One Small Step For Man...Closer To World War III

Putin escalates his troop engagement and nuclear rhetoric, Xi continues to urge "prep for war" and Jerome Powell is hours away from continuing to raise interest rates at breakneck speed.

"To defend the country and the people, we will use all the means at our disposal."

- Vladimir Putin, this morning

Call me alarmist if you want to, but this “broken clock” continues to believe that we are closer to World War III than the world has ever seen. And this morning’s speech by Vladimir Putin, wherein he announced mobilization of troops and spoke about nuclear threats - followed by some additional choice headlines out of China - continue to reaffirm my thinking.

Since the beginning of Russia’s invasion into Ukraine early this year, I have been speculating that Russia and China are purposefully strengthening their alliance with one another to pose a challenge not only to the West militarily, but also economically and via cyber-warfare. It has been “so far, so good” on ducking Western sanctions, as I just wrote during the summer that Russia was producing more oil than they were prior to the invasion of Ukraine.

Last week, I opened up a discussion about whether or not we were heading closer to World War III after Russia and China engaged in joint military exercises and Xi Jinping, Narendra Modi and Vladimir Putin all met in person, strengthening their alliance.

For those that have missed my posts over the last few months, I have written that:

1. I think the BRIC nations, led by China and Russia, are making a concerted effort to separate themselves economically from the West by readying their own digital reserve currency (that I believe will eventually be backed by gold)

2. China is planning on invading Taiwan similar to the way Russia has just went into Ukraine and such action will push us further down a path to a “cold” World War III, at the least, which I have predicted could play out economically, through strategically seizing up the supply chain and via cyber-means moreso than a traditional war

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about two more developments in tensions between Russia/China and the West, including Taiwan shooting down a Chinese drone for the first time ever and Russia planning to buy as much as $70 billion in what they call “friendly currency” (Chinese Yuan) in order to “slow the rouble's surge”.

But let’s take a look at the most recent escalation out of Russia and China, both of which have occurred over the last 12 hours.