It's Happening

"This is it, the apocalypse" -Imagine Dragons

On January 23, 2020, the Doomsday Clock was moved to 100 seconds until midnight, the closest it's ever been. Members of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, who created and manage the Clock, describe it as, "a design that warns the public about how close we are to destroying our world with dangerous technologies of our own making. It is a metaphor, a reminder of the perils we must address if we are to survive on the planet." Former California Governor Jerry Brown, executive chairman of the Bulletin, explained the recent move: "Dangerous rivalry and hostility among the superpowers increases the likelihood of nuclear blunder.... If there's ever a time to wake up, it's now."

In the 1950s, schoolchildren practiced "duck and cover" drills to prepare for a Soviet nuclear attack. In 1961, President John F. Kennedy encouraged, "fallout protection for every American as rapidly as possible."[1] Yet even in the depths of the Cold War the Doomsday Clock was never as close to midnight as it is now. In contrast to the widespread public awareness and vigilance of the Cold War, civilian populations today are largely complacent, oblivious, and unprepared for the coming catastrophe. This is despite the fact that modern culture is awash in apocalypse. There have been countless books, films, TV shows, video games, and songs in recent years about the proverbial end of the world. It's even in cartoons. The Lego Movie 2 (2019) takes place in "Apocalypseburg." The main characters are confronted with impending "armamageddon." Art imitates life - creative works express/reflect the zeitgeist.

It's happening! The next world war is nearly here and it will be apocalyptic. Albert Einstein famously said, "I do not know with what weapons World War 3 (WW3) will be fought, but World War 4 will be fought with sticks and stones." Because superpowers now possess huge arsenals of weapons of mass destruction (WMDs), it is generally understood any future unrestrained conflict between them will likely result in mutually assured destruction (MAD). With this caution in mind, together with unprecedented bureaucratic and technological control, the long period since World War 2 (WW2) has been one of relative peace and stability among advanced nations. That peace is now unraveling.

Throughout history men have gone to war. It is in our nature. Most days in most places the weather is calm, but every now and then a great storm comes. Some today believe humanity's propensity for open conflict no longer applies to relations between great powers - that because rational leaders are not suicidal they will continue to prevent MAD. This is wishful thinking that misunderstands the primal motivations for war, underestimates the fragility of the current paradigm, and is refuted by the historical record.

Leaders and nation states do not always behave rationally. In 1939, Germany started a war it would lose. In 1941, Japan provoked a war with the United States it would also lose. Men are prone to miscalculation. That is especially true in totalitarian systems where open and honest criticism is highly restricted, resulting in leadership with an inflated sense of its own power and inaccurate views of conditions in general. More fundamentally, a strong desire for justice or revenge can override one's normal tendency for self-preservation. We see this in the logic of a suicide bomber and the sting of a bumble bee.

As WMDs continue to proliferate in the hands of more and more nations, the risk of catastrophe becomes all the more certain. In December 2019, the Council on Foreign Relations reported, "North Korea has a record of missile sales and nuclear technology sharing with countries including Egypt, Iran, Libya, Myanmar, Syria, the United Arab Emirates, Vietnam, and Yemen."[2] In addition to the increased likelihood that nuclear weapons will be used in war, loose nukes may also be sold or smuggled into the hands of terrorists. Suicide bombers cannot be deterred by MAD. Once nuclear weapons are detonated in a modern city or deployed in war, the barrier to their use thenceforth will be much lower. Superpower nations will probably not be the first to use nuclear weapons in the next conflict, but after one of their cities is decimated by an atomic bomb there will be a strong impulse to reciprocate in kind. Escalation leads to escalation. Attribution won't always be clear. National and spiritual alliances among the world's people further increase the potential for hostilities to cascade far and wide.

Nowhere is that more apparent than in Israel, home of Megiddo, better known by its Greek name, Armageddon. In the first 25 years of its founding in 1948, modern Israel fought three wars against coalitions of its Arab neighbors. The last of these was in October 1973, when Egypt and Syria coordinated a surprise attack against the Jewish state on Yom Kippur, the holiest day of the Hebrew calendar. By that time, Israel had built a stockpile of nuclear weapons. After swift initial advances by the Egyptian and Syrian armies, Israel put its nuclear forces on alert. A report by the U.S. Air Force (USAF) Counterproliferation Center explained the deteriorating situation:

Caught with only regular forces on duty, augmented by reservists with a low readiness level, Israeli front lines crumbled. By early afternoon on 7 October, no effective forces were in the southern Golan Heights and Syrian forces had reached the edge of the plateau, overlooking the Jordan River....
Defense Minister Moshe Dayan, obviously not at his best at a press briefing, was, according to Time magazine, rattled enough to later tell the prime minister that "this is the end of the third temple," referring to an impending collapse of the state of Israel. "Temple" was also the code word for nuclear weapons. Prime Minister Golda Meir and her "kitchen cabinet" made the decision on the night of 8 October. The Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs.... Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof were armed and prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. They also targeted Damascus with nuclear capable long-range artillery....
U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was notified of the alert several hours later on the morning of 9 October. The U.S. decided to open an aerial resupply pipeline to Israel, and Israeli aircraft began picking up supplies that day.... Well before significant American resupply had reached Israeli forces, the Israelis counterattacked and turned the tide on both fronts.
On 11 October, a counterattack on the Golan broke the back of Syria's offensive, and on 15 and 16 October, Israel launched a surprise crossing of the Suez Canal into Africa. Soon the Israelis encircled the Egyptian Third Army and it was faced with annihilation on the east bank of the Suez Canal....
Soviet premier Leonid Brezhnev threatened, on 24 October, to airlift Soviet airborne troops to reinforce the Egyptians cut off on the eastern side of the Suez Canal and put seven Soviet airborne divisions on alert. Recent evidence indicates that the Soviets sent nuclear missile submarines also. Aviation Week and Space Technology magazine claimed that the two Soviet SCUD brigades deployed in Egypt each had a nuclear warhead. American satellite photos seemed to confirm this.... President Nixon's response was to bring the U.S. to worldwide nuclear alert the next day.... This sudden crisis quickly faded as Prime Minister Meir agreed to a cease-fire, relieving the pressure on the Egyptian Third Army.[3]

What began as a narrow conflict in a small section of the eastern Mediterranean nearly erupted into global nuclear Armageddon between the United States and the Soviet Union (USSR). Every side understood then what another all-out war between Israel and its adversaries implied. In 1979, Egypt and Israel signed a peace treaty, and the neighborhood remained largely quiet for the next three decades.

The year 2011 brought great upheaval to the Middle East, including both Egypt and Syria. In February, under pressure from large, sustained demonstrations against his rule, Egypt's American-friendly president Hosni Mubarak resigned after 30 years in power. Control transferred to Egypt's military until elections were held in June 2012, whereupon Islamist Mohammad Morsi was elected president. However, just a year later, Morsi himself was replaced in a coup d'état by Minister of Defense General Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi, after millions of Egyptians took to the streets to protest Morsi's sweeping constitutional reforms. Sisi went on to win the presidential elections held in May 2014 and has ruled the country ever since.

Alarmingly, Sisi's administration has shifted Egypt away from its recent partnership with the United States, embracing instead Russia, Egypt's longtime Cold War sponsor and backer during its conflicts with Israel in 1956, 1967, and 1973. Sisi's presidency has seen Egypt embark on large-scale rearmament, completing several multi-billion dollar deals with Russia for modern weapons.[4] In 2017, the two countries signed a contract for the construction of Egypt's first nuclear power plant.[5] The following year Sisi and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a comprehensive strategic cooperation agreement in Sochi. The visit was Sisi's fourth trip to Russia since taking office, and reportedly involved discussions of "key international and regional problems."[4] Egypt under Sisi has undertaken ambitious development projects, especially in the Sinai, including new tunnels under the Suez Canal completed in 2018. Those tunnels were scheduled to open October 6, the date marking the start of the Yom Kippur War.[6]

In February 2011, the same month Egypt's Mubarak was forced from power, protests erupted next door in Libya against the rule of Moammar Gaddafi. Gaddafi's military responded with a heavy hand, shooting hundreds of demonstrators, and the country descended into civil war. In March, a NATO coalition led by the United States bombed thousands of Libyan military targets, established a no-fly zone over the country, and formed a naval blockade. Before the end of the year, rebel forces had overthrown Gaddafi's regime.

In March 2011, a popular uprising against the rule of President Bashar Al-Assad in Syria began as well. Demonstrations spread quickly to cities nationwide. Assad responded by sending tanks and infantry to quash the protests. That failed. Violence escalated. In July, the Free Syrian Army (FSA) was formed by a group of military officers who had defected from Assad. Shortly thereafter, the FSA began receiving arms and assistance from the West. Ex-CIA officer Philip Giraldi wrote at the time:

Unmarked NATO warplanes are arriving at Turkish military bases close to Iskenderum on the Syrian border, delivering weapons...as well as volunteers.... Iskenderum is also the seat of the Free Syrian Army.... French and British special forces trainers are on the ground, assisting the Syrian rebels while the CIA and U.S. Spec Ops are providing communications equipment and intelligence to assist the rebel cause...[7]

As the insurrection evolved into civil war, regional and global powers increasingly intervened on both sides. Along with NATO backing, Syrian rebels received weapons from Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Israel.[8] In addition to arming the rebels, the Israeli military (IDF) has intervened directly in Syria thousands of times since the beginning of the civil war, destroying missile factories, chemical weapons facilities, arms convoys, and other sites deemed to pose an existential threat to the Jewish state.[9]

Support for Assad has primarily come from Russia and Iran. Along with providing funding and weapons, Iran deployed Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) troops to Syria in 2012.[10] Iran augmented those forces with tens of thousands of Shia militiamen recruited from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Lebanon,[11] and elsewhere, to serve under the IRGC. Russia, already Assad's longtime chief weapons supplier, began operating directly in Syria in 2015, sending tanks, troops, artillery, attack helicopters, jets, warships, and anti-aircraft systems.[12][13][14][15] Russia also expanded its naval facility at Tartus, built a permanent base for its air force at Hmeimim,[16] and deployed nuclear-capable ballistic missiles to the country.[17] Russian intervention turned the tide in the war, and since then Assad has mostly subdued the rebellion.

However, while civil war violence has largely subsided in Syria, Israeli military operations in the country and wider region have escalated sharply in recent months. From November 12 to November 20, 2019, Israel launched a series of airstrikes against targets in Syria, hitting missile sites, warehouses, and the headquarters of the IRGC in the country. The Brookings Institute noted at the time, "While Israel has reportedly carried out thousands of strikes in Syria and neighboring Iraq in recent years, the frequency, intensity, and toll of these recent attacks are unprecedented."[18] In early January 2020, the Commander of the elite Quds Force of the IRGC, Qassem Soleimani, was assassinated by a missile strike in Baghdad. In May 2020, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies observed: "Israel has intensified its military operations against suspected Iran-backed militia positions in Syria.... The two foes have seemingly reached a point of inevitable wide-scale conflict."[19] By July, a series of explosions - "over a dozen...in recent weeks"[20] - were reported on critical facilities within Iran itself.[21]

Israel's strikes reflect a desperation and dread that advanced weapons from Iran and elsewhere into Syria will eventually be used against the Jewish state.[22] Israel's adversaries, for their part, have admitted as much. In July 2018, the deputy commander of the IRGC warned: "Today an international Islamic army has been formed in Syria.... Orders are awaited, so that...the life of this regime will be ended for good. The life of the Zionist regime was never in danger as it is now."[23] In March 2019, with the war against Assad drawing down, Syrian Brigadier General Lu'ayy Shehadeh told Hezbollah TV: "Allah willing, we've reached a level that will serve us in the main and real conflict. As I've told you, we believed right from the start that [the Syrian Civil War] would end. But the conflict [with Israel] is still on. The real war is still on."[24] In May 2020, Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei acknowledged transferring weapons to Gaza to fight Israel and declared that Israel would not survive.[25] On the same day, Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah gave a speech insisting, "Israel must be destroyed."[26] Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu responded, "Those that threaten Israel with extermination put themselves in similar danger."[25] Israeli government ministers and IDF commanders have repeatedly declared that the next war with Hezbollah will return Lebanon "to the stone age."[27][28][29][30] In August 2020, a massive explosion rocked Beirut, killing hundreds of people. The explosion was reportedly set off by a blast in a weapons stockpile that Hezbollah intended to use against Israel.[31] In 2011, The Telegraph reported, "The commander of Israel's Home Front issued a stark warning...the Middle East is headed for a full-scale, multi-front war that would see the use of weapons of mass destruction."[32]

After the Israeli intelligence agency, Mossad, seized secret documents from Iran's nuclear program, it was revealed Iran "planned to build five nuclear weapons by mid-2003".[33] In 2017, The Diplomat Magazine reported suspicions that Egypt is also building nuclear weapons:

Egyptian government's continued refusal to accept comprehensive international inspections of its nuclear energy program, has increased concerns in Washington that Egypt could seek its own nuclear deterrent.... This theory is substantiated by the IAEA's discovery of highly enriched uranium at Ishas[34]

In 2018, a former Syrian general revealed Hezbollah had acquired chemical weapons, and that Iran was preparing missiles with chemical warheads in Syria.[35] The same month, The Times of Israel asked, "Did the Mossad kill a Russian general for peddling deadly nerve agent to Syria?"[36] In May 2022, Russian military operators in Syria fired S-300 missiles at Israeli aircraft for the first time. [37] Meanwhile, satellite photography has revealed Saudi Arabia is also targeting Israel with "powerful ballistic missiles"[38] In June 2022, IDF Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi warned Israel faces a "nuclear threat and simultaneous missile attacks from all fronts."[39]

This is it, Armageddon. Even if Russia does not take part in the next Israeli war, the fallout will reach the West. A Telegraph article in July 2019 informed the public, "Intelligence agencies believe Iran has organised and funded sleeper terror cells across Europe including the UK and could greenlight attacks in response to a conflict in the Gulf."[40] In May 2020, former NYPD Intelligence Director Mitchell Silber wrote, "There is mounting evidence that in recent years, Iran and Hezbollah have sought to create a sleeper network in the U.S. and Western Europe, which could be activated to launch attacks as part of a retaliatory attack."[41]

In London in 2015, following a Mossad tip off, British intelligence found four Hezbollah operatives with 3 tons of ammonium nitrate.... A similar process led to the discovery in Germany of Hezbollah operatives with enough ammonium nitrate "to blow up a city."[31]

Iran and Hezbollah aren't the only ones waiting to strike Western targets. Stateless extremist groups, including Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, have organized terrorist sleeper cells as well. Recent conflicts in Libya, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, and beyond provoked millions of civilians to flee their homelands in search of safety and economic security abroad. Most of those refugees headed for Europe where EU countries largely welcomed them in. However, among the peaceful millions were thousands of would-be terrorists out for revenge. The Institute for Strategic, Political, Security and Economic Consultancy released a report in 2016 explaining the gravity of the situation:

In both Turkey and Libya - the main springboards of migrants into Europe - Islamist-Jihadist entities affiliated with the Islamic State/Caliphate organize the migrants in order to provide cover for the infiltration of their own operatives. One Syrian operative in Turkey, a former Mukhabarat officer who had joined the ranks of the Jihadists, boasted in early September 2015 about their success to-date. He claimed that there are already more than 4,000 covert operatives "ready" throughout the European Union.... Their objective is to unleash revenge attacks at the heart of the West. "If someone attacks me then for sure I will attack them back," he explained.[42]

The same year, a top intelligence official for the German state of Bavaria warned: "We have substantial reports that among the refugees there are hit squads. There are hundreds of these reports, some from refugees themselves."[43]

The Islamic State (IS), a group of Sunni extremists, developed in Iraq after the U.S. invaded in 2003. Citing multiple violations of UN resolutions and concerns of illicit WMD development, the United States deployed its military to Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein's regime from power. An American-led government was established and U.S. troops were stationed at bases throughout the country. In response to the American takeover, a popular insurgency raged for years. Sectarian violence between Sunnis and Shias was also common. It was in that chaos and formative pressure that IS grew. Civil war instability in Syria and Libya provided further opportunity for the group to expand.

Following the withdrawal of most U.S. forces from Iraq in 2011, IS increased its operations significantly. In 2014, IS took over the cities of Fallujah and Mosul in Iraq, Raqqa in Syria, and in June declared a worldwide caliphate. By that time, IS occupied tens of thousands of square miles of territory in Iraq, Syria, and Libya, and was earning more than a million dollars a day from oil fields it controlled. In response, the U.S. military returned to Iraq to confront the group, and within a few years IS lost all the cities it had captured and most of the land it once claimed.

However, as the Americans and their allies retook control, it soon became clear the fight was far from over. After expelling IS from the city of Manbij, Syria, documents were discovered revealing "thousands of plots to attack Europe and other parts of the world."[44]

Jihadists from South Asia are also coming for the West. On September 11, 2001, Al Qaeda terrorists attacked the United States, killing nearly 3,000 people. In response, the American military invaded Afghanistan and toppled the ruling Taliban, a group of ethnic Pashtun Islamists who had been harboring Osama Bin Laden. The Taliban took up arms and have been fighting the Americans in Afghanistan ever since.

In October 2017, the Washington Times reported a Pakistani man had been sentenced to prison for bringing "illegal immigrants from terrorist hot spots into the U.S.":

Sharafat Ali Khan, while acknowledging his guilt, denied he was the main smuggler, and said he was surprised he's the only person arrested and prosecuted in the ring, which investigators said helped more than 100 illegal immigrants from Pakistan and Afghanistan sneak into the U.S.
Khan charged up to $15,000 to smuggle someone into the U.S.
He would get migrants from Pakistan to Dubai and then to Brazil, where they would stage their journey north. They would travel through Peru, Ecuador, Colombia, Panama, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala and Mexico before...reaching the U.S. border. The journey could take up to nine months and involved trekking for days through jungles in Colombia and Panama, on foot, with little water.[45]

The determination of these migrants is unsettling. They seem to have plenty of money, they're not coming because they're impoverished and desperate. And if they just wanted refuge from war there are plenty of easier options nearby. It appears some Taliban members, along with fellow Pashtun radicals from neighboring Pakistan, have decided to bring the fight over here instead.

Al Qaeda is also still a threat. In late April 2011, less than a week before the U.S. killed Bin Laden in Pakistan, The Telegraph reported: "A senior Al-Qaeda commander claimed that the terrorist group has hidden a nuclear bomb in Europe which will be detonated if Bin-Laden is ever caught or assassinated. The U.S. authorities uncovered numerous attempts by Al-Qaeda to obtain nuclear materials and fear that terrorists have already bought uranium."[46] The next day, The Telegraph elaborated: "Al-Qaeda apparently also regularly explored the use of chemicals in attacks, believing that getting these into the US would be easier than nuclear material. The use of biological agents, including anthrax, was also considered."[47]

Jihadists have already struck a number of times in the United States, Europe, and elsewhere in recent years. Islamists born or naturalized in the West in particular have been responsible for a number of high profile attacks. On November 13, 2015, Muslim terrorists with automatic rifles and bombs hit targets in Paris, killing 130 civilians. Most of the perpetrators were French or Belgian nationals. On March 22, 2016, Arabs holding Belgian citizenship detonated 3 suicide bombs in Brussels, striking the international airport and a metro station, killing 32. In response, Israeli Defense Minister, Moshe Ya'alon, observed, "The world finds itself at the moment in a third world war, or as it has been called, 'a clash of civilizations.'"[48] In June 2016, an Afghan-American opened fire in a nightclub in Florida, killing 49. Later that summer, an Arab with a French residency permit drove a cargo truck into a large crowd in Nice, killing 86.

The years since then have been relatively quiet. There has been occasional low-level terrorist violence recently in the West, but nothing on the scale of what we saw in 2015 and 2016. The prevailing calm, however, is deceptive. Messages by alleged IS supporters have appeared in Rome, warning of the countdown "till the zero hour."[49] A former IS member who spent time with the group in Syria testified in Germany, "They want something that happens everywhere at the same time."[50]

Simultaneity is the logical conclusion of Blitzkrieg. For most of these terrorists it's also a strategic necessity. Once WMD attacks are executed, they know the West will tighten up and sharpen up immediately. Martial law will be imposed, followed by a massive crackdown on Muslims.

The "zero hour" could see thousands of simultaneous attacks on cities and other targets throughout the West. In 2018, a Norwegian Ministry of Defense researcher observed:

A recent report sets the number of Islamist extremists in Germany at 25,000, with 2,240 of them thought to be jihadists. According to the EU, the U.K. is home to 25,000 Islamist extremists, of whom 3,000 are seen as a threat and 500 are under constant surveillance. In France, where around 1,400 have left to become jihadist fighters in Syria and Iraq, the situation is at least equally worrisome. More than 20,000 people - including non-Islamists - are on a watch list of potentially violent radicals, and 4,000 of them are considered dangerous and monitored closely.[51]

Terrorist sleeper cells are likely positioned in every major Western city, waiting to strike. Some of them have WMDs. In December 2015, the European Parliament cautioned, "European governments and EU institutions need to be on alert, and should consider publicly addressing the possibility of a terrorist attack using chemical, biological, radiological or even nuclear materials."[52] The same briefing ominously noted, "CBRN substances have been carried undetected into the EU." In 2016, FBI director James Comey warned that future terrorist attacks would be on "an order of magnitude greater"[53] than what we witnessed in Paris and Brussels. In 2015, former Secretary of Defense William Perry released a video speculating, "What would happen if terrorists exploded a crude nuclear bomb in Washington DC?"[54] A month before that video was released, the Associated Press reported of "at least four attempts in five years in which criminal networks with suspected Russian ties sought to sell radioactive material to extremists...."[55] The article continued: "One investigation uncovered an attempt to sell bomb-grade uranium to a real buyer from the Middle East.... AP found that smugglers are explicitly targeting buyers who are enemies of the West."

That brings us finally to Russia. As dangerous and devastating as Islamic terrorism has the potential to be, its reach is still fairly limited. While some terrorists may be acquiring nuclear weapons now, Russia has had them already for more than 70 years. The threat posed by Russia to global civilization and human life can hardly be overstated.

At the turn of the millennium, Vladimir Putin rose to power in Russia. He provided order, stability, and a sense of national pride to the Russian nation after a decade of disintegration and disillusion following the collapse of the Soviet Union. The USSR lost the Cold War, but, like Germany after World War 1 (WW1), the result was not catastrophic, and Russia retained the ability to reorganize and rearm. Adolf Hitler was a decorated soldier in WW1. The humiliation of Germany's defeat and loss of territory provided motivation for Hitler's future military campaigns. Putin spent his early career as a KGB officer during the Cold War. Since assuming the presidency, he has moved to reclaim land lost in the breakup of the Soviet Union, deploying Russian forces to take over Abkhazia and South Ossetia in Georgia, Crimea in southern Ukraine, and Donbass in eastern Ukraine.

In February 2022, Putin officially launched an invasion of Ukraine, sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers into the country. His efforts for a quick victory were foiled by strong Ukrainian resistence, augmented by materiel and intelligence support from the United States and its allies. As of May 2023, the conflict continues. Critical infrastructure has been targeted on both sides, while Ukrainian cities, including its capital Kiev/Kyiv, have seen numerous missile attacks on civilians by Russian forces. Frustrated by setbacks in Ukraine, Russian state media reported a threat by former President Dmitry Medvedev:

If the West continues its "unrestrained pumping of the Kiev regime with the most dangerous types of weapons," Russia's military campaign will move to the next level, where "visible boundaries and potential predictability of actions by the parties to the conflict" will be erased and the conflict will take on a life of its own, as wars always do, Medvedev argued.
"And then the Western nations will not be able to sit in their clean homes, laughing at how they carefully weaken Russia by proxy. Everything will be on fire around them. Their people will harvest their grief in full. The land will be on fire and the concrete will melt," Medvedev wrote, before citing a Bible verse from Revelations 9:18.[56]

In May 2023, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned that the United States and Russia are on the verge of "open armed conflict".[57] In addition to Putin's regional encroachment, Russia has also reasserted itself on the global stage, sending troops and materiel to regional allies and conflict zones far and wide. The Russian Navy has expanded aggressively around the world,[58][59][60][61][62][63] including near the United States.[64][65] Russian bombers and other military aircraft are deploying with sharply increasing frequency near NATO powers and Western-aligned countries.[66][67][68][69][70]

Internally, Putin has embarked on a massive modernization of his military. Estonian General Ants Laaneots, former defense attaché to Russia, reportedly warned, "Putin is rearming more rapidly and extensively than Hitler in the late 1930s."[71] In the last year or two, Russia's weapons buildup has only accelerated. In 2018, Putin announced the development of several new "invincible" superweapons,[72] including a nuclear-powered, nuclear-armed cruise missile and a nuclear-powered, autonomous underwater drone equipped with a massive, cobalt-salted nuclear warhead. Such a device would unleash intense, long-lasting radiation over large swaths of the earth, rendering them uninhabitable for decades.[73]

Putin's march to doomsday has met recently with a handful of mysterious disasters and "accidents". In April 2019, a Russian factory producing the Sarmat intercontinental ballistic missile, one of the superweapons Putin declared the previous year, exploded and caught fire.[74] In July, fire ravaged a top-secret nuclear submarine, killing 14, all senior officers.[75] In August, an explosion during testing of a nuclear-powered cruise missile killed five scientists.[76] Three days before that, a Siberian arms depot suffered a massive blast.[77] The next month, Russia's main bioweapons facility, Vector, was hit by an explosion, this one blamed on a gas cylinder.[78]

In addition to accelerating weapons development, Russia has also expanded aggressively in the cyber realm, hacking computer networks and control systems of adversary nations including the United States. Russian state hackers are not only pursuing military and government targets but also those essential to civilian life. In November 2015, activists opposed to Russia's annexation of Crimea blew up pylons carrying electricity into the peninsula, cutting power for most of its two million people.[79] Russia warned it would retaliate. The next month, two days before Christmas, Russian cyberattackers shut down parts of Ukraine's electrical distribution system, leaving hundreds of thousands without power. Nearly a year later, with temperatures hovering around zero degrees Fahrenheit, Russia struck Ukraine's grid again, this time disabling a transmission station carrying 200 megawatts to Kiev.[80] Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko responded with a statement accusing "Russian security services [of] waging a cyberwar against our country."[81]

While those December exploits were alarming, they were mostly harmless. Power was restored in both cases within hours. Security researchers interviewed by Wired Magazine believe the Russians restrained themselves, and that the effects could have been far worse:

A future breach might target not a distribution or transmission station but an actual power plant. Or it could be designed not simply to turn off equipment but to destroy it. In 2007 a team of researchers at Idaho National Lab...demonstrated that it's possible to hack electrical infrastructure to death: The so-called Aurora experiment used nothing but digital commands to permanently wreck a 2.25-megawatt diesel generator.[80]

Ukraine was a glimpse of what's to come. In 2018, Radio Free Europe reported, "The United States for the first time is blaming the Russian government for an ongoing campaign of cyberattacks...targeting the U.S. power grid, water systems, and other critical infrastructure."[82] The Russians aren't the only ones developing these capabilities. Shortly before the 2016 U.S. presidential election, NBC News revealed:

U.S. military hackers have penetrated Russia's electric grid, telecommunications networks and the Kremlin's command systems, making them vulnerable to attack by secret American cyber weapons should the U.S. deem it necessary, according to a senior intelligence official.
American officials have long said publicly that Russia, China and other nations have probed and left hidden malware on parts of U.S critical infrastructure, "preparing the battlefield," in military parlance, for cyber attacks that could turn out the lights or turn off the internet across major cities.[83]

Advanced nations like the United States are especially susceptible to a failing power supply, since so much of our lives here depends on electricity. Centralized development is a double-edged sword. In 1859, a very strong solar flare struck the Earth. Northern lights were observed as far south as Cuba. But there was no electrical grid then, and beyond the light show, mankind barely noticed. If a similar solar storm were to hit Earth today it would cause widespread, prolonged power blackouts, and the consequences for humanity would be catastrophic. In 2012, one nearly did.[84] Highly concentrated urban populations are not just ripe targets for WMDs, they are also extremely vulnerable to systems failure, especially in winter.

Future cyber warfare won't just stop at stopping machines. In 2011, Dr. William Bruno, a biophysicist working at the Los Alamos National Laboratory - the same outfit that developed the atomic bomb - published concerns that cell phone radiation may present dangers to human biology:

microwave energy at cell phone frequencies penetrates deeply into tissue.... microwaves in the 1-10 GHz frequency range most efficiently do work inside the brain.... Arguments in support of safety based on basic physics appear not to hold up.[85]

Research by the Ford Motor Company from the 1960s offers further evidence of the risks: "The autonomic nervous system is affected by the microwaves of the centimeter wave length band.... Very small dosages produce analgesic effects; however, very large dosages are fatal."[86] In 2014, the U.S. National Security Agency released a statement affirming the likely existence of a "high-powered microwave system weapon that may have the ability to weaken, intimidate, or kill."[87] Since 2016, American diplomats, intelligence operators, and other government personnel have been targeted around the world by suspected Russian microwave weapons, including in the United States itself. Defense Secretary Christopher Miller called the attacks "an act of war."[88] If an adversary nation were to hack our cell network, attackers might be able to alter the shape and intensity of microwave signals emanating from towers and mobile devices to be maximally biodestructive.

Other seemingly benign electronics present additional vectors for malicious hackers to potentially exploit. Hendricus G. Loos, a researcher who has done work for DARPA,[89] published a patent in 2001 warning, "It is...possible to manipulate the nervous system of a subject by pulsing images displayed on a nearby computer monitor or TV set."[90]

In the next world war cyberattacks will be coupled with physical sabotage of essential infrastructure, including food factories,[91] public water supplies,[92] oil refineries,[93] dams,[94] and nuclear power plants.[95][96] Here again, intensive centralization presents great risk, especially as modern weapons become more powerful and more widespread. A recently-developed Russian missile system hiding in a standard shipping container[97] loaded onto a semi truck could easily destroy an American dam, cutting power to civilians and flooding cities downstream. The so-called Club-K system can also be equipped with a nuclear warhead that may be launched from within an adversary's territory to trigger an EMP.[98] In 2017, the national EMP Commission released a report warning, "a protracted nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill up to 90 percent of the American people through starvation and societal collapse."[99]

Famine is one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The vast majority of Americans live in cities or suburbs that don't produce their own food. In 2012, the FBI warned:

Terrorists consider America's agriculture and food production tempting targets. They have noticed that its food supply is among the most vulnerable and least protected of all potential targets of attack. When American and allied forces overran al Qaeda sanctuaries in the caves of eastern Afghanistan in 2002, among the thousands of documents they discovered were U.S. agricultural documents and al Qaeda training manuals targeting agriculture.[100]

In addition to compromising our food and water supplies, terrorists and hostile nations will also work to deprive us of the gasoline and electricity that make the production and distribution of food and other essential goods possible. When the machine stops,[101] people will become hungry and desperate quickly. In December 2018, American President Donald Trump signed a bill criminalizing the consumption of cats and dogs.[102] During the siege of Leningrad, people ate birds, rats, and pets until there weren't any more, then they started eating each other.[103] The zombie meme isn't just a meme. Take your average city dweller; now remove his caffeine, his alcohol, and his food supply. Even with a fully stocked pantry, if you're surrounded by a million or even a thousand starving people, you will not be safe. Robert Heinlein, U.S. Navy engineer and author, wrote For Us the Living in 1938. The fictional story describes civic breakdown with great clarity:

A modern city is an almost incredibly helpless and delicate organism. It has lost its power to produce the actual essentials of life. In spite of its transportation systems, it cannot move as they found out in the evacuation of London. It is like an overgrown idiot baby in an incubator. It is completely helpless without the aid of the many servants that succor it. It cannot even think except in a slow ponderous collective fashion and it cannot think at all in an emergency. Its individuals can think, but a city is an organism in itself and must have a directing brain and nervous system. Destroy its waterworks. It dies. Stop its food supply. It dies. Remove its directing intelligence, it commits suicide. The cities went to pieces first.[104]

"First" -- destruction won't stop at the cities. But first things first; if you want to survive you must escape the city and be prepared to keep moving.

Not only are cities centers of dependency and targets for WMDs, they also facilitate the rapid spread of infectious disease. Pestilence is another Horseman of the Apocalypse. Colonel Kanatzhan Alibekov, now known as Ken Alibek, was the First Deputy Director at Biopreparat, the Soviet Union's bioweapons program, during the final years of the Cold War. In 1992, Alibek defected to the United States. In his 1999 book, Biohazard, Alibek observed that Russian scientists may be selling their services to countries and groups seeking to build their own biological weapons:

It is impossible to know how many Russians have been recruited abroad, but there is no doubt that their expertise has been attracting bidders.... I've heard that several went to Iraq and North Korea. A former colleague, now the director of a Biopreparat institute, told me that five of our scientists are in Iran.[105]

Alibek contends Russian scientists created a particularly virulent hybrid bioweapon called Ebolapox, among others. Alibek described the virus in an interview with The New Yorker magazine:

Alibek believes that the Russian researchers made a DNA copy of the disease-causing parts of Ebola, then grafted them into smallpox.... "The Ebolapox could produce the form of smallpox called blackpox," Alibek says. Blackpox, sometimes known as hemorrhagic smallpox, is the most severe type of smallpox disease.... Blackpox is invariably fatal. "As a weapon, the Ebolapox would give the hemorrhages and high mortality rate of Ebola virus, which would give you a blackpox, plus the very high contagiousness of smallpox," Alibek said.[106]

Vector, the Russian bioweapons facility that suffered an explosion last September, is one of only two known labs in the world to house the smallpox virus (the other is a CDC facility in Atlanta). Vector also works with ebola, influenza, Marburg virus, and HIV, among others. The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the same group responsible for the Doomsday Clock, reported after the explosion, "Biosecurity experts questioned whether it was a deliberate attack."[107] The Bulletin also linked to a paper in the Journal of Global Biosecurity speculating:

Neither can we exclude theft of pathogens during the chaos and aftermath of the explosion, or that the explosion itself was deliberate to enable theft.... In the case of theft of biological materials, an index case may occur anywhere in the world, and in the case of engineered or synthetic pathogens, previously unknown disease syndromes may occur.[108]

In September 2022, Bloomberg News reported a number of peculiar outbreaks of disease in the previous months: "There was severe liver inflammation in kids in April, monkeypox in May, polio in July, and 'tomato flu' in August. Each appears to be the result of an unusual manifestation or proliferation of a virus scientists have studied for decades."[109] In March 2021, a top Russian official warned of a mutating strain of bird flu with a "fairly high degree of probability" of human-to-human transmission.[110] A massive global outbreak of bird flu among birds began in early 2022. In April 2023, Sky News reported, "US bird flu outbreak 'wiping out everything in numbers we've never seen before,'" and that the World Health Organization (WHO) warns, "people should not assume the risk to humans will always remain low."[111] The same month, US News revealed, "Tests done on a Chilean man infected with bird flu showed signs that the virus has partially adapted to spread between mammals."[112] Bird flu mortality rate in humans is "approximately 60 percent, according to the CDC."[113]

There are yet more Horsemen. It's worth reemphasizing here, nuclear weapons are generations-old technology. They will be joined in the next war by newer offensive capabilities that are likely even more pervasive. Among the most worrisome emerging weapons are autonomous killer drones. Louis del Monte, a physicist and former executive at U.S. government defense contractor, Honeywell, released a book on the subject in 2017.[114] His publisher summarized the risk: "Millions of insect size drones, referred to as nanobots, are projected to become the new weapons of mass destruction. But controlling millions of nanobots is difficult; once released, they may go beyond an adversary's boarders and kill indiscriminately."[115] "Boarders" - that's you and me. If you've ever played a video game against a hacker, you probably have some idea of the threat we're up against. Algorithms identify targets, aim, and execute an attack much more quickly and accurately than the human brain can. Human biology is also susceptible to CBRN weapons and harsh environmental conditions in ways robots are not. A single ounce of polonium or botulinum toxin can theoretically kill tens of millions of people.[116][117] Miniature robots programmed to deploy these toxins could be snuck into the United States through our ports, concealed among the tens of thousands of shipping containers arriving every day.[118] Autonomous weapons may be designed to operate by dead reckoning - that is, without a communications link, making them difficult to detect and defeat. These bots will likely seek targets using multiple sensors, including sonic and infrared, among others. Consequently, for example, a sailboat might be a safer ocean vessel than something with a hot, noisy engine.

Russia and other advanced nations have also developed directed energy weapons that can set off earthquakes and volcanoes remotely.[119] In 2017, a retired Russian colonel claimed his country had buried nuclear 'mole' missiles into the seabed near the United States that would trigger tsunamis when detonated.[120] The same year, Russia's defense ministry revealed it had resumed a Cold War program training ocean mammals for military missions.[121] A dolphin or whale with a surgically implanted CBRN weapon may be trained to swim to an American city and detonate.[122]

In addition to militarizing the ocean, Russia and the United States have also weaponized outer space. Military correspondent David Axe explains:

Earth's orbit is looking more and more like the planet's surface - heavily armed and primed for war.... It's hard to say exactly how many weapons are in orbit. That's because many spacecraft are 'dual use.' They have peaceful functions and potential military applications.[123]

Solar mirrors[124] and solar sails,[125] for example, may be oriented to focus sunlight into destructive beams of energy, like a magnifying glass burning leaves.[126] Massive, ground-based solar reflector installations[127] may generate powerful lasers and send them to mirrors in space, to bounce from one mirror to the next until a target is within reach.[128] Spacecraft might even be deployed to nudge large asteroids into Earth's orbit as an ultimate doomsday weapon.[129] In September 2022, following Russia's invasion of Ukraine, astronomers reported, "UFOs 'everywhere' over Kyiv."[130]

It's happening! These weapons cannot, will not, all be kept at bay. It's much easier to burn than it is to build. Humanity is reaching a critical point. The destructive potential of modern technology is too powerful for civilization in its current form to withstand much longer. In June 2022, Former Russian President Medvedev revealed, "The horsemen of the Apocalypse are already on their way."[131] In the same month, the Pope announced, "The world is at war.... For me, today, World War III has been declared." [132] The next month, US President Joe Biden warned, "this is a time of war and global peril."[133]

What can we do? "Run away if you want to survive."[134] The government probably won't save you. The government can hardly save itself. It's mostly based in cities. War planners have built some deep underground bunkers,[135] but they're generally not for the public, and any large-scale, high-value installation will be known and prioritized for destruction by the Russians.

Our challenge is to be aware of the risks and to avoid the danger as much as possible. Our best bet is to be far away from threats and targets and find temporary shelter in an environment unlikely to attract autonomous killer drones and other far-reaching modern weapons. Under the ocean[136], beneath the Antarctic ice,[137][138], or on the far side of the moon may be safe havens in the next war.[139] Caves or bunkers in tall, geologically stable mountains like the Himalayas are another possibility to survive the end times. The Book of Isaiah, chapter 2, says:

2 In the last days the mountain of the Lord's temple will be established as the highest of the mountains; it will be exalted above the hills, and all nations will stream to it.
10 Go into the rocks, hide in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty!
19 People will flee to caves in the rocks and to holes in the ground from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth.
21 They will flee to caverns in the rocks and to the overhanging crags from the fearful presence of the Lord and the splendor of his majesty, when he rises to shake the earth. [140]

Isaiah chapter 33:

15 Those who walk righteously and speak what is right, who reject gain from extortion and keep their hands from accepting bribes, who stop their ears against plots of murder and shut their eyes against contemplating evil-
16 they are the ones who will dwell on the heights, whose refuge will be the mountain fortress. Their bread will be supplied, and water will not fail them.[141]

Matthew, chapter 24:16, likewise says, once it becomes clear the apocalypse is nigh, "let those who are in Judea flee to the mountains."[142]

In August 2022, the BBC reported on a Tibetan Buddhist belief in Himalayan safe havens called beyuls:

A beyul is a sacred place and sanctuary to which lamas (teachers of Tibetan Buddhism) could lead people in times of strife and trouble...
Specifically, they are hidden paradise valleys whose location will only be revealed at very specific moments in time when the world is under enormous stress and in danger of destruction through war, famine or plague.[143]

It won't be easy to reach these places, and that's part of the point. If it's easy for you to reach then it's easy for attackers to reach too. A sealed, self-sustaining, climate-controlled facility will likely be necessary for a while. Success will require significant planning and resources taking into account many different dangers in a rapidly changing environment. Elevation may be key to surviving catastrophic global flooding. Later, if the sun is obscured by fallout and the effects of widespread volcanism, a tropical island may be desirable to survive the cold. Whatever we choose, we must aim high, there is no alternative. Modern weapons will punish half measures. Maintain courage and faith; God willing, there will be survivors.

In 1896, William James published a speech entitled The Will to Believe. It concludes with a quote by James Fitzjames Stephen:

We stand on a mountain pass in the midst of whirling snow and blinding mist through which we get glimpses now and then of paths which may be deceptive. If we stand still we shall be frozen to death. If we take the wrong road we shall be dashed to pieces. We do not certainly know whether there is any right one. What must we do? 'Be strong and of a good courage.' Act for the best, hope for the best, and take what comes...[144]

The storm will pass. The skies will eventually clear and the sun will rise again. The I Ching says: "When misfortune has spent itself, better times return.... The old is discarded and the new is introduced.... Societies of people sharing the same views are formed.... The idea of RETURN is based on the course of nature. The movement is cyclic, and the course completes itself."[145]

Godspeed,
Matthew

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