IS WORLD WAR III ALREADY HERE & WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR CRYPTO?

Are we already in World War III? Have we let our political masters orchestrate the most elaborate and sinister global theatrical production ever, with the goal of paving the way for the much talked about ‘Great Reset?’ Is this the end of our civilisation? According to Gerald Celente, probably.

Gerald Celente isn’t backward in coming forward. If you’re unfamiliar with him, he’s the 76-year-old outspoken Bronx boy who founded Trends Research Institute. After years of forecasting major doom that seemingly failed to materialise, I stopped watching his videos a while back. But, in recent weeks he’s made two guest appearances on channels I watch daily; speaking with Michelle Makori from Kitco NEWS, and Daniela Cambone from Stansberry Research. And, what Celente said about the coming year sent a shiver down my spine.

Has World War III already started?

According to Celente, if you take a step back and look at the big picture, we are already in World War III. He argues that NATO is already at war with Russia - not a proxy way, but a real one. He points to the fact that NATO countries are supplying vast quantities of weapons to Ukraine, along with training, money, and other economic support, and even have boots on the ground in Ukraine, in the form of ‘advisors’. He highlights the constant ‘mission creep’ of NATO’s remit in Ukraine, explaining that we’ve basically found ourselves in World War III without realising it.

Now, I must admit, although Celente stresses he’s anti-war all-round, I do sometimes find his tone a little too pacifist and simplistic. But, regardless of the rights and wrongs of the conflict, his observations about the strategic realities are undoubtedly accurate. NATO is essentially already at war with Russia - there just hasn’t been a declaration. In the coming weeks, when the first western main battle tanks (MBTs) arrive in Ukraine (in the form of British Challenger IIs, German-made Leopard IIs from up to 14 nations, and maybe even US M1 Abrams), the ante will be upped even further.

Not only will the provision of main battle tanks which, if past conflicts are anything to go by, will totally outclass the majority of Russian armour, likely cross a red line in many Russian eyes, but it also implies something else. Despite the mainstream news talking about MBTs as if they are Ford Focuses - that can simply be sent over and left in Ukrainian hands - machines like the Challenger II, Leopard II, and especially the M1 Abrams, are incredibly complex and require massive logistical and technical support. And, while it's true that Ukrainian tank crews and maintenance personnel have likely been covertly training on the vehicles in various NATO countries for months already, these tanks will still require very close support from their nations of origin to keep them operational in the field.

So, whether the mainstream media report it or not, we’ll likely see these tanks either trucked across the Polish border for regular maintenance or at least partly maintained in Ukraine by western, erm… let’s call them ‘contractors.’ Yes, sure, this has already been going on for a long time with other weapons systems, like artillery and various sensors, but the main battle tanks will take things to an entirely new level - they are something that easily captures the public imagination, on all sides (just look at the ‘free the leopards’ content already out there on social media).

Anyway, the point is, Celente is right on the money with this one. We are a hair's breadth from the Ukraine-Russia war morphing into an open conflict between NATO and Russia. Whether this happens via continuing gradual escalation, a sudden dramatic move by an increasingly frustrated and desperate Putin, or an unexpected action by Ukraine, is almost irrelevant in the grand scheme of things.

Celente also points out that, despite the Ukraine-Russia conflict dominating the headlines, there are still other extremely serious conflicts brewing around the world. Of course, there’s the Chinese threat to Taiwan and the ever-present North Korean hostility toward South Korea, but the last few weeks have also seen tensions rocket between Israel and Iran - with the former striking at ‘Iranian’ targets in Syria. And, at this point, it should be remembered that Russia has a significant military presence in Syria, supporting the Assad regime and that Iran is now a major supplier of weapons to Russia.

Taken as a whole, the picture has more than a hint of the 1930s about it. While to most people, World War II started with the German invasion of Poland in September 1939, a case can be made that it actually started much earlier - that multiple wars and conflicts (of which many people today aren’t even aware) simply merged into a global conflict, and that September 1939 was merely when the war was formally acknowledged. For example, the mid-late 1930s saw conflicts all over the world, from Sino-Japanese War and Italian-Ethiopian War to numerous coups, undeclared military engagements, revolutions, civil wars, and tense standoffs and military occupations (for example, the German takeovers of Czechoslovakia and Austria). Will historians (if there are any left), look back on the early 2020s in the same way we look back on the mid-late 1930s?

What World War III means for the economy and crypto

When considering what the defacto World War III means for the economy, Celente was as pessimistic as ever. But, again, he made sense. For starters, he acknowledged that if the war turns nuclear, as increasing numbers of experts fear, talk of economics will be merely academic. So, what if the war doesn’t cross the nuclear threshold, but nevertheless keeps escalating?

Here, he points out the prospect of oil prices rocketing if open conflict breaks out between Israel and Iran in the Persian Gulf region. With the mainstream so distracted by the events in Ukraine, this could seem to come out of the blue to many, but it is perfectly predictable. While Iran might not be able to win a war with Israel and its likely western allies, it absolutely has the military capabilities to make getting oil tankers through the Straits of Hormuz next to impossible. Oil tankers are huge, slow, and extremely combustible targets, and the Iranians have plenty of advanced anti-shipping missiles and launchers, not to mention kamikaze drones (flying and waterborne).

If the Iranians did close the Straits of Hormuz, through which almost 25% of total global oil consumption, and over 30% of the world’s liquified natural gas (according to Wikipedia), passes, the effects on inflation would be nothing short of catastrophic. Remember, the Ukraine conflict has already caused an energy crisis in Europe and pushed food prices to unsustainable levels in many countries, so any major spike in oil prices could well push things over the edge - even in wealthy countries.

At the same time as the world is hurtling headlong toward Armageddon, Celente points out that the markets and real economies have become dangerously detached. Specifically, he underlines how the Federal Reserve’s aggressive interest rate hikes are pummeling real people and businesses, and yet the mainstream media’s barometer for ‘economic health’ consists almost exclusively of the stock markets - as long as Wall Street is holding up, everything is fine. This, to the extent that mainstream talking heads are actually happy when they see official reports showing job losses and regular people rapidly losing earning power.

Are we all being set up? How will crypto react to a new reality?

In truth, none of this is news to the powers that be. They know full well what the likely results of the game they are playing are. Indeed, Celente suggests that the entire thing is scripted - a big theatrical production of unimaginable scale. Recalling the incalculable economic, social, and health damage done by the COVID-19 lockdowns and policies across the west, he insinuates it was carried out to deliberately scuttle the old economic and monetary system - because those in charge knew it was unsustainable. Indeed, by any measure, the current monetary and economic system is heading for disaster - as evidenced by the current standoff over raising the US debt ceiling, yet again.

Anyway, that brings us to that subject I wrote about just yesterday; Central Bank Digital Currencies. For, while many in the crypto space share my view that CBDCs are an altogether bad idea, most seem to think they can co-exist, to some extent at least, with Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. However, Celente sees things differently. He believes that the entire point of CBDCs is to enforce complete control over the population, and enable the ushering in of a new monetary and economic system - something akin to the so-called ‘Great Reset’ (eat zee bugs, peasants!). He also believes the US government, at least, won’t tolerate crypto getting in the way of this.

Of course, it's one thing to ban crypto and another thing altogether to effectively enforce that ban. And, under ‘normal’ circumstances it might be fun to envision the crypto community engaging the US authorities in a never-ending game of whack-a-mole. But, if Celente is right, and we’ll soon be in the midst of a truly total war, then all bets are off. As always, in times of war, authorities have the opportunity to enact and enforce regulations they’d never get away with in peacetime (all for our own good, of course).

Whichever way you look at it, it does seem that the world is rapidly changing, and not for the better. With the COVID crisis looking increasingly engineered, the opening stages of World War III seemingly underway, over a hundred countries now pursuing CBDCs, and the elite openly discussing the Great Reset, one could be forgiven for thinking the crypto community has been played to pave the way for something altogether diabolical.

Maybe it's time the crypto community at least started thinking about how it will function and act in wartime - when the rights and assumptions we base our lives on may suddenly be pulled from under us.

Unsettling times.