President of the United States John Quincy Adams (1767-1848) was outstanding in his knowledge of the law. He was trained as a lawyer; practiced as an attorney; had firsthand experience observing laws in other countries in his diplomatic service in Russia, The Netherlands, Prussia, and Great Britain; formulated treaties and policies for the new United States, especially the Monroe Doctrine (1823) during the James Monroe Administration, for which Adams worked in both terms (1817-1825). Therefore, he knew Constitutional law, criminal law, civil law, maritime law, international law, law of the jungle, law of the strong-over-the-weak, and so on.
But it is reported that he explicitly spoke about “the law of love” as the highest form of law, for an individual, or a nation, or nations. If one proceeds according to the way of this law, whatever mistakes may be made, all problems can be solved. Love for humanity fosters the morality and creativity which provide for the future. The 1648 Peace of Westphalia, with its treaties in Osnabrück and Münster, is an historic example.
Adams cited “the law of love” at various points in his life, especially at Christmastime. He has a diary entry citing this on Christmas Day Dec. 25, 1828, for example. ”Forget all animosities and dissensions and adhere to the ‘Law of Love.’” We do well to ourselves think on the meaning of “the law of love” at this time, and its full implications for our actions today.
The updates on crisis situations are grim, from place to place around the world.
• Southwest Asia. The drumbeat for another bomb attack on Iran is sounding. On Dec. 22, acting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke of this as one of the topics he will discuss in Washington for his upcoming trip Dec. 29-Jan. 4, 2026, it is reported. Netanyahu spoke to media, flanked by Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis and Cypriot President Nikos Christodoulides. Netanyahu reported they are discussing forming an Eastern Mediterranean strike force. While this “law of the jungle” context persists, there is no prospect for getting a real “phase two” of reconstruction for Gaza.
• Caribbean. Representatives of some 25 nations met on Dec. 23 in an emergency session of the UN Security Council, under the rubric of “Threats to International Security,” on the topic of what the United States is doing against Venezuela. There was a direct clash between Russia and the United States. Russian Ambassador Vassily Nebenzia stated that the United States is using a “pseudo-legal method” to transform a sovereign state into a criminal enterprise, so the United States can then claim it is legal to attack that country. The United States taking Venezuela oil is “piracy.” Above all, it was “to humankind, to whom President Trump promised an end to conflict,” but now, the United States “is sowing chaos in the Western Hemisphere. This casts doubts on the sincerity of the intentions against global conflict.”
• Nuclear war danger. Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on Dec. 22 reiterated the importance of the initiative by Russian President Vladimir Putin for the time period when the New START treaty expires, for “the parties to this treaty adopting voluntary self-restraints in observing its central quantitative limits after the final expiration of this agreement in February 2026.” Ryabkov said this would be a “stabilizing step … to gain time for preparing potential further efforts to prevent negative scenarios in a world without New START.” But, he noted, “There has still been no substantive reaction from the United States to our initiative.”
In fact, high-ranking U.S. military officials report that the U.S. is continuing with plans to deploy short- and medium-range “Dark Eagle” hypersonic missiles in Europe in the new year. Meantime, President Trump boasted in his Dec. 22 announcement of building a new battleship for his “Golden Fleet,” that the intended first ship, the USS Defiant, will have “nuclear-armed, sea-launched cruise missiles currently under development.”
Circulate the Dec. 8 statement from Helga Zepp-LaRouche: “Withdraw from NATO! New National Security Strategy Requires New Security Architecture.”
