At this time of extreme world peril of the threat of nuclear war, the words that President John F. Kennedy gave at presentations on many occasions 60 years ago, ring true with guidance and inspiration in the anniversary year of his heinous assassination. On Sept. 10, 1963, when he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, he spoke of how, among all weapons, the “power of peaceful cooperation” is the strongest. He spoke of nations together having “agreements which spring from our mutual interest.”
This “weaponry” for the good, is seen this week in the deliberation and presentations at a number of venues, especially focussed on Eurasia, but not limited to that. The St. Petersburg International Economic Forum (SPIEF) is underway (June 14 to 17), attended by some 18,000 people, from 34 nations. The Forum is titled, “Sovereign Development as the Foundation for a Just World,” and President Putin will address the attendees tomorrow.
On a smaller scale the foreign ministers of the Black Sea Economic Cooperation (BSEC) organization met June 13 (online, under the presidency of Serbia), and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi hosted the G20 Expert Group on multilateral development banks on June 12, stressing that lending must be widely available.
Concrete projects involving multinational cooperation are under discussion, including the Northern Sea Route along the Arctic, the International North-South Transport Corridor, the Black Sea Ring Motorway, the Turkey Gas Hub, and others. Russian nuclear firm Rosatom’s representative spoke of seeing 15 floating nuclear power plants on the Northern Sea Route one day. The newly-formed Consortium of Development Institutions was described by Sergei Glazyev, Russia’s Minister for Integration and Macro-economics of the Eurasian Economic Commission (of the EAEU). in his presentation on the sidelines of SPIEF.
In the Western Hemisphere, a Eurasian Economic Union potential project is notable. At the last meeting of the Eurasian Economic Union (EEU) intergovernmental council, June 9, Cuba’s Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz announced a proposal for the EEU to create an industrial park at Mariel port. He said that establishing this would be a “demonstration of joint efforts to create production chains leading to the kind of interregional integration that we strive for in a multipolar world.” Cuba has been promoting this for more than a year.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, participating at the Black Sea meeting, summed up the collaborative development outlook, in his BSEC presentation: “The multipolar global economic system is opening up opportunities for the region to acquire importance in its own right in the context of the objective process of forming the Greater Eurasian Partnership with the participation of the members of the EAEU, ASEAN, the SCO, and all other countries of our common continent.”
It goes without saying that this is consistent with the “peace” approach spelled out by President Kennedy in many ways, after the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis. Kennedy, too, backed and envisioned projects from Africa, to the Americas, to the Missouri River dam system stateside. The capstone was the space mission.
We have a fight on our hands today. Spread the reach of the new International Peace Coalition. Sign and circulate the “Urgent Appeal by Citizens and institutions from All Over the World to the (Next) President of the United States!”
