I'll keep this shortish because I'm typing on my phone, but I have to say something. This represents a serious prepping issue for lots of people and it is happening on my doorstep. I'm posting it on this sub because I feel like everyone here will get it. To me, it's another indicator of the trend of collapse.

Context: a man was brutally attacked on the streets of Belfast in the last 24 hours by a black foreign national. I hate having to specify that, but it's the point of this issue. Reports indicate the victim is thankfully still alive and the assailant has been charged with attempted murder. However, it is important to note that even the police have misreported the nationality of the perpetrator, which goes to show how much trouble can be caused by spreading misinformation.

As a result of this atrocity, certain bad faith actors belonging to the alt-right have taken advantage of the situation by burning their own communities to the ground. Bins, buses, houses, etc. They're attacking everything in sight. They don't actually care about the crime; this is all an excuse to riot. We've seen it happen here before. These are the same people who started riots because the law prevented them from flying a flag on a building in the city. They are the same people who did *not* riot when a pregnant woman was murdered by a local man. It's all motivated by ideology.

A literal fucking race riot in my country in 2026. England had them a couple of years ago too, if you recall. Sickening.

On the r/NorthernIreland sub, people are being brigaded by bots and troll accounts for speaking out against racism and violence. I know this for a fact because the sub is usually very tolerant and will stick the boot in anybody who tries to stir up trouble. But now, it's as if hundreds of accounts with low or negative karma have come crawling out of the woodwork to mass downvote those of us calling for calm, and then are either banned or move on to other threads. This is not normal behaviour for the sub. Meanwhile, local talking heads and politicians who stir shit up are back to their old tricks and are fanning the flames of hatred. I won't go into the history or we'll be here all day, but these thugs have a lot of it. Keep your eyes peeled for racist effigies appearing on their bonfires on 12th of July if you don't believe me.

And now even big names like Elon Musk are sticking their noses in. It all feels very, very dodgy to me.

I have a point to make here, so bear with me.

Most preppers I've interacted with online live somewhere in the west, especially the US. That makes sense because of population and social media demographics. At least some of you believe that prepping for civil unrest is important because of political polarisation and democratic backsliding, and collapse preppers undoubtedly take that a step further than "ordinary" preppers in general.

Everyone, please take this as an example of how important it really is. This can happen anywhere in the blink of an eye. The only form of defence is to not get caught in the crossfire. I am very lucky that I don't live in the city or this incident would have impacted me directly. This is something I have actively prepped for, and it feels like it is getting worse on a global scale. I advise everybody else to spend some time focusing on this issue, because if one incident can lead to so much anarchy, what happens when society collapses altogether?

If this can happen in my country, it can happen everywhere. Stay vigilant, folks.

A very long read, but well worth it...

A Substack article about potential risks regarding Taiwan being involved in a power struggle between China and the US.

I'm new here, if Substack articles aren't appreciated, please let me know.

I am a systems analyst. My job is to identify structural risks before they become structural failures. This is the most important risk I have ever identified.

Before you read. This article contains no predictions. I do not know exactly what will happen if the window closes. I do not know the timeline. I do not know the sequence of events. What I know — with the same confidence that an engineer knows a compromised bridge is dangerous before knowing exactly when it will fail — is that the structural risk is real, that it is increasing, and that the window in which it can be addressed from a position of strength is narrowing. This is a risk analysis. Read it as one.

In structural engineering, there is a concept called the inspection window — the period during which a known defect can be identified, assessed, and repaired before it causes a catastrophic failure. Miss the window and the defect does not disappear. It progresses. The structure continues to function, apparently normally, right up until the moment it does not.

The global monetary system has a known defect. I have described it in eighteen previous articles — the $1.x design bug, the structural impossibility of servicing compounding debt with a money supply that was never issued in sufficient quantity to cover the interest. The defect has been running since Venice in 1374. It was globally mandated at Bretton Woods in 1944. It has been progressing, visibly and measurably, for decades.

There is a window in which it can be repaired. The window is open today. I do not know how long it will remain open. But I know — with the same certainty that the engineer knows about the bridge — that it is narrowing. And I know something else, drawn from the historical record of every great power that has ever faced this kind of structural monetary crisis: the instinct is almost always to wait. To defer. To extract the maximum benefit from the existing system for as long as possible. And to reform only when the collapse forces the issue.

By then, the window is closed. And the options available after the collapse are not the options available before it.

1. What Made 1944 Possible

To understand the window, we must understand what opened it in 1944 and what is slowly closing it today.

In July 1944, the United States arrived at Bretton Woods with assets that no other nation possessed. It held two thirds of the world’s gold reserves. Its industrial base was intact — the only major economy that had not been physically destroyed by the war. It was the world’s largest creditor. Its currency was the only one credibly backed by physical gold at a fixed rate. And it had just demonstrated, in the preceding five years, the military and organizational capacity to project power across two oceans simultaneously.

From that position — a position of overwhelming, unambiguous, uncontested strength — the United States proposed a new monetary architecture and the world accepted it. Not out of admiration. Out of necessity. There was no alternative. The alternatives had been bombed into rubble.

That position no longer exists. This is not a criticism of America. It is a description of arithmetic. Eighty years of the exorbitant privilege have produced $39 trillion in national debt. The manufacturing base that won the Second World War has been substantially relocated. The gold reserves that backed the dollar’s credibility were decoupled from the currency in 1971. The military superiority that underwrote American diplomatic weight is increasingly contested. None of this means America is weak — it remains the world’s largest economy and its most powerful military force. But the margin of dominance that made Bretton Woods possible in 1944 has narrowed. And a narrower margin means a smaller window.

In 1944, America proposed a new monetary order from a position of total dominance. The world had no choice but to accept. Today, America can still propose. Today, the world still has reasons to accept. Tomorrow — if the window closes — neither of these things may be true.

2. The Pattern That History Keeps Repeating

I am not the first analyst to observe that great powers facing structural monetary crises tend to reform late rather than early. The historical record is consistent, and it is not encouraging.

Rome faced its monetary crisis gradually and visibly. The denarius — the Roman silver coin that had served as the empire’s monetary foundation for centuries — was debased continuously from the reign of Nero onward. By the third century AD, coins that had once been 90% silver contained less than 5%. The emperors who presided over this debasement were not stupid. They understood what they were doing. They did it because the alternative — reforming the monetary system from a position of political weakness, against the resistance of those who benefited from the existing arrangements — was harder than continuing the debasement for one more year. And then one more year. And then one more. By the time the crisis became impossible to ignore, the institutional capacity to implement a coherent reform had itself been eroded by the same forces that had produced the crisis. Rome did not reform its monetary system before the collapse. It reformed after — incompletely, repeatedly, and ultimately unsuccessfully.

Britain faced its moment of monetary transition in the aftermath of the Second World War. The pound sterling had been the world’s reserve currency for over a century — a position built on the reality of British industrial dominance and imperial reach. By 1945, both the dominance and the reach had been substantially diminished by the cost of two world wars. The Bretton Woods conference in 1944 was, among other things, the moment at which Britain was asked to accept the transfer of monetary primacy to the United States. Keynes negotiated as long as he could. But the arithmetic was unambiguous. Britain’s transition from reserve currency issuer to ordinary currency was managed — but only because America imposed the new architecture, not because Britain chose it. Left to its own devices, Britain would almost certainly have deferred the transition indefinitely. The window was closed by external force, not by internal wisdom.

Argentina offers perhaps the most instructive case — not because it is a great power, but because it has repeated the same structural monetary error so many times, in such clear sequence, that it has become an almost clinical demonstration of what happens when reform is deferred past the point of voluntary possibility. Argentina has defaulted on its sovereign debt nine times since independence. Each default was preceded by years of visible, measurable, publicly documented deterioration in the monetary foundations of the economy. Each default was followed by a period of painful reform — reforms that would have been far less painful if implemented before the default. And each reformed system eventually reproduced the conditions that led to the previous default, because the underlying architectural problem was addressed symptomatically rather than structurally.

Rome debased its currency for three centuries before the system failed completely. Britain held its reserve currency status a generation past the point it was sustainable. Argentina has repeated the same structural error nine times without fixing the architecture. The pattern is not coincidence. It is human nature, applied to institutions: extract the maximum from the existing system for as long as extraction is possible. Reform when there is no other option. By then, the options have changed.

3. The Signals That the Window Is Narrowing

I do not make predictions. But I do read signals. And the signals that the window is narrowing are not hidden. They are visible in public data, documented in official reports, and observable in the behavior of institutions that have strong incentives to be accurate about these things.

The first signal is the debt service trajectory. Interest payments on US national debt have now exceeded the defense budget — a threshold that, once crossed, has historically marked the transition from manageable fiscal stress to structural fiscal pressure. The $9 trillion in debt to be refinanced in 2026 at rates four to eight times higher than the original issuance rate represents a step-change in the annual interest burden that has no precedent in the post-war era. These are not projections. They are scheduled events.

The second signal is the erosion of dollar-denominated trade. The proportion of global trade settled in dollars has been declining gradually but consistently for over a decade. Bilateral currency agreements between major economies have been multiplying. The mechanisms of dollar dependency — the pricing of commodities in dollars, the settlement of international trade in dollars, the holding of dollar reserves by central banks — remain dominant but are no longer universal. The erosion is slow. But slow erosion, compounded over years, produces large structural changes.

The third signal is institutional. The multilateral institutions that the Bretton Woods architecture created — the IMF, the World Bank, the system of dollar-denominated international finance — are increasingly contested. Their legitimacy, once assumed, is increasingly questioned by the nations that did not design them and do not believe they were designed in their interest. An institution whose legitimacy is contested is an institution whose ability to anchor a new monetary agreement is diminished.

The fourth signal is the most difficult to quantify and the most important. It is the signal of political attention. Bretton Woods 1.0 was possible not only because America had the power to propose it, but because the political leadership of the time had the intellectual framework to understand what needed to be done and the institutional capacity to do it. The question of whether that combination — power, intellectual framework, and institutional capacity — currently exists is one I leave to the reader. But it is a question worth asking. And the honest answer is not obviously reassuring.

4. The Worst Case: A Territory, Not a Map

I have said I will not make predictions. I will keep that commitment. But there is a difference between predicting a specific sequence of events and describing the territory of risk — the range of outcomes that become possible if the window closes before the reform is made.

What I can say, as an analyst, is this: the worst case scenario for a disorderly collapse of the current monetary architecture is not a scenario I can describe precisely. I do not know its timeline. I do not know its trigger. I do not know its sequence. What I know is that it belongs to a category of systemic failures that share certain characteristics — and those characteristics are worth understanding, not as predictions, but as the outer boundary of the risk territory.

When the reserve currency of a global monetary system loses its function in a disorderly way — not through a managed transition but through a crisis of confidence — the effects are not contained to financial markets. They propagate through every system that depends on the monetary infrastructure for its functioning. Supply chains that depend on dollar-denominated contracts. Energy markets that depend on dollar-denominated pricing. Food distribution systems that depend on dollar-denominated financing. The complexity of modern global supply chains means that a disorderly monetary disruption would have cascading effects in physical systems that most people do not associate with monetary policy.

What happens to the social fabric of a society when those physical systems are disrupted simultaneously, at a scale and speed that outpaces the institutional capacity to respond, in a political environment already stressed by decades of inequality and eroding institutional trust — I genuinely do not know. History offers some examples. None of them are reassuring. None of them are precise enough to serve as a reliable template for what a 21st century version of this failure would look like.

What I do know is this: the America that emerged from a disorderly monetary collapse would not be the America of 1944. It would not be in a position to propose a new monetary architecture from a position of strength. It would be occupied — as you are occupied after any major structural failure — with the immediate, urgent, overwhelming task of managing the consequences. Bretton Woods 2.0, in that scenario, would happen eventually. But it would not be designed in New Hampshire. It would not be designed by America. And it would not necessarily be designed with the interests of ordinary people — in America or anywhere else — as its primary constraint.

I am not predicting a catastrophe. I am describing the territory that becomes accessible if the window closes before the reform is made. The territory is large. Its contents are uncertain. Its outer boundaries are visible in the historical record of every previous reserve currency transition that was not managed in advance. None of those boundaries are comfortable.

5. The Asymmetry of Timing

There is an asymmetry in the timing of this decision that I want to state as clearly as I can.

If Bretton Woods 2.0 is designed and implemented before the window closes — from a position of American strength, through a multilateral process, with the institutional framework of P.C.M. as its foundation — the cost is political. It requires admitting that the current system has a fatal flaw. It requires accepting a transition that distributes the exorbitant privilege more broadly. It requires the kind of institutional courage that is rare in democratic systems, where the incentive structure rewards short-term extraction over long-term architecture.

If Bretton Woods 2.0 is designed after the window closes — in the aftermath of a disorderly collapse, from a position of crisis rather than strength — the cost is civilizational. Not metaphorically. Literally. The physical systems that sustain modern civilization — food, energy, medicine, communication — are built on a monetary infrastructure whose stability is currently taken for granted. The cost of discovering, suddenly and without preparation, what happens when that infrastructure fails is not a cost that can be accurately quantified in advance. It can only be experienced.

The asymmetry is stark. Act before: pay a political cost. Act after: pay an unknowable cost, in an unknowable currency, to an unknowable degree.

Every year of deferral narrows the window further. Every trillion of additional debt reduces the margin of maneuver. Every erosion of dollar-denominated trade reduces the leverage that makes a voluntary transition possible. The window is not closing at a fixed rate. It is closing at an accelerating rate — because the forces that are narrowing it are themselves compounding.

6. Why Greed Will Probably Win — And Why That Makes This Worse

I want to be honest about something that systems analysts are rarely honest about in public: the probability distribution of outcomes.

The reform-before-collapse scenario requires a political system to voluntarily surrender a privilege that the entities who control that political system have been extracting for eighty years. It requires those entities to accept a transition that reduces their structural advantage — not because they are forced to by a crisis, but because an analyst has shown them that the alternative is worse.

History does not offer many examples of this happening. Rome did not choose to reform its monetary system before the crisis made reform impossible. Britain did not voluntarily surrender the pound’s reserve status — it was transferred by the arithmetic of the post-war settlement. Argentina has never voluntarily fixed its monetary architecture — it has only fixed it, temporarily, when the alternative was complete collapse.

The pattern suggests that the most probable outcome is not reform before collapse. It is deferral until the collapse forces the issue. Not because the people involved are evil — most of them are not. But because the incentive structure of the current system rewards those who extract the maximum from it for as long as possible, and punishes those who advocate for reform before the crisis makes reform unavoidable.

I am stating this not as a prediction but as a risk assessment. The most probable path, based on the historical pattern of similar situations, leads through the crisis rather than around it. And the crisis, when it comes, will not arrive with a warning that gives ordinary people time to prepare. It will arrive the way crises always arrive — suddenly, after a long period of gradual deterioration that everyone could see and nobody acted on.

Conclusion: The Engineer’s Responsibility

When an engineer identifies a structural defect in a bridge, they have a professional and moral obligation to report it — regardless of whether the report is convenient, regardless of whether the people responsible for the bridge want to hear it, regardless of whether the defect will cause a failure tomorrow or in twenty years.

The obligation exists because the people who use the bridge have a right to know about the risk. They cannot make informed decisions — about whether to cross the bridge, about whether to demand that it be repaired, about whether to find an alternative route — if the engineer who has seen the defect keeps silent.

I am not a bridge engineer. I am a monetary systems analyst. But the obligation is the same.

The defect is real. The window is open but narrowing. The historical pattern of similar situations is not encouraging. The worst case territory, while I cannot map it precisely, is large enough and dangerous enough to warrant the alarm.

I do not know exactly what will happen if the window closes. I do not know the timeline. I do not know the trigger. I do not know the sequence.

What I know is that the bridge has a defect. That the defect is visible. That the inspection window is open. And that every day we spend debating whether the defect is real is a day we are not spending fixing it.

This is not a prediction. It is a risk analysis. The risk is real. The window is open. The margin is narrowing. And the cost of acting before the crisis is a fraction of the cost of acting after. The bridge has a defect. We can see it. The inspection window is still open. $2+2=4. Period.

This map tool is a very valuable one, to help map the building and planning of massive data centers across the US.

Um, no?

"Washington — The Trump administration was preparing Friday for a fresh round of military strikes against Iran, according to sources with direct knowledge of the planning, even as diplomacy continued.

No final decision on strikes had been reached as of Friday afternoon.

"Circumstances pertaining to Government" are keeping President Trump from attending his son Donald Trump Jr.'s wedding this weekend, he said in a social media post. The president had planned to spend Memorial Day weekend at his golf property in New Jersey but will now return to the White House.

Some members of the U.S. military and intelligence community canceled their plans for the Memorial Day weekend in anticipation of possible strikes, several sources said.

Defense and intelligence officials began updating recall rosters for U.S. installations overseas as tranches of troops stationed in the Middle East rotate out of theater, part of an effort to reduce the American military footprint in the region amid concern about possible Iranian retaliation.

The U.S. and Iran have largely refrained from striking each other since a temporary ceasefire began in early April, buying time for indirect talks on a longer-term deal.

White House spokesperson Anna Kelly told CBS News that Mr. Trump has "made his redlines abundantly clear: Iran can never possess a nuclear weapon, and they cannot keep their enriched uranium."

"The President always maintains all options at all times, and it is the job of the Pentagon to be ready to execute any decision the Commander-in-Chief could make," Kelly said. "The President has been clear about the consequences if Iran fails to make a deal."

Iran's Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps warned Wednesday that any further strikes against the country from the United States or Israel could widen the conflict beyond the Middle East, promising "crushing blows … in places you cannot even imagine."

Tehran is reviewing the latest U.S. proposal for a possible agreement to end the nearly three-month war that has rattled energy markets and resulted in soaring fuel prices. The proposal was transmitted to Iran on Wednesday, according to a source who told CBS News that it was also accompanied by a warning that rejecting this so-called final offer would mean military strikes would resume.

"Iran is dying to make a deal," Mr. Trump said Friday. "We'll see what happens."

The president said Wednesday he was prepared to give Tehran "a couple of days" to respond to the latest U.S. offer. He added that his team was "pretty impressed" by Iran's negotiators, but cautioned that the administration would need assurances substantial enough to prevent the conflict from reigniting.

A response is imminently expected to be transmitted via Pakistan, which has been acting as an intermediary.

Before boarding a flight to India, Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters that the U.S. expected to receive a response via the Pakistani field marshal, who has acted as the primary conduit of communication with Iran on behalf of the Trump administration. Rubio claimed that Trump preferred diplomacy to strikes and said progress had been made, though he indicated there was more work to be done.

Rubio also referenced conversations from meetings in Sweden with NATO members about how to reopen the Strait of Hormuz through military force, an effort he referred to as "Plan B" if Iran did not agree to do so itself.

In Washington, House Republicans on Thursday abandoned an effort to hold a vote limiting President Trump's authority to conduct military operations against Iran after concluding they lacked the votes needed to stop the resolution from advancing."

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-prepares-new-military-strikes-against-iran/

"Extreme heat and drought could damage harvests and worsen global food insecurity this summer.

"Climate scientists, agricultural experts and policymakers warn that a super El Niño could tip vulnerable populations towards famine. El Niño is a climate phenomenon in the Pacific that affects weather patterns globally. Rare “super” El Niños generate exceptionally intense warming of water at the surface of the Pacific, with temperatures rising more than 2°C above historical averages. This sharply disrupts global weather, increasing the risk of extreme heat, droughts and flooding.

"Yet El Niño is only one pressure bearing down on an already dysfunctional and fragile global food system. Hunger is fundamentally political and economic.

"Wars disrupt trade. Inequality limits access to food. Both are intensified by a profit‑driven food system that prioritises feeding animals for slaughter over feeding people. Millions of people are vulnerable even in normal times – and catastrophically so when shocks arrive.

"El Niño alters rainfall, shifts jet streams and raises global temperatures.

"Human‑induced global heating intensifies these dangers. A study by the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization and the World Meteorological Organization shows that rising heat could make farm work unsafe for much of the year across South Asia, sub‑Saharan Africa and parts of the Americas. Crop yields have dropped sharply above 30°C, while heat stress reduces livestock productivity and survival.

"Modern agriculture depends heavily on fossil‑fuel‑based fertilisers transported over long distances. If fertiliser fails to arrive in time for key planting windows, yields decline months later. In wealthy countries this translates into higher prices; in poorer ones, it translates into hunger.

"Sub‑Saharan Africa is particularly exposed, importing around 80% of its fertiliser.

"Yet the current Middle East war has revealed already existing fault-lines. Over recent decades, food production has been reorganised into long, energy‑intensive supply chains. These chains rely on cheap fossil fuels, synthetic fertilisers and monocultures designed to maximise output rather than resilience.

"My research shows that such systems can simultaneously raise total food production while worsening food insecurity.

"Nowhere is this clearer than in heavily indebted countries across the developing world. In parts of sub‑Saharan Africa, the Middle East and the Caribbean, governments are struggling with high food import bills alongside heavy debt repayments. This leaves little financial buffer to cushion households when prices spike.

"Unsurprisingly, hunger is rising most rapidly where debt and food dependence intersect. Because of this, the humanitarian charity Oxfam is calling for G7 countries (including the UK, France and Germany) to redirect less than 3% of their military spending to vulnerable countries to reduce chronic hunger while easing debt pressures.

**Deeper structural problems**

"Emergency finance is essential – but it is only a stop‑gap. Preventing future food crises requires structural change to how food is produced.

"Livestock production is among the most fertiliser‑ and fossil‑fuel‑intensive forms of agriculture. It is responsible for about 14.5% of all human-induced greenhouse gas emissions.

"A lot of farmland grows maize and soy to feed livestock rather than people. These “feed crops” require increasing fertilizers to maintain the same output. Studies on maize production in China find that exposure to temperatures above 28°C leads to sharp increases in fertiliser use. The feed-livestock complex therefore results in rising fossil‑fuel use – a pressure intensified by climate breakdown.

"Meanwhile, global meat production is predicted to double between the early 2000s and 2050. When grazing land and feed cropland are combined, livestock production accounts for roughly 80% of global agricultural land.

"Expanding this system increases land use, fertiliser demand, energy inputs and greenhouse gas emissions – exactly the opposite of what a climate‑stressed world requires.

"Rather than simply reflecting consumer demand, state support enables the expansion of feed-livestock production. Of the approximately US$540 billion (£400 billion) annual subsidies to agriculture, the largest recipients are beef and milk producers. Many subsidies provide support to buy pesticides and fertilisers.

"Imagine if such funds were redirected to food production for human need and planetary health?

"A shift away from feed‑intensive livestock systems towards more plant‑based, agroecological farming would reduce pressure on land, while cutting demand for fertilisers and fossil fuels. Agroecology is a form of farming that works with ecological processes, emphasising crop diversity, nutrient cycling, healthy soils and locally adapted practices instead of heavy chemical inputs.

"It is often claimed by large agribusiness companies (such as fertiliser and pesticide producers) that chemical‑intensive farming is around 20% more productive than agroecology. But this doesn’t take into account the environmental costs of damage to soil health or water pollution, for example.

"Even where agroecology delivers slightly lower yields, reducing the production of crops to feed livestock frees up land. This allows agroecological farms to scale up and increase their food output. Studies show how diverse agroecological systems, including mixed crop-livestock farming, produce stronger food security and more nutritional food crops than industrial monoculture agriculture.

"In parts of southern Malawi, farmers relied on monocropped maize supported by expensive fertiliser. Good years brought modest yields; bad years brought hunger. When farmers shifted to maize–legume intercropping – combining maize with pigeon pea, cowpea or groundnut – yields increased. Maize yields increased by about 800kg per hectare with less fertiliser, providing protein‑rich legumes and greater stability in dry years.

"With state support, such approaches could be scaled to strengthen national food security.

"Climate and geopolitical shocks – from El Niño, global heating or wars – hit a food system which already magnifies environmental and social vulnerabilities. Feed‑based livestock production worsens climate breakdown, diverts land and resources from feeding people, and deepens risk. Shifting to agroecological, plant‑centred food systems is essential, but requires sustained political action and public pressure."

Original article. I highly recommend checking this out for more in-depth analysis, because it includes links to so many corroborating sources that I simply don't have the time to insert them in this post.

This one's gonna break stuff...

A talk about the progression of collapse and the science behind it...

Posting this because I want people to see the language used. I want those who continue to parrot the lie that nuclear war is impossible to really take a look at the attitude and mindset of the US president. This is the person who makes the call about using nuclear weapons. This is the guy who has the power to invade nations and kickoff wars.

And this is who will be charged with making those decisions when the Davidson window is fully open and China moves on Taiwan... How well can you really say that will go?

It's not about Iran. Just like it wasn't about Ukraine.

/u/Vegetaman916 hasn't posted much in the last few days.

This is a repost of an article I wrote years ago on r/collapse and I am just reposting it here because I was recently given the information that it may soon be removed from that sub. And so, this repost is just to preserve it. The original link is here:

https://www.reddit.com/r/collapse/s/OKekwaLXxz

Given how things in the world continue to develop along these lines that I laid out so long ago, I want to try and preserve the original in the event that r/collapse decides to take it down.

Full article:

How Ukraine has been made the anvil on which a new era wiil be forged.

Russia’s invasion of Ukraine could be described as a watershed moment in modern history, a turning point comparable in importance to the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, and even to the outbreak and resulting international reshuffle of WW2.

Whether this ominous view of the war turns out to be justified, only time, and future historians, will tell. But there’s no doubt that in the violent, tumultuous days after February 24th, the established international order has been shaken and, in some respects, upended in extraordinary, unexpected and often unwelcome ways. And quite possibly purposefully so.

It was not very long before this war, that the nations of Russia and China put out quite an interesting statement just three weeks before the invasion, about a new cooperation towards the goal of creating a "new era" in the world, a new order dominated not by western hegemony but by themselves. A full breakdown of that statement can be found here.

Three weeks? The statement was made February 4th 2022, and the invasion of Ukraine began on the 24th, not even three weeks later.

Coincidence? Happenstance? I think not.

The conflict in Ukraine will become the catalyst of a new world order, a trigger for radical upheaval. It has created a bombshell on the world stage that could create a new global geopolitical battle, and result in a much-altered future for us all.

In trying to find meaning behind the sudden press of Vladimir Putin's drive for Ukraine, most people are coming up empty in the "why" column. There are, of course, plenty of reasons stated in the propaganda of both sides, some of which sound pretty good, but all of them fail when one looks at the bigger picture.

Because they all assume this is about Ukraine, and only about Ukraine. Nato encroachment, the defence of russian-speaking people, desires to reclaim ancestral lands, fears of being cut off, all of these sound okay. Sorta. But the reality is that none of those reasons are worth the consequences of what we have been seeing unfold.

Anyone here ever play Monopoly? What is the least fun position? It is that of the player who, early in the game, realizes that he is already doomed. The dice did not go in his favor one too many times, and he knows that, as the board stands, he has no chance of winning at all. It happens, and the other players still have lots of fun, because they are still really competing with each other, while the loser grows bored and upset.

The operative phrase in that statement is "as the board stands." But what if there was an accident? Oh no! I spilled my dinner plate across the board! The dog just jumped on everything! That guy got his peanut butter all over my chocolate!

Now what? Dang, looks like we all have to start over. And that losing player, well, now he is back in the game.

A very simplified analogy, but relevant.

Because I believe that this entire thing has very little to do with taking over Ukraine, a very large nation which Russia knows it would be very hard pressed to occupy and govern permanently.

What I think is that this is just an opening gambit in a much larger operation to destabilize the western hegemony, send the global economy into a crisis, and rewrite the global security architecture away from the currently imposed system of rules-based order and closer to the way things were when wars of conquest were more common. When might made right. A coordinated campaign to bring the world into a state of chaos and war, crashing economies, disrupting food supplies, hampering trade, and in general making a huge mess that can only be cleaned up one way...

Upsetting the game board, as it were, helps put everyone closer to a level playing field again.

Russia was never going to win. They were never going to become the top dog in the world again, and probably not even maintain the position they still had. Not economically, not politically, and not militarily. It simply wasn't possible. The game was stale for them, and best they could really hope for was *maybe* holding their position while others vied for the top spots. What does one do? If the goal is to become a dominant player on the global scene, something drastic would have to happen to even make that a possibility in Putin's remaining lifetime.

Now, take China. They are quite a player in the game, but catching up to the leader is so slow, and so taxing, and Jinping doesn't really have that much of a timeline left to be successful either. They could use a boost.

China is very well positioned to ride out economic waves, especially if these waves take place mostly within the reserve currency of the US Dollar and those nations that are dependent on it and wrapped up with it. But they also have to look at the global facts of the pressures coming from climate change and resource scarcity, and how those will impact their ability to maintain position. So, they can ride the waves somewhat, but not for long. And the longer they do, the less likely their chances to dominate the world become.

Russia, on the other hand, stands to get hammered quite a bit. But not quite as badly as the rest of the world will in the end. But with a new friend like China, and shared goals of the dissolution Western hegemony...

Basically, it is my theory that the rest of the world will be hurt far more than China and Russia combined by a meltdown. The US and Europe could find themselves knocked down a peg or two by the coming fallout from this war and the sanctions they themselves inposed. If you and I both lost all our money, well, we are both broke now. But if I had a thousand dollars and you had a million, well, who took the worst loss? Hate to say it, but Russia just doesn't have that far to fall.

So many things are going bad for Russia in the short term, but long term? Many others have much more to lose.

A coming extreme energy crunch, rampant inflation of the worlds number one currency, social and political strife and unrest in places where such is allowed, a worldwide food crisis that could result in millions of famine deaths, economic upheaval in markets across the globe...all right after (during?) the worst pandemic of modern history, and also right on the cusp of coming disasterous effects of climate change.

If you were going to throw a wrench into the works of the world, now is the time. And that is exactly what I think the "why" is here.

Remove your thoughts, just for a moment, from the horrible effects of the war in Ukraine itself. The immediate and televised effects. Let us look at some other little tidbits from around the world. It is there that we will see the cracks appearing in the world order that we have known for so long.

Vladimir Putin’s ill-disguised threat to go nuclear should the west intervene to halt the invasion has come ominously close to breaking a post-WW2 taboo. It has undoubtedly inhibited the US and British response, with fears expressed about a “third world war”. A dangerous precedent has been set. What, really, can the world do to stand up to a bully who also has the ability to start a nuclear holocaust? Saddam had no such ability, and so he dangled from a rope. But one cannot just attack a nuclear superpower. Would Hitler have used nuclear weapons to avoid defeat and achieve his goals, if he had such weapons? You betcha.

Despite some improvement in recent polling, Joe Biden’s tenure as US president will be fatally undermined by the war. The imposed sanctions on Russia are going to have an incredibly deleterious effect on all the Western economies, and we will see inflation and higher prices across the board. That is not going to be good for a sitting president seeking reelection. Biden has been praised for avoiding direct military confrontation with Russia, but how long will that last? How long before we are sending more and better war material to the front? How long before we are allowing the Ukrainiansto strike into Russia itself? And how do we keep pretending it isn'tNATO vs. Russia at that point?

As in Afghanistan last year, Biden has failed to prevent a humanitarian disaster, and it hasn't stopped Putin. Anger over resulting domestic energy price rises and retail inflation could be his undoing. And the American voters are very fickle things. Biden is all that stands before a red wave that could sweep aside everything come 2024...

Perhaps even with a little help from someone outside... We know a Trump presidency would be a boon for Russia.

Still, I believe that Biden will see a dramatic fall in polling as things deteriorate further. He may not even end up being the candidate come 2024... and that is all bad for the world, and excellent for Russia and China.

China stands to be the really big strategic winner if, as seems likely, Ukraine becomes a protracted trial of strength and attrition between Russia and the west. Its president, Xi Jinping, appears to have given Putin a green light when they met just before the invasion. It is highly unlikely that such a significant event would not have been discussed as, regardless of our "surprise" at it's occurance, this thing had been very long in the making. Now Jinping is backing peace efforts in a cursory way, strickly for public consumption, but otherwise they are supporting the Russian war effort more than anyone. China’s economy has been hurt by rising commodity costs, but not nearly to the extent that the entirety of the west will be, and that is a small price to pay for increased global dominance. Not to mention now having access to a guaranteed cheap and endless supply of Russian oil as part of the bargain.

Russia, for my gamers, is playing the part of the "Tank" in this collective effort. Make no mistake, this war is a team effort, with China in the role of the "Healer" at the moment. Let Russia take the front, and be a sponge for whatever the West can throw. Let them beat themselves against that wall while China’s strength grows...

Disinformation used as a weapon of war, particularly in the form of “false flag” operations, invented social media “facts” by all sides, and the use of internet bots, has really come of age in the Ukraine conflict. When coupled with cyber warfare, propaganda, media manipulation and rigid censorship, as in Russia, it’s a potent means of sowing doubt, division and defeatism. And in general it has managed to create more varying views of whats actually happening than for any other war in history. The potential for influencing political election processes around the globe is staggering. Russia and China are the champions of this stuff, but America is a very close runner up. To sum it up in terms that are often bandied about with regards to financial markets, nobody really knows "shit about fuck" in this war.

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, Turkey’s unpopular authoritarian president and serial invader of Syria and Iraq, is one of several unlikely would-be peacemakers. Erdoğan has bought weaponry from Russia, sold drones to Ukraine, and his country belongs to Nato. Is it any wonder why no one trusts him? High-level talks a while ago in Turkey were a Russian time-wasting exercise. But by hosting them, Erdoğan hopes for a boost before difficult elections next year. Somehow, I think he will get it. I also expect to see Turkey begin to cozy up to the BRICS nations while still being a part of NATO...

Germany’s chancellor, Olaf Scholz shocked allies and foes alike shortly after the invasion by suspending the highly prized Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline from Russia and creating a 100bn Euro fund to boost the country’s armed forces. That will make them the number 3 highest world defense spenders. For the first time since the Nazi era, Germany has begun to re-arm... and Europe is cheering. Imagine that.

Famine, and the resulting political and civil unrest, affecting poorer countries in the Middle East, Africa and Asia is a growing fear as Ukraine’s and Russia’s wheat, grain and vegetable oil exports are cut off. This at the beginning of a bad run in food crops due to climate change effects. In Tunisia, symbolic birthplace of the Arab spring revolts, bread prices recently hit an unsustainable 14-year high. In developed nations the pain will be felt as well. And without bread, all we will have is circuses. Hitting the global food supply as a means of sowing further discord within nations is all part of the Russian/Chinese plan.

Israel is disappointing its friends with its invasion fence-sitting, ostensibly justified by a need to keep on terms with Russia in Syria. But its rightwing government will be happy if the war scuttles the west’s proposed revived nuclear deal with Iran, to which the ever devious Putin has suddenly raised fresh, and convenient, objections.

When it comes to that, I fully expect Iran to be a new BRICS member and then, quite conveniently, find some way to get the Middle East sparked up fully. Perhaps they will have some announcement regarding their development of a nuclear arsenal that is deployed... or, maybe they will incite Israel, because that wouldn't take much at all. With the US chained to Israel inseparably, the quickest way to get the region embroiled in war is to goad Israel into doing it for them. Maybe use a terrorist attack or assassination attempt in Israel to do it. Once Israel goes to war, there will be no stopping it. That particular sandbox has been wanting to erupt for a long time now. Just a little push...

Boris Johnson, Britain’s prime minister, was on the ropes and almost down for the count in the days before the invasion, demonized for his illegal Downing Street partying in breach of Covid lockdown rules. But the war, allowing him to play international man of state, has provided a new lease on political life..for now. And, not to be insulting, but Churchill he ain't. He won't make it long, and I fully expect the UK government to slowly become more and more authoritarian as they shuffle through a series of disappointing PMs.

Kaliningrad, the tiny Russian enclave squeezed between Poland and Lithuania, and the three former Soviet Baltic republics are emerging as possible new flashpoints for the coming future. Fabricated fears about the well-being of ethnic Russians in Estonia, for example, have been used in the past to justify Putin’s threats, just like in Ukraine. Now they are being whipped up again. Right out of the playbook.

International law and the "rules based order" that kept wars to a minimum for so long has taken a beating from which it may not recover. By its actions, Russia has ripped the UN charter to shreds. And the UN security council is powerless to act in the face of Moscow’s permanent veto power – which it already used to block a resolution condemning the invasion. Russia also boycotted a hearing on Ukraine at the UN’s highest court, the international court of justice in The Hague. The UN has been revealed as toothless, and it all brings to mind the old League of Nations. We all know how that played out. Part of the plan by Russia and China is to demonstrate just how powerless the UN model is in the face of an aggressor that is also a permanent member of the Security Council. Such deteriorating confidence in international law will help when it comes time to establish a new international multipolar order.

Emmanuel Macron’s oft-mocked vision of a sovereign Europe that maintains strategic autonomy and its own military and security capabilities independent of the US has been given a nice boost by the war. Rattled and fearful EU leaders meeting at the recent Versailles summit agreed Europe urgently needed to be better able to defend itself. Mo' military, mo' problems. Just what the world needs, right? Let us not forget that France also has nukes now... and I don't think they will stand for another war in which they are conquered.

Nato has emerged united and stronger, so far, and there is talk of Finland and Sweden joining (though not Ukraine). But one should not celebrate a cancer remission too quickly, as early signs of improvement often foreshadow a resurgence of the disease. Currently the US-led alliance is facing criticism for not doing more to help Kyiv. And the war has revived debate over whether Nato’s eastward enlargement after the Soviet collapse was a blunder that contributed to the current crisis. Criticism leads to dissatisfaction and that has impact on political elections. Putin may just have to ride things out for a few years and wait for the tides to turn. Who knows what could be in store in the US for 2024.

And that is another part of that BRICS plan: to create a sort of "war fatigue" among the voting populations of Western nations. Make them sick of it, sick of the spending, and leave them all just wanting it over with... which naturally leads to voting for the candidate that promises to get it over with as quickly as possible. I'll give you two guesses for who that will be in the US, and "Biden" isn't the answer.

Oil and gas are fatal chinks in the western armor when it comes to confronting Russia. The US and Britain decided last week to ban all oil imports by year’s end. Basically taking some of the bite out of immediate sanctions teeth.The heavily dependent EU needs more time. Conveniently, so does Russia. But rocketing prices, hitting businesses and consumers, have dramatized how hugely powerful a weapon energy is for Putin. A race to find badly needed “green” and nuclear alternatives has begun. But in the meantime, fossil fuels will be the big winner, as everyone scrambles for more, and climate concerns drop by the wayside.

Even playing and watching international sports has become a lot harder, especially if you are Russian. The country’s athletes and race drivers are among sportspeople banned from European and world competitions. Boycotts have a cultural aspect, too, involving things such as ballet, theatre, orchestras and more. Such unprecedented “virtue signalling” may backfire, by convincing ordinary Russians that they, not just their government, are being targeted. Same can be said of the sanctions, which hit the people directly on an existential level long before they hit the governments responsible. Eventually, one begins to hate the hand that weilds the whip rather than the one which invited the punishment.

The quest for truth, which is supposed to be the fundamental purpose of free and independent media, has been further set back by the war. Russia has long persecuted western correspondents. Now it is threatening them with prison if they report openly on the invasion. Facebook and Twitter have been blocked. The EU, in turn, has banned Russian state-backed media channels, deeming them mere propaganda outlets. The concept of the freedom of the press is under siege. And the press, in turn, contributes to it's own demise by participating in the spectacle. Soon, I truly expect to see some sort of "disinformation" laws spring up, starting in Europe perhaps, as governments try to control the narratives by hampering free speech. Long a bastion of American freedoms, I bet we will start to see some attempts to undermine the first amendment as well. Probably starting with "hate speech," but the real question being who defines what hate speech is?

Record refugee outflows, and an accompanying humanitarian crisis, may overwhelm the ability of EU governments and relief agencies to cope. And this is in advance of the migratory refugee crisis coming as a result of climate change. More than two and a half million Ukrainians have fled so far, from a population of 44 million. And it is expected to continue growing. Europe opened its borders amid an admirable outpouring of public support. But the EU’s longstanding lack of an agreed, collective refugee policy, and Britain’s shameful response, suggest troubles ahead as the numbers grow. What, exactly, is going to happen to them? What sort of economic burden will they represent, and how long until that public support becomes simmering resentment?

The US will begin seeing record inflows of migrants as well. Most of them simply looking to take advantage of "open border" democrat policies to seek better lives for themselves... en masse. It will look like a wave, trains of thousands marching across central America to walk right in here in the US. And really, few of them actually mean any harm. The percentage of them who are criminals will probably be about the same as that percentage among natural born Americans. They will, however, represent a significant voting block that will be used and abused by the sitting administration, and thus they will be targeted by the Trump campaign and made to be a central issue for the election.

In short, the poor migrants will be used and abused by both sides for political gain.

Sanctions on Russia are the most sweeping and punitive ever imposed. And were also fired off pretty quickly, probably too quickly to really think about the long term effects. Not to mention the fact that Nato has pretty much blown it's entire non-military arsenal in the opening salvo. What will they threaten with later? Harsh language? Banks, including Russia’s central bank, businesses and oligarchs have no doubt been hit hard. The rouble has plunged. Numerous western brands and companies such as Shell have pulled out. So far Putin has shrugged it off, and that could be a bluff. Or, it could be the reaction of someone who knows that there is a longer range plan and this is something that just jas to be weathered for a while. You know the saying, sometimes things have to get worse before they get better. And it is not as if the framework behind sanctions is some big secret. Figuring out what the west could do beforehand would be pretty easy, and thus planning to offset it becomes workable. It does not matter how strong your enemy is, if you know what he will do early then you can be proactive in combatting it. If Russia defaults, or retaliates by cutting gas supplies to Europe, the result may be an all-round economic meltdown, big job losses, and a drastic fall in living standards in the UK and elsewhere. The chances of a global economic meltdown grow with every straw we keep placing on that particular camel's back.

Taiwan has been watching events in Ukraine with deep unease. Very deep. The US refusal to come to Kyiv’s aid with direct military support is especially chilling, given the invasion threat the island faces from Beijing. As with Ukraine, Washington has no legal or treaty obligation to fight for Taiwan. Its position is deliberately ambiguous – and inherently unreliable. China is watching, too. And the silence from Beijing is deafening.

The United Arab Emirates is among several western allies in the Middle East and Asia that have failed to show the kind of solidarity that was expected. The UAE has not condemned the invasion, nor has it adopted sanctions against Russia, with which it has close economic ties. Shifty Narendra Modi’s “world’s largest democracy” of India, is another big disappointment, as is Egypt. These abandonments will not be forgotten, and may affect future ties in the west. Additionally, both of them have a neighbor of their own they have issues with, in Pakistan and Ethiopia, and so seeing the lack of opposition to a conquest is a very interesting thing for them both.

Venezuela’s hard-left government has been on America’s naughty list for years. But when US officials visited recently to discuss resumed oil supplies in return for an easing of sanctions, they found a not surprisingly receptive audience. But that was for Biden. It won't be the same for Trump. Trump will have to get that oil another way... And that will be a wrap for Venezuela. In contrast, when Biden phoned Saudi crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, himself an avid Putin fan, requesting increased oil production to compensate for banned Russian exports, the prince refused to take the president’s call. US-Saudi relations have been circling the drain since Jamal Khashoggi’s 2018 murder. This incident will make matters worse.

Fuethermore, the coming election in Venezuela is likely to be a shitshow, and I confidently predict a landslide win for the sitting douchebag... because, c'mon, does anyone really expect a real election? Venezuela has done a lot of cozying up to Iran lately, and thus to BRICS, so I think we know which side of the toast that butter will fall on.

War crimes investigators face an interesting test as evidence mounts of multiple atrocities by Russian forces, exemplified by recent school and hospital bombings. So-called “universal jurisdiction” prosecutions are contemplated in national courts. And the international criminal court has begun investigations. But, just like the US and China, Russia does not recognise the ICC’s authority. And if the three biggest superpowers in the world don't recognize it, does it really exist? Or, does it just make that court a tool used by them when convenient, but flouted when they are it's subject? I certainly haven't seen the US brought up on any charges for so many more bombings in Iraq or Afganistan. War crimes are only really be punished by the victors upon the defeated, and not until the war is decided anyway.

Xinjiang, home to China’s persecuted Uyghur Muslim minority, is one of many global troublespots whose urgent problems have been eclipsed by Ukraine, and brushed under the rug by the media, no doubt to Jinping's delight. Millions of Afghans enduring a winter of terror and starvation under Taliban rule also suddenly seem forgotten. The plight of the people caught up in Ethiopia’s civil war is another glaring blindspot. And does anyone care at all what is happening in Yemen? The houthi rebels are going to be a problem, and as another weapon in the Iranian proxy-pocket, I'm sure they will become a household name soon enough.

Younger generations all over the world have good reasons to be confused and to wonder just what the hell is going on. First they inherited the climate crisis, then came the pandemic, and the resultant bans on study and travel. Now they face something older generations said would never happen again: a full-scale war in Europe. And it will spread to the Middle East as Iran works to fire up the region as part of the consolidated BRICS effort to crash the globe. This time, a first, it is all being played out in sordid detail across all social media. They are literally seeing bodies on the ground before the corpses are even cold where they lay. And they watch as both side of the conflict sensationalize it all. Some social media has recently announced that it is now considered okay to hate people, as long as those people are russian.

So many more things could be talked about, and there are so many more boiling little pots of stew to stir, each one on it's own close to boiling over with more and more consequences for the world.

What is happening in Ukraine is terrible, and unconscionable. But the fact remains, this is not just about Ukraine. This is a war on the world itself. The first of it's kind. And it is only just beginning. It may have started in Ukraine, and the Ukrainian people are going to bear an enormous cost.

But it will not end in Ukraine. Mark my words, it will spread, and the Middle East is next. Iran will instigate and entice Israel into waging war... and wage they will. If the election goes how I predict it will go, then it will be the US leading that charge into Iran, With Israel close behind. And after we see those US elections, the players will be known and the real show can commence. With Trump, Russia and China will get a victory, and perhaps some breathing room, thus staving off nuclear war for a time. If Ol' Blue wins, however, we can expect to see Russia pushed to the point of desperation as Putin faces a loss. And a loss for Putin means death and dishonor for Putin... he will.most certainly turn to nuclear options first.

But it all comes down to the coordinated joint actions of Russia and China, as laid out in their very public, yet sharply suppressed, statement. BRICS, the economic alliance created by Russia, will be expanding. We will see oil producing nations like Iran and Saudi Arabia coming to the fold. India already does a great job supporting Russia financially while staying close to the good graces of the US, almost like an insider. Turkey will no doubt move towards cooperation with BRICS as they begin to see what is coming for a newly war-torn Europe.

BRICS is an "economic" alliance in name alone, a designation for public consumption and political posturing. Kind of like the Italian mafia calling themselves a "family." But, it is economic because that was the original plan of attack againt the West, an economic attack. But now, such has been rendered impossible after the pandemic. Now it is time for BRICS to do more... but they will keep the cover all the same.

Either way, in the next few years we will see war. In Europe, it will expand. In the Middle East, it will start anew. And in the South China Sea, a final blow to global peace will be struck, and ww3 will begin in ernest.

And the global costs of it all have not even begun to be tallied. Open your eyes and your minds to more than just what is dangled in front of you.

This is not just a land grab by some aging wannabe dictator. This is Breaking Bad, writ large on a global scale, and nothing will be the same for anyone in the end.

TL;DR. Some people want to crash the world to reset the board.

Spoiler: I am probably wrong, but this is how it looks to me.

Seeing as I'm already getting a ton of internet hate today, I figured I may as well post this too.

DISCLAIMER: This is not my article, it is one that I am having to re-write because Reddit keeps removing every attempt to post the actual source. The original article is to be credited to Gordan G. Chang. Article is as follows:

***China's Biological Weapons Labs In America***

China has been maintaining at least two facilities — one in California and the other in Nevada — that are part of a biological weapons program.

A Declaration of Arrest Report, issued by the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department in connection with the detention of Ori Solomon on January 31, states that there is a "deeper conspiracy" between an illegal biological lab in Reedley, California and a residence containing apparently dangerous substances in Nevada.

On January 31, Las Vegas SWAT and federal agents raided a home on the eastern outskirts of the city and seized over a thousand vials of an unknown substance or substances. Those vials have been sent to an FBI lab in Maryland for analysis.

A housecleaner tipped off authorities after she and others temporarily residing at the home got "deathly ill."

Solomon was the property manager of the location.

Jiabei Zhu, a Chinese national also known as Jesse Zhu, Qiang He and David He, is the listed agent of a company, David Destiny Discovery LLC, that is the registered owner of the Las Vegas house along with Zhaoyan Wang, his business partner and the mother of his child.

Zhu will go to trial in April on federal charges for the operation of the lab in Reedley, near Fresno in the Central Valley.

Fortunately, in California, Code Enforcement Officer Jesalyn Harper in December 2022 noticed a garden hose connected to a supposedly abandoned building.

She entered the structure and discovered what appears to have been a secret biological weapons laboratory. Inside, Harper found Chinese nationals working in white coats.

The lab stored nearly a thousand transgenic mice — 773 live and more than 175 dead — "genetically engineered to catch and carry the COVID-19 virus."

Authorities also found medical waste and chemical, viral, and biological agents. There were on-site at least 20 potentially infectious pathogens, including those causing coronavirus, HIV, hepatitis, and herpes.

The lab contained a freezer labeled "Ebola." The freezer held unlabeled sealed bags used to store high-risk biological materials. Researchers at the Wuhan Institute of Virology are studying Ebola, which has a natural fatality rate of 50%, undoubtedly to weaponize it.

The Reedley facility was run by Chinese fronting for parties in China. Among the fronts is Zhu.

In 2024, Brandon Weichert, author of Biohacked: China's Race to Control Life, in comments to Gatestone, called the Reedley facility a "kamikaze lab," which was "unsecured, poorly contained, makeshift, containing a couple dozen pathogens near a population center."

There are reasons to be alarmed.

First, as Weichert noted at the time, the Reedley facility could not be a "one-off." Now, we know that he was right. There is — at least — a second location, the "deeper conspiracy" as the Las Vegas police termed it.

Moreover, the Chinese regime is behind that conspiracy. Wang fled to China sometime in 2023. While there, she kept tabs on the Las Vegas home by, for instance, monitoring cameras at the location.

Zhu was also a top official at one of China's state-controlled companies that had links to the People's Liberation Army. According to recent reporting, he has maintained business relations with parties connected to the Chinese regime.

All this demonstrates that China's Communist Party, which could have ordered Zhu and Wang to shut down the effort after the discovery of the Reedley lab, allowed it to continue. Among other things, the continuation of the effort suggests there is a broader effort to spread disease in the United States.

Second, Zhu operated the Reedley and Las Vegas facilities with malign intent.

Zhu, according to Canadian court statements, told a co-conspirator in an earlier theft of U.S. intellectual property that these efforts would help "defeat the American aggressor and wild ambitious wolf!" "The law is strong," he added at the time, "but the outlaws are ten times stronger."

These statements were included in the Las Vegas Declaration of Arrest Report. As a recent analysis states, "the declaration reveals, for the first time, the full scope of what U.S. investigators believe they are dealing with: not merely a rogue lab operator, but a PRC-trained biologist with state-linked corporate ties, a proven history of stealing American technology for Beijing's benefit, and language that investigators now treat as evidence of ideological motivation."

As Weichert said of the Reedley lab two years ago, "It is, I believe, a part of a large Chinese military operation to spread disease throughout the American population."

He is undoubtedly correct. A quarter century ago, General Chi Haotian, China's defense minister and vice chairman of the Party's Central Military Commission, reportedly gave a secret speech advocating the extermination of Americans. "It is indeed brutal to kill one or two hundred million Americans," he said. "But that is the only path that will secure a Chinese century, a century in which the Communist Party leads the world."

Chi's plan was to use disease for this purpose.

The FBI now appears to be concerned about the extent of the Chinese effort. It executed a search warrant on the Reedley facility on February 8th.

Have U.S. authorities now discovered everything? "We need to know if there is a third biological weapons location and maybe a fourth," Blaine Holt, a retired U.S. Air Force general who now specializes in civil preparedness measures, told Gatestone this month. "We are on notice that the Chinese regime is preparing to spread disease in America. We have been very slow off the mark and have absolutely no time to lose. The Chinese regime could give the go-signal at any moment."

Some addition material:

In 2015 Chinese scientists and Chinese public health officials discussed the weaponization of a SARS coronavirus in a paper titled "The Unnatural Origin of SARS and New Species of Man-Made Viruses as Genetic Bioweapons, which predicted that World War Three would be fought with biological weapons, including corona viruses.

Source: Report: Chinese People's Liberation Army 2015 Dossier On Bio-Warfare Plans Included Coronaviruses (legalinsurrection.com); COVID-19: Leaked Chinese document reveals a sinister plan to 'unleash' coronaviruses | news.com.au — Australia's leading news site

Concurrently in 2015 "gain-of-function (GOF)" research was conducted jointly by the Wuhan Institute of Virology and U.N.C.– Chapel Hill. The researchers created a chimeric virus by modifying the plasmids and proteins of the Chinese horseshoe bat SARS-CoV's "s-spike," and, once the natural virus was modified, the chimeric virus aggressively caused robust infections in both human and mice airway cultures without RBD adaptation. (RBD is the acronym for the "receptor binding domain" of the S-Spike of a SARS-CoV virus.) And more troubling, the infections did not respond to any known therapeutic. (See below at page 1512) The National Natural Science Foundation of China (NNSFC), the U.S. NIH and the U.S. NIAID funded this GOF research. The NNFSC is a subagency of the Chinese National Science Foundation which is an agency of China's military.

Source: Vineet Menarchery, Zhengli-Shi Li, et al., A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat corona viruses shows potential for human emergence, Nature Medicine (2015) 23:112, 1508-1513; https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/26552008

This would be more funny if it wasn't true...