SCHILLER INSTITUTE
Construct the Land-Bridge,
Prevent a New Dark Age
This is the third installment of EIR's serialization of the proceedings of the Schiller Institute's Sept. 15-16 conference in Kiedrich, Germany, on "The Eurasian Land-Bridge Is Becoming a Reality!" We publish here the panel on "Technologies to Reconstruct the World," and a portion of the concluding panel, "Rebuilding Civilization." To situate the discussion within the overall framework of the conference, we quote from the invitation to the Kiedrich conference:
When the Comecon and the Soviet Union began to disintegrate in 1989-91, Lyndon LaRouche and the Schiller Institute proposed an economic reconstruction plan, first for Europe, and then for Eurasia. In 1989, we put forward the program for the so-called "Productive Triangle: Paris-Berlin-Vienna," and in 1991, the program for the infrastructural and economic integration of Eurasia, known as the Eurasian Land-Bridge, which we elaborated at many conferences and seminars on all continents.
It is precisely this idea, to tie together the whole world with a system of development corridors, which is now on the verge of coming into being! ...
The world stands at the threshold of setting up a worldwide network of high-speed rail, such as Transrapid maglev lines for passenger and freight transport. The fulcrum and pivot-point for this global network is the tunnel from Uelen in Siberia to Cape Prince of Wales in Alaska, which will link Eurasia with the Americas. This network must in turn extend across Europe and Southwest Asia to Africa. The development of the territory between Kazakstan and Northern Russia, and Alaska, is essential for this, since only with the help of nuclear technologies—fission and fusion—will it be possible to meet the requirements of the populous regions of South and Central Asia.
The construction of this connection between Siberia and Alaska would have enormous economic significance: It would make possible the development of Siberia's gigantic raw materials resources, for the benefit of the whole world. It would make large parts of Alaska and Canada habitable. It would mean a dramatic boost in production in many areas: conventional and high-speed rail, the Isotope Economy, production and work under permafrost conditions, etc. The project in itself could become the motor for a worldwide industrial revolution. Once the system were completed, people would be able to travel faster by train or Transrapid, for example, from Acapulco, across the Bering Strait, to Mumbai, than is now possible by ship! ...
The reconstruction of the world economy on all five continents must be placed on the agenda as a matter of war-avoidance strategy. This means a global development policy, which serves the common aims of mankind. It is also urgently necessary to bring to Europe the pioneering spirit which reigns in many parts of Asia and Latin America....
We must replace the non-culture associated with globalization with a new Renaissance of Classical European culture and of the high periods of other cultures in science and art. Only then can we succeed in initiating a new, positive period of human history. Some of the most promising news in this respect, is the scientific and cultural work of the international LaRouche Youth Movement....
We are confronted today by the question, whether mankind can so organize itself, that our survival is guaranteed for the long term. Is the project for global infrastructure development economically feasible at the present time? Is it politically possible to achieve? The answer in both cases is emphatically, "Yes." It is possible and it is also urgently necessary.
Today, with mankind equally close to the abyss of a threatened plunge into a new dark age and a possible global asymmetric war, and to the begining of a new worldwide economic miracle and a new Renaissance, it is essential to discuss and push through a positive agenda. Therefore, at this two-day conference, the speakers from various continents will speak to these themes....
