Andalucia Steve

...living the dream

Posts in Category: Geopolitics

Are You Ready For WW3?

A Candid Journey Through Stockpiling, Strategy, and Survival in a Precarious World
Are You Ready For WW3?

In a fun year that seems to keep getting more fun every week (#ironyalert!) the EU (via the European Commission) has just launched a new “Preparedness Union Strategy” aimed at boosting Europe’s resilience to emerging threats. Among the 30 actions covering everything from early-warning systems to civil-military crisis exercises, it calls for “promoting population preparedness” by encouraging the public “to maintain essential supplies for a minimum of 72 hours in emergencies”. This follows on from early civil defence pamphlets or apps published by France, Germany and the Nordic countries. As I will explain, this push coincides with my own thinking and steps I have recently taken to bunker down.


Among the things that make me a very dull man is that I'm very risk averse. I'm a safety guy, in fact some who know me might say ‘excessively so’. (Some of the other things that make me dull, which are legion, include a fondness for prog-rock, an obsession with vintage television shows like “The Prisoner” and a self-belief in my potential as a musician that after five decades that has yet to be realised)
 

Anyway, back to risk. I've never ridden a motorcycle. Well I went on the back a few times, but the feeling of exhilaration and freedom that I'm told makes the experience desirable never manifested in me strongly enough to overcome the warning my brain signals to me of the dangers. I saw a dead guy covered in newspapers lying in the road after a bike crash when I was single-digit old and I remember thinking – 'note-to-self, do not end up like that'.
 

There were many things that led to me quitting the UK and moving to Spain in 2003, but one was certainly 9/11. The old risk-calculator in the noggin kicked in and I decided that the increase in terrorism renders cities as targets. However slight it may be, if you live in London, New York or Paris, you do so under the possibility that you may at some point be attacked. The larger the population, the greater the risk. Moving to an ‘out of the way’ country like Spain and to a small village rather than a big city seemed to me to be a logical move.
 

Even when choosing a property, my risk aversion kicked in. I was looking for a house with an elevated aspect that would be resistant to flooding (and couldn't be overlooked by snipers - OK I'm teasing about that one, I'm not completely paranoid!)

Given my lifelong focus on minimizing risks, Trump’s election marked a turning point where, in my mind, the threat of World War III escalated to DEFCON 1. This isn't because I see Trump as some maniacal tyrant with a wargasm fetish. The problem with Trump as I see it is his hair-trigger. He's easily upset and his responses unpredictable. He could take the actions or words of another world leader the wrong way and press the big red button out of spite before anyone sane has the opportunity to talk him out of it.
 

The flag-shagging right-wing press in the UK, which I monitor to see what lies they're trying to brainwash folk with each day, seems equally expectant, having carried numerous WW3 scenario stories, some so painstakingly researched and presented that I strongly suspect military involvement behind the scenes. Some of these helpfully point towards websites where the likelihood of nuclear attack and the possible damage inflicted can be accessed for any geographical location, simply by entering one's address.
 

With this as my starting point I decided to assess my own risk, should 'the reds decide to push the button down' (apologies to Donald Fagan). It turns out moving to Spain was a very smart move on my part. Spain managed to stay largely neutral in two world wars, so is more than likely to keep its distance from any bust-ups once again. There are possible targets near me - the US military bases at Moron and Rota, though to destroy runways and ports there are better conventional weapons to do this rather than use nukes. So far, so good - I'm not a direct or indirect target.
 

The problem though is fallout. Nuclear conflict in Europe would inevitably lead to clouds of Strontium 90 and other dangerous sources of radioactive material that could blow my way causing all sorts of problems. Google is my friend, and I consulted so you don't have to.
 

The scenario for me in my little village is that following an incident, the best thing to do is to stay inside for at least two to four weeks, while the fallout settles. Ideally during this time I'd have the house completely sealed off with a separate air supply, but this is obviously impractical. Instead I found advice that in a house like mine on three floors, the best thing is to stay downstairs, taping up the doors and windows with duct tape. Then tape up some sheets on the doors in the upper levels. Air would still circulate through the upper levels of the house, with some of the dirtier air captured in the sheets.
 

I would not be able to leave the house for a month at least, so I have to ensure there is enough food and bottled water to last that time. Since November I've been over-shopping, buying a few items for the cupboard each time I go shopping for myself. I consulted with ChatGTP to get advice about the best foods to get to provide a reasonably balanced diet which would not subject me to nutritional shortfalls, so lots of tinned fish, tinned fruit and so on. The water supply can no longer be relied upon during this time, so not only have I stocked up on ‘potable’ bottled water but I have saved hundreds of litres of grey water for flushing the toilet etc.
 

Electricity cannot be guaranteed either so in order to make sure I can cook the food in the store cupboard, I've invested in a small portable alcohol stove. These are supposed to be used outside, but I've done some tests in the stairwell and for short usage there is not enough carbon monoxide to be problematic as the heat carries it up the stairs. Yes, I also bought a carbon monoxide detector! For light I've also bulk-bought some candles and I have a wind-up radio/mp3 player for news and entertainment!
 

Finally, in order to know when it is safe to venture out again I need to be able to know the level of residual radiation in the outside world, so I've bought a cheap and nasty Geiger counter - twenty euros from Ali-Express, but hopefully this will give me a rough idea of what is happening to the current ambient levels. I've also stocked up on facemasks and disposable gloves, to be worn when first going outside to minimise my personal exposure. Like I said, I'm a safety guy!
 

It may sound like a lot, but apart from the food for the store-cupboard, the hardware spend has only been about 70 euros – hardly breaking the bank for a little peace of mind.
 

So how about you, are you worried about a conflict? Do you think ahead? Are you a ‘prepper’? Do you have any tips, or have you spotted any flaws in my own preparations? Let me know!

Posted by Steve Gould Thursday, March 27, 2025 1:57:00 PM Categories: America Andalusia dystopia Electricity food Geopolitics Spain WW3
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Brexit: What's Next for Britain?

A few thoughts on where things are headed in coming decades.

 

I've been keeping this blog fairly free of politics but this weekend I seem unable to be thinking about anything other than Brexit. In a way, today is the most significant day since the referendum, if, as we are told, it is the last day by which a deal can be made. Though the last day of the withdrawal agreement is the 31st December, the thinking is there wouldn't be enough time to author and ratify an agreement beyond today.
 
So the question that is on my mind is what is next for Brexit. I'm not thinking short term here. Whichever way you slice it, 2021 will start out as a humiliating fiasco. Whether a deal is achieved or not there will still be months of disruption as new ways of doing things are explored and new, unintended consequences of Brexit arise to surprise us. The only question here is how long it will take things to settle down to some sort of normality.
 
No, I'm thinking more of what will happen to Britain in the decades ahead. Geopolitics is a little trickier than it used to be. Immediately following Bretton Woods, the end of WW2 and the exploding of two nuclear weapons in Japan, American might and money was the only game in town. The USSR grew and was, probably for the purposes of political expediency, demonised by America to be a greater threat to its dominance as a world power than it ever really was. Then the USSR fell and for a brief period of time it seemed the world was for the first time truly mono-polar.
 
More recently though the US has become increasingly indebted and less innovative and industrious. Meanwhile the EU has expanded, its currency becoming increasingly important on the world stage, and China has undergone massive economic growth. Despite Trump's efforts to stop China eating America's lunch, she remains a massive industrial power and the growth of her domestic market with a new and enriched middle class means China is here to stay, even with her exports reduced. It is now looking as though the future will consist of a tri-polar world in which the major players will be America, the EU and China, with other BRICS countries emerging and aligning themselves with one of these three main players. I see this as the new world stage into which Britain as an 'Independent Sovereign Nation' has to fit.
 
Old world, old money thinking sees Britain as a nation of traders who straddle the globe buying and selling stuff. We're the nation who started the East India Company after all. The trouble with this 'old skool' thinking is that the world is moving from physical to virtual. If I wanted to order a ton of spice in 1600 when the EIC company was formed, the only way to do it was to travel to India or wherever the spice was grown and to do a face-to-face deal. These days all you need to do is go to alibaba.com and you can find dozens of spice suppliers all competing with each other to deliver to you your ton of spice at the lowest price. By way of experiment I requested quotes for a particular chemical I was thinking of importing into Spain last year, and I was still receiving emails months afterwards from prospective suppliers. Global trade is so fluid these days, the only thing in the way of a deal is the lack of a free-trade agreement, which is why Brexit seems so absolutely nonsensical to me. I was looking into exporting olive oil a few years back and I was struck by how the trade agreements the EU already has with various third-party countries make the process to arrange an export to most parts of the world very simple. The idea that Britain is opting out of these in order to make its own bespoke arrangements seems to me to be a recipe for disaster. The EU has at its disposal an army of around 800 trained and very experienced trade-negotiators who are bashing out new global deals all the time. Britain has Liz Truss! As Britain does not manufacture anything of note, I just don't see a future for Britain as either an exporter or some kind of trading intermediary buying from one country and selling to another, as in an increasingly virtual world there doesn't seem a way to add value. We can add markup but in a world where sales are increasingly made directly, who wants intermediaries taking a slice?
 
Speaking of intermediaries, another area that is about to change dramatically on the world stage is money. China has for several years been developing and trialling the world's first Central Bank backed Digital Currency (CBDC). They are already leading the field and more recently America, Europe and other countries have started researching the idea and publishing policy papers and so forth, making noises that they are about to do the same. The lure of a cashless society is too good for the banking community to pass up and clearly there is a fear that if China's CBDC gets a head start, it could ask its trading partners to use it, suddenly threatening the place of the dollar as the world's leading currency. Obviously this is all very new and it is quite difficult to foresee how things will pan out, but again, the odds are that there will be three main CBDCs, the Digital Yuan, Dollar and Euro. As with crypto-currencies one of the main characteristics of CBDCs will be transparent accountability. It will become much more difficult to launder dirty money through currencies that have an online ledger. Given the chequered history of UK banking institutions and London's existing reputation among anyone from Mexican drug lords to Russian oligarchs as the go-to place to launder money already, my guess is Britain will resist the race towards introducing a CDBC for the Bank of England and instead, the fiat pound will become the central clearing house for the world's black money.
 
As I see it, that's a Britain Johnson & Co are quite happy about. It seems to me that this government is more mendacious than any other in British history. I sense they have no vision for the British people, nor do they care what happens to them, as long as they keep making money. It's clear they have a desire for small government and I fear without the stabilising hand of the EU, centuries of hard-won social and employment protections are about to be thrown out of the window. The welfare state and the NHS will be gone, quite soon I should imagine. Health & Safety and pesky employment regulations will be thrown on the bonfire. I should imagine Scotland will fight for and probably win independence. As the realisation of what is being done to Britain starts to sink in, the will in Scotland to escape the Tories and rejoin Europe will become compelling. The situation with Ireland may take longer to fester but the north of Ireland will become a gateway for smugglers to bring contraband into Europe and measures introduced to counter this will increase tensions and will bring pressure on Britain from the EU and America to reunite Ireland. Again, though publicly affronted, the Tories will be privately delighted to lose Scotland and Northern Ireland, as in their view there will be less money going out and more for them to secure fortress London, which will, as the decades roll by, start to resemble some 18th century Bahamian island beloved by buccaneers and cut-throats.
 
I don't think it is accidental that many of the current crop of Tory nationalists did their degrees in history or classics. It came as no surprise to me yesterday to see Johnson's government boasting it will have gunboats ready to defend British fish. Their thinking is aligned with the glory days of Agincourt and Waterloo. They think in terms of Empires and battles, a mindset that is out of step with the modern world. The days of the opium wars and gunboat diplomacy are long gone. France is a nuclear power (the only one in the EU post Brexit) and China, Russia and America dwarf Britain in military might. I can't help thinking that if the British government continues on it's current selfish, belligerent path, there will come a time, given the way the world is shaping up, that it will end up being put in its place by being on the receiving end of a bloody good kicking!
 
 
Posted by Steve Gould Saturday, December 12, 2020 11:34:00 PM Categories: Black money Brexit Economics Geopolitics politics
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