Executive Summary

• How to Prepare for:
  • Trade War
  • Energy War
  • Financial War
  • Cyberwar
  • Grid-down attack
  • Conventional Shooting War
  • Nuclear War

If you have not yet read Part 1: Tensions Between US/NATO & Russia Are Flaring Dangerously available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

As a preamble, I need to note that I do not enjoy or derive any satisfaction from writing about or spending time on figuring out how to dodge the worst impacts of human behavior.  War sits right at the top of my ‘this is stupid’ list.  War should be the very last resort after all other diplomatic efforts have failed.  I am sorry that I have to spend time writing this report, and I am sorry that you have to spend time considering it.

As (sadly) expected, things have only escalated over the past several years, not deescalated.  The West has a serious bone to pick with Russia and nobody can rationally explain what or why that might be. I happen to think this is all about bruised neocon egos over Syria, while others think this is just military industrial business being waged in typical fashion.  But it really doesn’t matter what the explanation is; at this point we have to accept that things are at a dangerous point and do our best to respond appropriately.

The consequences of a war between Russia and the US/NATO could range from a very minor skirmish fought over some relatively meaningless items of trade, to an attack on financial markets, all the way to an all-out nuclear exchange.

The question becomes, what, if anything, can we do to prepare?

Lots as it turns out.

No matter where you live, even if you are close to Ukraine and face the prospect of being near a front line that might develop in the future, there is lots that you can and should do.  Luckily, most of the preparations are similar to those you should be undertaking anyways, war worries or not, so they won’t cost you anything extra in terms of time or money.

What you end up doing depends on which sort of war you consider most likely, where you happen to live, and your means.