Reading the news is like trying to read tea leaves these days. Every nation seems to be ‘gearing up for something’, as the kids say. The news is certainly full of things that could make one feel like its 1939 and something big is about to kick off, but the challenge is figuring out what the likelihood of that is. Civil war? Economic collapse? Nato v. Russia? Us v. China?
Out of curiosity, I looked up the things that were in short supply in the US as a result of the war back in the 1940’s. That was a completely different time and the supply chain was quite different back then. But the question I was curious about was what would be affected in the event of a larger conflict in modern times? Perhaps a NATO vs Russia event. Or the Mideast does one of its periodical explosions into violence. Or the Chinese invade Taiwan.
There are supply chain interconnectivity issues that weren’t even dreamed about 80 years ago. And the threat to the mainland US involved bombers and invasion, nowadays its a cargo-container-nuke, cyberattack, or ‘bad actors’ plowing through a shopping mall. Different times.
And, I swear, this feeling gets more pronounced every year. It seems like every year I say “this year feels like something big is going to happen’, and, for the most part, I’ve been mostly-wrong. But even a broken calendar is right once a year, and, eventually, something will happen. The history of the world is not exactly replete with moments of quiet and calm. To be fair, though, the US has historically been the best place to be when the wheels start to fly off civilization, diplomacy fails, the tanks roll, and markets crash.
I dropped a good chunk of cash and precious metals to acquire the Beta Site, but I was careful to make sure I didn’t spend all my cash and metals. I held back what I thought would be a goodly amount for something unexpected. But still, I feel a lot more secure with money in the bank and a big ‘ol box of silver bars in the safe. Now I have to juggle replenishing the precious metals with using that money to advance things at the Beta Site.
I’ve no idea what World War 3 (or is it 3.5 or 4 these days?) is going to look like but whatever form it takes, its likelihood seems more these days. Of course, when the only tool you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail. When you’ve spent 35 years gearing up for the end of the world, every newsflash looks like the kickoff to World War Whatever.
At the moment, my focus is getting the Beta Site up to a point where at least I could relocate there and have a bit of distance and safety from whatever goes on in the world. At this exact second that looks like simply a place to park a tent and some supplies. But I’m going to try to get it to the point that from a year from now its at least graduated into something a bit more civilized with walls, roof, heat, and basic power. And from that point it advances to running water, creature comforts, and everything else needed to go from bolt-hole to small-year-round-capable dwelling.
But in the meantime I feel like I’m racing the clock…between getting older and the feeling of impending crises theres a bit of a sense of urgency. Not sure if its justified or not, just sayin’ it’s there. But I suspect I’m not the only one, hm?
