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 Russia Did It! available free to all readers, please click here to read it first.

Note to all readers: This is an update of a report that first appeared back in June of 2016. Some of the content is identical, but much has been updated. I was going to write it all fresh, but after re-reading this I find it too relevant to re-write. The original article is here.

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 ‘BAD IDEAS’ 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 predicted, sadly, tensions between the west and Russia have only escalated over the past several years, not deescalated. The West has a serious bone to pick with Russia and nobody has yet been able to rationally explain to me what that might be.

I happen to think this is all about bruised neocon egos over Syria, but others think this is just military industrial business being waged in typical fashion.After all, $700 billion defense budgets need justification, don’t they?

But it really doesn’t matter what the explanation is; at this point we have to accept that geopolitical tensions are at a dangerous point and that war with Russia is a distinct possibility. As prudent adults with families to protect we have to do our best and respond appropriately.

The laundry list of things we need to consider doing is extensive.

A ‘war’ between Russia and the US/NATO could range from a very minor skirmish fought over some relatively meaningless items of trade (already underway), to an attack on financial markets, to a conventional shooting war of limited duration, all the way to an all-out nuclear exchange.

Given that wide range of possible outcomes, what can we realistically do to prepare?

Quite a lot as it turns out.

Luckily, most of the preparations are similar to those you should be undertaking anyways, war worries or not, so they won’t cost you much 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. So let’s consider the range of possibilities here...

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