(The Economic Collapse Blog)—If peace is on the way, why are they feverishly preparing for World War III? It appears to me that NATO countries are convinced that something really big is coming. Is there something that they know that they aren’t telling the rest of us? As I discussed yesterday, things in the Middle East are really heating up, and the conflict in Ukraine has reached a very dangerous stage. If negotiations with Russia fail, both sides are likely to significantly escalate matters in a desperate attempt to win the war, and the Russians could come to the conclusion that a final showdown with NATO has begun.
We do not want the Russians to view the conflict in Ukraine in those terms, because they are already extremely paranoid and it wouldn’t take much to push them over the edge. Unfortunately, NATO countries continue to do things that will raise tensions instead of easing them. The following are 7 actions that NATO countries are taking which indicate that something really big is coming…
#1 France is getting ready to distribute a 20 page survival manual that instructs citizens what to do if a full-blown war erupts…
France is the latest country set to issue an invasion survival how-to guide for its citizens.
The 20-page booklet will give advice to French civilians on how to defend the republic in the face of an invasion by signing up to reserve units or local defence efforts.
It will also have tips on how to create a survival kit with essentials including six litres of water, canned food, batteries, and basic medical supplies.
#2 The French government is also telling their citizens to leave Iran “immediately”…
French authorities on Thursday requested its citizens to immediately leave the territory of Iran.
The French Foreign Ministry has issued a warning to its citizens amid the release of one of its nationals who had been imprisoned in Iran for over 880 days.
#3 It is being reported that military planners in the UK have ordered special forces units to get ready to be sent to Ukraine…
Special Forces units were told to prepare for mobilisation to Ukraine by military planners tasked with readying forces by the Cabinet Office, according to two military sources with knowledge of the directive.
The command centre for UK military planning, the Permanent Joint Headquarters (PJHQ), was sent directives last week to begin the process for the deployment of personnel and resources.
The orders, which also applied to Special Forces reservists, put personnel on standby in order to ensure military equipment is in working order before receiving a notice to mobilise to Ukraine.
#4 Turkey has announced that it would also be willing to deploy troops to Ukraine “if needed”…
Turkey would be ready to deploy troops to Ukraine as part of a broader peacekeeping mission if needed, a Turkish defence ministry source said on Thursday.
“The issue of contributing to a mission … will be evaluated with all relevant parties if deemed necessary for the establishment of regional stability and peace,” the source said.
The Russians have already stated that they will never accept NATO troops on Ukrainian soil under any circumstances.
So why are these nations preparing to send troops anyway?
#5 Poland is preparing for a showdown with Russia by “conscripting every adult male for military training”…
Warsaw is preparing to face down any invasion by Vladimir Putin by conscripting every adult male for military training.
But the Eastern European nation also wants nukes and President Andrzej Duda has now said the US could send some of its arsenal to his country.
#6 The Baltic states are jointly constructing a massive defense line that includes six hundred bunkers, tank ditches, dragon’s teeth and rocket systems…
The Baltics are building a joint defence line on their border with Russia that will have some six-hundred bunkers across each border.
It will also include tank ditches, forests, dragon’s teeth, hedgehogs, and rocket systems.
Poland and the Baltics have also withdrawn an international treaty banning anti-personnel landmines as they prepare to stop an advancing Russian army in its tracks.
#7 In a letter that was delivered to the Iranians, Donald Trump has given Iran only two months to reach a peace agreement…
President Donald Trump has given Iran a two-month deadline to reach a new nuclear agreement, according to a report by Axios.
A letter sent earlier this month to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned of consequences if Tehran continued its nuclear program while also offering renewed talks. The message, described as uncompromising, made clear that prolonged negotiations were not an option.
According to Axios, it “isn’t clear whether the two-month clock begins from the time the letter was delivered or from when negotiations start”.
Since the Iranians have already said that there will be no negotiations, I would assume that the clock started when the letter was delivered.
So the good news is that the bombing of Iran will probably not happen next month.
But if Trump is serious, there is a very good chance that it could happen before the midpoint of this year.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainians just conducted an absolutely massive drone strike on a Russian strategic bomber airfield that is located hundreds of miles from the front lines…
Ukrainian forces backed by Western munitions and technology struck a major Russian strategic bomber airfield on Thursday with drones, 435 miles from the Ukrainian front lines.
The strike ignited a massive explosion and sent a huge blast of fire into the air at Engels-2 airbase in Russia.
Videos posted by Reuters showed a huge blast spreading out from the airfield and wrecking nearby cottages.
Russia reportedly called this the largest drone attack ever.
The Ukrainians keep trying to provoke the Russians into doing something really dramatic.
One of these days, the Ukrainians might just succeed.
The Russians are fed up with the government in Kyiv. If negotiations with Trump fail, I expect the Russians to bring down the hammer.
We really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict with Russia, and we really are right on the verge of an apocalyptic conflict in the Middle East.
The final exit ramps for both of these conflicts are rapidly approaching, and so let us hope that global leaders make very wise decisions in the months ahead.
Michael’s new book entitled “Why” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
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Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.