In a sensible world, the heads of state of NATO would take up Russian President Vladimir Putin’s June 14 detailed proposal for global security, including ending the war in Ukraine, at their heads of state summit in Washington, D.C. on July 7-9. They would deliberate on its pros and cons, perhaps reject aspects of it, ask for clarification on others, and build on common ground to bring humanity back from the very cliff of global thermonuclear war.
They will not do that. President Joe Biden, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and other NATO heads of state rejected Putin’s proposal out-of-hand even before they had heard it or read it. They are already fully embarked on a collision course with Russia involving, among other provocations: 1) authorizing Ukraine to use Western long-range missiles to strike deep into Russian territory; 2) launching drone strikes against Russia’s ICBM-detecting early-warning radar system; 3) planning to put NATO boots on the ground in Ukraine (next stop: body bags coming back home); and 4) preparing to give Ukraine nuclear-capable F-16s “to take Russian planes out of the sky, even if those Russian planes are in Russian airspace, if they’re about to fire into Ukrainian airspace,” as National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan cavalierly stated on June 17.
So with the fingers of madmen on the nuclear button, the task of deliberating on the Putin proposal, and other viable options which others may put on the table, has been left to voices of sanity in the West, such as those who spoke at the Schiller Institute’s June 12 “Emergency Press Conference: The Danger of Nuclear War Is Real, and Must Be Stopped” at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C.
One of those speakers was Helga Zepp-LaRouche, and she again focused the urgent issue in the following terms in her June 19 weekly Dialogue webcast::
“There was a proposal made by Putin, which was naturally immediately pooh-poohed [in the West]. Putin made a speech on the 14th of June to the Russian Foreign Ministry. He made a one-hour speech, and only the end, when he made a suggestion for a peace negotiation concerning Ukraine, was reported in the West. It was immediately rejected by [German Chancellor Olaf] Scholz and others. But this was only the end-piece of a much larger presentation, where he again analyzed how it came to this crisis of Ukraine.
“But then he made a very interesting and, in my opinion, very far-reaching proposal to have a Eurasian security architecture which would take into account the interests of all Eurasian countries and which would be open to NATO members. I think this is very interesting. He used formulations which in all objectivity are really not very far from what I have been saying for two years since the special military operation started: namely that any security arrangement has to take into account the interests of all, or otherwise it does not work. And it has to be based on development. He didn’t use exactly what my Ten Principles were, but the essence very much resonated with it.
“In my view, I think this should be taken up and evaluated. It’s not something which is a final proposal, but it is the platform for discussion, to go back to diplomacy. And it explicitly says it is open to NATO countries. It did not say it excludes the United States. So, I think the world would be well-advised to consider this proposal and start to have a dialogue on how to end this Ukraine war before it is too late.
“It may be soon too late, [as some] people are warning. One of them is the President of Serbia, [Aleksandar] Vučić, who gave an interview to the Swiss magazine Die Weltwoche, where he basically said he sees signs that it could come to a big war between Europe and Russia within three to five months. Now I don’t know what additional information he has to narrow the window to such a timeframe of three to five months, but it has to be taken into account, because also the President of Bulgaria has put out similar warnings, the Prime Minister of Slovakia Fico, the Georgian Prime Minister Kobakhidze, and naturally Viktor Orbán have been saying things along these lines all the time.
“So, we are in a dramatic situation. In less than three weeks there will be the NATO summit. This will be an inflection point, because NATO will have a big problem, because NATO’s image loss is gigantic; also of the United States, of Germany, naturally, because of what happened in Gaza. But also in respect to the fact that the Ukraine policy clearly is not functioning.
“So, NATO will have a lot of explanations to give; and if they want to get out of this box, they should accept Putin’s proposal to negotiate. That would be to their advantage.”
