‘To Hope, Is To Not Know’
The UN World Food Programme (WFP) is expecting a 34% drop of funding. Credit: WFP Facebook Page
Oct. 20, 2026 (EIRNS)—“The deterioration of the international security environment cannot justify deeper reliance on nuclear weapons. On the contrary, it makes the pursuit of their elimination all the more urgent…. The only lasting response to the dangers posed by nuclear weapons is their total elimination. While measures to reduce nuclear risks are necessary, they cannot substitute for disarmament.” Yesterday, in the Thematic Discussion on Nuclear Weapons, in the First Committee of the 81st Session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York, Archbishop Christophe El Kassis, the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations, made that statement.
While it might be correct to say “this has been said before,” it would not be correct to then assert that “there is no way to rid the world of nuclear weapons.” On March 23, 1983, President Ronald Reagan, adapting a proposal created and designed by economist, statesman, and 1980s Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, proposed precisely that—a joint US-USSR program to rid the world of nuclear weapons—to Yuri Andropov, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. “Rendering nuclear weapons impotent and obsolete” as Reagan proposed at the time, at the time, could have begun. Now, 43 years later, there are many changes, changes that demand a new security and development architecture.
The principles for such have been proposed by Helga Zepp-LaRouche, wife of the late Lyndon LaRouche, who was involved in the original process. Zepp-LaRouche also initially convened the International Peace Coalition for the purpose of discussing these principles. See this statement from two standpoints: the urgent danger of the moment, and the immediate prospects for changing that condition, no matter how unlikely that change may seem to be.
The now-probable meeting in Shenzhen, China at the Nov. 18-19 APEC summit conference, involving Presidents Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and Vladimir Putin, is good news for humanity. You can tell by how irritated, perplexed, dazed, and confused the Wall Street Journal was, particularly at China.
“A potential three-way dialogue on Chinese soil would mark a big step for Xi in his efforts to elevate China’s role as a diplomatic power broker, said analysts who study China,” wrote the Journal. “Russian officials proposed the idea to Beijing through diplomatic channels and the Chinese side has indicated it wouldn’t object if Trump is on board, said other people close to recent discussions between Moscow and Beijing.” Trump has indicated that he wants to talk “about weapons and denuclearization.”
We should not be naïve. There is the very real prospect that everything on the world stage could figuratively and literally blow up well before that, on any day, at any moment. There are the upcoming elections in Brazil, Israel, and the United States. Col. (ret.) Larry Wilkerson, during an interview yesterday pointed out that the war in Southwest Asia could ratchet up to an uncontrollable level, and in unexpected, incalculable ways.
Wilkerson described the actual uses of a Massive Ordnance Air Blast—what has been nicknamed the “Mother Of All Bombs.” The bomb is not designed to penetrate a mountain. The bomb, he said, is designed to obliterate a large armored column, or kill massive numbers of people by obliterating the equivalent of whole city blocks. Apart from the substantial problems of delivering such a bomb on a C-130 transport through Iranian airspace, the more pertinent question is, what is the mind-set behind the proposal to use it? Wilkerson also pushed back against the idea that Israel’s use of multiple nuclear weapons—there would not be “one little nuke” used—would be intelligent.
“It’s hard to use nukes on forces that are not susceptible to them. Unless you’re insane,” said Wilkerson. “If you move armored forces fast enough, you can’t target them very well, unless you’re also prepared to target yourself. We had the same problem in Germany. When the ten Soviet divisions were coming through the Fulda Gap in Germany under the Ogarkov Plan—[he was] probably their best armored commander ever—we were fearful of that. We knew we would be destroying Germany. So did the Germans. Oftentimes at planning sessions, they would say, ‘You know you’re dropping those bombs on Germany, right? Because those bombs were going to be nuclear.’”
Less than a week from now, over eighty religious, and hundreds of other prominent figures from around the world will join Pope Leo XIV in Assisi, Italy, Oct. 25-27 and issue a new appeal for peace. Pope Leo XIV is speaking to world leaders even as he recovers from a serious medical condition. Can the discussions that occur there, possibly affect the later discussions among the Presidents? This October 25 will mark a year since the Pope, on the occasion of his Jubilee speech, said, "In an equally troubled age, in the fifteenth century, the Church had a Cardinal who is still little-known today.
“He was a great thinker and server of unity. His name was Nicholas and he came from Kues, in Germany: Nicholas of Cusa. He can teach us that to hope is also ‘to not know.’ Indeed, as Saint Paul wrote, ‘For who hopes for what he sees?’ (Rm 8:24.)” Cusa’s ‘coincidence of opposites’ approach—improving the mind’s capacity to raise through dialogue apparently insoluble conflicts to a higher level of resolution—-is seen in the Appeal to Pope Leo XIV To Organize a Global Leaders Summit To Address the Questions of Peace and Nuclear Disarmament being signed and circulated by members of the Schiller Institute, the International Peace Coalition, and other organizations. This is the moment to abandon the opportunism of despair, in favor of the statecraft of hope. “For who hopes for what he sees?”