In April of this year, SurvivalBlog published “WHEN WAR COMES”. In that 2-part article, we explored some reasons why war is coming soon, what life might look like, and what we can do to be better prepared.
Since writing that article, I have done a lot of research. Ninety percent of intelligence is open source, that is it is, in the public domain. It takes a lot of time, a little training, and a little luck to find the puzzle pieces and start connecting them. There are a lot of people out there who are stating that war is coming. Many YouTube prepper channels have the caveat that they are not trying to “scare” people but just trying to educate them. Well, folks we should be scared, because behind the scenes our nation is preparing itself for war and not against some third-world nation of goat herders either. Being scared is often thought of in a negative way but being scared is often your mind/body’s way of getting you to take prudent action. With all the preparations that are taking place, the one thing that is ominously missing is any real action to get the public prepared. Let’s discuss what is happening behind the scenes.
The Defense Production Act
In both World Wars One and Two, the United States had the luxury of gearing up our industrial base to prepare for war. In the late 1930’s the United States even started to prepare the civilian population and local governments for war by starting a massive civil defense (CD) program. I recently had the opportunity to read a report entitled “Resource Management, A Historical Perspective”. This report was commissioned by and printed by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in 1989. In this report, the authors look at how the United States prepared for war. It also made some assumptions about how our federal government would prepare for the “next” major war.
When this report was being worked on, the Soviet Union was still a superpower enemy. The assumption in the book was that unlike both world wars the US would not have time to mobilize our industries. In the years leading up to both World Wars there was much political debate and political pressure by all sides in the US. The “politics” hindered the ability of the United States government to take quicker and more substantial action to prepare for war. The US could not afford to let politics, nor the lessons from previous wars, interfere with our ability to mobilize for the next war. In the Fall of 1950, Congress Passed the National Defense Production Act. This act was to help overcome some of the hurdles the War Department and the President faced in trying to prepare for both world wars. The Act is still in effect today and more importantly, it is being implemented. The culture wars and coronations seem to be what the talking heads think is important.
100 Day Supply Chain Review
Remember when Biden took over he had hundreds of Executive Orders ready to sign? One of those was an order for a supply chain review. That review focused on four key sectors, semiconductors, large-capacity batteries, critical minerals and materials and pharmaceuticals. All of these sectors are vital to the US Military. After the report the federal agencies responsible for those sectors went to0 work implementing the recommendations in the report. A copy of that report can be found here.
The National Defense Stockpile
The 100-day Supply Chain Review looked at key minerals and materials. In World War Two, the US faced supply chain issues of various materials that were needed for the manufacturing of the equipment and supplies needed for the war effort. Making sure the US didn’t run into those same supply chain issues in WW III, the US established the National Defense Stockpile program. This program, overseen by the Defense Logistics Agency, purchases, stores, and allocates key material for defense contracts. At the end of the Cold War the value of the stockpile was $9.6 Billion. With the end of the Cold War, need for the stockpile was not seen as a priority and the quantities of materials dwindled. In 2021 the largest allocation of funding for the program, since the end of the Cold War, was passed, and $125 million was used to beef up the minerals and materials in the stockpile. Then, the 2023 National Defense Authorization Act Congress allocated $1 Billion to purchase materials for the stockpile.
If you remember your history, the US had to ration gasoline during World War Two to help conserve rubber for tires and other things needed for the war. Japan had pretty much cut off the US access to rubber from southeast Asia. China could cut off the flow of several minerals or raw materials needed for defense contractors. This is why the national defense stockpile is so important. The rush to procure the needed strategic materials shows we are marching towards a war footing. To learn more about the stockpile, see this piece.
Semiconductor Sources
Semiconductors are very important to the modern military. Taiwan is the powerhouse when it comes to manufacturing of the newest semiconductors. South Korea is also a major producer of the current most high tech chips. Although China manufactures chips they are not the newest generation nor of the quality. The 100 Day Supply Chain Review acknowledges the vulnerability the US has to microchips and out of that came the CHIPS Act found here. The CHIPS act allocated billions of dollars to not only beef up the domestic production of microchips but also reach and development and money to push for more science and math based curriculums in US schools. Surprisingly, the US does have a good amount of microchip production capability but the chips being manufactured are not for the newest weapons system like the F35 or F22 fighters. However, our domestic chip manufacturing does make chips for some of our legacy weapons like F16 and F18 aircraft.
When China makes its move on Taiwan, it will probably be preceded by, or coincided with North Korea initiating some type of military action on South Korea. One reason is to keep US forces from South Korea from assisting in efforts to help with Taiwan and the second reason is to cut the US off from the microchips manufactured in South Korea which is second to Taiwan in production. The US and some of its major allies have also instituted some major trade restrictions on China to hinder their ability to manufacture high tech chips for their growing military. Here is an article from the UK Guardian.
We need to remember that through history trade restrictions have been the catalyst for war. In the late 1930s the US shut down exports of scrap iron to Japan which accounted for about 74% of Japan’s iron imports. The US also stopped exporting copper to Japan which accounted for about 93% of copper imports to Japan at the time. We also stopped exporting oil to Japan, as well. Many of the minerals and materials in the National Defense Stockpile come from China and or Russia. At some point, they will block our access to those needed raw materials for semiconductor manufacturing. When you look at the dollar value of trade in semiconductors (chips), it is the most valuable sector in manufacturing. Stifling any nation’s ability to manufacture or to purchase semiconductors will have profound economic and military consequences and will likely result in an escalation of military tensions.
Defense Industrial Reserve
As the US mobilized the economy to provide more and more equipment and supplies for WWII, there was a major bottleneck. The bottleneck was that before more things, like tanks, jeeps, and ammunition or ordnance could be manufactured, the tooling for those production lines needed to be manufactured first. Again, learning from past wars, the US passed Section 4881 of Title 10 entitled the Defense Industrial Reserve. Basically, the Department of Defense keeps whole production lines for key things packed away in storage. Here is a link to the law which was ironically just updated.
There is some anecdotal evidence that some of the industrial reserve plants are being taken out of storage and put into operation. Here is a link to where the YouTube channel “God, Family and Guns” discusses the US military allocating $2 billion dollars to expand ammunition production.
Although $2 billion is a lot of money it would be a drop in the bucket if five new production lines for ammunition had to be completely manufactured. The point is, the equipment for these five additional production lines already existed, they just needed to be unpacked, set up and turned on and tested. I also look at the various contracts being awarded by the Department of Defense and one appears to have been awarded to a firm to take another defense industrial reserve plant for shipbuilding out of mothballs and set it up and get into operation. Sorry, no link for this one.
FEMA Actions
Recently, I heard that FEMA Region 3 will be expanding their workforce to 500 employees. The person who told me this works in upper management for a state emergency management agency and went on to say that from what they understood this surge of FEMA employees will also occur in the other FEMA regions as well. A look at current FEMA job postings does not indicate a surge in personnel hiring, however the hiring of those new positions could be done as FEMA reservist.
Other recent FEMA action, that is another indicator of preparedness for war, is the updating and release of FEMA’s “PLANNING GUIDANCE FOR RESPONSE TO A NUCLEAR DETONATION” which was updated in May of 2022. The document can be found here.
The guide is not a guide to prepare for a nuclear war but rather one single nuclear weapons detonation. FEMA and the politicians won’t allow a guide for nuclear war to be devolved since that might scare people and cause a political backlash. The guide provides some interesting insight about FEMA’s thoughts on preparing the nation’s public for nuclear war. On page 117, it states:
“Pre-incident preparedness is a difficult task, regardless of hazard. There is a legacy of public nuclear preparedness campaigns, such as the Cold War’s “Duck and Cover,” that leave the public skeptical of nuclear detonation preparedness messages. In addition, with a public that associates nuclear detonations with certain death, the sense of futility, fatalism, and hopelessness severely impacts their desire and ability to absorb information and follow instructions.”
The guide continues by stating:
“Leverage all-hazards messaging in preparedness outreach. While these campaigns are necessary, they may be difficult to execute without causing unnecessary concern. Because of resistance to open discussions about nuclear detonations, emergency management agencies and public affairs staff must integrate nuclear detonation messaging into all-hazards messaging.”
So, with this we can reasonably conclude that FEMA will not engage in any specific nuclear detonation public preparedness messaging or education directly but will just discuss preparedness in the realm of All-Hazards preparedness. As if being prepared for a tornado or flood makes you prepared for a nuclear detonation.
FEMA REGION 3 Sustainability Tool Kit
Many preppers are probably somewhat familiar with FEMA’s individual and family disaster preparedness materials. FEMA’s suggestions center around a bug-out bag with 3 days worth of food, water, and medicines. Since the end of the Cold War FEMA has been fairly consistent with the 3-day time period. In February of 2023 I received and read what FEMA Region 3 entitled a “Sustainability Tool-Kit”. The document was written for things the public can do to become resilient against climate change. The document by itself had nothing earth shaking in it. However, when you consider what the FEMA guide on Response to a nuclear detonation said about using All-hazards messaging to get the public prepared for a nuclear detonation, the Sustainability tool kit looked more ominous. The tool kit discussed growing your own food, as in Victory Gardens.
The other big deviation from the normal FEMA preparedness actions was home canning. I have done a lot of research into World War Two and Cold War Civil defense programs. I have read hundreds of old Civil Defense publications and documents. NEVER have I seen civil defense or FEMA advocate home canning. With that said, home canning in the 1940s through the 1970s was much more common than today, but nonetheless it is a major change in FEMA’s doctrine of preparedness.
If growing your own garden and canning wasn’t enough, the tool kit went on to discuss food storage in plastic “buckets” and “Mylar” bags. I’m sure that we can agree that putting food away in Mylar bags and buckets is NOT preparing for just 3 days or even two weeks, which was the old civil defense guideline for food preparedness. I am not disagreeing with the food preparedness suggestions, but I do question the timing and believe that these suggestions were more than just being prepared for “climate change”.
There was one more eyebrow-raising suggestion. The tool kit suggested learning how to build a “wilderness” survival shelter. I thought a suggestion from FEMA to learn bush-crafting skills was very odd. To the best of my knowledge, again gained from reading hundreds of older civil defense and FEMA preparedness documents, I have not read any recommendations to know how to build a wilderness survival shelter.
I have three thoughts on this recommendation: One, not even after Hurricane Katrina; that destroyed thousands of homes and saw a shortage of FEMA Trailers, did FEMA suggest knowing how to build wilderness survival shelters. Two, what type of disaster would necessitate Americans to build wilderness survival shelters? Three: why now? Although no civil defense or FEMA preparedness publication recommended knowing how to build a wilderness survival shelter, the suggestion was found in a study that made recommendations on skills need for nuclear war. The study is entitled, “TRAINING REQUIREMENTS FOR POSTATTACK ADAPTIVE BEHAVIOR” (December 1965) on page 73 discusses the needed types of training for surviving a post nuclear attack and specifically mentions “wilderness survival techniques.” Perhaps the current FEMA workforce is also looking back at the civil defense documents to see what they can message in “all-hazards” citizen preparedness materials?
We also have recently heard of the major full-scale nuclear response exercise in Texas. The timing is very curious. But that isn’t the only exercise with a nuclear scenario. Recently I was talking with someone who works with hospitals to be better prepared for disasters. The Pennsylvania Department Health had originally told the “Healthcare Coalitions” across Pennsylvania that they were going to work on updating mass causality planning by conducting a functional exercise. That was replaced suddenly with a radiological response functional exercise. Again the timing is interesting.
The other interesting point is the recent revelation that the US has deployed a special nuclear response team to Ukraine. According to media reports the reason why the US deployed this team was to be able to ascertain the source of any nuclear material. I’m not a nuclear expert but radioactive material provides telltale indicators as to where it came from. If you ever watched the movie The Sum Of All Fears, based on Tom Clancy’s book by the same title, they “attributed” the nuclear material back to a facility in the United States.
Let us not forget the US government also recently purchased about 2 million doses of a drug to help treat radiation sickness.
Conclusion
By themselves, none of these things would indicate a march towards war but when you look at them all together there can be little doubt the US is preparing for war. There are many assessments and reports guessing how and when China may invade Taiwan. Some say 2027 some say as early as 2024. I will be assuming that it will be 2024 and making my own preparations. I strongly suggest that you and your families do, too. Use your time wisely and be very methodical in your preps from here on out cause FEMA will be busy implementing other aspects of the Defense Production Act and continuity of government operations not anything to save you.