(Palestine, TX) A short report this morning since there is much to work on for Peoplenomics tomorrow, wherein we will be building a kind of mixed sociometric and econometric model to play “What If?” with regard to human events.
The reason the market blew off 231 points yesterday is that most people haven’t thought through the functions of war, how to prep for it, and what individual trigger points are for personal action.
But obviously, for people who have been “prepping” the arrival of a Monday deadline from the US will increase concerns and will no doubt cause a lot of folks to go through last-minute checklists this weekend. A good idea, given that most of the current generation have little to no training in how a nuclear exchange could play out. Old people (like me) who have studied the problem beyond “duck and cover” may have some value, after all.
The problem with the Ukraine Crisis is that it is on the verge of fulfilling many of the “functions of war.”
Readers are just plain worried and emails like this sum things up:
I think we are going to war dude. Just a bad feeling I have. And I think it was planned all along. The great culling. Sucks to say
While it would be premature to say this is an End of World event, it certainly has the potential to go that way.
War’s historic functions are (to list a few, and depending on who you listen to…):
- To continue politics by other means
- To increase government control of populations
- To destroy infrastructure and thus build a foundation for future growth
- To root out the weak
- To reduce population
- To increase property/territory
- To increase tax rates
- To spin people’s attention from other realities and problems
- to cover up high crimes and malfeasance in other areas
- More than anything, however, way is about money or what a country thinks it can “buy”
While [pending, for now] war is always a sorry thing to consider, historically most people in the civilian population don’t actually do anything about pending wars until it is too late.
Whether that’s because there is nothing that can be done, or whether it’s because most people are horribly short-sighted is open to discussion.
But a few moments discussion about Ukraine could escalate is certainly in order.
The elections (in the Crimea) are planned for Sunday. It is a given that despite jawboning from Washington, the elections will be held.
And, just as the US controlled voting in Iraq, so too, we are seeing Russian “influencing” of how Sunday’s election will go.
This means that we are likely (perhaps 80%?) to see John Kerry deliver the next round of sanctions on Monday.
Russia, through its various channels of influence will likely then seek retribution for those sanctions, depending on what they are.
The US will then either announce still more non-military moves, or we will escalate to a “blockade of the Black Sea” or some other form of “containment.”
This, in turn, would not be acceptable to Russia, and then we get to the matter of how World War III (the Regional Foreplay) will escalate to the really bad stuff.
The Weekend Checklist
In my opinion, the highest risk from current events is that Russia will use the EMP option to “put America in its place.”
As you know, from the standpoint of a military strategist, the “cleanest” way to fight a war is to NOT commit troops or eat up national resources. An electromagnetic pulse attack, perhaps claimed as an “accident” in space, might be an interesting opening gambit for a studied chess player like Putin.
For one, it would cause a massive internal management problem for the United State, although we sometimes wonder if the militarization of local police and sheriffs might have something to do with a low-level recognition that keeping order in a post-EMP America might be one of the few actionable civil defense move available.
What would it look like?
Let’s roll forward past next week.
Suppose that the Crimea elections go as planned. Then suppose the sanctions come along in their wake because Russia is not about to give up a piece of real estate they have effectively owned for 300 years on a whim.
Now, now let’s suppose that Russia begins to crater the global economy. There are lots of ways to do this including, but not limited to, using money of the Russian Mafia, the (former, of course) KGB, and other tools, to attempt to bring down Western Markets.
Then along will come a Western/EU/NATO/US response that would likely include things like ultimatums and moving NATO forces into Ukraine, ostensibly at the “invitation” of the Ukraine government.
Russia would then move its forces into Crimea and from there, it’s only a matter of the incident that touches it all off.
The critical/strategic thing at this point is Russia, once having grabbed the land and put it under direct control, rather than through a proxy “autonomous” government, would then be limited to a direct threat to Europe and it’s about here things could “go nuclear.”
However, going nuclear is not a good thing because a global exchange could follow, although there are scenarios where an “eye for eye” approach might be followed, one side launching a missile, the other responding.
The problem with that kind of path is you have a potential target list (on both sides) of perhaps 100 top cities or – for effect- launching missiles into an unpopulated area (Alaska, Nevada, or some such) for effect.
Or, we might see another undersea missile launch from right under our noses, like the one off Los Angeles.
It has been axiomatic on YouTube videos (list here) that China was behind that launch of three years ago *(yeah, yeah, if it wasn’t a contrail, but go watch for yourself).
However, the possibility that Russia was behind that launch has not been explored too deeply, yet from a technological standpoint, it’s a much better bet.
And somewhere in here, rather than a nuclear exchange, we might have an “accident in space” and its about here that you want to have a plan in your back pocket to deal with a Life Without Electronics.
To be sure, the electronic nightmare of EMP would be horrific. Banking, as we know it, would simply end for a while. The government of the US would immediately have to take over food and water distribution, and all sorts of other problems would arise. People who need medications and medical electronics would start dropping like flies, for example.
From a military strategy standpoint, it’s the option that makes the most sense. Russia would likely be immediately subjected to a similar attack, but EMP is a very interesting leveler in that having old technology (oil or coal fired trains, for example) would be a positive, not a negative. Tube-type radios would be highly prized, skilled radio operators, and all the rest of it.
A US response to a preemptive Russian EMP use is more difficult for the US since Russia is almost twice as large (physically) as the US and its population is spread over 16- time zones.
Other than a little cash on hand, a good stock of prepped goods, a shortwave radio in the refrigerator or the dryer and a year’s worth of batteries, candles, and LED flashlights (toss in some night vision gear, if you’re a big spender) and you have the makings of a survival plan.
How do you survive in a world where there is no phone, no electronic money, no banking, no internet, and on and on that list goes. No radio, no television, satellite dishes down (what, you don’t have a spare LNB?) no power….oops! You missed buying solar panels?
It’s a horrific world to contemplate, but one which we must because a global “grid war” would end life as we know it and if there’s a nightmare scenario alive and well in the world of military option planning, this one, I think, is it.
The US has a fine military, make no mistake about it. But Lao Tzu 101 distinguishes between overwhelming use of force and the most subtle use of force to achieve a desired end.
It doesn’t do much good to have a fine standing army if the lights are out at home, and jet fuel and food aren’t being made any more.
Since the Russians are good chess players, and know more about America’s weaknesses than anyone (except the Chinese) we should, I think be playing three weeks in the future with what we do with our spare time.
While there’s still three weeks left in the future, if you follow my drift.
Sorry for such a serious note, but it’s better to be prepared and no need than need and not be prepared.
Just like a pilot has to “think ahead of the airplane” making adjustments before they are needed, so too, looking at the news is a useless exercise in mental masturbation is you don’t have a “model in your head” of what the next three weeks could look like.
Spend a half hour and model the future every day – and then work out your “best response” to that. If you don’t do this, all the instant news in the world will come too late to stay well ahead of events.
Go read this story about how vulnerable to grid is and think about it.
Friday at the WoWW
Remember that weird dream about an airliner going off the end of the runway I had a week ago Monday? The one where I told you about a dream in which 146 people were on a plane skidding off the end of the runway?
Here’s what I wrote on Monday March 3rd about the odd dream I had that morning:
In this one, a commercial jet makes a slightly long landing, and because of the unusual cold, goes sliding off the end of the runway by a hundred feet, or two.
No one is injured, but the “vibe” on the plane (as viewed from the cockpit) wasn’t that the plane was so much skidding on extra ice, but that the brake system had failed.
Mind you, Sunday I was thinking about going down and shooting some landings on the (nice and icy) runway here and maybe that’s what caused the dream. But if a passenger jet (two engines) with about 146 people aboard makes a safe landing after a brake failure, remember where you read it first….If it doesn’t happen in the next 72-hours, it was just “dream noise.”
Well, here’s the story bigger than life and very much in your face. A US Airways plane skidded off the end of the runway last night in Philadelphia.
Number of passengers onboard? 149. Cited in the dream story? 146.
So the lead time on the dream was 11 days. I’ve made a note of it for future reference should another odd dream like this come in… But yeah, this is statistically “improbable.”
Write when you break-even
George george@ure.net