reject any false choice between our allies, between one side of the Atlantic or the other,” he said. “That is against our history—country and party—because it is against our fundamental national interest. The U.S. is our most important bilateral alliance. It straddles everything from nuclear technology, to NATO, to Five Eyes, AUKUS and beyond.”
Therefore, when Starmer comes to Washington tomorrow to meet Trump, “I will be clear. I want this relationship to go from strength to strength.”