Category: Current Events

Military Strategy Magazine: Civil War Comes to the West

David Betz is Professor of War in the Modern World in the Department of War Studies, King’s College London where he heads the MA War Studies program. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. He has written a two part article for Military Strategy Magazine on the high risk of civil war coming to a Western European countries or the United States, estimating that the chances of a civil war breaking out in one of these countries in the near future is 87-95%. Civil War Comes to the West and Civil War Comes the West, Part II: Strategic Realities. It’s a rather lengthy read, but worth your time. Here is a brief excerpt;

…At this point in the history of conflict, it hardly seems necessary to explain the techniques of taking existing social divisions in society and tearing them into chasms because they have been widely studied.[xx] The defence establishments of the West are very familiar with such matters as they have presented themselves in the varied foreign theatres in which they have been embroiled as part of the so-called War on Terror.

Is it a complete wonder that those lessons and ideas should have found their way back home? The Citizen’s Guide to Fifth Generation Warfare co-written by MGEN Michael Flynn, former head of the Defence Intelligence Agency and President Trump’s initial National Security Advisor, is a well-designed handbook and explicit in its aim, which is to educate people in the West about revolt. In his own words, he wrote it because ‘I never dreamed the greatest battles to be waged would be right here in our homeland against subversive elements of our own government.’[xxi]

Over the last thirty years the West has preoccupied itself thanklessly in an expeditionary capacity in the invertebrate civil wars of others. It ought to have learned that it is impossible to maintain an integrated multi-valent society once neighbours start kidnapping each other’s children and murdering them with hand drills, blowing up each other’s cultural events, slaying each other’s teachers and religious leaders, and tearing down their icons. It is soberingly worth noting, moreover, that plenty of instances of all those things have occurred already in the West and all of them have occurred in France alone in the last five years.[xxii]

Scenarios, mostly focused on the United States, of what civil wars in the West would look like exist in the literature.[xxiii] They tend to share one thing in common particularly, which is the expectation as expressed by Peter Mansoor, professor of military history at Ohio State University, that they will,

…not be like the first [American] civil war, with armies manoeuvring on the battlefield [but] would very much be a free-for-all, neighbour-on-neighbour, based on beliefs and skin colour and religion. And it would be horrific.[xxiv]

Approximately 75 per cent of post-Cold War civil conflicts have been fought by ethnic factions.[xxv] Therefore, that civil war in the West will be likewise is unexceptional. The nature of the belief that Mansoor invokes as being important is, however, worth dwelling upon. I would suggest that the belief in question is the acceptance by all groups in society of the precepts of ‘identity politics’.

Identity politics may be defined as politics in which people having a particular racial, religious, ethnic, social, or cultural identity tend to promote their own specific interests or concerns without regard to the interests or concerns of any larger political group. It is overtly post-national. It is this above all that makes civil conflict in the West not merely likely but practically inevitable, in my view…

AmRRON Raises Network to AmCON 2 over Israel-Iran War

From the American Radio Relay Operators Network:

Iran reportedly carried out the first direct air strikes against Israel this evening, from Iranian soil using drones and long-range cruise missiles.  Israel missile defense systems, along with Air Force aircraft joined by a coalition of U.S., U.K., Jordanian, and other nations, intercepted hundreds of incoming missiles and drones.

Russia is threatening to intervene if the U.S. directly strikes Iran.

Israel is preparing for a sophisticated and powerful precision response on Iranian targets in Syria and Iran in the coming hours and days.

GPS disruptions have been reported, complicating navigation for aircraft and maritime ships.  We should anticipate cyber attacks as another method of warfare against (and from) all parties involved.

AmRRON will be at AmCON-2, effective 20240414-0400Z, in anticipation of anticipated/expected disruptions to conventional telecommunications and/or internet services.

Go to the AmCON Page for details and additional instructions.

Radio Contra Ep. 267 Interview with K

NC Scout of Brushbeater interviews K of Combat Studies Group in episode 267 of Radio Contra. They discuss the Texas border, involvement in local politics, Iran, China, Russia, weapon setups, and more.

Radio Contra Ep. 267. Night Vision, Thermal, Weapons Setups and Training with K of Combat Studies Group

Gatestone Institute: Russia and China – The Worst Moment in History Coming Soon

In Russia and China – The Worst Moment in History Coming Soon, author/attorney Gordon G. Chang at the Gatestone Institute writes about recent threats of nuclear strikes against the west.

Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict. It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry. Pictured: Mobile intercontinental ballistic missile launchers at a military parade in Moscow, Russia, on June 24, 2020. (Photo by Sergey Pyatakov – Host Photo Agency via Getty Images )

…On May 1, on Russian TV, the media executive often called “Putin’s mouthpiece” urged the Russian president to launch a Poseidon underwater drone with a “warhead of up to 100 megatons.” The detonation, said Dmitry Kiselyov, would create a 1,640-foot tidal wave that would “plunge Britain to the depths of the ocean.” The wave would reach halfway up England’s tallest peak, Scafell Pike.

“This tidal wave is also a carrier of extremely high doses of radiation,” Kiselyov pointed out. “Surging over Britain, it will turn whatever is left of them into radioactive desert, unusable for anything. How do you like this prospect?”

“A single launch, Boris, and there is no England anymore,” said Kiselyov, addressing the British prime minister.

The threat followed one on April 28 made by Aleksey Zhuravlyov, chairman of Russia’s pro-Kremlin Rodina Party. On the “60 Minutes” program carried on Channel One, Russian TV, he urged Putin to nuke Britain with a Sarmat, the world’s largest and heaviest missile.

The program noted that a missile launched from Russia’s Kaliningrad enclave would take 106 seconds to hit Berlin, 200 seconds to reach Paris, and 202 seconds to obliterate London.

The NATO designation of the Sarmat is “Satan II.”

Putin himself has gotten in on the fun. Just before sending his forces across Ukraine’s border, he warned of “consequences you have never encountered in your history.” On February 27, he put his nuclear forces on high alert. On March 1, the Russian leader actually sortied his ballistic missile submarines and land-based mobile missile launchers in what was called a drill. On May 4, the Russian Defense Ministry announced “electronic launches” in Kaliningrad of its nuclear-capable Iskander mobile ballistic missile.

Russia has a nuclear doctrine known as “escalate to deescalate” or, more accurately, “escalate to win,” which contemplates threatening or using nuclear weapons early in a conventional conflict.

China, which on February 4 issued a joint statement with Russia about their no-limits partnership, has this century been periodically making unprovoked threats to destroy the cities of states that have somehow offended it. In July of last year, for instance, the Chinese regime threatened to nuke Japan over its support for Taiwan. In September, China issued a similar threat against Australia because it had joined with the U.S. and U.K. in the AUKUS pact, an arrangement to maintain stability in the region. This March, China’s Ministry of Defense promised the “worst consequences” for countries helping Taiwan defend itself. The threat appeared especially directed against Australia.

This month, North Korea said that, in addition to using nuclear weapons to retaliate against an attack, it might launch nukes to attack others.

It cannot be a good sign that Russia, China, and North Korea at the same time are threatening to launch the world’s most destructive weaponry.

Why are the planet’s most dangerous regimes all making such threats?

First, Putin showed the world these warnings in fact intimidate. As Hudson Institute senior fellow Peter Huessy told me in March, escalating to win assumes nuclear threats will “coerce an enemy to stand down and not fight.” Because the Western democracies have largely stood down and are clearly not fighting in Ukraine, Beijing and Pyongyang want similar successes.

Second, Putin and Chinese ruler Xi Jinping could make such threats because they do not respect nations perceived as enemies. “The bungled withdrawal from Afghanistan and the unwillingness to effectively support Ukraine since our 1994 guarantee and especially over the past year have led nuclear-armed enemies to ratchet up threats to the U.S. and its allies,” Huessy, also president of GeoStrategic Analysis, said to Gatestone at the beginning of this month. “They sense a growing American weakness.”

“Like Vladimir Putin, the Communist Party of China has lost its fear of American power,” Richard Fisher of the Virginia-based International Assessment and Strategy Center said to me shortly after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. “China’s nuclear threats expose the Party’s arrogance in the face of perceived American weakness, expose the risk of the lack of a U.S. regional nuclear deterrent, and expose the inadequacy of U.S. leadership.”

Third, internal considerations may make such threats easy to make. Many say the most dangerous moment since World War II was the Cuban Missile Crisis of October 1962. Perhaps even more perilous was the Checkpoint Charlie standoff in Berlin the preceding October. Yet both Kennedy and Khrushchev knew there must never be a nuclear exchange. The issue today is whether Putin and Xi know that as well. Maybe they do not.

These threats may reveal that the leaders of these regimes share a last-days-in-the-bunker mentality. Both Russia and China, albeit in different ways, are ruled by regimes in distress, which means their leaders undoubtedly have low thresholds of risk.

Whatever the reason for the threats, Putin and Xi have told everyone what they intend to do. Unfortunately, Western leaders are determined not to believe them.

In response to Russian threats, President Joe Biden on February 28 said the American people should not worry about nuclear war. On the contrary, there is every reason to worry.

In line with Western thinking, presidents and prime ministers have almost always ignored nuclear threats, hoping not to dignify them. Unfortunately, this posture has only emboldened the threat-makers to make more threats. The later the international community confronts belligerent Russians, Chinese, and North Koreans, the more dangerous the confrontations will be.

The world, therefore, looks like it is fast approaching the worst moment in history.

“A nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought,” Biden stated in June of last year. Maybe. Putin, who jointly issued those words with the American president, may think he can wage one and even win.

Kunstler: “Disinformation” Is Just a Boot in Your Face

Author James Howard Kunstler writes about the new Ministry of Truth in “Disinformation” is Just a Boot in Your Face. Unfortunately the government is simply not trustworthy enough to be the arbiter of truth, regardless of what power is in power. Real truth in science is almost entirely impossible to discern any more because you cannot easily tell who is doing real science. Science was first corporatized as wealthy business sought first to corner the best scientists to further their industries. Later those corporations turned to paying for the “scientific studies” that would justify their desires. That corporatization of science then made it easier for science to be co-opted for political ends. News media on both sides of the political spectrum routinely fail to understand the content of the scientific studies that they discuss, either deliberately to suit an agenda or out of a simple inability to understand difficult scientific writing and statistics. Editorial boards of scientific journals themselves have difficulty determining good studies from bad studies, how can we let a government board be the arbiter of truth?

Since Elon Musk pounced on Twitter, are you not amazed to see just how dedicated to the suppression of speech the Left is? Censorship is the Left’s very spark-of-life. Everything they stand for is so false and lawless that truth magnetically repels them. Now, this may surprise you, but truth and reality are joined at the hip, so when you work hard to suppress one, you are also stomping the face of the other. “Disinformation” just means anything that the Left doesn’t want you to say out loud.

The truth is that everything the Left stands for these days is some kind of a hustle — which is the cheap street version of a racket, meaning an effort to extract something of value from you dishonestly. It’s the only way they know how to operate. It necessarily and chiefly depends on the deployment of lies, which by definition are propositions at odds with reality. The more they traffic in lies, the further they must distance themselves from reality and try to coerce you to go along with evermore absurdity: mostly peaceful riots… men-with-ovaries… free and fair elections…  insurrection… conspiracy theories… Lia Thomas in the fast lane… safe and effective vaccines…. Believe it or else!

The Left ends up at war with reality. That adds up to a bad business model for running a society, and the results are now plain to see. What in the USA is not failing these days? Our Potemkin economy of nail parlors, porn sites, pizza huts, casinos, drugs, and helicopter money? Our reckless relations with other countries? Public and higher education? Medicine? Financial markets? The sputtering engine of government under a phantom president? It’s all sinking into chaos and incoherence. For now, food just costs more than ever; wait until it’s simply unavailable. Nobody will care about anything else after that.

All this failure requires cover stories, narratives. Russia did it! Covid-19 did it! White supremacists did it! Trump did it! Narrative failure would equal failure of the Left altogether, so the Left requires the sturdiest possible apparatus for suppressing counter-narratives that lean in the direction of reality, its enemy. The Left found that apparatus in social media, the new vehicle for political debate, especially Twitter, which was so easily, blatantly, and dishonestly manipulated backstage by mysterious code ninjas. Twitter enjoys subsidy relations with government that incline it to do the government’s bidding. In effect, the government enlisted Twitter to undermine and over-ride Americans’ first amendment protections, by proxy.

Now we have the Disinformation Governance Board to be run by a TikTok musical comedy star, Nina Jankowicz, an instant laughingstock, since retailing disinformation has been her main occupation in the scant years she’s been on the Deep State scene. Ms. Jankowicz is a notorious RussiaGate hoaxer and psy-op agent in the October 2020 emergence of Hunter Biden’s laptop. She has zero credibility as anything but a professional falsifier. Her Disinfo Governance Board has no authority to regulate anything. It’s just a lame charade that can only draw more attention to the Left’s hatred of truth and reality. The Left pretends that free speech is a threat to civilization because, as usual, they are projecting psychologically. Their world is a mirror. In fact, the Left is a threat to civilization.

Behind all this is the growing panic in the Left that they are culpable for an enormous raft of crimes committed against their own country, and will eventually end up in court, in prison, or worse. Mr. Durham is just the leading edge of what will eventually be a heavy blade of judgment falling down on their necks. He’s busy sorting out the “Russia collusion” flimflam that turned into a coup to oust Mr. Trump, but that is only the beginning. In November, the Democrats will lose control of Congress and its oversight powers of agency operations, and in 2023 there will be inquiries galore into the neo-Jacobin craziness imposed on our country by the folks behind “Joe Biden.”

That includes such dicey matters as the several years of malevolent mismanagement of Covid-19, which looks more and more like a deliberate effort to kill a large number of citizens, and then moving along to the behind-the-scenes official support for those 2020BLM /Antifa riots, the ballot shenanigans around the last presidential election, the colossal failure to enforce border security (featuring Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkis), the Biden Regime’s conduct in provoking and prolonging the war between Russia and Ukraine, and (not least) the overseas moneygrubbing of President Biden’s family, as documented in Hunter’s laptop. I’m sure I left a few things out.

If Mr. Biden is still on-the-scene in January next year, he’ll be the first president not only impeached but convicted and removed by the Senate. And if for some reason he avoids criminal prosecution for treason out of some pitiful need for the government to maintain official decorum before the rest of the world, his brothers and his degenerate son may not be so lucky.

The Organic Prepper: Hits Against the American Food Supply System Keep On Coming

Spokane Valley firefighters responded to a fire at Spokane Seed (Courtesy of the Spokane Valley Fire Department)

Jeff Thompson at The Organic Prepper writes about ongoing problems in the food supply system with Hits Against the American Food Supply System Keep On Coming. The Organic Prepper previously wrote about these problems with Why Do All These Food Facilities Keep Catching Fire? While it may or may not be related (Food Processing says not), in April the FBI warned the food and agriculture sector about cyber attacks (link opens a pdf file).

Continuing the discussion on the current happenings within the American food supply chain, we have a series of strange events that have taken place over the course of the past week or two that you may want to catch up on.

Perdue Farms catches fire in Chesapeake, Virginia.

April 30 at 8:30 PM, a fire was reported at the Perdue Farms grain processing and storage facility in Chesapeake, Virginia. When firemen reported to the scene, they found a large soybean processing tank that was on fire. Crews were able to get the fire under control within an hour, and no injuries to employees of the facility were reported.

According to the plant manager, the damage from the fire will have a “minimal impact” on the facility’s production or operation capacities.

Spokane Seed Co catches fire in Spokane, Washington

Early on April 29, the Spokane Seed Co in Spokane, Washington, reported a fire just after midnight. The fire was in a multi-story seed storage silo. The company is known for its processing of chickpeas, peas, and lentils. Firemen responded to the scene and were able to contain the fire in two hours but apparently had a difficult time in doing so.

According to the fire department, “The difficulty involving the fire was that it was located in multiple locations as the origin was the auger unit that moved material from ground level and delivers it to the top of the silo; therefore, there was smoldering material located at the bottom of the auger and burning material that had been delivered to the top of the silo.”

(For the record, Powder Bulk and Solids published two pieces of late on April 26 and April 28 claiming that the uptick in fires at food processing facilities was a myth. They then reported the Spokane Fire on April 29 and the Chesapeake fire on May 2. They appear to have largely used Snopes to determine that the uptick in food processing fires was a myth and declared that “the continued spread of the rumor in the news media and on social media is perhaps attributable to a lack of awareness of industrial fire safety issues among the general public.”)

Oklahoma reports highly pathogenic avian influenza and will now monitor backyard chicken flocks.

According to the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food and Forestry, as well as the US Department of Agriculture Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), a case of HPAI was found in Sequoyah County, Oklahoma, at a commercially run chicken farm.

As of this past Sunday, all chicken swaps, sales, and exhibits have now been declared by these two agencies to be illegal in the state of Oklahoma until July 30. Oklahoma says that it is “working diligently with federal partners to prevent further spread of the virus.”

Both state and federal officials will now begin to conduct surveillance of all poultry flocks in the area around the Sequoyah County case – both commercial and backyard flocks.

Officials are asking chicken owners to alert them if their birds produce strange eggs, don’t produce eggs, have diarrhea, cough, sneeze, have low energy, die, or show signs of respiratory distress. (continues)

For more on worldwide dangers of food shortages, you may refer to Bayou Renaissance Man and his article The food crisis is showing the first signs of real famine.

Here in North America, we’re unlikely to face the full effects of the worldwide famine that appears to be developing, and that we’ve discussed in these pages on several previous occasions.  However, it’s biting hard in several regions and countries, and getting worse.  For example, see these articles (selected at random from many others I could have linked):

Even though I think we’ll probably still have food on US supermarket shelves, there are almost certain to be local and regional shortages of various products;  greatly increased prices;  and disruptions in normal consumption patterns, as people are forced to buy what’s available rather than what they really want.  It’s not going to be easy for anybody.

A few days ago, Michael Yon stuck his neck out with a more dire warning than he’s ever issued before on this subject.  I hope he’s wrong . . . but given his very extensive background in reporting around the world, I’m sure he absolutely believes what he’s saying.  Given my respect for his track record, I’m taking him seriously…(continues)

Coffee or Die Magazine on Ukrainian Civilian Preparedness

Inside a bomb shelter in Kyiv, Ukraine, in December 2021. Photo by Nolan Peterson/Coffee or Die Magazine.

‘Emergency Suitcases’ and Mass Evacuation Plans: Ukraine Preps for Worst-Case Russian Attack appeared in Coffee or Die Magazine in January. It’s a lengthy piece detailing Ukrainian civilian preparations and preparedness recommendations as the country faced the build up to the current Russian invasion. Some recommendations seem fairly optimistic such as recommending that a citizen’s emergency suitcase not exceed 50kg (110lb). This must assume a vehicular evacuation, as that is far in excess of what most civilians could carry very far. Some portions of the article are excerpted below.

The walls are freshly painted inside this Cold War-era fallout shelter located deep underground in Ukraine’s capital city. Even so, the aged wood paneling, as well as an outdated rotary phone, offer evidence that this facility was one of hundreds built by Soviet authorities in Kyiv during the 1950s and 1960s at the height of the Cold War. At that time, an American nuclear strike against the Soviet Union was the looming threat. On this day in late December 2021, the threat of a Russian blitz has spurred Kyiv city authorities to designate this shelter, and thousands more across the city, as places where civilians can seek refuge.

Standing inside a ventilation equipment room, Anatolii Lazurenko, civil security chief of the Kyiv City Council’s Shevchenko District, reflected on the historical irony of this shelter’s contemporary utility.

“You understand that life moves very fast,” Lazurenko told Coffee or Die Magazine. “We — the Soviet Union — used to see the United States as our enemies, but now they are our friends. And now our so-called Russian brothers are our enemies. This is unfortunately our reality.”

Situated beneath a district government building across the street from the 19th-century National Opera of Kyiv, this emergency shelter was originally designed to house 60 people. Yet, in a pinch, the facility can hold some 300 people, Lazurenko said. From ground level, a nondescript metal door opens into a staircase that descends multiple stories underground. The shelter has a special air ventilation room (originally intended to protect against radioactive fallout) and is connected to the city’s water main. Lazurenko said daily deliveries of food and medical supplies would sustain occupants in the event of a drawn-out Russian bombardment or siege.

“This security structure is ready to be used as intended,” Lazurenko said…

The Kyiv City Council has posted an interactive online map, which shows the locations of the roughly 5,000 official locations where residents can shelter from a military attack. Of that number, 514 shelters are purpose-built facilities dating back to the Cold War where people can remain for days on end.

Known as dual-use facilities, the remaining 4,500 shelters include basements, underground parking lots and passageways, as well as Kyiv’s 47 metro stations.

However, many of Kyiv’s ad hoc, dual-use shelters have fallen into disrepair and are not ready for use in an emergency. And for the shelters that are available, many are only useful for immediate safety during an attack — they are not equipped to house occupants for more than a few hours…

On its website, the State Emergency Service of Ukraine outlines in detail the steps civilians should take in the event of “emergency situations of a military nature.”

Each citizen should prepare an “emergency suitcase” ahead of time, the service advises. This should be a backpack with a capacity of at least 25 liters, a little more than 6.5 gallons, containing “clothing, hygiene items, medicines, tools, personal protective equipment, and food.” The service also recommends carrying important documents and cash in the backpack.

“The emergency suitcase is intended for the fastest possible evacuation from the zone of emergency,” the service says, adding that the bag’s overall weight should not exceed 50 kilograms, or about 110 pounds…

The [State Emergency] service also advises citizens to stock up on food and first-aid supplies, as well as flashlights, candles, cooking gas, and lamps. Important documents should be consolidated and packed away in advance…

Ukraine War Updates and Effects

Following are a few articles and videos on the Ukraine invasion and the effects on the rest of the world. First up is a video from S2 Underground. In their video On the Steppe, they give a good and heavily-mapped overview of what is happening on the ground in Ukraine. They also spend some time talking about what NATO is doing or not doing, and a little bit on the effects of sanctions, such as the price of fertilizer. Following the S2 video is an article by investment banker and market analyst Bill Blaine talking about how the world has changed with the invasion, especially focusing on market matters.

After Blaine’s article is a video of Ukraine President Zelenskiy calling on able Ukrainians to come forward so that Kiev an arm them. The general mobilization prohibits any male citizens aged 18 to 60 from leaving the country.

Forward Observer’s daily situational awareness video discusses soaring wheat prices. Following that is a short article from the BBC on prices which may increase as a result of the war, and then a longer article/interview from WWD on Russia’s motivations, goals, and implications for various future problems.

Blaine’s Morning Porridge: Hold the Narrative and Win the Game of Risk excerpt:

The world changed yesterday. Markets did not.

For the next 10-14 days – for that is how long it will likely take Russia to subjugate Ukraine – it will be wall to wall coverage. Already some fatigue with the streets of Kyiv is setting in. Our shock, horror and outrage will continue to be blunted – and by the time it’s over, other topics will be filling the screens.

Probably these other things will be surging inflation, soaring food prices, unimaginable energy bills, tensions in the Taiwan straights, and Europe bickering across every imaginable policy decision. For the next few years expect horror reports about brave Ukraine resistance fighters being massacred – or terrorists being dealt with if you watch Sputnik TV.

The reality is the world fundamentally changed yesterday:

There are the obvious issues; prolonged inflation for longer. We’re all aware that food prices will be impacted long-term. Russia is a major supplier of fertilisers, Ukraine is the number one sunflower seed producer, no 2 in Wheat and massive across agricultural commodities. (Some readers have already asked if it’s a “Ukrainian Chicken Farm moment” – the absolute top of the corporate cycle, named for the said poultry farm that launched a massively oversubscribed bond deal at an insane price, just days before SARs and Bird Flu caused it to shut with uninsured losses – but that is a story for another day…)

Energy is the other talking point – massive spikes in European Gas as we wonder where it’s going to come from. European nations are all eyeing each other – nervous the rest might cut a deal with the Kremlin to secure their own supplies.

It also confirms the critical effect of Geopolitics – and it confirms a massive tectonic shift has occurred as the world splits into new plates with their attendant conflict zones.

  • Putin is aware reproachment with the West will be a long-term play – and he won’t be counting on it happening soon. He’s pivoting (what a great word) to Asia – setting up Gas, Energy and Food deals with China.
  • China is happy to continue building its co-prosperity sphere in Asia. The more Russia and Europe can distract the US, the happier Xi will be.
  • The “West”, including our outposts in Japan and Oz will be wondering where they should stand.
  • The pundits expect Trump or a Trump Clone to lead the US into isolationism in 2025.
  • Europe will remain a tired, broke little grab-bag of ill-assorted nations pretending the like each other, at the end of very long supply chains dependent on what Russian Energy they can beg, borrow or steal.. (Steal in this context being breaking the climate change agenda to re-invest in Energy Security by opening coal, oil and gas facilities – prompting fury from climate activists who will accuse governments of stealing from future generations.)

That leaves Africa and South America up for play – the Chinese have learnt their debt lesson and will be loath to rely on further soft-power through lending. They may get… “outward bound”… As resources dip, populations rise, and climate change fries Africa the refugee crisis will further destabilise Europe.

I’m sorry if it sounds like a Game of Risk – but it’s beginning to look that way..

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SPT88TwthAw

BBC news: Five Ways Life Could Get More Expensive excerpt:

The Russia-Ukraine conflict is expected to drive these [energy and fuel prices] even higher and has already caused the oil price to jump to its highest level in more than seven years, while future gas prices have increased 60% in just one day.

WWD: Worse Than a Crime, It’s a Blunder excerpt:

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has profoundly shaken the world order (such as it is) and raised a host of questions about Putin’s endgame, the West’s response, the alternative courses that neither side took, and the consequences for Ukraine, Russia, and nearly everyplace else. In search of some preliminary answers, Prospect editor at large Harold Meyerson and managing editor Ryan Cooper talked to Anatol Lieven, senior research fellow on Russia and Europe at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and author of Ukraine and Russia: A Fraternal Rivalry. An edited transcript follows.

Harold Meyerson: What is Putin’s endgame, as far as you can discern it?

Anatol Lieven: Up to this morning, I would have said, on the basis of my conversations with people in Moscow, officials and former officials, that what they were going to do was take the Russian-speaking areas of the country in eastern and southern Ukraine and then, basically, offer to reunite Ukraine on the basis of federalism—in other words, basically propose the Minsk agreement for the Donbas, but into a kind of confederal state in which pro-Russian areas would have de facto control over Ukraine’s international alignment. And accompanying that with a treaty of neutrality. Now—and I think it’s still too early to say for sure—but after Putin’s speech and given what looked like Russian moves towards Kyiv, it may well be that they want more than that, they want to replace the government in Kyiv with a pro-Russian government.

Putin’s talk about denazification, demilitarization, punishment of Ukrainian criminals points in that direction, and the fact that they seem to have crossed the border on the ground from Belarus heading for Kyiv. The Russian bombardments, of course, extend across the whole of Ukraine, but that’s what you would have expected, a classic military offensive to knock out the military infrastructure through air power and missiles. But in the end, the political fate of Ukraine will be determined by what territory the Russian army occupies on the ground.

AmRRON AmCON Level 2 – Critical Infrastructure Disruption Expected

Today AmRRON updated their AmCON status to Level 2. From AmRRON:

AmCON-2  Russia/NATO Cyber Attacks — Critical Infrastructure disruption expected or extremely likely in western nations

AmCON-2 at 20220224-1920Z

Confirmed:  Multiple government websites in #Russia including the Kremlin and the Sate Duma have fallen offline; the incident comes amid a spate of cyberattacks targeting neighboring Ukraine (Twitter  pic.twitter.com/K1pPQu7cHs

NetBlocks (@netblocks) February 24, 2022

Most significantly:

President Biden has been presented with cyberattack options that are designed to disrupt Russia’s ability to sustain its military operations in Ukraine (NBC):

  • Disrupting internet connectivity;
  • Shutting off electric power;
  • Tampering with railroad switches

— Global: MilitaryInfo (@Global_Mil_Info) February 24, 2022

AmRRON Special Instructions:  No Change

  • Fuel and batteries should be topped off and alt power and communications operations checks complete
  • All Stations:  Have abbreviated STATREP formatted and ready to transmit, or practice transmitting/sharing over Persistent Presence Net
  • Conduct local/regional communications networks tests
  • NCS (and higher) Stations:  In addition to STATREP, have IES (Initial Event Summary) preformatted and ready to transmit in a sudden grid/comms-down disruption of conventional communications in your region or nationally.
  • NCSs, arrange to coordinate with adjacent NCSs and BB stations to receive (and send) traffic in support of AmRRON operations if AmCON-1 becomes necessary.

QRPer: Amateur Radio in Ukraine Banned Under Martial Law and State of Emergency

This article from QRPer talks about how amateur radio has been banned in Ukraine under the current state of emergency. This may be in part to protect the civilian population from Russian strikes that use radio detection to find targets, but also to prevent the release of Ukrainian troop movements or other defense activities. RigExpert antenna analyzers and, perhaps, Lab599 appear to be based in Ukraine, so these amateur radio products may also become scarce.

I have a number of friends (and many QRPer readers) in Ukraine, so it’s difficult to think of much else this morning after news of the invasion. From Reuters:

Russian forces invaded Ukraine on Thursday, assaulting by land, sea and air in the biggest attack by one state against another in Europe since World War Two.

Missiles rained down on Ukrainian cities. Ukraine reported columns of troops pouring across its borders from Russia and Belarus, and landing on the coast from the Black and Azov seas.

Explosions were heard before dawn and throughout the morning in the capital Kyiv, a city of 3 million people. Gunfire rattled, sirens blared, and the highway out of the city choked with traffic as residents fled.

The assault brought a calamatous end to weeks of fruitless diplomatic efforts by Western leaders to avert war, their worst fears about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s ambitions realised.[…]

Trevor (M5AKA) shared the following message via Twiter from Anatoly Kirilenko (UT3UY) of the Ukrainian Amateur Radio League: I’ve friends in both Ukraine and Russia and none of them want what’s happening here. My heart goes out to them. As with many of these situations, citizens have so little to do with the political, financial, and military interests of their leaders.

Supply Chain Woes and Related Shortages Continue

Supplies of many types of items continue to be uncertain or lacking in many areas of the economy as difficulties with supply chains continue. Seed shortages are reported nationwide. Vehicles can’t be built because of computer chip shortages. Appliances and computer shipments are delayed for months or years. Even teachers and substitutes, and many other kinds of employees, are in short supply in some places.

Reuters reports that it could be next year before chains start to mend, in World’s damaged supply chains brace for painful recovery.

Signs are growing that a global supply chain crisis which has confounded central bank inflation forecasts, stunted economic recoveries and compressed corporate margins could finally start to unwind towards the end of this year.

But trade channels have become so clogged up it could be well into next year before the worst-hit industries see business remotely as usual – even assuming that a new turn in the pandemic doesn’t create fresh havoc.

“We’re hoping in the back half of this year, we start to see a gradual recession of the shortages, of the bottlenecks, of just the overall dislocation that is in the supply chain right now,” food group Kellogg CEO Steve Cahillane told Reuters.

But he added: “I wouldn’t think that until 2024, there’ll be any kind of return to a normal environment because it has been so dramatically dislocated.”

The global trade system had never contended with anything quite like the coronavirus…

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds said in a letter to customers:

1) Unbelievable demand for seeds is causing national shortages. Our growers and our in-house production team are redoubling their efforts to produce more rare seeds, but global demand is causing many items to be temporarily unavailable. We apologize that many popular items are again selling out.

2) The volume of orders have been a challenge for our packing and fulfillment teams, who now work 24 hours a day in three shifts. We are working harder than ever to ship a record amount of orders, and we apologize for any delays you may have experienced in the last month.

3) Global paper shortages will greatly affect catalogs this year. We expect the paper costs for our 2023 catalogs to increase by 110%; we also face the possibility of having a supply shortage. The cost of seed packets, paper mailers, etc. is also quickly rising, and supplies are very short. We are currently out of both of our seed catalogs and copies for 2023 will again be limited…

KSAT/ABC: COVID-19 pandemic, supply chain issues change car-buying experience, dealers say

Bloomberg: Goldman Commodity Veteran Says He’s Never Seen a Market Like It

“I’ve been doing this 30 years and I’ve never seen markets like this,” Currie said in a Bloomberg TV interview. “This is a molecule crisis. We’re out of everything, I don’t care if it’s oil, gas, coal, copper, aluminum, you name it we’re out of it.”

Parade: Here Are the Groceries You Might Be Missing On Store Shelves Due to Food Shortages In 2022 

There are a number of variables at play in the grocery shortages we’re seeing this year. “It is a combination of factors: supply chain issues and driver shortages, scarcity of packaging, labor shortages at manufacturing and production plants as the workforce has not returned as facilities restarted from COVID closures,” Keith Daniels of Carl Marks Advisors told us. And, yes, COVID-19 plays a huge role, especially the latest variants.

“Omicron infections impacting employees reporting to work at manufacturing and grocery stores, higher demand from consumers—particularly impacting the last few weeks as consumers revert to eating at home from restaurants out of fears of Omicron,” Daniels said. “The recent, abrupt winter weather is also slowing down distribution.”

Wilder, Wealthy, and Wise: Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: A Bridge Too Far?

John Wilder at Wilder, Wealthy and Wise updates his Civil War 2.0 Weather Report: A Bridge Too Far?

“War, war, war!  This war talk’s spoiling all the fun at every party this spring. I get so bored I could scream!” – Gone With The Wind

No change this month.  We’ll see what February brings . . .

  1. Common violence. Organized violence is occurring monthly.
  2. Opposing sides develop governing/war structures. Just in case.
  3. Common violence that is generally deemed by governmental authorities as justified based on ideology.
  4. Open War.

We remain in the gray zone between step 9. and step 10.  I thought seriously about rolling back the clock to five minutes to midnight.  Violence is down, since the Left has seriously decided to clamp down on their useful idiots of BLM® and Antifa™.  The Right has (so far) not been any sort of a serious threat to anyone.  The hijinks that took place at the Capitol was closer to the football team painting something naughty on a water tower than any sort of real insurrection.

But then I reviewed the stories that I’m covering this issue.  Nope.  The Left wants to calm down the Far Left, but only so it can turn its full attention to the Right.  The pressure will continue.

The Right offers nothing to the Left.  It is comprised of nationalists – people who worry more about the nation than a group of foreigners.  The Right doesn’t hate the foreigners – it just worries about Americans first.  And the Right, more today than ever, worries about wanting a free capitalist system to make the lives of Americans better – not a free capitalist system for the sake of the system itself.

I currently put the total at (this is my best approximation, since no one tracks the death toll from rebellion-related violence) 650 out of the 1,000 required for the international civil war definition.

As close as we are to the precipice of war, be careful.  Things could change at any minute.

In this issue:  Front Matter – A Bridge Too Far – Violence And Censorship Update – The Scouring Of The Shire Armed Services –  Updated Civil War 2.0 Index – The Full Power Of The State – Links

Front Matter

Welcome to the latest issue of the Civil War II Weather Report.  These posts are different than the other posts at Wilder Wealthy and Wise and consist of smaller segments covering multiple topics around the single focus of Civil War 2.0, on the first or second Monday of every month.  I’ve created a page (LINK) for links to all of the past issues.  Also, feel free to subscribe and you’ll get every post delivered to your inbox, M-W-F at 7:30 Eastern, free of charge.

A Bridge Too Far

Operation Market Garden in World War II is the origin of this particular phrase.  The idea was a quick run to Antwerp to open up the main portion of Germany so that Berlin could be taken by December, 1944.

It failed.  It was an (overly) ambitious airborne assault on a series of bridges that would have allowed for an attack into Germany – Eisenhower approved it, not because he thought it would work, but because it was a part of a general offensive.

A Bridge Too Far would be an apt description of the Sabika Sheikh Firearm Licensing and Registration Act.  Thankfully, the chances of this travesty being enacted are small.  This act, however, is a dream list of Leftists everywhere:

  • Universal gun registration.
  • Psychiatric tests, including input from your ex. We all know how stable those relationships can be.
  • $800 fee for “insurance”
  • All magazines of greater than 10 rounds would be illegal.
  • Huge penalties for noncompliance.
  • And so, so, much more . . . .

I won’t go into more details, because, as I said, this particular bill won’t become law.  I think that even the far Left in Congress knows that passing this would be a de facto declaration of war on 80 million-plus American Citizens.

Just because it fails this time, don’t think that this isn’t exactly what they want.  It may be a bridge too far now, but their general offensive will continue.

Violence And Censorship Update

Time Magazine® (LINK) is happily showing off, step-by-step, how a group of unelected hardcore Leftists from unions coordinated with Leftists in Tech, Hollywood® and:

“Their work touched every aspect of the election. They got states to change voting systems and laws and helped secure hundreds of millions in public and private funding. They fended off voter-suppression lawsuits, recruited armies of poll workers and got millions of people to vote by mail for the first time. They successfully pressured social media companies to take a harder line against disinformation and used data-driven strategies to fight viral smears.”

Viral smears includes, of course, actual reporting of (for instance) Hunter Biden’s corruption and dissolute lifestyle – where “they” got The New York Daily News© kicked off of Twitter®.  The idea was that there was no rule that they wouldn’t try to change (Constitutionally or not) in order to make sure that Trump would lose.  Or that the system was set up so that they could manufacture enough votes for Biden to win.

What’s worse than 1,000 conspiracy theorists?  A real conspiracy.

Censored?  You and me.  And it’s ongoing – one Tweet® that included a direct quote from the Time© story was identified by Twitter® as disinformation.  Let that sink in.

It would be wrong, apparently, to think there was a secret conspiracy to defeat Trump.

Even when the conspirators spend 6,500 words in Time Magazine™ admitting it.

The Scouring Of The Shire Armed Services

The Secretary of Defense has just issued a 60 day stand down to combat “extremism” in the ranks.  What’s extreme?  No one has said.  It could be a Tweet® that is now no longer in favor that a soldier made years ago.

So far, the III-percenter® logo has been identified as “extremist” and has been identified as something that has to go.  No tattoos, no t-shirts, and I’d assume no posters.

The Left is afraid – a large percentage of those arrested related to the Capitol Hill incident (so far) have been veterans – 14% was a number that I saw.  Of those, 8% were Marines, so the article I read said, “Of special concern are the elite units.”

So, the purges will start.

What ideologies will be purged?

  • Social Justice™? Certainly not!  Despite the fact that it requires communism to implement, it’s the current ideology of the powers in charge.
  • Black Lives Matter©? Absolutely not!  How could an ideology that has the support of the entire Fortune 500© be wrong?  Besides, those weren’t riots, they were peaceful protests.
  • Antifa®? What wrong with being Anti-Fascist?  Huh?  What’s fascism?  Fascism is whatever is to the Left of Antifa™.

Nope.  Not those.

Updated Civil War II Index

The Civil War II graphs are an attempt to measure four factors that might make Civil War II more likely, in real-time.  They are broken up into Violence, Political Instability, Economic Outlook, and Illegal Alien Crossings.  As each of these is difficult to measure, I’ve created for three of the four metrics some leading indicators that lead to the index.  On illegal aliens, I’m just using government figures, or I would be, if they published any this month.

Violence:

Up is more violent, and to no one’s surprise, violence jumped again in January.

Political Instability:

Up is more unstable.  Instability jumped significantly – getting Trump out has not made things better.

Economic:

January showed a major jump.  I’d expect a market crash sooner than later – politically it’s best to get those out early in an administration.

Illegal Aliens:

No data this month.  Has FedGov decided to stop publishing it?

The Full Power Of The State

I’ve documented above how the Left is taking over or already has taken over communications, social media, the military, and the voting process.  That’s not enough.

Recently, the Bank of America® was requested by the FBI to provide information on its customers.  What sort of information?  Well, all of it, if the customer met this very broad list:

  • Customers confirmed as transacting, either through bank account debit card or credit card purchases in Washington, D.C. between 1/5 and 1/6.
  • Purchases made for Hotel/Airbnb RSVPs in DC, VA, and MD after 1/6.
  • Any purchase of weapons or at a weapons-related merchant between 1/7 and their upcoming suspected stay in D.C. area around Inauguration Day.
  • Airline related purchases since 1/6.

And, no, not everything had to click to get you on the list, but still, 211 people managed to make the list.  Bank of America™ wasn’t required to give this information without a proper warrant.  But Bank of America© did.

At least one citizen was questioned by the FBI based on this information.

So, now it’s not only the Federal government’s amazing ability to listen to you, follow you on social media, and track your every movement.  Now they enlist banks to participate in closing the loop.  Unless you pay in cash, they have a list of every transaction you make.

So, pay in cash?

Have you tried to do that with a rental car?  Have you tried to do that with an airline ticket?  Tried to check into a Holiday Inn Express®?

They might take cash, but they’ll need to see a credit card, first.

How else would you leave a perfect record for the FBI?

LINKS

As usual, links this month are courtesy of Ricky.  Thanks so much!!

PUNDITRY

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/world/2021/01/american-civil-war

https://www.thearticle.com/is-this-the-last-battle-of-the-american-civil-war

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2021-02-01/capitol-riot-trump-four-corners-sarah-ferguson/13098356

https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/security/news/2021/01/19/494758/united-states-early-days-domestic-insurgency/

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/how-close-did-us-come-successful-coup/617709/

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/512483-second-us-civil-war/

 

POLLS

 

https://today.yougov.com/topics/politics/articles-reports/2021/01/07/US-capitol-trump-poll

https://www.axios.com/poll-america-falling-apart-4a13376f-f962-46e3-8e2c-174d396f25d1.html

https://www.businessinsider.com/many-people-united-states-believe-cold-civil-war-survey-2021-1

https://www.usatoday.com/in-depth/news/2021/02/01/civil-war-during-trumps-pre-riot-speech-parler-talk-grew-darker/4297165001/

 

POLITICS

 

https://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/congressman-paul-gosar-oath-keepers-militia-civil-war-jim-arroyo-11529183

https://amgreatness.com/2021/01/09/we-are-perilously-close-to-a-civil-war-it-is-our-job-to-stop-it/

 

PREPARATIONS

 

https://www.al.com/news/2021/01/some-republicans-call-for-second-civil-war-citizens-take-arms.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2021/01/boogaloo-prepare-civil-war/617683/

https://www.ajc.com/news/militia-alliance-in-georgia-signals-new-phase-for-extremist-paramilitaries/UD2JMQV5A5EABHHAKBQZBK2IVY/

https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/internet/increasingly-militant-parler-refugees-anxious-qanon-adherents-prep-doomsday-n1254775

 

(SECRET) POLICING

 

https://summit.news/2021/01/20/leftists-call-for-new-secret-police-force-to-spy-on-trump-supporters/

https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/viral-trumpsnewarmy-video-is-liberals-at-their-craziest-and-scariest-aee81d5deeb1

https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2021/01/this-site-posted-every-face-from-parlers-capitol-hill-insurrection-videos/

https://facesoftheriot.com/#

 

PERSPECTIVES

https://www.city-journal.org/html/why-robespierre-chose-terror-12935.html

https://blogs.prio.org/2021/02/can-we-predict-civil-war/

https://theweek.com/articles/960957/worstcase-scenario-americas-immediate-future