That is the title of an Emergency Roundtable Dialogue which EIR, the LaRouche movement’s flagship publication, has convened for Monday, Jan. 12. Top thinkers and political leaders from around the world will put their heads together with Schiller Institute founder Helga Zepp-LaRouche to address the dramatic strategic phase-shift underway over the last ten days: the planet is rapidly descending into a Hobbesian “war of every man against every man,” in which “the notions of right and wrong, justice and injustice, have there no place.”
Far more than Venezuela or even the Western Hemisphere is in play. This was on shocking display today when U.S. forces—with full British political and logistical support—seized a Russian-flagged oil tanker in international North Atlantic waters after a two-week chase from the Caribbean and the deployment of a surge of forces and equipment across the Atlantic. They did so with heli-borne commandos descending onto the ship, Rambo-style, as a Russian submarine, according to unconfirmed reports, was on its way to aid the Russian tanker. The charge against the tanker—currently empty, according to most media accounts—was evading sanctions on oil from both Venezuela and Iran.
The British are elated: they think they have finally orchestrated the U.S-Russia and U.S.-China full confrontation that has been their perennial strategic goal, with President Donald Trump finally playing his British-assigned role.
In an emergency statement to the House of Commons on the U.K. role in the operation, British Defence Secretary John Healey claimed that the tanker was part “of an increasing web of shadow shipping that fuels and funds instability” and that “Russia operates a vast shadow fleet of its own to bankroll its illegal invasion of Ukraine.”
An article on the operation in London’s The Telegraph let the cat out of the bag: “The moves suggest an emboldened Mr. Trump is ready to confront Russian interests after repeatedly offering concessions to Vladimir Putin in the pursuit of peace in Ukraine.”
Translation: The British and their geopolitical partners will do whatever it takes to disrupt the U.S.-Russia relationship and the agreements made between Presidents Trump and Putin in Alaska in August 2025
Why? Why would Milton’s Lucifer rather reign in Hell, than serve in Heaven?
“It represents a true phase change,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche stated in her webcast of Jan. 7. “Not that such interventions by the United States against countries of Latin America or other parts of the world are something new. … the only thing new is the blatantness with which all of these things are announced, according to the principle of schrecklichkeit, that is, we do it with such shock and awe, and demonstrate such precise military power, who would want to oppose us? I think that is very short-sighted. It is one more final blow to the already non-existing, unipolar world.… But how long that lasts, I don’t believe will be very long, because the majority of the world is definitely interested in a global governance system ruled by international law, so I can imagine that there will be a huge backlash. It may not go easily, and we may see a couple of more horrible developments, but I think in the end, the trend of history is in the direction of civilization and not barbarism.”
A Jan. 6 editorial in China’s semi-official daily Global Times clearly echoes the sentiment: “The overwhelming majority of countries are unwilling to return to a Hobbesian international jungle governed by the law of the strong preying on the weak.”
What is to be done? Undoubtedly, more responses, perhaps some unexpected, will be seen from Russia, China, and the nations of the Global South in the coming days, but it is crucial that in collaboration with that, voices of sanity within Western countries also make themselves heard. To that end, the LaRouche movement is holding a series of meetings over the coming days, beginning with the 136th meeting of the International Peace Coalition on Jan. 9 and a town hall meeting on Jan. 10 at which Diane Sare, two-time candidate for U.S. Senate from New York, will launch her campaign for the Presidency of the United States.
The extraordinary EIR emergency roundtable will follow on Jan. 12.
“Participate in that meeting,” Zepp-LaRouche urged, “because that is the place where the resistance against unilateralism and for the upholding of international law will be organized.”
