Executive Intelligence Review (EIR) convened an international Emergency Roundtable bringing nearly a dozen senior political and strategic experts from the Americas, Eurasia, and Africa together under an urgent theme: “It’s Worse Than You Think: The Strategic Implications of the Attack on Venezuela and How To Bring the World Back from the Brink.”
The nearly three-hour online session drew a live audience averaging 1,200 participants and featured simultaneous interpretation in English, French, German, and Spanish, underscoring the global scope of the roundtable.
In her opening presentation to the Roundtable, Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Editor-in-Chief of EIR and founder of the Schiller Institute, declared the mission was not to mourn the crisis, but to drive action:
“We have assembled here today … to discuss, analyze, and catapult an international response to restore international law.”
Speakers delivered blunt assessments of the accelerating breakdown of international law and warned that the world is moving toward a dangerous strategic rupture. But the event maintained a focus on creating solutions—calling for immediate organizing steps, including a proposed international declaration, the formation of an action group, renewed action through the UN General Assembly, and the formation of a structured international civil society organization to mobilize the “Global Majority.”
Panelists also stressed that upheaval inside the United States is inseparable from growing global instability, that violence abroad and violence at home are not independent. A senior U.S. official warned that “America must introspect.”
At a moment when mankind’s moral fitness to survive is being tested, the speakers agreed on the need to focus on the good: on the idea that the human species is good by nature, gifted with creative reason and therefore capable of overcoming evil and underdevelopment. A consensus emerged that if the best traditions of all civilizations are revived, then against overwhelming odds a beautiful vision of humanity can be realized, provided we act in solidarity.
Zepp-LaRouche concluded the extremely productive meeting and confirmed that an organizing group will be formed to assess priorities and coordinate prompt action internationally.
Participants
• Helga Zepp-LaRouche, Schiller Institute founder, EIR Editor-in-Chief
• Naledi Pandor, former South African Minister of International Relations and Cooperation
• Zhang Weiwei, Professor of International Relations at Fudan University in Shanghai
• Chas Freeman, former U.S. Ambassador
• Dmitri Trenin, Director and Academic Supervisor of the Institute of World Military Economy and Strategy at the HSE University in Moscow
• Donald Ramotar, former President of Guyana
• Graf Hans-Christof von Sponeck, former UN Assistant Secretary General
• María de los Ángeles Huerta, former Mexican Congresswoman
• Namit Verma, Indian author and security analyst
• Dennis Small, EIR Ibero-America Editor
• Lt. Col. Ralph Bosshard (ret., Swiss Army), former military adviser to the OSCE secretary general.
• Moderator: Dennis Speed
Links
• Conference invitation: (https://eir.news/2026/01/news/eir-emergency-roundtable-dialogue-monday-jan-12-10-a-m-et-its-worse-than-you-think-the-strategic-implications-of-the-attack-on-venezuela-and-how-to-bring-the-world-back-from-the-brink/)
• YouTube video: (https://youtube.com/live/nj1xmBNdrIs)
