It is undeniable that we, the generations lucky enough to be alive at this moment, are witnessing the greatest transformation of civilization in human history. If you remain unconvinced, pause the chaos of your minute-to-minute news feed and let your mind’s eye take in so-called “current events” from the standpoint of the vast sweep of the past and the coming five-hundred years of human history: What is the nature of this moment of crisis?
On the one hand, the danger grows by the day, driven forward by a doubling (and tripling) down on the part of the Western Epstein-class elites on the ideology of geopolitics and might-makes-right. “we have two strategic hotspots, two regional wars; each one of them is escalating, and no diplomacy in sight,” Helga Zepp-LaRouche reiterated to a July 17 meeting of the International Peace Coalition. “That should worry everybody the most—it seems that diplomacy is dead… So both the Iran situation and the Ukraine situation are escalating, spiraling out of control by the day, and I think if we are not reversing this very soon, we are approaching a point of no return extremely quickly.”
Zepp-LaRouche’s point is underscored by a number of dramatic developments, including the fact that the US is currently on day six of renewed strikes on Iran, now targeting civilian infrastructure, and Iran is retaliating against US military targets in the region.
On Thursday night, President Trump took a giant, blundering step to further isolate the US and undermine diplomacy by using an out-of-the-blue speech on election integrity to level accusations against China of significant election interference and attempting to disrupt his presidency and stop his reelection.
The situation with respect to the Ukraine war is no better, as Europe continues to march forward in its nuclear rearmament—France’s Macron and Germany’s Merz met on Thursday to discuss such matters—and Russia, through Foreign Ministry Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova, made clear that it sees the West as inseparable from Ukraine in committing terrorist attacks on Russia, while doing everything possible to shut down avenues of diplomacy.
This is the danger.
On the other hand, never before has all of humanity, together as a one, had an opportunity to replace an outmoded—and in this case, dying—imperial system with a new system reflective of our best understanding of the dignity and unity of humankind.
Significant efforts in this direction are gaining ground. Yesterday, China and Russia celebrated the 25th anniversary of China-Russia Treaty of Good-Neighborliness and Friendly Cooperation, which one expert said, “has allowed China and Russia to break away from the age-old binary logic that confines major powers to either alliance or confrontation” and offers “a valuable reference for countries striving to break free from unipolar hegemony and pursue independent development.” The key? The commitment to “ever-lasting friendship” as the Treaty’s core concept—an echo of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia which created reason’s miracle of ending 150 years of religious war.
Additionally, leaders of 40 nations and international organizations met in Shanghai on July 17 for the 2026 High-Level Meeting on Global AI Governance. In his speech to the gathering, Chinese President Xi Jinping stressed not only the need for openness and win-win-cooperation, but also of ensuring that AI is always under human control—with all sides “jointly oppos[ing] overstretching the national security concept in the field of AI and placing one country’s security over that of others.” This is in harmony with the important intervention of Pope Leo XIV’s Magnifica Humanitas encyclical and its call for an unarmed and disarming peace.
In a moment such as this, it is quite lawful that cracks through which reality and reason appear should arise even in the West, as, for example, in the United States 103 members of Congress voted against military aid to Israel, while elected officials are either losing primary elections or otherwise feeling the heat from their continuants on the issue of the continuing and suicidal war policy.
The world is being reshaped—there’s no question about it. What remains to be seen is which direction it will go. There is an obvious need for a new security architecture for the Middle East, as recently called for by Oman; Zepp-LaRouche has insisted this must be combined with a program for economic development in the spirit of “The New Name for Development is Peace,” a proposal that has gained support from prominent leaders around the world.
Do not, therefore, be a mere witness to world events—forming a new kind of system is a creative act, which, as with any great discovery, necessitates intervention. “We’re in the most dangerous moment in history ever,” Zepp-LaRouche warned. “And it does require the mobilization of all people of goodwill on the planet.”
