The Fuse Is Lit For World War III!

This article appears in the December 2, 2011 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Mike Billington

The Fuse Is Lit For World War III!

by Helga Zepp-LaRouche

[PDF version of this article, plus documentation]

Nov. 26—"Gentlemen, this may turn into a Seven Years, or even a Thirty Years War—and woe to him who would be the first to throw his spark into the powderkeg!" So warned the 90-year-old Chief of Staff General Count von Moltke the Elder in his last speech before the German Parliament, on May 14, 1890, shortly after the expulsion of Otto von Bismarck from the Chancellorship. And von Moltke was vindicated: A new World War broke out, like the Seven Years War: the so-called First World War. Were Von Moltke alive today, he would, in view of the build-up in Southwest Asia, probably issue a variant upon his earlier warning: "Woe to us all, if this powderkeg blows!"

The preparations for a military intervention against Syria and a preventive strike against Iran are at this point so far advanced, that they may already have happened before these words reach the reader. The U.S. Administration has called upon all U.S. citizens to leave Syria, has recalled its ambassador, and has re-positioned the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77) from the Hormuz Strait, close to Syria in the Eastern Mediterranean. Officially, the U.S. Navy has said the carrier is merely "stopping for a break on its way back to the USA."

The United States and Great Britain have officially declared that they will no longer adhere to the confidence-building measures that were part of the Treaty on Conventional Armed Forces in Europe (CFE), arguing that Russia hasn't kept its part. This means that the U.S.A. and the U.K. will no longer inform Russia on their plans for troop deployments in Europe. After first signing the CFE in 1990, and renewing it in 1999, Russia had suspended the Treaty in 2007, when the U.S. announced that it was setting up a missile defense system in Eastern Europe, along the Russian border.

The director of the Center for Military Prognoses, Anatoly Zyganok, told Pravda.ru that this means that from now on, the U.S. could station troops wherever it wished, without ever notifiying Russia—i.e., in the Baltic States, Poland, the Czech Republic, or Hungary. Already, a treaty dating back to the era of German reunification, stating that NATO forces would not cross the Oder River, has been totally ignored. According to Zyganok, the recent decision on the violation of the CFE Treaty is connected to the developments in the Mediterranean, as well as NATO's intention to build up a military capability south of the Russian border, with which to execute a military strike against Syria.
'A New War Is Almost Inevitable'

What is really behind this dramatic escalation? Is it really only about the apparent repression of the "rebels" by "dictator" Bashir al-Assad?

The prominent Russian TV journalist Maxim Shevchenko wrote an article Nov. 25 with the title, "A New War Is Almost Inevitable," published by the news service Novy Region. Shevchenko belongs to the government-sponsored "Public Chamber." In Shevchenko's view, the announcement by President Dmitri Medvedev—that Russia will point its Iskander-Class ground-to-ground rockets stationed in Kaliningrad at the planned U.S. missile defense systems in Eastern Europe if no agreement is reached [see Documentation]—as well as the ultimatum that the Arab League has given to Syria, are "the rumblings of the oncoming thunder of a Third World War." The seriousness of the orders given by the commander-in-chief of the Russian Armed Forces, Shevchenko says, show without doubt, that a war is as good as inevitable, and we "have the duty to be prepared for it."

Shevchenko continues that the deployment of three Russian warships to Syrian waters must be seen in this context, and, although it wouldn't prevent a NATO strike against Syria, could make it less probable. It's one thing to attack a defenseless Syria, he wrote, but it's quite another, to deal with Russian ships equipped with radar systems, that can pass on data about incoming NATO jets and rockets. It has been realized, that the threat is directed towards the Russian Federation, and that this threat comes from NATO, and not from Iran or North Korea.
Anti-War Mobilization

Since the debate on an Israeli preventive strike against Iranian nuclear facilities and the controversial International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) report on an ostensible nuclear weapons program broke out into the public, and Lyndon LaRouche placed these developments in the context of a threatened World War III, strong reactions against this have erupted in many countries. Within the United States itself, active and retired military have made clear that such a war is seen as unwinnable and against the fundamental interests of the United States.

The military leaders of Russia and China, who reacted strongly against President Obama's assertion of leadership in Asia, are determined to make clear to all that they will not sit idly by while Syria and Iran are attacked, but rather, have begun a very serious mobilization to block such attacks. Both Russia and China have realized that the real targets are not Syria and Iran, but they themselves. Therefore, any capitulation to American, British, or NATO attacks on these two states would lead to such an escalation of warfare, that nuclear weapons would be deployed and would lead to their own destruction.

It was exactly in the interest of blocking this insane dynamic that President Medvedev made his statement, and Russian Army Chief of Staff Nikolai Makarov warned that Russia could be pulled into regional wars, which could expand into a great war, and that the real threat is a global, thermonuclear war [see Documentation].

During his recent trip to Moldavia, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Russian leaders see the escalation in Southwest Asia as an attempt on the part of certain circles in the West, to undermine the new centers of strong economic growth in the Asia-Pacific region, and to compensate for their own loss of influence by means of such "irresponsible and provocative" actions.

It could not be more clear: Russia, China and many others have come to the conclusion, that the failed system of globalization is reacting to its collapsing power just as empires have always reacted in the past: by starting wars.
The Seven Years War

The model for the Third World War that threatens us now, is the Seven Years War (1756-63), which was fought out in Europe, North America, India, the Caribbean, and all the oceans of the world, and was thus the first real World War. It ended with the consolidation of the British Empire as the largest colonial power in history.

The method by which the British Empire has maintained its position since then, has been its special repertoire: to create conflicts amongst nations to one's own advantage, to allow them to grind each other down; to rule by the maxim of "divide and conquer," by inciting potential enemies using irregular warfare, and by long-term placement of agents of influence to orchestrate seemingly objective events; to control the financial markets; and the financing of rebels, who must be saved from destruction by use of mercenary armies in "humanitarian interventions." Contrary to the views of the views of the ignoramuses of current affairs, this British Empire actually never ceased to exist, but lives on in the guise of what is generally referred to as "globalization."

This is the context, which the prophetic General von Moltke recognized, when he spelled out the dynamic that came to be known as the pre-history of World War I, and which also led to World War II, as it was the mutual grinding-down of Germany and Russia that the financiers of Adolf Hitler intended. And it is the context for today, in which there apparently are forces that would rather risk extinguishing all human civilization, than to accept the dynamic development of powerful nations in Asia, while the trans-Atlantic region sinks into chaos.
The Last Option: Money-Printing?

The only thing left for the United States, within the currently collapsing system, is nothing but so-called "quantitative easing," that is, money-printing. And that is exactly the same recipe, literally in green, which the proponents of a supranational Europe, Barroso, van Rompuy, and Monti, as well as Schäuble and Fischer, want to put on the table as the last option. The European Central Bank is supposed to become the lender of last resort, therefore a "Bad Bank," and to print money; and Eurobonds should convert the EU completely into a transfer union, whereby the savings of the Germans will be liberally transferred to save the banks and speculators. If things proceed this way, hyperinflation and a collapse into chaos are pre-programmed. Therefore, the advocates of empire conclude, better to stage a war, bringing the coalition of the willing, and not so willing, under control.

The United States had better take care that the Nobel Peace Prize recipient who currently sits in the White House is removed from office by impeachment proceedings for his violations of the Constitution, before it is too late.

In Europe, it is high time to concede that the euro experiment has failed—because it had to fail. Certainly what is looming now—a strongly integrated core Europe with a loosely knit second-class Europe, altered EU treaties, which again will be fudged only through tricks behind the backs of the population—all that will not prevent the catastrophe.

There is only one straightforward and viable way out: to decisively eliminate the idea that an empire shall rule the world into the endless future, in the form of globalization, which only serves to maximize the profits and power of a small oligarchical elite, in the form of an EU dictatorship, which functions as sort of a regional branch of this empire.

Perhaps there is still a very small interval for realizing, in time, a global, two-tiered banking system [on the Glass-Steagall model], and achieving a real alliance of sovereign republics for a peaceful order in the 21st Century. We hope that this interval has not elapsed by the time you read these lines.