EMP Commission Warns Of Year-Long Blackout And A Massive Death Toll

A federal EMP commission report warns that even the smallest EMP attack on our grid system would down it for about a year, if not longer.  A year-long blackout would certainly be coupled with a massive death toll that would devastate entire populations.

The so-called EMP Commission report said that this threat is very real, jeopardizes “modern civilization,” and would set back living conditions to those last seen in the 1800s. As a result of the chaos, millions would likely die, according to the report titled “Assessing the Threat from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP),” from the recently re-established Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack.

“The United States — and modern civilization more generally — faces a present and continuing existential threat from naturally occurring and man-made electromagnetic pulse assault and related attacks on military and critical national infrastructures. A nationwide blackout of the electric power grid and grid-dependent critical infrastructures — communications, transportation, sanitation, food and water supply — could plausibly last a year or longer. Many of the systems designed to provide renewable, stand-alone power in case of an emergency, such as generators, uninterruptible power supplies, and renewable energy grid components, are also vulnerable to EMP attack,” said the 27-page report.

“A long-term outage owing to EMP could disable most critical supply chains, leaving the U.S. population living in conditions similar to centuries past, prior to the advent of electric power,” said the July 2017 report provided Secrets.

“In the 1800s, the U.S. population was less than 60 million, and those people had many skills and assets necessary for survival without today’s infrastructure. An extended blackout today could result in the death of a large fraction of the American people through the effects of societal collapse, disease, and starvation,” added the executive summary.

Three reports on the issue of an EMP attack have been declassified by the Pentagon and seven more are awaiting clearance. Among those declassified documents, was a report from Peter Vincent Pry, who served on a prior EMP Commission and is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, spelling out the human toll of an EMP attack on the electric grid. He also advises the current commission.

In “Life Without Electricity,” he said the results would be horrific for most, as the vast majority of Americans have virtually no survival skills. He believes the whole year would look something like this:

• Social Disorder: Looting requires a dusk to dawn curfew for those not wanting to risk their lives. People become refugees as they flee powerless homes. The workforce becomes differently employed at scavenging for the basics, including water, food, and shelter.


• Communications: No TV, radio, or phone service.


• Transportation: Gas pumps will be inoperable. Failure of signal lights and street lights would impede traffic and all traffic would cease after dark, but not many would even have a functioning vehicle anyway. No mass transit metro service and all airlines will be stopped.


• Water and Food: There will be no running water. Stoves and refrigerators will be inoperable. People will have to melt snow, boil water, and cook over open fires. Local food supplies will be exhausted. Most stores will close due to the blackout.


• Energy: Oil and natural gas flows will stop.


• Emergency Medical: Hospitals will have to operate in the dark. Patients on dialysis and other life support will be threatened. Medications administered and babies will be born by flashlight.


• Death and Injury: Casualties from exposure, carbon dioxide poisoning, and house fires increase.

All of these should be kept in mind when prepping for the worst.

Since it’s hard to take that first step and prepare, especially for a year-long power grid failure, a handy guide we’ve often suggested is called The Prepper’s Blueprint.  Written by Tess Pennigton, it’ll walk the reader through a prepping regimen with a guide and easy to follow instructions.  It’ll give beginning preppers a foundation to build on.

Read the entire EMP Commission report by following the link below:

https://www.scribd.com/document/378714199/EMP-Report

The Russian EMP Test You’ve Never Heard Of

If you know anything about the threat from an EMP attack, then you know the Internet is full of myths and misinformation.

It’s so bad, in fact, that one well-read website – GeopoliticalFutures.com – recently posted a story that actually downplayed the potential damage from an EMP.

So, what’s the truth?

This week’s guest on Off The Grid Radio is Peter Vincent Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and a former member of the Congressional EMP Commission.

Pry separates fact from fiction on EMPs. He also tells us:

• Why airplanes and automobiles really will be disabled during an EMP.


• How a Russian test from the 1960s proved the destructive nature of EMPs.


• Why he believes President Trump is making a mistake in his interactions with North Korea.


• What we can learn from past nuclear tests by the United States and the Soviet Union.

Pry concludes by sharing his thoughts on the U.S. and Putin – and why Americans should be worried!

 

What Do They Know That We Don’t? DC Officials Flock To Doomsday Camps

Washington D.C. government officials are flocking to doomsday camps around the country.  Which of course begs the question: what do they know that we do not?

According to the Washington Examiner, a building network of backwoods doomsday camps around the country are pulling in members from affluent areas and even Washington national security officials as the threats grow from nuclear war, an EMP (electromagnetic pulse), or virus attack.  Dubbed Fortitude Ranch, the outposts promise protection and a year’s supply of food for those unable to build their own bunker with preparations for a SHTF scenario. What’s more, until a crisis strikes, the doomsday camps are being used for prepper training and vacations.

One of Fortitude Ranch’s members from the Baltimore area said that he and others joined after “waking up” to the potential of a national crisis from an attack, financial meltdown, or political violence. “For most of us, something rattled our cages and woke us up,” he said.

“We’re seeing members from all the three letter agencies,” said Fortitude creator Drew Miller, a retired Air Force colonel, and intelligence officer, in a reference to the Central Intelligence Agency, Defense Intelligence Agency, Federal Bureau of Investigation and more.  Miller called an attack or even a weather-related electromagnetic pulse shutdown of the electric grid “inevitable,” and a driving force in his project.

Prepping has offered many a sense a freedom none of us have anymore.  No longer needing the government for anything, preppers can survive most scenarios that will leave many others begging for their slavery again and in return, for the government to give them abject poverty in exchange.

Through memberships and his own cryptocurrency called “Fortitudes,” Miller has raised about $400,000 and established a ranch in West Virginia and Colorado with 10 others planned. An open house at the West Virginia ranch is scheduled for April 21-23.

He said that for the West Virginia ranch, “most members are professional Washington area folks. They don’t have time to do this own their own.” The cost is about $1,000 per person per year to join. –Washington Examiner

“You’d have to be an idiot not to think it will happen,” said Miller, author of “Rohan Nation: Reinventing America After the 2020 Collapse.” Miller also said that the camps are nearly as survivable in an attack as the Mt. Weather FEMA site near Virginia’s Shenandoah River where several Washington leaders were housed after the 9/11 attacks.

Each camp has a shooting range and is equipped to handle between 50 and 500 people during any SHTF scenario. The camps will have lodges, underground bunkers, and guard towers. In the event of a social meltdown, members will be responsible for manning those towers.

With all of the high-powered government officials signing up as members at Fortitude Ranch, it’s pretty safe to say that if you are not prepping now, you should probably start. A good reference for those just beginning to tread into the realm of prepping is the book titled The Prepper’s Blueprint.

 

Your Computer May Not Survive a Collapse But These Off-Grid Archiving Strategies Will

This article was originally published by Jeremiah Johnson at Ready Nutrition

I will admit that I am not the most technologically “savvy” individual, and I’m certainly not armed with all the modern “conveniences” that most people take as a necessity. Cell phones, Kindle devices, M-pad/I-pod/UFO-whatever-for-music…don’t use ‘em. That being said, I know they have their merits, but it’s the same type of lesson I tried to impart to my son when he went into the service.

Get a copy of this comprehensive preparedness guide BEFORE TSHTF

He picked up one of those high-speed wrist compasses…the digital kind…but I constantly remind him to use that “old-fashioned” lensatic compass as his mainstay. He listens, although he prefers to use his gizmo. I’m just happy he carries the lensatic with him and knows how to use it. I made sure he knew how to use it.

Create a Survival Library with Hard-Copy Notes and Archives

In this light, remember that all of our technology can collapse in the blink of an eye. The collapse can be precipitated by any number of things…grid failure/brownouts, an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) strike, a nuclear war, or just a societal collapse that has a “downtrickle” of losing critical infrastructure and modern power systems. In that light, it is best to take your digital and electronic libraries and ensure they are duplicated into hard-copy. Consider investing in a typewriter to pass this valuable information on. Let’s give some suggestions, and you can take them, and tailor them to suit your needs.

1. Whenever you watch any kind of training video/DVD, you should always take notes and summarize it. Pick up the key points, supplementing them with your own notes and diagrams to help clarify the instruction. A composition-type notebook works well for this. I take rough notes on a sheet of paper, and then recopy them into the notebook.


2. Summarize books and other works: Turn a 300-page book into 8-10 pages of intense notes…summarize and shoot for brevity and clarity in your notes. This is not to say, “don’t keep books,” but rather, read them and take good notes that you can glance at to glean any important information you may need to use.


3. Print out the important how-to’s and “archive” notes: don’t just store it on hard drive or jump drive! Although that is important, you want to make sure your information is printed off.  Strive for accuracy, compactness, neatness, and organization in all of your notes.


4. File similar subjects in a binder/common protector: This is especially important when you’re dealing with things such as first-aid and medicine. Protect the info, and keep it well-organized


5. Military Med Chests: Yes, made out of strong aluminum, these stackable canisters are perfect to place your archives and books inside after wrapping them up in plastic…preferably contractor-grade bags around 6 mils in thickness.


6. Durable plastic bins: These can work if they’re really tough and are water-tight. The biggest problems with notes, archives, and books are water, mildew, bugs, and fire, in that order.  You want to make sure everything is in plastic and sealed up tight.


7. Duplicate everything…1-6 up there? You should have one copy out for your general use, and another sealed up in a safe place.

The last measure mentioned is not just for you and your family. The last measure is to provide information for those not here with us yet, or those not old enough to use the information right now. Think beyond yourself and your own lifetime, or even the lifetimes of your kids. You want to leave a legacy? Who cares if they know who you are? There will still be those who will thank you for leaving records and how-to’s they can use. Want a good example? Read the book “Lucifer’s Hammer,” by Niven and Pournelle. Be more than a student, or a secretary. Be a custodian…of information…. a caretaker, taking care for future generations. Hard copy for all information…to include books!…is the way to save the knowledge. Stay in that good fight! JJ out!

Additional Reading:

3,000 Survival Books You Can Download for Free

The Prepper’s Blueprint: The Step-By-Step Guide To Help You Through Any Disaster

10 Books That Could Actually Save Your Life

About the Author

Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne). Mr. Johnson was a Special Forces Medic, EMT and ACLS-certified, with comprehensive training in wilderness survival, rescue, and patient-extraction. He is a Certified Master Herbalist and a graduate of the Global College of Natural Medicine of Santa Ana, CA. A graduate of the U.S. Army’s survival course of SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape), Mr. Johnson also successfully completed the Montana Master Food Preserver Course for home-canning, smoking, and dehydrating foods.

Mr. Johnson dries and tinctures a wide variety of medicinal herbs taken by wild crafting and cultivation, in addition to preserving and canning his own food. An expert in land navigation, survival, mountaineering, and parachuting as trained by the United States Army, Mr. Johnson is an ardent advocate for preparedness, self-sufficiency, and long-term disaster sustainability for families. He and his wife survived Hurricane Katrina and its aftermath. Cross-trained as a Special Forces Engineer, he is an expert in supply, logistics, transport, and long-term storage of perishable materials, having incorporated many of these techniques plus some unique innovations in his own homestead.

Mr. Johnson brings practical, tested experience firmly rooted in formal education to his writings and to our team. He and his wife live in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with their three cats.

How Our Dependence on Global Shipping Will Come Back to Bite Us

This article was originally published by Cat Ellis at The Organic Prepper

If the general public understood how vulnerable our reliance on global shipping made us, they’d all become preppers overnight. Trucks, planes, and cargo ships are responsible for just about everything modern life depends upon. This reliance on global goods and long-distance shipping puts us all at risk.

Our Dependence Upon Global Shipping

Modern shipping keeps us clothed and fed. It brings us necessary medicines, fuel to the pumps, and delivers chemicals necessary to municipal water treatment plants. It is truly amazing how seamless it all appears to the average consumer, especially considering shipping’s global scale.

That is until there is a problem. Problems can be anything from a trucker’s strike to a plane crashing to a cyber attack shutting down the largest global shipping company.

Global shipping is a necessary evil in a world where we rely on global goods. When companies take their manufacturing operations overseas, the first thing we think of is lost jobs. But, we also put access to those goods at risk. Some of these risks include:

• Relations with China breaking down over North Korea.


• Hackers taking down software (navigation, customer orders, inventory tracking, systems diagnostics, etc) on ships, planes, trucks, and at ports and command centers.


• An EMP causing all electronic systems to cease working.


• Employees of shipping companies across an industry going on an extended strike.


• Deteriorating domestic infrastructure interfering with the delivery of goods.


• War/terrorism anywhere in the world causing delays and lost shipments of imports/exports.

Just a 24-Hour Delay Causes Shortages

A perfect example of this is shipping fresh food to Alaska all year long. Alaskan grocery stores do what they can to stock Alaska-grown items on their shelves, but due to the climate, Alaskans rely on imported produce and goods. The Anchorage Daily News reported on the impact of a single ship being delayed by just 24 hours for a repair.

Here’s what one of their agriculture experts had to say about why Alaska imports so much of its food.

Much of Alaska’s food comes up by container ship over the water. Some also arrives via trucks that take the Alaska Highway, or by air freight.

“It’s cheaper to barge or fly it in than it is to grow it here,” said Stephen Brown, a Palmer-based district agriculture agent with the University of Alaska Fairbanks. “The problem with that is that creates a very fragile food supply that’s very easy to be disrupted.” (source)

Further into the above-linked article, a recent disruption came when a ship needed repairs before heading up to Alaska.

A Tote Maritime Alaska ship was the one that was late getting to Anchorage last week, due to a weld that required a repair by divers in Tacoma.

“When there are disruptions to that supply chain, things can become difficult rather quickly. That’s when you can start to see shelves looking a little bit thinner. … Nobody wants to buy 2-week-old strawberries that are half-rotten,” said Grace Greene, vice president at Tote Maritime Alaska. “Having a tight supply chain is really critical.”

Cyberattacks Can Shut Down Global Shipping

This isn’t just an Alaska problem. Disruptions in shipping can happen anywhere and on a much larger scale. Recently, global shipping giant, AP Moller-Maersk, was hit by a major ransomware attack. This left ships sailing off course and ports were unable to accept ships.

According to Reuters:

The cyber attack was among the biggest-ever disruptions to hit global shipping. Several port terminals run by a Maersk division, including in the United States, India, Spain, the Netherlands, were still struggling to revert to normal operations on Thursday after experiencing massive disruptions. (source)

This was a wake up call for many in the industry. The article goes on to say

“The Maersk attack raises our awareness of the vulnerability of shipping and ports to technological failure,” said Professor David Last, a previous president of Britain’s Royal Institute of Navigation.

“When GPS fails, ships’ captains lose their principal means of navigation and much of their communications and computer links. They have to slow down and miss port schedules,” said Last, who is also a strategic advisor to the General Lighthouse Authorities of the UK and Ireland. (source)

There’s a Shortage of Truck Drivers

Add to this that we are experiencing a shortage of truck drivers due to fewer people looking for work, plus increased shipping costs due to increased regulations. The CEO of Tyson foods says:

“These additional costs are included in our outlook,” he told investors and analysts Feb. 8. “However, we’re assuming we’ll recover the majority through” higher prices for consumers.

The tightness in the trucking market probably won’t ease any time soon. Employers can’t find enough drivers — at least at the wages companies want to pay — as low unemployment spurs competition from other industries.

Construction jobs, for example, pay on par or better and allow workers to be home more with their families. Long-distance truckers can be on the road for weeks at a time. (source)

If a kink in the chain develops, there are fewer people capable of stepping in when needed.

Imagine If Truckers Went on Strike

If long-haul truckers were to strike, the store shelves would be bare within days. Everything from food, medicines, toilet paper, to gasoline would disappear from store shelves. Life as we know it would come to a grinding halt.

Back in 2008, diesel fuel prices rose so high that truckers protested and rallied in cities across the US, threatening to go on strike.

Independent U.S. truckers are planning to stop hauling freight Tuesday in protest of record-high diesel prices that drivers say they can no longer afford.

Independent truckers, who constitute 90 percent of the nation’s trucking fleet, are being hit especially hard by soaring diesel prices and compensation lags far behind rising costs, according to the American Trucking Association. (source)

Thankfully, we didn’t experience a nationwide trucker strike that time. The economy was already on shaky ground as it was.

Just 5 days Until Chaos

So, how long would we really have? You need to check out this article with a video on how we only have about five days before things get really bad. Two quotes from the video really stood out to me. First:

“The growth and population in this country, and the need for the movement of goods and services, is literally going to overwhelm the infrastructure as we know it today.”

And the second quote:

“We are now investing a smaller percentage of our Gross Domestic Product in transportation infrastructure than many third world countries.”

This is a recipe for a disaster if I ever saw one. According to the video, here’s what our situation would look like within 5 days:

• Day One– We lose resupply of food and medicines, mail stops, and hospitals run out of clean linens.


• Day Two– Gas stations are running out of gas, sanitation systems start to fail, local stores and ATMs run out of cash.


• Day Three– Pumps are out of gas, stores have no fresh produce, banks run out of cash, and hoarding begins in earnest.


• Day Four– Emergency vehicles and public transport run out of fuel, airports close, and trash piles up in the streets.


• Day Five– Chaos

Unless something changes, we will have more people needing more goods and services, and we won’t be able to get them because our infrastructure won’t be able to handle it.

How Would You Have Fared?

Had truckers gone on a nationwide strike, or if the Petya ransomware attack had interfered with Maersk shipping for more than a few weeks, how would you have held out?

Thankfully, most of the scenarios that would impact shipping are temporary, perhaps a few days to a few weeks. Having just a three-month stockpile of food and supplies would cover most emergencies, including shipping delays.

You can easily put three month’s worth of necessities aside by adding by buying an extra food item each trip for your pantry. As for your other supplies, look at the five days detailed above. Use that as a guide for what to stock up on.

Here are a few more things to keep in mind.

• If you store gasoline, you will need to add a fuel stabilizer.


• Store long-term food as a back-up to your well-stocked pantry.


• Remember to stock up on water, and look into rainwater catchment in your area. (Learn more about water preparedness.)


• Have a backup toilet and plans for safely removing human waste.


• Grow a garden and secure it. This could mean fencing, alarms, a dog, etc.


• Learn to forage and recognize wild, edible and medicinal plants.


• If you have a local farm or dairy, start sourcing your foods closer to home.


• Get chickens and rabbits for home meat and egg production.


• Get a backup solar generator and batteries. This is a bigger purchase than an extra bag of rice, but they run silently. If you’re worried about EMPs, look into constructing a Faraday cage for items like this.


• Focus on making your lifestyle more sustainable in every way you can. There are hundreds of ideas in this article.

And finally, get more toilet paper than you think you need. There are options, like personal cloths, squeeze-bottle bidets, and scrap paper, but none of them are quite like toilet paper.

The more you localize your family’s supply chain, the better off you’ll be during a disruption.

Any other ideas for prepping for an interruption of shipping?

Let me know in the comments.

***

Cat Ellis is an herbalist,  massage therapist, midwifery student, and urban homesteader from New England. She keeps bees, loves gardening and canning, and practice time at the range. She teaches herbal skills on her website, Herbal Prepper. Cat is a member of the American Herbalists Guild, and the author of two books, Prepper’s Natural Medicine and Prepping for a Pandemic.

Please feel free to share any information from this article in part or in full, giving credit to the author and including a link to The Organic Prepper and the following bio.

Daisy Luther is the author of The Pantry Primer: A Prepper’s Guide To Whole Food on a Half Price Budget.  Her website, The Organic Prepper, offers information on healthy prepping, including premium nutritional choices, general wellness and non-tech solutions. You can follow Daisy on Facebook and Twitter, and you can email her at daisy@theorganicprepper.ca

Predictive Programming? Soros Warns of War with North Korea, Veils Indirect Threat to the President

George Soros (formerly Georgiy Schwarz) has been one of the most destructive individual forces in the past three decades throughout the world. He broke the Bank of England in the 1990s, is responsible for currency collapses in places such as Malaysia, has been listed as wanted by several nations, and is meddling in the illegal alien Muslim floodgate introduced into the countries of Europe. He is directly responsible for the troubles in Eastern Ukraine.

Soros attempted to institute a “land grab” of lands in Donetsk and Lugansk (“coincidentally” the same provinces attempting to secede from Ukraine) to take their natural resources: trillions of ores and minerals, for the mere pittance of $50 million. He directly sponsored and created Maidan and the lie of Ukrainian revolution…, a coup d’état against the Ukrainian Constitution’s legally elected representative, Viktor Yanukovych that forced him to flee to Russia. Soros pulled strings attached to Senators John McCain and Lindsay Graham, and invisibly “tethered” politico-puppets Hillary Clinton (then Secretary of State) and Victoria Nuland.

Now Soros has made prognostications of a coming nuclear war between the United States and North Korea. CNBC released this excerpt on 1/26/18 of the oligarch’s forecasts:

“The fact of nuclear war is so horrendous that we are trying to ignore it, but it is real. Indeed, the United States is set on a course towards nuclear war by refusing to accept that [North] Korea has become a nuclear power. This creates a strong incentive for North Korea to develop its nuclear capacity with all possible speed, which in turn may induce the United States to use its nuclear superiority pre-emptively, in effect to start a nuclear war to prevent a nuclear war, obviously a self-contradictory strategy.” – Soros’ speech to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland

Soros didn’t stop there. He also said this:

“Soros said Trump is trying to establish a “mafia state” in the U.S. but has failed so far.

The progressive activist said he sees the president’s place in the world as “temporary” and likely to “disappear in 2020 or even sooner.”

These words shouldn’t be taken lightly. Soros has hidden billions in his NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) and has stepped up the role of destabilizing nations through political rabble-rousing (labeled “organization” or “activism” in the Alinsky-progressive manner) of the youth to overthrow existing governments. This has been complemented by the relentless push to control legislation in The Hague courts to force sovereign European nations to allow Muslims to enter their countries.

Destabilization is not confined to Europe. Soros has been actively destabilizing the United States for many years, as well. Half of the Democratic Party either answers to or is allied to him. For the basics (and basis) read the work “Shadow Party” that chronicles his activities. In that light, a Democratic Senator, Tammy Duckworth of Illinois completed a trip to South Korea to assess the situation and U.S. troops in the region. Duckworth is not your run-of-the-mill Democrat: She is a former chopper pilot who lost both of her legs after being shot down in Iraq, and she attained the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. The following is an excerpt from a December 7, 2017 interview with Zack Beauchamp in an article entitled US senator on North Korea: “Most Americans don’t realize how close we are to this war. Here is an excerpt from that interview:

“I’m extremely worried — not just based on what I’m hearing out of the White House but also what I’m hearing out of the defense community. We are far closer to actual conflict over North Korea than the American people realize.

In August, we had a meeting between Defense Secretary [James] Mattis and his counterparts in South Korea to discuss the use of US nuclear first strike. In the same time frame, we permanently moored a nuclear submarine in South Korea. Everything we’re doing shows a military that, in my personal opinion, has turned the corner from “we need to try to prevent this from happening” to a military that’s saying the president is likely to make this decision [to attack] and we need to be ready.

But a preventive first strike from us will result in a massive response from the North Koreans. We know this because a high-ranking defector from North Korea testified in front of Congress last month; one of the things that would happen is a preemptive first strike from the United States or South Korea would result in an automatic massive response.”

As you may have deduced, the direction we are heading in is toward a war. The last excerpted paragraph contains a statement by a North Korean defector stating that North Korea will retaliate should we strike first. Although the defector did not go into much detail, know that the policy of North Korea’s military also enables it to strike first…if they believe an attack is imminent or in motion against them.  In this case, an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) weapon is central to their nuclear strategy, as demonstrated by the (now defunct and defunded) Commission to Assess the EMP Threat Against the U.S. for more than a decade.

We will, of course, have to wait and see. As with history, however, when these oligarchs and politicians make public statements such as these about imminent warfare, common sense dictates the statements merit attention. This especially regarding the links to Congress and the U.S. State Department, both currently still infested with Obama-administration holdouts. These “leftovers” have in no way changed their viewpoints or actions.

In my opinion, Soros’ second statement is a veiled, indirect threat made to the President of the United States. The President’s “place in the world to disappear by 2020 or sooner,” he said? If that does not constitute a threat, then nothing does. He should be arrested immediately and investigated. But of course, that’s not how the game is played, is it? The problem with our Constitution is that it protects the rights of those who act to overthrow it. The bigger problem is that such protections are in place for them…and they (the ones who would overthrow our Constitution) bypass the laws…to buy further influence and immunity…from the very politicians who have sworn to stomp out such actions.

Can The US Survive An EMP Attack?

While there’s no question that a nuclear strike on the Continental US would be utterly devastating, it’s not the only way a rogue state like North Korea could kill millions of American civilians in one fell swoop.

Another possibility that is being studied by lawmakers and Pentagon officials is – like North Korea itself – a vestige of the Cold War. We’re of course referring to an electromagnetic pulse. By detonating a hydrogen bomb in just the right spot miles above the Earth’s surface, the North could permanently damage the US power grid – maybe even take it offline completely. By robbing entire swaths of the US of electricity, the North could precipitate thousands – if not millions – of deaths.

The North first threatened an EMP attack over the summer, and North Korean media and its people have mentioned it several times since.

Given the success of the North’s missile tests, Congress increased funding for the Commission to Assess the Threat to the US from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack as part of the National Defense Authorization Act back in September.

Last month, federal agencies and utility executives held GridEx IV, a biennial event where officials responsible for hundreds of local utilities game out scenarios in which North America’s power grid could fail. Unsurprisingly, with the North Korean threat looming, these discussions took on a whole new level of urgency, as Bloomberg explains.

This year, the event took on an added urgency given growing concern with a weapon straight out of the Cold War: an electromagnetic pulse, or EMP, emanating from a nuclear blast - specifically, one delivered by a North Korean missile or satellite detonated miles above the Earth. Though GridEx IV didn’t pose this exact scenario, industry experts concede there’s no clear plan to deal with it.

 

An EMP could damage electronic circuits over large areas, depending on the configuration of the weapon and how high it was detonated, though there’s disagreement over how effective such a tactic would be. Scientists also emphasize that a nuclear bomb that hits a ground target is much more worrisome. Nevertheless, with North Korea’s increasingly successful missile and warhead tests in mind, Congress moved to renew funding for the Commission to Assess the Threat to the US from Electromagnetic Pulse Attack as part of the National Defense Authorization Act.

 

In September, the commission’s top officials warned lawmakers that the threat of an EMP attack from a rogue nation “becomes one of the few ways that such a country could inflict devastating damage to the U.S."

 

GridEx IV participants said the use of an EMP, however improbable, has been very much on their radar. Lisa Barton, executive vice president of Columbus, Ohio-based American Electric Power Co.’s transmission unit, said the Electric Power Research Institute, an industry research arm, was analyzing the risk. An EPRI report published this week emphasized that widespread damage was indeed possible from such an attack.

The consensus was hardly reassuring. How damaging would an EMP attack be? Well, nobody can say for sure. But according to a report from the Electric Power Research Institute, an EMP could easily trigger a “mass casualty event” – even if its impact was limited to a specific region, as one of their simulations suggested...

Still, the EPRI report paints a picture that’s hard to ignore. Simulations showed that detonating a nuclear weapon about 250 miles above the Earth using a 1.4 megaton bomb, almost 100 times more powerful than the one dropped on Hiroshima, would likely collapse voltage regionally, affecting several states but not the entire eastern or western networks. “None of the scenarios that were evaluated resulted in a nationwide grid collapse,” the report stated. Recovery time from a high-altitude EMP would depend on equipment damage, something the EPRI said it plans to study next year and “develop cost-effective options for mitigating."

Fortunately, the operators of America’s power grids have some experience developing emergency response scenarios for an EMP. As it turns out, an EMP would essentially mimic the effects of an extremely powerful solar flare. Power grid operators are constantly on the lookout for flares, and have theorized what improvements might be needed to make power grids totally resistant.

PJM Interconnection LLC, operator of the power grid serving one-fifth of America"s population, has a lot of experience protecting systems against solar activity. PJM has also been working with transmission owners to protect against other threats, many of which have two specific characteristics: low probability and high potential for catastrophe, said Mike Bryson, vice president of operations for the Valley Forge, Pennsylvania-based operator. An EMP is one of them.

 

Power companies have made a few moves to protect against electromagnetic interference. Some grid operators and transmission infrastructure owners are putting in place so-called Faraday enclosures, shields of conductive material used to protect electronic equipment and facilities. Utilities have also started stockpiling spare parts to replace any that are damaged by an EMP event, storms or other disasters.

 

“I don’t think we have an illusion we will prevent it,” Bryson said in an interview. “That’s really the government’s job."

Expensive fortifications known as Faraday cages could help diffuse the energy pulse, possibly stopping it from overwhelming a power grid. Another option would be installing automated control systems that would regulate the grid’s response to an EMP, potentially allowing it to recover more quickly.

Duke Energy Corp., one of the country’s largest utility owners, has been working with EPRI to study its threat to civilian infrastructure. Lee Mazzocchi, Duke’s senior vice president of grid solutions, said “we really want to use science and research to validate if and how much an EMP threat there could be."

 

Jon Rogers, a scientist at Sandia National Laboratories, has been studying the threat since the 1990s. The lab has been looking at how automated control systems could help systems recover. Rogers noted that the grid already has lightning surge arrestors to protect against strikes, which could potentially be useful in case of an EMP. “There are open questions,” he said.

 

“Back in the Cold War, we worried about massive exchanges at the time with the Soviet bloc,” Rogers said. “There seems to be reduced concern about that and increased concern about a single or smaller surges and what that could mean.” Targeted attacks on specific elements of infrastructure are seen as more likely, including “using an EMP without going nuclear,” added Jeff Engle, vice president of government and legal affairs for United Data Technologies, a security services firm.

 

“EMP technology itself has been advancing with devices becoming smaller, more effective,” said Engle, who declined to give specific examples. Along these lines, the industry’s stance has been to prepare for less-intense EMPs from irregular lightning strikes, solar flares—and possibly localized attacks.

Researchers at the Edison Electric Institute believe an EMP would be tremendously damaging to a wide range of critical infrastructure...

For EMPs resulting from nuclear blasts, the Edison Electric Institute, an industry group, said the possible effects aren’t fully understood and proposed fixes remain unproven and impractical.

 

“Other sectors of the economy likely will be affected by a nuclear EMP attack, including other critical infrastructure sectors upon which the electric sector depends,” the group said in a 2015 paper titled Electromagnetic Pulses (EMPs):

 

Myths vs. Facts. “It makes little sense to protect the electric grid while ignoring these other critical infrastructure sectors."

…But the costs of fending off such an attack would be astronomical – as one scientist put it. Making the entire US power grid immune to an EMP would cost hundreds of millions, if not billions of dollars.

Richard Mroz, president of the New Jersey Board of Public Utilities, warned the cost of preventing widespread failures from an EMP would “be astronomical.” Placing transformers or a substations in shielded cages would cost hundreds of millions of dollars, he said, while protecting critical assets on a distribution system like New Jersey’s could reach into the billions of dollars.

 

“Managing that kind of threat right now—no one really has the resources to do that,” Mroz said.

As we pointed out back in October, one expert told Congress that an EMP could kill off 90% of the US population.  People who lived through the New York City blackout in 1977 will remember how lootings and crime exploded while the lights were out. A similar phenomenon would likely play out following an EMP, as law enforcement would be hobbled and powerless to contain criminal behavior.

Think about how Hurricanes Irma and Maria devastated Puerto Rico by knocking out all communication and electricity infrastructure. Three months later, it has yet to be fully restored. Meanwhile, the death toll from the storms is on track to eclipse the thousands who died during Hurricane Katrina.

…Now imagine that scenario playing out across the entire Atlantic seaboard…
 

9 Vital Skills For A Post-EMP World

While having the right equipment and supplies is normally considered essential to survival, having the right skills trumps them both. You can make up for an equipment or supply shortage by having enough skills, but it’s much harder to do the reverse. Eventually your supplies will run out, then what will you do, if you don’t have the skills to produce more?

Typically, we break most of these skills down into two basic categories: wilderness survival skills and homesteading skills. The general idea behind homesteading skills is that if we aren’t trying to survive in the wilderness, then we need to convert our homes into homesteads in order to survive. There are a few other skills, such as medicine, which don’t fall into either of these categories, but most of the survival skills we all work to learn can really be put in one or the other.

But I’d like to propose a third category of skills; one that will be highly necessary if we are ever attacked by an EMP. Those skills are the ones which will be necessary so that we can rebuild society. Our ability to survive long-term, especially our ability to survive as the United States of America, will depend largely upon our ability to rebuild our society and the technology that makes it possible.

Make no mistake about this, if we are unable to rebuild our society, there are others who will be glad to move in and take over. For millennia, countries which became weak were conquered and absorbed by those who were strong. Technology was a large part of this, as military technology had a lot to do with determining a country’s strength.

Get Free Backup Electricity — And Never Be Without Power!

In our weakened, post-EMP state, with millions of people dying off, the United States would be prime pickings for anyone who would want to attack. That is, unless we were able to rebuild our country, before the military ran out of beans, bullets and fuel to defend us.

So here are the skills which I see as the most important, in order to make the United States of America survive as a country, which will hopefully help us to survive as individuals as well.

1. Medicine

One of the first things we will be forced to confront as a society is the massive number of people who will die due to the lack of proper medical attention. A fair percentage of our society is dependent upon regular doses of medicines to treat chronic conditions they have. Without those medicines, these people will begin to die off, causing the first wave of people dying after the attack.

Alternative medicine will be especially important during this time, as once local stocks of medicines run out, there will be little that can be done to replenish them. Doctors will find themselves scrambling to find the natural remedies that were used 100 years ago, before the pharmaceutical industry grew so large. Those with this knowledge will suddenly find themselves sought after and respected by the medical industry.

2. Chemistry

Without the ability to mass-manufacture medicines and transport them across country, the only medicines which will be produced, will be simpler medicines which are produced locally. While much of this will probably be natural medicine, the ability to produce chloroform and other simple medicines will be invaluable.

3. Agriculture

Food production will have to be localized, ignoring the massive agricultural industry that we have today, as well as the massive food production industry. According to the report of the EMP Commission, the largest number of people who will die during the first year after the EMP will be of starvation. The only chance those people have is for local farmers to pick up the slack and produce food locally.

This does not just mean growing produce and gain, although that is an extremely important component. It also means animal husbandry, breeding and growing animals for meat.

4. Practical Engineering

We are, to a large part, a nation of things. Without electrical power, many of those things will no longer work, even though they will still exist. Engineering will be extremely important in a post-EMP world; not from the point of view of designing new things, as finding ways of making the old things work. This will most likely require extensive modifications.

While our country has thousands of engineers, few are good at this type of engineering. An engineer who is only used to designing integrated circuit chips isn’t going to have much to do in a post-EMP world. But one who is used to working hands-on, finding ways of doing things, will be in high demand.

When you consider that we will need to figure out how to draw our own wire and build out own generators on a local level, in order to have electricity back in our cities, you can see how important this will be. These same engineers will probably be working out modifications for farm equipment, to run off of steam or animal power and modifying vehicles, so that the engines will run off of alternate fuels and without computers.

5. Telephony

The oldest form of electronic communications we had was the telegraph. That was quickly replaced by telephones. If we are going to restore communications, these skills will be needed. But I’m not talking about the telephony of today, which is largely dependent on computers; rather, I’m talking about the telephony of yesteryear, with an operator connecting your call.

6. Electrical Power Production

Restoring society will require the ability to produce electrical power on a local level, more than anything else. This will mean building and rebuilding small power production plants, including hydroelectric plants and coal plants.

More than that, there will be the problem of rebuilding the distribution grid. Once again, that will have to start on a local level, which will then begin to be connected together, as transformers can be built and new power lines can be made.

7. Electronics

There will be warehouses full of electronic equipment that will survive the EMP, even if there isn’t much equipment in use that survives it. Some will be able to be used as is, but much will probably need to be modified, in order to use it for purposes other than its original intent. There will be a lot of local modification going on, requiring people who know how to read a schematic and solder a connection.

8. Blacksmithing & Machining

Manufacturing the equipment to draw wire and wind transformers on a local level will be a huge challenge. First, an engineer will have to design the equipment, then it will have to be built. Since we won’t have the factories available that we do today, that’s going to mean going back to the old methods, with blacksmiths forming things out of metal and machinists who can modify those metal parts.

Of course, this will all have to be done with manpower or animal power, as there won’t be any electricity to run motors. That means that the first job these people will have to do is modify modern equipment, so that it can be run off of animal power or water power.

9. Mechanics

I mentioned modifying cars to run off of alternate fuels and without computers to control the engines. While we will need engineers working on this, we will also need the practical knowledge of mechanics, who know the engines better than anyone. These mechanics may very well need the services of the blacksmiths and machinists, in order to modify parts to meet the need.

What would you add to our list? Share your thoughts in the section below:

A North Korean EMP Attack Can Create 90+ Fukushimas in the U.S.

First, a salute to All News Pipeline, where Stefan Stanford and Susan Duclos have been continuously releasing letters written by Dr. Peter V. Pry, the foremost American expert on the EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) threat against the U.S. Please visit All News Pipeline and read the latest two articles by Dr. Pry regarding North Korea’s definitive nuclear threat to the U.S., a threat the Mainstream Media (MSM) are either ignoring or downplaying: the former due to narcissistic arrogance, and the latter – a treasonous obfuscation of the facts.

Here are the articles’ titles, so that you can refer to them:

1. North Korea could win the Nuclear War! This is how one North Korean Nuclear-Armed Satellite Could Cripple the US Military and Lead to TEOTWAWKI, December 8, 2017.


2. The Rules of the Game Have Changed! America’s Total Vulnerability to this Existential Threat Shows How Fake News Could Help Turn America into a Post-Apocalyptic Wasteland, December 9, 2017.

These articles are replete with useful information and diagrams showing the orbital trajectory of the North Korean satellites that pass over the continental U.S. daily, and multiple times apiece. The first article explains how the North Koreans can win a nuclear war with the United States by striking first with an EMP: it goes into detail about how such a strike would negate our infrastructure and response. The second article gives information about the history of EMP tests over the past decades, and the media complicity in covering up the threats posed by several nations.

There is another thing besides Dr. Pry’s warnings that needs to be taken into consideration, and that is America’s Nuclear Power Plants and supplies of spent fuel rods. Here is a photo of the Nuclear Power Plants across the United States:

As can be seen, the heaviest concentration of those reactors is on the East Coast, followed by the South and Midwest.  This next photo shows the locations of spent fuel rod storage as well as reactors not currently operating:

Here is the problem, in a nutshell: cooling, both for the active power plants, and the inactive plants with spent-rod storage.

Without adequate water exchange, a reactor can blow up and the spent rods can explode as well. We have documented information about the effects of nuclear tests and EMP effects, such as Starfish Prime, and the tests conducted by the USSR with the results easily pulled up online. Those tests were more than 50 years ago, and the technology now exists that can deliver an EMP strike with a weapon in the range of 5 kilotons: a one-megaton explosion is no longer necessary. Miniaturization has also made these modern EMP weapons more easily deliverable.

North Korea has the capability to deliver a miniaturized, low-yield EMP weapon: Dr. Pry and the EMP Commission have demonstrated this over the years, and they warned about the threat to the U.S. for decades, with those warnings going unheeded.

This type of meltdown has already happened: with Fukushima. Look at this picture here:

Source: Fukushima Nuclear Reactor Status by HAKEN www.fireflyfans.net.gif

Yes, it has happened at one reactor in Japan. Imagine all the reactors in the United States having that “problem,” and simultaneously. Read what it states in the diagram: “Workers at the plant have been having trouble maintaining water levels in these pools…”

When the EMP strike occurs, how will the generators (main line and backup) operate to pump the water into the reactors to cool them? Because of the way rods are configured, the spent ones are usually cooled in the same facility that is active. This excerpt comes out of Wikipedia, under “Spent Fuel Pool,” and bears reading:

“The fuel pool water is continuously cooled to remove the heat produced by the spent fuel assemblies. Pumps circulate water from the spent fuel pool to heat exchangers, then back to the spent fuel pool. The water temperature in normal operating conditions is held below 50 °C (120 °F).^[2] Radiolysis, the dissociation of molecules by radiation, is of particular concern in wet storage, as water may be split by residual radiation and hydrogen gas may accumulate increasing the risk of explosions. For this reason the air in the room of the pools, as well as the water, must be continually monitored and treated.”

So, the “fuel pool water is continuously cooled…” but it requires electricity to do it, as well as a generator and water pump circulation system that work. In addition, wet storage materials must be treated to prevent a conventional explosion via hydrogen gas. The entire system is not shielded from an EMP weapon.

We just touched on one area: Nuclear power facilities and spent fuel rods. The entire infrastructure of the United States…the power grid, the shipping and transportation, the financial networks, and everyone’s daily “treadmills” would cease in the blink of an eye with an EMP attack. Naysayers have spent more time and energy discounting the threat than it would take to prepare from it.  As individuals, if you have not taken steps to safeguard yourselves and your families at this point, you’re “long in the tooth” and need to reevaluate your stance.  The odds aren’t looking great, and it’s better to trust in yourselves and your own research and efforts than a whole bunch of politicians, media lackeys, and business magnates who have their measures in place…whether there is a bumper “4^th quarter” in sales or not.

The next world war will begin with an EMP strike against the United States, followed by a nuclear exchange and then a war with conventional forces.

Flash Points Grow in Numbers & Increase Threats of Attack on U.S.

In a decision bound to have far-reaching effects, President Trump announced that the United States would be recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel. Furthermore, he also stated his intentions of placing an American embassy in the city. The Iranian President Hassan Rouhani has already weighed in on this, and said that such a move by President Trump would not be tolerated.

It is difficult to address such an issue in a non-didactic manner that blends theological implications, but there is more at stake here than this being a theological debate, or simply a conflict between Christianity, Muslims, or Judaism, or an “end of days” issue.

Politics is statecraft and stagecraft, and this decision has infuriated the Iranians and will potentially provoke them into activity: the invasion of Iran has been desired for three administrations.

Obama intended to overthrow Assad in Syria for many reasons: to ingratiate himself to the House of Saud (as the Saudi Arabians hate Assad), to control Northwestern Syria and run a natural gas pipeline through it from Qatar to Europe, and to secure a foothold with which to invade Iran. The Russians have had other plans: Gazprom was the target regarding the Qatar natural gas pipeline, and the Russians reacted by bombing ISIS (an Obama creation) and securing Syria for Assad.

The Iranians have plans of moving their fleet into the Atlantic and eventually operating (sometime next year) near Cuba, and in South America in support of Venezuela and Bolivia (led by Maduro and Morales respectively). The Iranians have been working with North Korea for years on missile technology exchange. Iran has several projects that have commenced with Russia and China as partners regarding development of their nuclear power facilities.  Iran is a “flash point,” simply for the fact that the United States has been their stated enemy for decades, and tensions will rise with this decision of the President’s regarding Jerusalem.

In the meantime, Venezuela has been accused over the past several months of human rights violations against its citizens by the U.S. and other nations. Venezuela has responded by placing an embargo on the acceptance of dollars for its oil. This is significant, as Venezuela is the 11^th largest producer in the world. Obama in March of 2015 signed an order declaring Venezuela a threat and a violator of human rights.

Interestingly, the Venezuelan government gave $500,000 to President Trump for his inauguration on 1/20/17, yet President Trump on 8/11/17 declared he was “not going to rule out a military option” in opposition to Maduro’s government and the Venezuelan crisis it was causing, as reported in the Washington Post on 8/11/17. Venezuela has close ties with Iran, Cuba, and Russia.

North Korea has been the primary focus for some time, now, and the crisis is worsening because North Korea will not back down nor relinquish its nuclear weapons. There is a point I wish to mention that has not really been considered fully, nor has it been mentioned. The Koreans are a tough and tenacious people, and they fought hard against the United States the first time around (a war that never officially ended). Why are people under the assumption that they’re just going to lay down and throw up their hands when the hostilities start?

These countries mentioned have been revolving their defensive/offensive doctrines around low-cost systems with high return in terms of effectiveness. As you can research by pulling up reports from the (now disbanded and defunct) Commission to Assess the EMP Threat Against the U.S., written by Dr. Pry and Dr. Graham, the central focus of North Korea and Iran’s nuclear missile programs revolves around an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) strike against the U.S.

In true “David-Goliath” fashion, there are plenty of instances throughout modern history where the lightweight has danced around the heavyweight and brought him to the canvas. The Soviet Union ended partially because of their involvement in Afghanistan, where they lost. We did not learn the lesson and are still enmired in Afghanistan. The French lost to the Viet Minh, and withdrew. The U.S. took up the reins and fought the Viet Cong and the NVA regular. We ignored what we could have learned from the French, and ended up withdrawing from Vietnam as they did.

Force projection and the promulgation of imperialism can work, but only for a time. Eventually all great empires have fallen: they rotted from within, and the rot was “augmented” by attacks from without simultaneously that rang their death knells. We are no different than these great empires of the past: long past our peak, we have been in steady decline for decades. The Lilliputians, meanwhile, are awaiting their moment to tie Gulliver down. Each one of those countries represents a flash point that can set off a much greater chain of explosions, leading to a world war.

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Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne).  Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape).  He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.

The U.S. Government Creates and Exacerbates the Nuclear Threat

The whole situation is a “Catch 22” scenario: damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. The problem: we’re American citizens and this is our country. The concurrent problem? It is our country that caused this predicament to occur with North Korea…in a pattern of American imperialism that has been going on actively for about a hundred years. The problem is twofold:

1. North Korea can strike the U.S. with an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) attack and/or nuclear missiles, yet:

2. The United States government, through the current and prior two administrations has set the stage for this…as either:

• A purposefully-created “threat” to give America a “bogeyman”/Emmanuel Goldstein to focus on in a “Two-Minutes Hate” drill…keep the “threat level” alive, or


• A threat of insignificance grown and nurtured for the express purpose of taking down the country…while reaping profits and power for the oligarchy all along.

There is an American oligarchy. The oligarchy is not only made up of business and industrial magnates, but of politicos and religious leaders. The business magnates need the lawmakers and politicos to give them “carte blanche” with tax breaks and incentives such as government contracts. The system needs the general populace (or the “proletariat”) to pay taxes and “grunt” out spending on consumer goods and services that keeps the whole thing intact. As in the movie “THX-1138,” there must be periods to pay the utilities, pay for the food, pay taxes on gasoline, taxes on property, taxes on consumer goods, yearly tax increases, and insurances…health, automobile, homeowner…required insurances…

…that ensure the consumer is strapped and shackled to the endless treadmill…where there is no getting ahead…. a new holiday every month to get rid of more of that disposable income for in gifts, travel, and heartfelt largesse…a maelstrom of “emoticons” that condition every purchase….

This is the system we’re in. The problem is, as Americans, what do we do? Roll over and allow ourselves to be taken? To be destroyed as a nation or a people for the fact that our government is not what it was originally intended to be?

I ask for you, the readers to understand my point and stance. I know the government is corrupt and harmful to the citizenry, and has been cancerous to the international community for decades. Yet, this is where we live. Do you remember the original “Red Dawn” movie, where the Soviet was taken prisoner, and Swayze was about to kill him?  Swayze was asked what was the difference between them (the Soviets) and us.  Swayze responded with, “Because we live here,” and then executed the Russian.

We the people are at fault for not putting a stop to this decades ago. We do not have representatives: we have self-serving politicos in bed with the oligarchs who are trying to do a few things together.

Namely, to amass and secure wealth, assets, materials, and chosen manpower, and then rid themselves of 90% of the populace…and move into a global governance where they rule over slaves whose lifespans are dependent upon their obedience and productive (utilitarian) function.

There is a book entitled “Rogue State” by William Blum that is worth reading if you want the “up and skinny” on American Imperialism.  Here is an excerpt that was applicable both yesterday (it was written in 2005) and today:

“American foreign-policy makers are exquisitely attuned to the rise of a government, or a movement on the verge of taking power, that will not lie down and happily become an American client state, that will not look upon the free market or the privatization of the world known as “globalization” as the summum bonum, that will not change its laws to favor foreign investment, that will not be unconcerned about the effects of foreign investment upon the welfare of its own people, that will not produce primarily for export, that will not allow asbestos, banned pesticides, and other products restricted in the developed world to be dumped onto their people, that will not easily tolerate the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, or the World Trade Organization inflicting a scorched-earth policy upon the country’s social services and standard of living, that will not allow an American or NATO military installation upon its soil…” (ppg. 23-24)

The BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) nations are currently working to encourage the world to abandon the petrodollar, and Russia and China are little by little advancing the return to the gold standard. China is going to back the Yuan with gold and run an exchange for oil. All of this “sticks in the craw” of the United States and the Western Financial, Political, and Military Hegemony. Iran, Venezuela, and North Korea are not members of this hegemony. American imperialism is clear, and it is enabled by the complacent, stultified public that has been conditioned to believe in American exceptionalism while keyed into a patriotic fervor when a prompted event occurs where such a fervor is in the interests of national objectives.

All that is happening currently falls in line with this. Two excerpts for your learned perusals. The first quotes none other than H.R. McMaster, the former three-star and globalist who slipped into the position of President Trump’s National Security Advisor after railroading K.T. McFarland. This is from the Daily Mail article entitled “Kim is getting closer and there’s not much time left,” from 12/2/17 by Matthew Wright:

“President Trump’s national security adviser HR McMaster said on Saturday that each missile launch from North Korea increases the possibility of war.  ‘There are ways to address this problem short of armed conflict, but it is a race because he’s getting closer and closer and there’s not much time left.’ And Kim Jong Un’s nuclear ambitions are the gravest national security threat that America faces, according to McMaster. ‘The greatest immediate threat to the United States and to the world is the threat posed by the rogue regime in North Korea and his continued efforts to develop a long range nuclear capability,’ he added.”

So, McMaster termed North Korea as “the greatest immediate threat to the United States and the world.” If that is the case, then why this? Read this next excerpt from Reuters entitled “Exclusive: Pentagon evaluating U.S. West Coast missile defense sites – officials,” by Mike Stone from 12/2/17:

“On Wednesday, North Korea tested a new type of intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) that can fly over 13,000 km (8,080 miles), placing Washington within target range, South Korea said on Friday.   Congressman Mike Rogers, who sits on the House Armed Services Committee and chairs the Strategic Forces Subcommittee which oversees missile defense, said the Missile Defense Agency (MDA), was aiming to install extra defenses at West Coast sites. The funding for the system does not appear in the 2018 defense budget plan indicating potential deployment is further off.

“It’s just a matter of the location, and the MDA making a recommendation as to which site meets their criteria for location, but also the environmental impact,” the Alabama Congressman and Republican told Reuters during an interview on the sidelines of the annual Reagan National Defense Forum in southern California.   When asked about the plan, MDA Deputy Director Rear Admiral Jon Hill‎ said in a statement: “The Missile Defense Agency has received no tasking to site the Terminal High Altitude Air Defense System on the West Coast.” The MDA is a unit of the U.S. Defense Department.  Congressman Rogers did not reveal the exact locations the agency is considering but said several sites are “competing” for the missile defense installations.

Rogers and Congressman Adam Smith, a Democrat representing the 9th District of Washington, said the government was considering installing the THAAD anti-missile system made by aerospace giant Lockheed Martin Corp, at west coast sites.  The Congressmen said the number of sites that may ultimately be deployed had yet to be determined.  THAAD is a ground-based regional missile defense system designed to shoot down short-, medium- and intermediate-range ballistic missiles and takes only a matter of weeks to install.  In addition to the two THAAD systems deployed in South Korea and Guam in the Pacific, the U.S. has seven other THAAD systems. While some of the existing missiles are based in Fort Bliss, Texas, the system is highly mobile and current locations are not disclosed.  A Lockheed Martin representative declined to comment on specific THAAD deployments, but added that the company “is ready to support the Missile Defense Agency and the United States government in their ballistic missile defense efforts.” He added that testing and deployment of assets is a government decision.”

There you have the inconsistency that lends itself to understanding of the complete…and true…picture. McMaster parrots the lines of the immediate threat of North Korea to the United States…chiming in, and “to the world,” to bring in thought common among the primates…the whole “troupe” of baboons is at risk. There’s the basis for justification for a U.S. first strike…protecting the community of nations, partners, “comrades,” etc.

But the true “Art of the Deal” is to follow the money generated by the public apprehension worked up through the government and media reports. The money? Where are the missile defense systems going to be located? And who will pay for them? And when will the government decide?

So, Congressman Mike Rogers of Alabama is working on identifying the role of the MDA and government-selected locations, as well as Adam Smith, 9^th District Democrat congressman out of Washington. Rogers said several sites were “competing” for the missile defense installations. Also, “friendly” Lockheed Martin said they are “ready to support the MDA and the United States government in their ballistic missile defense efforts.”

Isn’t that wonderful, and wondrous? The article mentions the decision wouldn’t be made until sometime in 2018.  What a sense of urgency for an imminent attack that is!

What it all really means is they still need to figure out a method for leasing property and racking up expenses ten times the actual cost…so that Rogers, Smith, and all the other politicos can line their pockets and steal the excess, as well as grease the palms of a small army of municipal commissars and apparatchiks. Then…here comes the benevolent Lockheed Martin, a “mom-and-pop” store that is just awaiting governmental approval and decisions to help everyone out…all funded by the stupid American taxpayer. The corporation and the government, hand in hand to protect the little taxpayer serfs!

And if the nuclear missile bypasses THAAD and Aegis (that we already know will not perform), oh well!  Responsibility and accountability are two different things. Besides, everyone will be mad enough that nobody will notice those last-minute wire transfers of funds and stocks into hard gold and silver overseas, nor the scrambling of the politicos and executives to ensure they are out of the country or safe in funded bunkers when it commences.

No, the problem is we as citizens are on the outside looking in. North Korea has the capability to hit us and kill millions of people. The truth is that we will prod them into doing it, for one scenario or another as outlined in the beginning of this article. Trust them: you can trust in the politicians in all their narcissistic hubris armed with aggression and impunity and shielded in self-righteousness. You can trust in them to initiate a nuclear war, but don’t worry. They will be safe, sound, and underground in a secure location that you paid for, while you’re barbequing up above.

The next world war will be initiated by an EMP attack against the U.S., followed by a nuclear exchange and then conventional warfare. Whether another country initiates it, or we do is another matter that will probably never be ascertained after it happens.

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Jeremiah Johnson is the Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces (Airborne).  Mr. Johnson is also a Gunsmith, a Certified Master Herbalist, a Montana Master Food Preserver, and a graduate of the U.S. Army’s SERE school (Survival Evasion Resistance Escape).  He lives in a cabin in the mountains of Western Montana with his wife and three cats. You can follow Jeremiah’s regular writings at SHTFplan.com or contact him here.

This article may be republished or excerpted with proper attribution to the author and a link to www.SHTFplan.com.