If we are to dodge the ultimate bullet of a civilization-ending U.S.-Russia conflagration, handshakes and nice gestures won’t suffice. The erstwhile adversaries must agree to build something jointly that substantially benefits all participants. This lesson from the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia applies with double dittos in the nuclear age.
Thankfully, that precise option has suddenly and dramatically emerged, with major breakout coverage in the U.S. press of a proposed rail tunnel from Siberia across the Bering Straits to Alaska — the first-ever land link between Earth’s two hemispheres.
The project’s benefits would far exceed its cost. Just scratching the surface, it would open up the Arctic for massive development, stimulate huge growth on both sides of the connection, and promote a big jump in world trade. Unimpeded rail transit through five of the seven continents would be the future!
But perhaps the most important “plus” is intangible: Cooperation in the very act of construction would cause each side to see the other increasingly less as the adversary and more as the partner in advancing a common aim. That’s the quintessence of war-avoidance.
The American media has depicted Kremlin Special Envoy Kirill Dmitriev as the chief promulgator of the plan. But while his role has been crucial, the idea itself is much older and historically richer.
Proponents of an East-West link across the Bering Straits (first telegraph, then rail) include Abraham Lincoln’s Secretary of State William Seward, 19th-century Colorado Governor William Gilpin, President William McKinley and Alaska Governor Wally Hickel, who insisted that it’s better to build a tunnel than fight a war.
However, for the last four-plus decades, the project was promoted and defended, almost single-handedly, by former presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche and his associates. Unsurprisingly, LaRouche’s political opponents, apparently ignorant of the above background, pointed to this as proof positive that he was an unhinged extremist for supposedly concocting such a wild, outlandish proposal. LaRouche was undeterred.
Now, things have come full circle. The genie is out of the bottle on the Bering Strait tunnel. Of course, the Trans-Atlantic War Party will do its worst to sabotage the potential policy shift and keep the endless wars… endless.
Americans should ignore these desperate political dinosaurs. Onward to peace and progress!
— Doug Mallouk, Baltimore
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