Category: Emerging Threats

Risk Mitigation in the Mid-2020s

Looking at the manifold threats facing the world in late 2023, as an American citizen I cannot help but feel overwhelmed. In a nutshell, these threats include: The threat of regional or world war, stemming from the Iraq, Ukraine, or Taiwan conflicts. Out-of-control government spending and indebtedness. Corruption at all levels of government. Federal agencies running roughshod over our constitutional rights. Selective and vindictive prosecutions driven by politics. High inflation and an increasingly unaffordable cost of living and healthcare. Urbanization and over-complication of supply chains. Malinvestment and misallocation of government spending. Chronic homelessness and growing encampments. Uncompensated Federal mandates on …


Governments Start Calling For Price Controls – Rationing And CBDCs Come Next, by Brandon Smith

Editor’s Introductory Note:  In place of our usual Monday column on Economics and Investing news items, we are re-posting, with permission, this insightful piece by Brandon Smith.  Both his Alt-Market.us site and his premium newsletter The Wild Bunch Dispatch are highly recommended. – JWR — Last month in the middle of the surreal “Bidenomics” hype I published an article titled ‘Nothing Is Over: Inflation Is About To Come Back With A Vengeance.’  I outlined the misconceptions surrounding CPI and how it is not an accurate model for the effects of inflation.  I also noted that the index had been manipulated …


Some Very Bad Law: The ATF’s New “Engaged In The Business” Rule

I’ve had several readers write to ask me about the ATF’s new 108-Page proposed “Engaged In The Business” rule. On August 31, 2023, the Biden Regime announced that it is attempting to redefine “engaged in the business” of selling firearms. This rulemaking will strongly amplify and greatly expand on the wording of the Gun Control Act of 1968 and the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act (BCSA) of 2022.  The latter provides that, as applied to a dealer in firearms, the term “engaged in the business” means “a person who devotes time, attention, and labor to dealing in firearms as a regular …


Never Forget: Leftists Showed Their True Authoritarian Colors During Covid, by Brandon Smith

When I think back to the first days of the covid pandemic lockdowns, I suspect the majority of people, even many conservatives and liberty movement types, had a healthy concern about the effects of the virus and the potential for structural upheaval if it turned out to be as deadly as the World Health Organization initially claimed. If covid had an Infection Fatality Rate of 3% or more as global health officials warned, then the damage would be substantial enough to change our world for many years to come. Anyone who was not at least partially concerned about a biological …


“Bidenomics” Is A Fraud Based On Deliberately Misrepresented Stats, by Brandon Smith

Economic issues are some of the most politically abused issues often because the data politicians exploit is easy to present out of context. The vast majority of the public doesn’t spend their time immersed in the intricacies of monetary policy, unemployment stats and the processes of inflation vs deflation. They hear a soundbite on the news or social media once in a while, assume it must be true and then go on with their day. This is how economic crisis events always seem to take the population by surprise – The establishment tells people all is well and no one …


Using Pop Culture to Teach Survival and Civics, by M.J.

This short article does not teach any particular skills, tactics, or procedures. My only objective here is to offer some suggestions for using pop culture to get children or teenagers to start thinking about survival and to learn about civics. While most pop culture ranges from fluff to downright destructive, there are some gems we can pull out of the trash heap. Some of the examples here are irreverent and some have bad language; that’s the point. Books and sober lectures aren’t always the best way to get people’s attention. Note that I am labeling anything with vulgarity or profane …


Globalists Suggest ‘Finance Shock’ and Climate Controls, by Brandon Smith

At the end of June government leaders and think-tank power brokers from around the world met at the Summit for a New Global Financing Pact in Paris. Participants include United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, IMF Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva and World Bank President Ajay Banga. The supposed purpose of the summit was to find financial solutions to the goals of tackling poverty while simultaneously curbing “planet-heating emissions.” As with all climate change related events the discussion in Paris inevitably turned to international centralization of power and the formation of a global consortium to fix the …


Assembling a Stealth Prepper Group – Part 2, by PrepperDoc

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article) Developing your leadership skills If you work at this, you’ll gain many skills in the areas of operational communications, and in logistics as well. You’ll find the Professional Development Series will help your skillset for leading a volunteer group– whether a prepper group or an ARES group. You’ll be well accepted by the local Emergency Management folks for your willingness to help forestall the onset of anarchy in your community. Most emergency managers realize that communications is a weak spot in their own knowledge base, and if you come across as likable, …


Building a Simple Faraday Cage, by OhioGalt

This article describes the effects of EMP and CME and how to build a simple inexpensive Faraday cage. Most readers of the SurvivalBlog are aware of the potential damage from either a Coronal Mass Ejection (CME) or an Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and the impact on everyday electronics. With an EMP, an electromagnetic pulse is generated at high altitudes from a nuclear explosion damaging sensitive electronics. A CME damages electronics in a similar way with the release of a large solar flare from the sun reaches carrying magnetic fluxes and plasma toward earth. These magnetic fluxes interfere with Earth’s magnetic fields …


The Case for “Dumb” Phones, by A.R.

In the fall of 2021, I took a college course titled “Ethics & Social Responsibility in Technology.” The course began by investigating Amish communities as an example of technological stewardship. Contrary to popular belief (including my own before the class), Amish communities do in fact utilize a variety of technological innovations. What differentiates Amish technology use from mainstream culture is that the Amish view technology as a means to an end and do not blindly adopt new tech for the sake of progress. Rather, each new technology is carefully evaluated to determine if it aligns with their beliefs and lifestyle. …


The Long View of a Brewing Conservative Backlash

America has been on the path of self-destruction for four generations. Since the end of the Second World War, feminized socialists have gradually gained sociopolitical control of the United States.  The left-wing radicals of the 1960s and 1970s are now in their senior years and they hold the reins of power in our society.  Those hippies who said:  “Never trust anyone over 30” and who complained about “The Man”, now are The Man. They control academia, the mass media, both major political parties, urban law enforcement, labor unions, most Fortune 1,000 corporate Boards of Directors, and some mainline church hierarchies. …


Disconnection: Fifth Generation Warfare Tactics

As I’ve mentioned before in SurvivalBlog, modern warfare has evolved into what is now termed Fifth Generation Warfare (5GW).c Even the leftist wonks at Wikipedia have summarized the evolution of warfare fairly well, in re-stating the generations of warfare concepts developed by military analysts and historians including William S. Lind, Terry Terriff, and Robert Steele: First-generation warfare refers to ancient and post-classical battles fought with massed manpower, using phalanx, line, and column tactics with uniformed soldiers governed by the state. This generation came to an end around the mid-nineteenth century due to rapid improvements in the range, accuracy, and rate-of-fire …


Modern Civil Defense – Part 1, by 3AD Scout

What might a revived civil defense program look like in the United States?  What may trigger the Federal government to implement civil defense actions and what impacts might those actions or inactions have on you, your family or your preparedness group’s plans for survival? Where Civil Defense Ended To understand what the federal government might do in the future for civil defense we need to start by looking at the past.  In the 1950s through the 1970s American Civil Defense (CD) centered around “protecting” the population through fallout shelters.  A massive undertaking surveyed building across the United States to deem them worthy of …


Mutual Assistance Group Planning – Part 2, by Survivormann99

(Continued from Part 1. This concludes the article.) Post-SHTF, a survival group will be dealing with issues that are certainly more important than occasional potholes. What happens if individuals within the group begin dragging their feet and refuse to help with group projects or refuse to spend time on security and common defense? From a pure expediency perspective, what can actually be done about people in a group who don’t help with projects or participate in security and defense efforts? Should a group sit idly by and allow a gang of marauders to loot the recalcitrant member’s home nestled in …


Mutual Assistance Group Planning – Part 1, by Survivormann99

I have been involved in the preparedness movement, at least to some degree, for a very long time. I became involved in preparedness when all like-minded people were classified as “survivalists,” although there was never a universally accepted definition of exactly what a survivalist is. There still isn’t. When that term became tainted because of certain bad actors, many of us were then classified as “preppers.” It sounded less threatening, less “Unabomber cabin.” Again, there was no universally accepted definition of exactly what a prepper is. There still isn’t. The television series Doomsday Preppers almost always seemed bent on finding …