Turning the Tide in 2023

Just one year ago, in our first issue for 2022, we were relieved to report that the five permanent members of the UN Security Council had signed, for the first time, a declaration stating that “nuclear war cannot be won, and must never be fought”. But since then, with the breath-taking escalation of the proxy war between Russia and NATO over Ukraine, there has been much loose talk in the transatlantic world of deploying tactical nuclear weapons as well as scare stories about Vladimir Putin’s “madman” intention to use the “ultimate weapon” in Ukraine. Nuclear annihilation has been avoided, so far, but the danger has by no means disappeared. And it will not, until a new security architecture is implemented.

Driving the war danger is the collapse of the neo-liberal financial system, built on quadrillions of dollars of worthless paper and fictitious assets, as we have reported. The attempt to preserve that bankrupt system via an illusory “unipolar world” can only lead to more hyperinflation, economic breakdown, and for the poorest countries, the spread of hunger and disease “in biblical proportions”.

However, at the same time, a new economic order is being put into place in the “non-West”, inspired by the stunning success of China’s Belt and Road Initiative. Nations demand the right to growth and development with no conditions attached, be they from the IMF, the World Bank or the EU. The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, South Africa) group is set to be reinvigorated by a Brazil under the presidency of Lula da Silva, while nine other countries in the Global South have expressed interest in joining in the near future. Moves are also underway to increase trade outside of the rigged “international markets”, and to conduct exchanges in local and regional currencies.

The path forward is indicated in the New Year’s message from the Schiller Institute’s Helga Zepp-LaRouche, which follows.