In a series of five world historic discussion documents, soon to be published in a book entitled, Earth’s Next 50 Years, Lyndon LaRouche has elaborated a new world agenda for World Peace and Global Economic Development. Throughout, he elaborates the necessity for a new Treaty of Westphalia as the basis for just new relations amongst all the sovereign nations of the world. The basis of the 1648 Treaty of Westphalia, was the principle of The Advantage of the Other—a moral principle which had the power to completely transform the politics of the Age, to effectively rule a permanent and irreversible line under all prior conflicts, strife, and injustices and to invoke the true Christian idea of forgiveness. This principle is such that once adopted and internalized by even a relatively few individuals, it unleashes a qualitatively higher power with which to transform the existing culture and politics of the planet. The Treaty of Westphalia was signed in Munster for the Catholics and in Osnabruck for the Protestants on Oct 24, 1648 and occurred at the mid-point of a 300-year long struggle for the idea of national sovereignty. When the Westphalia peace negotiations began on July 11, 1643, Cardinal de Mazarin, envoy of Pope Urbain VIII, knew that Western Christian civilisation was on the brink of extinction. The entire European continent had reached the end of the road and the only thing that was certain was suffering, death and destruction—effectively Hell on Earth. This poem written during the end phase of the bloody and brutal Thirty Years War captures the reality of the day:   Tears of the fatherland by Andreas Gryphius (1616-64) We are now completely - no, more than completely - devastated! Troops of thugs, blaring trumpets, swords soaked in blood, and thundering cannons have consumed all the fruits of sweat and diligence and industry. Towers burning, churches overturned, city halls cowering in fright, strong men shattered, maidens violated, and wherever we look, fire, plague, and death pierce our heart and soul. Fresh blood runs continually through trench and town; three times in the last six years, our stream’s flow has almost stopped - clogged solid with corpses. But I can barely talk about what’s more troubling than death, more dismal than plague and arson and famine: that all hope of heaven has been snatched from so many souls. 1636     Mazarin, by invoking the universal principle of The Advantage of the Other overturned the prevailing pessimism imbedded in the manipulative Venetian Empiricist Liberal system which had brought all of Europe to the point of annihilation. For the first time in the history of governments and of diplomacy, the Peace of Westphalia established a Code of Nations, which was based on the Christian principle of man created in the image of God, a principle of foreign policy, which in practice, meant helping neighbouring peoples and nations according to their economic needs, not for the interest of one’s own nation. Mazarin had instituted this new code of government conduct for the purpose of population growth and for the advancement of scientific, technological and cultural development of all nations of the world, thus, with the conscious intention of increasing proportionately the power of mankind over the universe. Up until this time most Peace Treaties were based on impressive sounding language beginning with “Let there be a perpetual peace and amity between this nation and that nation” etc., however, in the same Peace Treaties one would also find the subtlest forms of hypocrisy and of hatred between peoples; because such treaties generally set the boundary conditions between two wars, and the declaration of former treaties often served as motivation, argument and even as trigger mechanisms for the next war. Assurance of concord and lasting peace were more or less immediately followed by hostilities because the calculations of suspicion which entered into the language of the different parties, were not dealt with in truthful terms, and could not be dealt with simply by contractual agreements. The Treaty of Westphalia was based instead, on a political and moral principle of gratuitous and benevolent conduct aimed specifically at eliminating suspicion, and therefore, at eradicating the very source of misunderstanding and war. The only principle which can put a dead stop to suspicion between two enemies is the principle of optimism of the Advantage of the other, because it is the only principle which can give to someone a service, or an advantage that is free of grief and pain and which does not demand any compensation in return. This principle not only has the power of increasing the time lapse between wars, but it also has the power to eliminate war altogether. That power is efficient, because it creates the ability for people to progressively decrease their propensity for suspicion as well as their fear of being attacked, and to proportionately increase happiness far beyond the value of whatever material advantage is involved in a peace agreement. Thus, the economic development policy of agape, which Mazarin, Jean-Baptiste Colbert and Gottfried Leibniz organised throughout Europe after the Peace of Westphalia, allowed for 144 years of relative peace (compared to the previous 140 years) and economic development to sustain that peace effort throughout Europe until the war of 1792. Unfortunately, acceptance of this universal principle was not universal. Those who rejected it clung to the old characteristic social order known generally as the hereditary principle. Spain’s Felipe IV refused to sign and continued to wage war against France and the Austrian Emperor Ferdinand III did not immediately disarm for the sake of helping Spain. For these reasons Mazarin maintained a strong force of military alliances between both Catholics and Protestants in order to anchor the peace solidly along the Rhine River and to make sure that the different powers would not fall back upon the thorns of war. It was for that reason that he created the League of the Rhine which consolidated both the Catholics and the Protestants into agreeing to economic developments based on the principle of the Advantage of the other. During the negotiations between Mazarin and ambassadors of different countries, the most serious problem to resolve had always been the question of power. The paradoxical question was: “How do you increase your power by putting it at the service and the advantage of another?” This was most difficult idea to understand for a monarch whose only interest was his own Empire. How can one be powerful by giving one’s power away? How can you win by losing? The Westphalia principle was instituted as the guarantor of a new social order, because there was constant danger of reverting to the rule of force. No matter how often or in what form these questions came up, Mazarin addressed them from the standpoint of the difference between power and force and the question of intention. He said: “You can increase your power only by parting with the secrets of power. That is by applying the principle of the Benefit, Honour, and Advantage of the other”. He insisted that if the intention is different than the Advantage of the other, then power is no longer power, but might, and might crushes and destroys, while power elevates, and makes things grow. In other words, power is manifested only when it is freely being given to another for his or her benefit, and to develop his or her ability of increasing mankind’s mastery over the universe. The Treaty says this explicitly, that it abolishes all competition, pretensions, and advantages over others and “forgives the sins of the past by leaving all wrongs that have been committed to perpetual Oblivion.” Such is the beauty of power when it is proportional with reason. This principle of the advantage of the other represents the very best of Western civilisation itself: the idea of power that founded Athens of Classical Greece in 458BC, the Council of Florence in 1439, the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, and the American Constitutional Republic in 1789. This is how the power of an idea has become an idea of power which we must replicate once again in the year 2005. "The Treaty of Westphalia" on loan from the Austrian State Archives, displayed at the Nixon Library, Yorba Linda, USA January 31, 2002 The Ratification of the Treaty of Münster (Gerard Terborch 1648) The Treaty of Westphalia of 1648, bringing an end to the Thirty Years’ War, which had drowned Europe in blood in battles over religion, defined the principles of sovereignty and equality in numerous sub-contracts, and in this way became the constitution of the new system of states in Europe. We quote the two key principles: Article I begins: "A Christian general and permanent peace, and true and honest friendship, must rule between the Holy Imperial Majesty and the Holy All-Christian Majesty, as well as between all and every ally and follower of the mentioned Imperial Majesty, the House of Austria ... and successors.... And this Peace must be so honest and seriously guarded and nourished that each part furthers the advantage, honor, and benefit of the other.... A faithful neighborliness should be renewed and flourish for peace and friendship, and flourish again." Peace among sovereign nations requires, in other words, according to this principle, that each nation develops itself fully, and regards it as its self-interest to develop the others fully, and vice versa—a real "family of nations." Article II says: "On both sides, all should be forever forgotten and forgiven—what has from the beginning of the unrest, no matter how or where, from one side or the other, happened in terms of hostility—so that neither because of that, nor for any other reason or pretext, should anyone commit, or allow to happen, any hostility, unfriendliness, difficulty, or obstacle in respect to persons, their status, goods, or security itself, or through others, secretly or openly, directly or indirectly, under the pretense of the authority of the law, or by way of violence within the Kingdom, or anywhere outside of it, and any earlier contradictory treaties should not stand against this. "Instead, [the fact that] each and every one, from one side and the other, both before and during the war, committed insults, violent acts, hostilities, damages, and injuries, without regard of persons or outcomes, should be completely put aside, so that everything, whatever one could demand from another under his name, will be forgotten to eternity." Link to Complete Treaty of Westphalia