Feb. 14, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 141st weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Friday, Feb. 13 again brought together hundreds of people from dozens of countries to strategize on ending the depravity of the on-rushing strategic and economic breakdown, and to build a movement of world citizens to create a new architecture of strategic and economic development for all nations. Helga Zepp-LaRouche opened the conference with an overview of the crisis spots currently driving the world to war, noting that the Epstein perversity demonstrates the “mindset” of genocide in Gaza, the multiple wars, and the financial bubble.

Harley Schlanger presented the third part of his profile of the Epstein class of perversity, as it is now threatening to bring down the British institutions which run the British Empire. He emphasized that this must serve as the necessary awakening for world citizens to end imperialism and the treatment of human beings as cattle.

Professor Cliff Kiracofe addressed the role of the British Empire, long a target of the LaRouche movement, as now being exposed as the force at the center of the global crisis.

Luiz Erthal, the editor-in-chief of the Brazilian newspaper Toda Palavra, discussed the role of Brazil and the BRICS in the current process of the Trump Administration’s effort to take control of Ibero-America, and to stop Russian and Chinese development projects in the region.

Further discussion addressed the extreme danger of Cuba being given the “Gaza treatment”; of the history of Franklin Roosevelt’s collaboration with Brazil and others in South America in great development projects; and the de-humanism of the British Imperial mentality of Adam Smith, John Locke and David Hume.

Questions from around the world brought up the necessity to end the imperial policy driving the Trump Administration and the European oligarchs to new wars in the Americas, the Middle East and Asia. Everyone was encouraged to attend the upcoming Schiller Institute meeting of a Roundtable of World Citizens on March 2.

Date: March 2, 2026
Panel 1: 8 a.m. (U.S. EST); 2 p.m. (Europe CET); 9 p.m. (China CST), Institutional speakers
Panel 2: 11 a.m. (U.S. EST); 5 p.m. (Europe CET); 12 a.m. (China CST), Representatives of think tanks and universities

On January 12, 2026 EIR magazine sponsored an emergency international roundtable dialogue to address the total strategic crisis, where international law had been declared “not necessary” by President Donald Trump. What has swept to the surface in the few weeks since that meeting, has opened up an even deeper abyss facing Mankind.

Even the preliminary results of the investigation into the Jeffrey Epstein scandal reveal a moral sordidness which makes Sodom and Gomorrah look pale by comparison. What is coming to the surface are the satanic axioms on which many of the present-day policies are based, from Gaza to the application of unilateral sanctions against countries in order to make life for the populations so unbearable that they rise up against their governments. For years, the knowledge about these moral cesspools existed, but nobody in the so-called “rules-based-order” remembered any rule obliging the legal authorities to investigate the crimes of this murderous self-service store, where the “unscrupulous take what they want,” as German President Steinmeier recently aptly put it.

With the New START Treaty ending on February 5, the last arms control agreement has been buried, leaving the world military situation with a dangerous lack of transparency and giving way to a new arms race, which threatens to proliferate various old and new weapons of mass destruction, and cause enormous devastation of physical economic capacity in favor of a gigantic re-militarization of many economies of the world. While the present stockpiles of nuclear weapons already have the potential to destroy all human life on the planet several times over, the new dimensions of warfare, such as space weapons, cyber warfare, the application of AI in warfighting, etc., are creating a horrifying dystopian perspective of the future, in which the only end result seems to be one of the annihilation of mankind.

And this is where the significance of the Epstein scandal comes in. How can one expect these establishments, who either participated in or remained silent and inactive vis-a-vis these satanic perversions, to all of a sudden put a screeching halt to the murderous lust of the military industrial complex and the unscrupulous speculators, who have no inhibitions about making money off of the war machine, which is killing innocent people as so-called negligible collateral damage, wherever it is ravaging?

Various regional conflicts, such as the war in Ukraine; the looming danger of a new war against Iran; the crisis around Venezuela, Cuba, Mexico, and Colombia; as well as the tensions in the Indo-Pacific and in parts of Asia, all have the potential of spiraling into a larger conflict involving the great powers and even a global nuclear war.

Out of the January 12 emergency meeting came a joint declaration and the commitment by the panelists to reach out to institutions and individuals in as many countries as possible, in order to create both an initiative to reestablish international law by creating a new global security and development architecture, which must take into account the interest of every single nation on earth, as well as initiating an international movement of world citizens who commit themselves to put the One Humanity first.

The absolute pit of human depravity of the Epstein affair is a wakeup call for the entire human species. We must absolutely reverse course and reject this bestial behavior and all the cultural influences which allowed it to become a reality over the recent decades. We have to turn to the best cultural traditions of all nations and civilizations, to the highest expressions of all of universal history, and revive them in an active dialogue of cultures, in order to initiate the most beautiful renaissance of classical culture. Only in this way can we uphold a noble image of Man as being the only species gifted with creative reason.

An international Zoom conference will be held March 2 to address these topics: the creation of a new security and development architecture; the creation of an international movement of world citizens; and the creation of a new cultural renaissance. The two-panel conference will include the participation of distinguished representatives from institutions from all over the world, as well as experts, scholars, scientists and artists.

Become an active organizer for this event. Circulate this invitation among all of your friends and colleagues, and reach out to everybody who must be part of this effort.

Date: March 2, 2026
Panel 1: 8 a.m. (U.S. EST); 2 p.m. (Europe CET); 9 p.m. (China CST), Institutional speakers
Panel 2: 11 a.m. (U.S. EST); 5 p.m. (Europe CET); 12 a.m. (China CST), Representatives of think tanks and universities

Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Schiller Institute founder and EIR Editor-in-Chief, will interview Ray McGovern (US), former Senior Analyst, U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and a Founding Member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) on the Epstein scandal to discuss whether it means that man is evil.

Wednesday, Feb 11 2026, 11am ET/5pm CET

The specter of Jeffery Epstein’s files is now stalking the highest echelons of the Western establishment, lurking, waiting to terminate the imagined honor of its next victim. The British establishment may be temporarily taking the lead, with the second member of Prime Minister Starmer’s government having resigned in just 48 hours. All the while, new efforts are being made in the U.S. Congress to un-redact the names on the existing 3-plus million files released, as well as to release the remaining millions of documents.

In discussion with associates today, Helga Zepp-LaRouche described the situation as “pre-revolutionary”—not only in the U.S. and Europe, but across the whole world. The Epstein revelations are only “the tip of the iceberg,” she said, because they actually are pointing to the “unbelievable moral decay and corruption of the Western system, especially the Western elites.” This will tend to have the effect of breaking people out of their fearful paralysis which has dominated over the recent period, thrusting them to confront the ugly realities that lay under the proverbial floorboards.

Zepp-LaRouche likened the process to “an avalanche which is not going to be stopped, because it has now reached its own dynamic of completely ripping down the entire system.” The question is how the remaining, hopefully thoughtful, members of society will respond to this pre-revolutionary situation, and whether we will muster the courage to not only replace the disgraced leaders, but also their Satanic worldview and policy framework as well.

Lyndon LaRouche, whose political assassination was repeatedly attempted by the types of creatures now highlighted among Epstein’s friends, provided a useful perspective on this during remarks to a gathering of youth in 2004:

“Now this comes to the question of how do you assess your life? Do you assess your life as bookends, and you exist only between the bookends? And therefore you have to make a pleasant reading between the bookends? Each page must be pleasure and comfort and satisfaction?…

“Or, knowing that this is the nature of man, that you are born and die, are going to die sooner or later, is it how you spend your life and to what effect for humanity that counts? All of the effective people in history were people who did that. They made that choice. They had a conception of birth and death as sort of the bookends of mortality. But they also saw in themselves something which is more than mortality. The ability to discover truth, to discover principles of the universe, to introduce these to humanity. To pass them on to humanity to be used by present or by future generations for the benefit of mankind, in the sense that you live in creating the future of mankind. You live by bringing forth from the past. You correct the injustices of the past. Truth was fought for in the past by civilizations that were crushed, by people that were crushed. When you do something to bring justice to the dead, even thousands of years later, you are doing something that makes your life important. Because you’re not only bringing justice to them, you’re preserving and putting into perspective the importance of what they did for tomorrow.”

Feb. 6, 2026 (EIRNS)—The 140th consecutive weekly meeting of the International Peace Coalition (IPC) on Friday, Feb. 6, took up the question of the latest revelations from the files on the Jeffrey Epstein case, and elevated the discussion to consider how to improve the moral character of humanity as part of the IPC mission to efficiently end the danger of war.

Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche led off by noting that the last remaining nuclear arms control treaty, New START, had expired on the previous day, and it is unclear whether any agreement will replace it. There is a big U.S. Naval armada assembling in the Persian Gulf region, which could presage a strike on Iran and create “unforeseeable consequences.” There is also an “impending Damocles sword” of a general collapse of the financial system. The IPC response includes renewed efforts to re-establish international law, based on the UN Charter, but what is absolutely required is the new global governance system embodied in the Ten Principles put forward by Zepp-LaRouche.

She went on to describe the new environment created by the recent release of additional Epstein files, which she compared to the “Clean Hands” operation in Italy, which was used by the security services to “totally blow up” an existing corrupt system and replace it with an updated version of the same thing. What is actually needed is nothing short of a new Renaissance, and perhaps her proposed global security and development architecture should be updated to include a cultural renewal.

Diane Sare, U.S. independent LaRouche presidential candidate, began by citing the Sept. 2, 1945 remarks by General Douglas MacArthur aboard the USS Missouri after receiving the surrender of Japan, who said that the moral character of humanity must catch up with our incredible advances in science, lest we destroy ourselves with nuclear weapons. She has made three policy proposals:

1.) The United States must declare a doctrine of “no first use” of nuclear weapons, and require that every nuclear-armed nation, including emphatically Israel, must also so declare.

2.) We need a new security and economic development architecture, including a reform of the UN Security Council to reflect the growing influence of the nations of the Global South.

3.) We must join with Russia to build the Bering Strait Tunnel linking Alaska to Siberia, and take up Russia’s Oct. 2011 “Strategic Defense of Earth” proposal to jointly build a system capable of protecting the planet both from missile threats and from threats coming from outer space, such as asteroids.

Sare shared the recent TASS coverage of her presidential campaign, noting her call for a new START Treaty and her association with Lyndon LaRouche, who was widely respected in Russia. She said that people are looking for signs of intelligent life in the United States.

Starting from Scratch on Arms Control

A video presentation by Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector, recounted his experience as the first U.S. weapons inspector on the ground in the Soviet Union to implement the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty of Dec. 1987 and his role in the development of onsite inspections, which help to establish mutual trust. Even though the New START Treaty regulating strategic nuclear weapons only ended on Feb. 5, 2026, Ritter said that there have been no inspections related to the treaty since 2022, due to sanctions, and no data exchange since 2023. This means “we’re starting from scratch…. Nobody trusts American negotiators.” The world we live in today is one where the threat of nuclear war is greater than it was at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis. “We need a leader, and I believe that leader is Diane Sare,” Ritter concluded.

Garland Nixon, veteran progressive radio and television talk show host, who had spent over 20 years in law enforcement, commented on the release of the Epstein files “through the eyes of an investigator.” He said that we should understand that this is a controlled release, designed to emphasize some things and de-emphasize others, so some level of skepticism is appropriate. He said that the revelations of Epstein’s connections to the British Crown are significant, and validate what the LaRouche movement has said for decades about the British Crown’s perfidious role in global politics.

Zepp-LaRouche, in response, asked Nixon to comment on the analogy of the released Epstein files to the “Clean Hands” operation in Italy. He suggested that the Epstein affair is different, because “once it got out of the bag, they lost control.” Sare added that the question is whether human beings are animals, and if they are not, we must find a way to use the revelations to advance our civilization. Nixon called this “a crisis of legitimacy for the ruling elite,” which shows them to be morally unqualified to lead. “How now do we take advantage of an opportunity,” he asked, to replace a rotten system with an actually better one? Zepp-LaRouche said that we must “shed off oligarchism, because this is what this is all about.”

IPC co-moderator Dennis Speed asked Nixon to comment on the role of his mentor, author and historian Paul Robeson, Jr. (1927-2014). Nixon replied by saying that we must rebuild the legacy of Robeson’s father, the noted actor, singer and activist Paul Robeson (1898-1976), in order to “bring the Black community out of this brainwashed anti-Russian” outlook that has been fostered by the Democratic Party apparatchiks.

Nixon went on to describe how Christine Maxwell, twin sister of Jeffrey Epstein’s partner Ghislaine Maxwell, cofounded in the early 1990s Magellan, one of the first internet search engines. He noted that Christine later founded Chiliad, a data analysis company based in Herndon, VA, whose software was used by the FBI to establish a counterterrorism data warehouse after the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attack.

Zepp-LaRouche observed that, in the present political structure of the Anglosphere, corruption is considered mandatory, because corrupt people can be reliably controlled, and people who are not corrupt are a potential threat to the system. With the Epstein revelations, “the gutter of this whole system comes out in the open.”

A brief excerpt from a video interview with former Guyanese President Donald Ramotar, conducted on Feb. 3 by IPC co-moderator and EIR Ibero-American editor Dennis Small, was featured. Ramotar warns that world opinion has not grasped the significance of the expiration of the New START Treaty; “the consciousness is lagging behind the danger” of nuclear war.

Discussion

A peace activist from Germany returned to the question of a cultural renaissance, sharing her experience of attending an event in Berlin for the Chinese Spring Festival, in which a Chinese tenor movingly sang a Lied by Schubert. She also congratulated Nixon for his work to call attention to the importance of Paul Robeson.

In response to another question, Diane Sare described the American population’s changed response to the question of space exploration as a symptom of cultural decline, optimism supplanted by pessimism.

Zepp-LaRouche said that we must “aim to bring politics and economics into increasing cohesion with the laws of the universe.” When you go to a museum, you see evidence of cultures that did not make it, because they failed to do this. As Nicholas of Cusa emphasized, pleasures of the flesh do not satisfy the human spirit: “you will like the sweetness of truth better than a stuffed goose.”

In response to a participant who called for the impeachment of U.S. President Donald Trump, co-moderator Dennis Small insisted that “the idea of impeaching Donald Trump is insufficiently ambitious … let’s think really big,” by replacing the entire bankrupt system, rather than just focusing on the person in the White House. His view was echoed by Sare, who added that we must give people a positive vision of the future, “an actual human standard.”

A question posed by another participant sparked an extensive discussion of Friedrich Schiller’s conception of man, as opposed to that of Immanuel Kant. Zepp-LaRouche described a singer who sang well, but misbehaved in his personal life. She jokingly urged the singer to reduce the interval between songs to a minimum in order to improve his moral character, underscoring Schiller’s conception of how exposure to beauty can educate the emotions to produce the “beautiful soul.”

In conclusion, Zepp-LaRouche urged that we use “the moment of catharsis”—which we are experiencing with the Epstein event—to launch a new Renaissance. She stressed that “practical” proposals which lack the proper epistemological basis are doomed to fail.

EIR

The latest warning of the danger in allowing the New START (strategic arms reduction) Treaty to expire on Thursday, Feb. 5, with no negotiations process underway between the United States and Russia for arms control and reduction, comes from Dmitry Medvedev, who signed the treaty in 2010, when he was President of the Russian Federation. He said in an interview, published on Feb. 2 in many media, including Reuters and TASS: “I don’t want to say that this (letting the New START Treaty expire) immediately means a catastrophe and a nuclear war will begin, but it should still alarm everyone. The clocks are ticking, and they obviously have to speed up.” U.S. President Donald Trump, despite occasional references to the danger, never replied to the September 2025 proposal offered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, to continue talks past the expiration date of Feb. 5, 2026. Even at the last second, it would be welcome news if commitment to talks were announced.

On Feb. 5 in the United States, newly announced candidate for President of the United States Diane Sare will hold an online press availability to focus American and world attention on what is at stake. The event “For a New, New START” will include guest Scott Ritter, former UN weapons inspector and expert on arms control.

Also circulating internationally is the “Declaration of January 12: Let Us Create a Movement of World Citizens!” which warns of “a new dark age, or even a global nuclear war,” if the “so-called principle that ‘might makes right’” is allowed to stand.

What is outstanding, along with the epic danger of today’s situation, is that millions more people, and many more nations, are seeing that might does not make right.

Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder, addressed this shift, with the analogy of the two-edged sword. The lawless acts of belligerence in recent months—from the U.S. intervention in Venezuela and punishment of Cuba, to the European so-called elite, refusing to back a settlement of the Ukraine conflict—are resulting in a blow-back of opposition. People seek a New Paradigm. Zepp-LaRouche reported that the openness around “the follow-up of the Jan. 12 Emergency Roundtable is absolutely unprecedented…. The call that we need a new system of global governance which must take into account the interests of every country on the planet is becoming a whole chorus of voices. The people are absolutely ready to accept that.”

In this context, there is a surge of diplomacy to be noted, although no solutions are guaranteed. As of the time of writing of this bulletin, talks between representatives of Iran and the United States may take place in Istanbul on Friday, Feb. 6. This schedule comes from evening media reports. Talks between Ukraine and Russia, with the United States represented, are set for Abu Dhabi on Feb. 4-5. This was reported by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov on Feb. 2.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, slated to meet with U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff in Turkiye, conferred on Feb. 1 in calls with the foreign ministers of Egypt, Saudi Arabia and Turkiye. The Jordanian government issued the warning on Feb. 2 that its airspace is off limits to any potential attack on Iran.

While seeing this evil and danger, we remind ourselves that people are human and can grasp that there is a crisis, and there are solutions. Zepp-LaRouche on Feb. 2 spoke of how, today, “the dynamic is going in the direction of a different system of cooperation among nations, obviously superior to brute force, and ‘might makes right.’”

Circulate and make use of the newly-posted sign-up page on the January 12 Declaration.

A clip of the presentation given by Graham Fuller at an earlier meeting of the IPC was played in tribute to our dear friend who died this past week. Graham was also eulogized by Dennis Speed, who described Fuller’s development as a leading foreign policy thinker and “world citizen” through his work as a leading CIA official, and later as a member of the Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).

The next speaker was Lt. Col. Anthony Aquilar, who, after serving in the Special Forces for 25 years went to work in Gaza with the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF), supposedly to help feed the Palestinian people being killed and tortured in Gaza. Aquilar distinguished himself by becoming a whistle blower around the world, exposing that the GHF was serving as part of the continuing genocide against the people of Gaza. He said he had just returned from Minneapolis where he had campaigned for the abolition of ICE and the abolition of the Patriot Act. The killing and brutal suppression of citizens taking place in Minneapolis was a “boomerang” effect from the multiple wars being carried out around the world, just as Malcolm X had warned that the War in Vietnam was “coming home to roost.” The violence he saw by ICE in Minnesota, he said, was just like the violence he saw in Gaza against the Palestinians. He blamed the poor training and the incompetent leadership, warning that there were already plans under way to extend the operation to Ohio, Georgia and elsewhere. He said he is now running for Congress in North Carolina, because he wants to “serve the people.” He had been speaking and meeting with members of Congress and found them wanting, and that people must try to serve the people, not the military industrial complex or the financial institutions. He said the Patriot Act had opened the gate to expansion, through executive orders, to an emerging police state.  “It is time to replace the government,” he said, and called on everyone to take action, to run for office, to speak out, to write – to see this as a “great moment of opportunity.”

Josephine Guilbeau, a retired Army intelligence officer, and a member of the Eisenhower Media Network, has also spoken out against the genocide in Gaza, and also travelled to Minneapolis to protest the brutality and killing by the ICE operation there.  She reported that she was arrested in Minneapolis, but was never charged, and was never read her rights, contrary to the Constitution. She said there was essentially no rioting, no damage, yet the ICE response was “military style operations designed for foreign wars, counter insurgency, military suppression before any dialogue.” She warned that there was a “fear society” being created, which was “incompatible with a free society.” The global war on terror was being applied within the U.S.. “I am not speaking out of anger, but out of responsibility,” she said, to prevent the U.S. becoming a “police state, like Gaza.”

Diane Sare of the Schiller Institute, who is a declared independent presidential candidate, reported that she is holding a press conference, the day that the New START treaty expires, noting that Russia’s Medvedev said that this will be the first time in 50 years that there will be no arms control in effect, allowing for a “nuclear gain of function.” Joining her in the press conference will be Scott Ritter and Garland Nixon. She will call for the U.S. to accept Vladimir Putin’s offer to extend the New START treaty for one year while a new treaty is worked out. Trump has given no response to this offer. She is also calling for a “No First Strike” pledge, for the U.S. and for all countries, “including Israel.”

Helga responded to the reports by Aquilar and Guilbeau by asserting that the problem is “vision of man.” It was the British so-called “philosophers” like Thomas Hobbes who argued that man was an animal who required to be restrained by a “Leviathan,” which is why the American Revolution was fought against the British Empire. The ideas of the American Founding Fathers were based on Leibniz, that every man had the right to live a fulfilled, productive life.

Jose Vega, an independent candidate for Congress in the Bronx, which is the “poorest Congressional district in the U.S. ,” asked Aquilar and Guilbeau to comment on the town hall meeting they attended with Jose in the Bronx the night before. Aquilar said that seeing the destruction of the living conditions in the Bronx, while billions of dollars are being spent on war and killing people in Gaza and elsewhere, is “a betrayal of the American people. “Just stop funding wars,” he said, and “audit the Department of Defense.” Guilbeau added that the people attending the meeting understood this.

Diane Sare quoted from an article written by Lyndon LaRouche in 1999 at the time of the Columbine High School mass shooting by two students, titled “Star Wars and Littleton”. There were two factors involved, he wrote – one was the dehumanization that was inculcated in the population through Hollywood, such as the movie Star Wars with non-human characters, the second was the idea of a “rules based order,” in which the “rules” were dictated from authorities, with the idea that breaking the “rules” could be punished, even by death. She compared this to the use of tariffs and sanctions against countries, like the sanctions on Cuba which are intended to starve them and leave them without electricity. America was intended to be governed by Natural law, as embedded in the Constitution.

Former president of Guyana Donald Ramotar praised the former members of the military who were standing up, adding that he perceives that people are changing, they don’t want war or the military industrial complex.

A question was submitted asking why the IPC praises the American Revolution, since it was based on slavery and the genocide against the Indians.    

Diane Sare said that was not the basis of the Revolution, but part of the reason people think that is that the histories have generally been written by the “losers – the British.” Hamilton and others knew the nation could not develop with a slave society, and encouraged people to read Hamilton and other Founders.  Helga added that the view from the Global South could be seen in the Bandung Conference, where Sukarno said that the American Revolution was “the first anti-imperialist revolution in history.” The British never forgave the colonials for their revolt, and tried to destroy it militarily in the War of 1812 and then by supporting the Confederacy against President Lincoln. “This is also why the German Friedrich List promoted the American System against the British System.

Dennis Small reviewed the catastrophic condition of the global debt bubble, now over $2.4 quadrillion in debt and derivatives, and ridiculed the Trump claim that tariff income will bail out the nation, showing both that the total tariff income is a fraction of the amount Trump was claiming, and that  a full 96% of that tariff was actually being paid by the American people through increased prices, while manufacturing continues to collapse.

A nation can endure hardship, disagreement, and even bitter factional conflict—and still remain a republic. What it cannot survive is the steady replacement of law with raw force, until “authority” means nothing more than whichever armed agency arrives first. America is now witnessing, in real time, what it looks like when the Executive claims powers the Constitution never granted, while Congress stares, stunned, as if the words on the page were only ceremonial.

And yet something new is breaking through the fog: a real and broad backlash against the accelerating abuses. The expanded ICE deployments, the street clashes, the mistaken arrests, and the deadly raids are no longer being processed as “tough policy,” but as a rupture in the very idea of the republic. When the public can no longer tell whether elections are fair; when domestic “law enforcement” becomes indistinguishable from foreign occupation; when even basic rights of speech are treated as deportable offenses—then the country itself is coming undone.

This is the deeper danger hiding behind the day’s headlines: not only the shock of Minneapolis, nor the unsealed records of students targeted for their protected speech, nor the ongoing threats against Canada’s sovereignty, nor the propaganda drumbeat for war with Iran—but the emergence of a single, unifying principle across them all: might makes right. Abroad, it looks like seizure and intimidation. At home, it looks like a creeping constitutional vacuum filled by federal power grabs.

But there is a limit to a tyrant’s power—not because tyrants restrain themselves, but because reality eventually refuses to cooperate. Stauffacher expresses this in Schiller’s play Wilhelm Tell:

Yes! there’s a limit to the tyrant’s power!

When the oppressed looks round in vain for justice,

When his sore burden may no more be borne,

With fearless heart he makes appeal to Heaven,

And thence brings down his everlasting rights

Which there abide, inalienably his,

And indestructible as are the stars.

From the time of the American Revolution, through the War of 1812 and the Civil War, that “tyrant” was the British Empire, which ruled through military might, financial domination, and manipulation.

The question before the United States, entering the 250th anniversary of its founding, is whether we will merely condemn the swamp—endlessly describing the qualities of the mud, the anatomy of the parasites—or grasp the rope being thrown to us: a new paradigm worthy of the republic’s promise, grounded not in simple libertarian protest, but in the best intellectual tradition that shaped America itself: the Leibnizian idea that the purpose of government is the advancement of the general welfare, and the creative powers of the human mind.

That is why the Declaration of January 12 is not a “commentary” on the crisis, but a pathway out: a movement of world citizens, acting to restore international law, pursue international growth on the basis of physical economy, and build genuine development corridors—rather than lurching, outrage by outrage, into a new dark age.

There is a limit to the power of empire. The question is whether we choose, now, to install a new paradigm. Let us create a movement of world citizens!

After convening on January 12, 2026 in an international virtual emergency roundtable dialogue, we the undersigned have issued this appeal to the world community. We join together to catalyze actions we believe must be taken to avert the plunge of human civilization into a potentially fatal catastrophe.

With the beginning of the year 2026, the world has moved into a new phase. International law is being abolished and replaced by the law of the jungle, by the so-called principle that “might makes right.” This complete breakdown of even the pretense of any adherence to a world order based on real principles of law threatens to escalate various regional conflicts into a new dark age, or even a global nuclear war.

For example: after the repeated commission of acts of piracy against the nation of Venezuela, and the kidnapping of the head of a sovereign country, we now have the announcement of the planned invasions and theft of natural resources of more countries such as Cuba, Mexico, Colombia, Iran, and possibly others, and territories such as Greenland. A militarization not seen in approximately 90 years evokes the panorama of a coming new world war, while the Western-dominated financial system, now almost entirely severed from the real economy, is threatened with a systemic meltdown even worse than the crisis of 2008.

The fig-leaf of “humanitarian interventions” and defense of the “rules-based order” has been entirely dropped in favor of an openly demonstrated aggressive imperialism and neocolonialism. So-called “Western values” are betrayed in favor of the threadbare illusion that there is any legitimacy left after those values have been buried. The absence of any efficient statecraft, and the use of military and economic force as a replacement of diplomacy as a means of conflict resolution, has led to the failure of post-World War II institutions such as the United Nations Security Council and the UN General Assembly. The failure to enforce the decisions of the highest courts, such as the International Court of Justice (ICJ), has left genocide, war crimes and crimes against humanity unpunished.

This deplorable condition of current affairs requires an urgent intervention, both by institutions, and the world’s people of good will. We therefore propose the creation of a World Civil Society Initiative, to work together with religious organizations and other civil groups, and the UN as a central partner, in order to uphold the UN Charter and the 1954 Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence. Its immediate foci, among others, must be:

• The urgent convening of an international conference to discuss the principles for a New International Security and Development Architecture, and

• The creation of teams to work on aspects of the reconstruction of the world system. For example:

• a) the elaboration of a “World Land-Bridge,” of economic development corridors for every continent;
• b) the creation of ad hoc teams which must condemn the brazen foreign intervention into the internal affairs of Venezuela, and any similar interventions into the internal affairs of sovereign states in any part of the world, as well as the ongoing genocide in Gaza and similar violations of human dignity elsewhere;
• c) the reorganization of the world financial system, including the creation of national banks for every country, and a new payment system devoted to the physical economy;
• d) the revival of the best traditions of each world culture or civilization; and the encouragement of dialogue among them to promote
• e) the exploration of new methods of thinking designed to establish a new paradigm in human history, such as the method of the Coincidence of Opposites.

An Immediate Action Group to implement this outlook is hereby constituted. It is open to representatives of any organization/institution, as well as to individuals, who wish to participate in the creation of a worldwide civil society initiative committed to the interest of the one humanity, and to guarantee the adhesion of a reformed UN to that ideal. It should be up to the respective representatives of all nations to determine what is the appropriate nonviolent direct action in the tradition of Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., and Nelson Mandela in their country.

Let us create a movement of world citizens!

Initiating signers:

• Helga Zepp-LaRouche (Germany), Schiller Institute founder, EIR Editor-in-Chief

• Dr. Naledi Pandor (South Africa), former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation and current chair of the Nelson Mandela Foundation Board of Trustees

• Zhang Weiwei (China), Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai and Director of its China Institute

• Dmitri Trenin (Russia), Director and Academic Supervisor of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the HSE University in Moscow

• Donald Ramotar (Guyana), former President of Guyana

• María de los Ángeles Huerta del Río (Mexico), former Mexican Congresswoman

• Namit Verma (India), Indian author and security analyst

• Dennis Small (United States), EIR Ibero-America Editor

• Lt. Col. (ret.) Ralph Bosshard (Switzerland), former military advisor to the OSCE Secretary General

Press Release: EIR Emergency Roundtable Mobilizes Global Response To ‘Bring the World Back from the Brink’

EIR Emergency Roundtable HIGHLIGHTS — The Attack on Venezuela & How to Bring the World Back —

EIR Coverage of Experts’ Speeches at EIR Roundtable:
Emergency Roundtable Mobilizes Global Response To ‘Bring the World Back from the Brink’

The 138^th consecutive meeting of the International Peace Coalition opened with remarks by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder and initiator of the International Peace Coalition. She discussed the implications of President Trump’s speech at Davos, during which he made clear his disdain for international law. She deplored his “typical mafioso-like” statements on Iran.

However, she said, the metaphorical glass is half-full, “maybe more than half-full”, in light of the meeting between Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff with Vladimir Putin in Moscow on January 22, 2026, aimed at advancing a U.S.-backed peace plan to end the war in Ukraine.  The meeting was described by the Kremlin as “useful” and “constructive.” What is important is that there is an ongoing dialogue, and the “spirit of Anchorage” has not fallen by the wayside. “If this is continued, it really could shift the balance,” Zepp-LaRouche said.

Russia will provide $1 billion for the reconstruction of Gaza. Putin also joked about the invitation by Trump to join his “Peace Council” with a $1 billion membership fee, saying, “I will pay the one billion, and you can take it out of the frozen assets.” Putin has made the offer to extend the last arms control treaty, START, which is due to expire in a few weeks. There has been no response yet from Trump.

Zepp-LaRouche reviewed some positive initiatives, and praised a new proposal from a French group: a petition to return to the founding charter of the UN, which will be reviewed, edited by IPC participants and brought back for a vote next week.

She was followed by Dr. Ted Postol, MIT Professor Emeritus and one of the world’s leading experts on nuclear weapons.  He analyzed “the mythical idea of Golden Dome,” Trump’s proclaimed plan for anti-missile defense. It involves orbiting satellites with interceptors to catch ICBMs in boost phase. “Implicit in this idea is understanding that the existing ground-based systems have little or no capability,” since they can’t tell the difference between warheads and the hundreds of decoys which are deployed during the descent phase. Orbiting satellites have less than three minutes to intercept in boost phase, when the missile velocity is relatively slow and no decoys have yet been released. Their orbit must be low enough to maximize that window of opportunity, which will cause atmospheric drag and the lifespan of the satellite will only be about six years before it falls to earth. You would need 1100-1200 satellites in orbit to even think about an interception of one ICBM. The system scales 1000 to 1 – for a launch of 100 missiles, 120,000 satellites. You could “punch a hole in the Golden Dome satellite constellation” with an interceptor launched from below, “and your launch would go unopposed.”

Postol expressed his concern that “something is different about Trump in the past few months… something more extreme.” He said that some people have suggested that he may have had a minor stroke. “We have a criminal government right now in control of the United States.”

In response to Postol’s demolition of the Golden Dome scheme, Zepp-LaRouche asked, why is there no one in Trump’s team that will tell him this is unworkable? Postol said that people follow orders, they don’t ask questions. What followed was an exchange about the difference between Lyndon LaRouche’s conception of the Strategic Defense Initiative based on “new physical principles”, as opposed to what Reagan’s program became under the influence of LaRouche’s opponents.

Jens Jorgen Nielsen is the Former Moscow correspondent for the Danish daily Politiken, and an author of books on Russia and Ukraine, as well as being Director of the Russian-Danish Dialogue and assistant professor of communication and cultural differences. He addressed the issue of Trump’s desired annexation of Greenland, stressing that Greenland has its own government and people there are very concerned about the possibility of being occupied by US. Some factions there are calling for immediate independence from Denmark; what would Trump do under those circumstances? Most Danes and Greenlanders were not reassured that U.S. President Donald Trump and NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte reached an agreement over Greenland at the World Economic Forum that did not include them.

A short excerpt was presented from a video interview with Alberto Vizcarra, a leader of the National Front for Saving Mexican Agriculture. He described the dire state of Mexican agriculture, where exports have collapsed due to neoliberal economic policies. He went on to review the past proposals of LaRouche for projects in the mutual interests of Mexico and the US.
Daniel Burke of the Schiller Institute announced a new international youth class series. He called the youth movement a “crucial strategic flank.”

Discussion

There was a further exchange between Zepp-LaRouche and Nielsen on what Nielsen calls a “law-based order” as opposed to a “rules-based order. Zepp-LaRouche suggested that “rules-based order” sounds like it is based on something arbitrary. They agreed that the abrogation of treaties, combined with the possible stationing of medium-range missiles in Europe, puts the world on edge.

One participant asked how we can we organize against ICE. This provoked several responses. Co-moderator Dennis Speed observed that America has long been a plaything of intelligence agencies, particularly British. What is going on in Minnesota is closely tied to the debacles in US foreign policy. To break from the downward spiral, we need action which is not merely non-violent, but which also poses solutions. The other IPC co-moderator, Dennis Small, stated that the only reason immigration is an issue is that US foreign policy has wrecked the economies of our neighbors to the south, causing waves of refugees.

Regular participant John Steinbach noted that nuclear weapons are never defensive in nature, and ABM systems are intended to block retaliation after a first strike.

Returning to the question of Greenland, Dennis Small said that the question of the Arctic is not merely a military one. It is a golden opportunity for international collaboration on economic development.

Zepp-LaRouche commented that Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s speech at Davos has received much favorable attention, but it is a disguised reflection of Chatham House line. She said that he “stated something that was obvious, that rules-based order is a fraud.” However, the he people who are praising him are oblivious to economics, because he was the author of the “reset” policy.

In her concluding remarks, Zepp-LaRouche reported that out of the recent EIR seminar, titled “It’s Worse Than You Think: The Strategic Implications of the Attack on Venezuela and How To Bring the World Back from the Brink,” we have put together a committee that will take responsibility to organize globally for a new paradigm. She announced that it will operate under the slogan, “Citizens of the World Unite.”

The egos of those who run Davos annual flight from reality would have you believe that there will be a real, free exchange of ideas there.  In reality it is an exercise in control, with fake alternatives presented, all within the containment of the City of London’s imperial geopolitics.  Will Donald Trump change that?  Let’s see if he will denounce London’s control over the world economy through “financialization”, and embrace cooperation with the BRICS nations, based on the ideas of the American System as advanced by Lyndon LaRouche.

The greatest danger confronting the United States today, and much of the trans-Atlantic world, is not that it lacks resources, talent, or scientific capacity. It is that it no longer believes in the human mind—in the unique power of human beings to discover new physical principles, transform nature, and improve the conditions of life for generations yet unborn.

As Lyndon LaRouche once stated the issue bluntly: Do Americans still believe, in any significant way, that man is different than an animal? He posed this question at a 2004 event honoring Martin Luther King, Jr.:

Our teaching, we don’t teach that. Look at our standard curriculum. … What our education policies are now, nationally, are a crime. You don’t know anything—you learn to pass a test!…

We’re no longer concerned. We don’t believe, as a nation—we don’t believe in developing people! We have become like Rome, ancient Rome, a society of “bread and circuses.” Get your crumbs, and be entertained. …

For example, today, do people work? Is their mentality one of working? Do they believe in work? Do they believe the society gives them the opportunity to work? No. It doesn’t. It gives them the opportunity to get some money. …

The mentality of the country is that if you’re getting lucky, and winning the lottery, and winning at the track, that you’re getting ahead. Even though your industry is collapsing, your farm is gone, the city government can no longer afford to take care of your essential needs: We’ve gone into becoming a gambling society.

We rely on what? Mass entertainment! … Isn’t this something you really should be ashamed of?

We no longer regard human beings as human. We no longer understand what is human.

Against that civilizational decay comes the view of human identity implicit in today’s news report from China: The drive for controlled nuclear fusion is approaching a decisive phase, with major procurements underway and serious industry leaders now projecting net fusion gain and electricity generation by around 2030. Fusion, they insist, is no longer merely a physics experiment—it is becoming an engineering project, with industrial planning, real investment horizons, and the intention to make it economically viable.

This is what a society looks like when it is organized around the future. Not the future of quarterly profits, social-media hysteria, or geopolitical theatrics—but the future of human civilization itself. A nation committed to fusion is a nation committed to the idea that progress is real, that development is possible, and that the dignity of labor and discovery is not a slogan, but a mission.

Will the United States, and other nations of NATO, reclaim the moral and intellectual courage to take on such missions? To build a world defined not by empire and manipulation, but by cooperation in great projects worthy of the human species?

What we see coming from the White House is not leadership. It’s King Lear: a hollowed-out authoritarian demanding loyalty while the kingdom sunders, surrounded by flatterers, prone to tantrums and misjudgments, and confusing spectacle for legitimacy. Martin Luther King was the opposite species: not a performer hunting applause, but a servant of a mission, rooted in the forgotten men and women, measuring power by uplifting the least, and absolutely refusing the cop-out of “going along to get along.” As LaRouche put it: “As a leader … you have to find within yourself the strength not to flinch. Not to compromise.”

We need the moral courage to know that life is a talent, and that the only authority worth having is that which comes with improving the lives of others.

That authority is demonstrated in the highlight video EIR has released of its Jan.12 roundtable. That authority is demonstrated in the campaign of LaRouche independent candidate Diane Sare, running for the office of President of the United States.

Will we choose to become truly human?