HARLEY SCHLANGER: Hello and welcome to our weekly dialogue with Helga Zepp-LaRouche. She’s the founder of the Schiller Institute and the initiator of the weekly Zoom call of the International Peace Coalition. Today is October 14, 2026. I’m Harley Schlanger and I’ll be your host. You can send your questions and comments to Helga via email to questions@schillerinstitute.org or post them on the chat page.

Now Helga, there have been a lot of moves and counter moves in the last days in what passes today as diplomacy, but the wars keep going, the deaths are mounting, the erosion of the real economy continues, and chaos is spreading through the financial sector. As a result of the inability of governments in the West to address the economic disaster, which is coming from wars and military build-up, citizens throughout Europe, especially young people, are taking to the streets in growing numbers. What’s your assessment of what is occurring? Given the stubborn refusal of governments and political leaders to face reality, or perhaps their lack of moral and intellectual capacity to do so, will this upsurge in citizen activism continue to build, and what is necessary for it to succeed in changing the policy?

HELGA ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, we are talking to a lot of people in different countries, and I think there is a common denominator. While the particulars may be different, what is being expressed to us from many people in different countries is bewilderment. Why is it that no matter how many protests there are in the streets and how miserable the politicians are looking in the polls, they keep doing what they were set to do without responding to the popular outrage against them? Now that is a phenomenon which I think is worthy to reflect upon as to what ties these political establishments together. If they have ever sworn an oath to uphold the common good of the people, which in the German case, for example, when you become a chancellor or minister, you have to swear on the basic law that you will increase the benefit for the German people and protect them from harm. Now, none of these politicians seem to remember that, but I think that we are really reaching a breaking point if this continues, because you have student protests now in Italy, in Spain, in France, in Belgium, in Greece, in Austria, in Germany, in Argentina, in Brazil. And as I said, all of these situations have particulars because there are historic specificities; but there is a common denominator and that is that there is a general sense that in many countries the so-called political class is not at all responsible and responsive to what the people demand. So I think especially as we are heading towards a hot autumn and a cold winter, you can expect that, at least in the Northern Hemisphere, this will get much, much hotter. And naturally, we are moving towards a breaking point because despite all of the manipulated data, like the ones which are put out by the IMF, which are quite ridiculous because they put out gross figures of 3%. Now, if you count investments and profits from military spending and armament build-up as profitable, then you can fool yourself for a little bit to think that that means the economy is doing well; but that is a very short-lived affair and is endangering the whole world to become a self-fulfilling prophecy leading to war and therefore total destruction. Otherwise, naturally, the ongoing crises in both Ukraine, but especially also in Southwest Asia, mean that the energy prices are continuously what drives the economy down and therefore I think we are heading towards an explosion in the relatively short term.

What would need to be done is that these demonstrations and popular movements not only protest against things, but that they demand a solution which would be, as we have said many times, that the new name for peace is development. You need to adjust the economy in all the points where armament is up front and that has to be replaced with real economic development and build-up of the economies, especially naturally also in the countries of the Global South. So, there is a lot of room for change, but it’s very tumultuous and no clear-cut tendency is yet visible.

SCHLANGER: Well, as you’ll see from some of the questions I’ve received, the dissatisfaction and the anger building in the population is clear and it’s reflected in the kinds of questions we’re getting. So, let’s just start with one of the more important developments, the action set in motion by last week’s phone call between Presidents Trump and Putin, including threats from Trump of a cutoff of aid to Ukraine as Zelenskyy continues to hit Russia’s energy sector and Trump’s demand that Zelenskyy step down and allow new elections to take place. Zelenskyy today was angry, saying that Russia hit more sites in Ukraine and he said there was no warning from the West, in other words, no intelligence sharing. Do you think this is going to have an effect? Do you think Trump is actually serious now about cutting off Ukraine?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, that’s very difficult to say, given the fact that the normal duration of Trump’s statements is about an hour or two. So, I’m not in a position to make a firm prediction. I think Trump is obviously driven by the fact that the U.S. midterm election is less than three weeks away. His polls are looking bad. So, I think he will try a lot to at least create the appearance for the next three weeks that he has some control over the energy price. If that will impact the situation is hard to say, because the Coalition of the Willing is definitely set to not agree with that. Zelenskyy is in London meeting with Prime Minister Burnham today and the British already have promised that they will increase the arms delivery and so forth to Ukraine. But that creates an interesting rift between the United States and Great Britain, which also is an important factor. However, I don’t think it’s fundamental at this point.

So, I think the Russians on their part are not changing their policy, as you can see by the increased military action in Ukraine. I think Klitschko, the mayor of Kyiv, has asked the population to leave for the most part. In Kyiv there was a warning to diplomats earlier that they should leave. So, I think this tends to indicate that Russia is determined to just pursue its military objectives, given the fact that they cannot take any compromise with the Coalition of the Willing, because they correctly have to assume this is only designed to gain time to rearm Ukraine all the more as a patsy for the general war against Russia by NATO. So, I think they are also heading towards a crisis.

Now, if Trump is going to impose his policy, I cannot say for sure, but I don’t think that the situation can be solved in a temporary way, like manipulating the energy prices. That’s just like a band-aid for somebody who just had a major accident.

SCHLANGER: As you mentioned at the outset, the situation in Southwest Asia is careening toward a wider war with Ansar Allah, also known as the Houthis, escalating their military campaign against Saudi Arabia. Mohammed bin Salman has pleaded with Trump for help, but so far Trump has declined. Some are even forecasting that the end is near for the Saudi regime, and a contact from London wrote, “I have no sympathy for the Saudis. They are a remnant of the 1920s British imperial strategy. Remember Lawrence of Arabia.” Then he asked, “Is there some pathway out of this spreading disaster?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I think there is the potential that the so-called Mecca Alliance would reach out to Iran. Araghchi, the Foreign Minister of Iran, called his Saudi counterpart and advised him that there is no military solution for the conflict with Yemen. So there is some contact. This was some years ago initiated with the mediation by China, who convinced the Sunni and Shi’a Muslims to cooperate, and there are still remnants of such cooperation.

Now, I think that the Iranian situation is very interesting, because Iran also now suggested that the organization of the CIS should have a plus one, namely Iran, as an additional member. So there is a further integration of Iran with the Central Asian countries. There is quite a decent relationship between Pakistan and Iran. Pakistan, on the other side, is in the Mecca Alliance with Turkey and Iran. So there are enough connections to actually expand them and make them work.

But naturally, the big question is what will happen in Israel in the upcoming election. That is obviously the big factor, what will happen to the Greater Israel policy. But other than that major problem, the outcome or the way out for all of these countries would be to basically unite and say that they want to have economic development, the Extended Oasis Plan, which we have been pushing now for quite some time, and the extension of the Belt and Road Initiative to the entire region of Southwest Asia, which is peaceful development. That would be also, in the final analysis, if Israel wants to escape some horrible future, they should agree to that rather than insisting on their Greater Israel policy. But that is obviously wishful thinking at this point. But if you ask me, where would a solution be, that would be it; joint development for all countries in the region.

SCHLANGER: You mentioned earlier the IMF meeting, the International Monetary Fund meeting in Bangkok, Thailand. They issued the World Economic Outlook, and they projected 3.1% growth. But they say 32 countries account for 95% of what it calls growth. And most of that is coming from artificial intelligence, the tech sector, and the rearmament drive. So with the combination of wars and the threat to the world food supply related to the fall-off in energy and the lack of diesel, we have a question coming in. “This should be setting off alarms. Is this even on the agenda at the IMF meeting? And if not, does it not confirm the Malthusian intent of those making economic policy?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, as we have said many times, and my late husband Lyndon LaRouche has written numerous, hundreds of articles on the topic, the statistics used by the main economic institutions like the IMF, the BIS, central banks and so forth are completely fraudulent because they count as economic growth if somebody decides to build 1,000 bordellos, they count that as economic growth. Likewise, it’s highly questionable if all these AI data centers and other investments in the digital area can be counted as economic growth. Some of these things are useful as a servant of the real economy; others are completely useless.

I think that the actual outlook is catastrophic. The number of countries who are not in the list of economic growth is increasing. I think from 20 to now 50 countries are in dire conditions. The number of people going hungry is increasing. And I think these IMF figures are totally incompetent, to say the least.

SCHLANGER: We’re speaking with Helga Zepp-LaRouche, the founder of the Schiller Institute, and we’re taking a look at the recent developments in strategic affairs. We have a question from a retired teacher who’s a peace activist, who referred to a speech given by retired General Keith Kellogg, who for a while was working for Trump at the Warsaw Security Conference, where he called for Ukraine to blow up all Russian refineries and oil shipments. And the teacher writes, “Isn’t this proof that madmen are in charge of U.S. military policy?”

Another concerned citizen brought up the deranged idea of Secretary of War Hegseth that the Fort Hood shooter, Nidal Hasan, should be killed by a firing squad on television for the public. And another commented on the Israeli movie “Naza,” about the acceptance among Israeli soldiers of killing Palestinian civilians, asking, “When did we become so immune to barbarism committed in our name?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, all the three examples cited would cause me to answer the first question, which is, yes, they are crazy, completely out of touch with reality. What Keith Kellogg is proposing is probably increasing the sentiment in Russia that the West is hopeless. And it would fuel the debate of people such as Sergei Karaganov to say, we have to teach the West a lesson because they’re not listening to anything. So it’s very dangerous. I think we are in a period in which the entire basis of civilization, of diplomacy, of negotiation, of building trust, of building friendship, all of that is thrown out of the window.

And it’s being replaced by a beast-man-like behavior on the part of many of the players; not least the idea to have a live stream of an execution, which I think is the complete pit of barbarism. And it really is designed to cause people to become more brutalized. Many years ago, there was this movie, “The Gladiator.” And I remember that there were articles in the British media saying that the control of the—they didn’t call it oligarchy, but that’s what it meant—that the control by the oligarchy of the population depends on causing people to have more brutish sentiments; referring to the Roman Empire, and the games in the Roman Circus, where the population was asked to make thumbs up or thumbs down, if the gladiator would live or die. That was designed to evoke in the population, the most brutal and degraded sentiments to make them complicit in the policies of the oligarchy. And by doing that, they would kill any inner freedom in the people and make them basically tools of whatever policy they regarded as beneficial for their own interest.

So I think what we see right now, is not just this totally, totally barbarian idea of live streaming an execution. But it’s unfortunately much of the industry of so-called entertainment on both sides of the Atlantic, which just uses totally senseless, brutal behavior, pornography, perversion, to get people accustomed to the most degraded forms of behavior to just make them tools of whatever policies the oligarchy wants. And I think that that is what we see. And I think there’s fortunately quite a storm against that. But I think, you know, such politicians should really not be in office.

SCHLANGER: I have a quick question for you on the midterm election. You had mentioned that this may be driving some of the desperation in the Trump policy. The latest U.S. polling data shows that for the Democrats to take the Senate, they need to win four seats and in the House, they need five seats. It seems to be very close according to the polls. But the questioner asks, “Are you seeing any indication that the Democrats will make any fundamental changes without having Lyndon LaRouche around to whip them into shape?”

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, you know, if you look at the political situation in the United States, it looks actually not very promising if you look at the official candidates. Because even if Trump would resign, which I don’t think he intends to do, but even if he would be replaced by the next Republican presidential hopeful like Rubio or JD Vance, I mean, Rubio is obviously dead set on expanding the imperial policy, as you can see with his attitude for Latin America. The problem with JD Vance, who sometimes sounds more reasonable, is that he is so close to Peter Thiel that I would have my greatest doubts if you can trust him, given what Thiel is saying, which is quite horrific. So the Republican side looks bad.

On the Democratic side, I have seen nobody who would be different than Biden. I don’t think they have anybody, and the policies coming from the Democratic Party are not really any different, because they may be more positive on one point, but then they’re more negative on another point. So I think both sides of the aisle, so to speak, are a complete utter disaster.

And that leaves only the idea of the independent candidates, naturally, above all of them, Diane Sare, who is running as an independent LaRouche candidate. And you know, her campaign needs all the support you can have. I can only say that that campaign should be looked at more closely. We had at the recent IPC meeting, a very important endorsement coming from Dennis Fritz, who is, I think, the founder of the Eisenhower Media Network, who made a passionate appeal for Diane. I would suggest people should spread this speech, and think about why a man like Dennis Fritz, who has been close to the Pentagon for 50 years or so, is now basically saying that only somebody like Diane Sare could save the situation.

Also, there are other important candidates like Jose Vega, who will have his Congressional campaign being voted on at the beginning of November. So vote for him, get a lot of support for him, because, you know, you need incorruptible people like Sare and Vega, and some others with whom they are also working to have any hope for the United States.

SCHLANGER: Now, one final question on the German situation. It has to do with Burnham’s trip to Berlin a couple days ago, where they ratified the 2025 Kensington Treaty, which is a military security cooperation agreement, which Burnham pointed out is the first German-UK treaty since World War II. And he said it’s cooperation to counter hybrid attacks and counter interference in our democratic processes. And he’s even talking now about how Russia supposedly intervened in the Brexit vote. Now, a London supporter compared the Merz-Burnham relationship to two mates on a sinking ship jointly grabbing onto an anchor. Can you comment on this?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: I think that picture is quite fitting, given the fact that Merz has, and that was yesterday, so it may be lower already today, he had 10% support. I mean, if he had any backbone, he would resign. He’s clinging to power as if there’s nothing for him after that, and there may not be. And Burnham’s support is not much better. Nevertheless, one has to watch this Kensington Treaty because it involves not only a common Russophobic orientation. Cooperation among the secret services should worry anybody, because if you think about the role of MI5, MI6 in the present anti-Russian campaigns, and historically, if you think about the British Empire’s role in terms of colonialism, in terms of the entire imperial designs.

Unfortunately in Germany you have right now something going in the same direction with a purge in the intelligence services, where the former head of the BND, Hanning, has been arrested. He’s in jail now. He’s being accused of supposedly getting secrets from some acquaintance still in the BND and selling them to some foreign government. None of that is proven yet. It seems that there is a whole campaign to clean out all intelligence personnel still in place from the time of Merkel, of Kohl even, of Schroeder, and replace them with people who are more in line with the present anti-Russian and pro-war faction. So, I think this is very bad, and I can only hope that the present ferment in the population to vote these people out of office is increasing and that the fate of Germany can be saved from such an alliance with the British Empire.

SCHLANGER: Well, to finish on the positive side, the International Peace Coalition has been building momentum for the idea of a just peace as opposed to just war. And this has included support for an initiative to have the Pope call for a peace conference. We just learned that the Pope has been diagnosed with lung cancer and is being treated for it, and we send our best wishes and prayers for him. But in the meantime, there’s a lot that we can do on that toward building this new movement for a just peace. So, what’s the plan immediately for the International Peace Coalition?

ZEPP-LAROUCHE: Well, I mean, we will for sure continue to discuss the idea of the discussion coming from Pope Leo XIV, who fortunately had yesterday a successful surgery on his lung and hopefully the prospects are good. And I’m asking—I’m not normally a pious person—but for this occasion, I do ask all our viewers and listeners to pray for the Pope, because at least for the West, he is probably the most important person if World War III is supposed to be avoided. So, all best wishes and prayers for the Pope. And so, that will be a topic, you know, because this discussion that there is no just war, which has been discussed in the publications of the Vatican. That is a very important message, because there were even articles saying that the quotes normally attributed to Augustinus about just war were misquotes, that Augustinus was quoted out of context. And especially now, there is absolutely no justification for war as a means of conflict resolution, given the existence of thermonuclear weapons, which could end civilization. So, that will be a topic.

Then I’m pretty sure that we will continue the discussion about the idea of building an American Congress, not the Congress which is voted for, but in the tradition of the South African ANC, a sort of Congress which is above the parties, for peace. This is an idea which had been articulated by Marty Schotz a couple of IPC meetings ago, and that idea finds a lot of resonance, because what do you do about the United States when the party system is so rotten as we see it now? You need a different institution.

And I’m sure that Lyndon LaRouche, who made a very passionate speech about why parties are not the ideal form of organizing themselves for the people, at the occasion of his 90th birthday, where he quoted George Washington, to beware of the parties. George Washington, when he left office, said that parties are to be watched because they tend to be lobbyists for specific interests, and not for the common good of the nation. And if the recent examples of the Democrats and the Republicans needed to prove that, they for sure did. So, the idea to create a new institution, an American Congress above the parties, is an intriguing idea. So, that will be one topic; and naturally, also the ongoing situation of the economic blowout as a result of the two ongoing wars.

So, please become part of the IPC, because we need to grow. And every week we have important speakers from all over the world. And many people have expressed to us that this is a forum not paralleled by any other format. So, please join and help us make it grow to outdo the war faction.

SCHLANGER: Well, Helga, you just introduced an interesting topic, which is that St. Augustine may have been targeted by the fake media of his day.

So, the IPC meeting is at 11AM Eastern time on Friday. You can get a link to it from the Schiller Institute website. And until then, Helga, we’ll see you.