Source: prepperbeef.com
One of the most common assumptions I come across in the survival-sphere is the idea that the next world war would automatically necessitate global nuclear conflict. In other words, a lot of people assume we aren’t in a world war until the nukes start flying. This is a dangerous misunderstanding for a lot of reasons. What they are overlooking is the fact that we are ALREADY in the middle of WWIII. These people don’t realize it because they’ve based their entire image of world war on Hollywood fantasy.
There are many ways in which wars are fought. In our current situation WWIII is being fought through proxies like Ukraine and Israel (and maybe Taiwan in the near future). The war is also being fought on the global economic stage through sanctions, inflation and the dumping of the US dollar as the world reserve. To be sure, these situations can easily escalate into something bigger and that is exactly what I suspect they will do. However, planetary nuclear war is the least likely scenario.
Survival and preparedness communities have a tendency to hyper-focus on the obviously Apocalyptic. We talk a lot about EMP strikes and split-second grid down calamities. We talk about solar flares, overnight economic crashes and nuclear holocaust. I think survivalists do this because it acts as a mental exercise – A way to better clarify what the best preparedness solutions are. But as I’ve said for many years, collapse is a process, not an event.
These things happen slowly, and then all at once. If you went back in time ten years ago and warned people that in 2024 the US would be in the middle of a stagflationary crisis with a 30%-50% average price increase on all necessities, they would probably dismiss you as a doom-monger. Well, guess what, that’s exactly what a handful of alternative economists (myself included) were doing well over a decade ago. And we WERE dismissed over and over again. Welcome to our world.
The reason people refused to believe us is because the danger was not immediately obvious. The economic threat was not hitting them in their wallet yet. Stock markets seemed to be doing fine. The jobs market was still functioning somewhat normally. They could only view economic crisis through the lens of a total collapse. The idea that it would happen incrementally never crossed their minds.
Even today there are still people who argue that everything is fine. The stock market is “fine.” The labor market is “healthy.” If you suggest all is not well, you’re a “chicken little.” This is the incredible danger of having a Hollywood fantasy idea of what a collapse looks like. We may never get to 100% systemic implosion; but an 80% collapse is still a survival situation.
The same dynamic goes for WWIII. We must not overlook the dangers right in front of us simply because intercontinental ballistic missiles aren’t crisscrossing the sky.
Consider for a moment the possibility that world war will be fought between major powers on proxy battlegrounds. The weapons of mass destruction will be financial instead of nuclear. The conflicts will go on for a decade or longer in various parts of the world, all adding up to a world war, but maybe never officially declared a world war. Perhaps there is a nuclear event somewhere; maybe a false flag or a limited strike. It still doesn’t mean global strikes are an inevitability.
I’m bringing up this topic because it’s important preppers don’t get stuck the psychological trap of defining a collapse event with such strict parameters. People also need to understand that the powers-that-be also have a lot to risk should a war devolve into nuclear exchange. If it was really that easy for them to launch warheads, wipe out the majority of the human population and then establish a global dynasty, they would have done it already….