Source: By Batholith (Own work) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons 

The Alarm is Going Off! We Said It Looked Like World War III and it Would be Cyber-Economic

GlobalEconomicWarfare.com
by KEVIN D. FREEMAN 

For long-term readers of this Blog, or our books Secret Weapon and Game Plan, our Op-Eds, or our Pentagon research, the notion of a Cyber-Economic World War 3 should come as no surprise. Obviously, things are accelerating at a very rapid pace. Alarm bells are ringing loudly.

As a reminder, you can scroll back through previous posts either by date or by topic. We have been warning about this since 2008.

Here are just a few of Op-Eds and headlines from the start of the year (with links to public articles):

From February 20, 2014:

World War III: The Coming Cyber-Financial Attack that will Shock America

From January 20, 2014:

THE STOCK MARKET WILL CRASH AND IT WILL HAPPEN IN MINUTES

BREITBART published this on January 19, 2014:

HOW TO SURVIVE THE COMING FINAL DOLLAR ‘BEAR RAID’

From January 10, 2014:

America’s Achilles’ Heel: Why the Dollar Could Spell the Defeat of a Superpower

From January 9, 2014:

WALL STREET OBLIVIOUS TO CYBER-ECONOMIC WARFARE

From Silicon Angle on January 6, 2014:

A colossal cyber-economic attack is coming – Game Plan

If these weren’t warnings, we don’t know what would qualify.

Now, let’s just take a look at a few of the headlines from the past couple of weeks to see if the concerns we laid out have proven justified:

August 9, 2014

De-Dollarization Accelerates – China/Russia Complete Currency Swap Agreement

The last 3 months have seen Russia’s “de-dollarization” plans accelerate. First Gazprom clients shift to Euros and Renminbi, then the UK signs currency swap agreements with China, then NATO ally Turkey cuts ties and mulls de-dollarization,Switzerland jumps in the currency swap agreements, and BRICS create their own non-US-based funding vehicle, and then finally this week, Russia’s oligarchs have shifted cash holdings to Hong Kong. But this week, as RT reports, Russian and Chinese central banks have agreed a draft currency swap agreement, which will allow them to increase trade in domestic currencies and cut the dependence on the US dollar in bilateral payments. “”The agreement will stimulate further development of direct trade in yuan and rubles on the domestic foreign exchange markets of Russia and China,” the Russian regulator said. [To Continue Reading at ZEROHEDGE…]

August 8, 2014

World War on Russia’s Mind When U.S. Duels Over Ukraine – Bloomberg

From his perch as Vladimir Putin’s adviser for building ties with fellow former Soviet republics, Sergei Glazyev perceives the world shifting to a war footing.

There’s a war waged against Russia with economic sanctions and military conflicts roiling Ukraine to Iraq, according to Glazyev, 53, an academician and a native of Ukraine who for the past two years has advised Putin on integration with Belarus and Kazakhstan. Putin struck back this week with a ban on U.S. and European food imports that may benefit the former Soviet allies.

Setting the world ablaze is the U.S., where “hawks” are provoking a global conflict “with the aim of establishing control not only in Europe, but also in Russia, Ukraine,” Glazyev said in an interview in Moscow on Staraya Ploshchad, where the presidential staff has its headquarters. On his office’s walls are a picture of Putin and an updated map of Russia that marks the annexed Crimea peninsula as its territory. [To continue reading at Bloomberg…]

Note:  As a reminder, we have quoted Glazyev threatening to crash economy.

August 6, 2014

Russia Sanctions Accelerate Risk to Dollar Dominance – Bloomberg

U.S. and European Union sanctions against Russia threaten to hasten a move away from the dollar that’s been stirring since the global financial crisis.

One place the shift has become evident is Hong Kong, where dollar selling has led the central bank to buy more than $9.5 billion since July 1 to prevent its currency from rallying as the sanctions stoked speculation of an influx of Russian cash. OAO MegaFon, Russia’s second-largest wireless operator, shifted some cash holdings into the city’s dollar. Trading of the Chinese yuan versus the Russian ruble rose to the highest on July 31 since the end of 2010, according to the Moscow Exchange. [To Continue Reading at Bloomberg News…]

August 5, 2014

Russian Hackers Amass Over a Billion Internet Passwords (New York Times)

A Russian crime ring has amassed the largest known collection of stolen Internet credentials, including 1.2 billion user name and password combinations and more than 500 million email addresses, security researchers say. [To Continue Reading at The New York Times…]

August 1, 2014

Every USB Device Under Threat. New Hack Is Undetectable And Unfixable – Forbes

“These problems can’t be patched,” says Nohl. “We’re exploiting the very way that USB is designed… You can give it to your IT security people, they scan it, delete some files, and give it back to you telling you it’s ‘clean’ but the cleaning process doesn’t even touch the files we’re talking about.” [To Continue reading at Forbes…]

July 31, 2014

World War…Yes, It Could Happen Again (The Atlantic)

…The international system does not look particularly stable. The Cold War’s bipolar confrontation, despite its crises, was predictable. Today’s world is not. It features a United States whose power is dominant but no longer determinant; a one-party China that is a rising hegemon; an authoritarian Russia giddy on nationalism and the idea of a restored imperium; and a weak, navel-gazing, blasé Europe whose pursuit of an ever closer union is on hold and perhaps on the brink of reversal…As John Mearsheimer observes in his seminal The Tragedy of Great Power Politics, “Unbalanced multipolar systems feature the most dangerous distribution of power, mainly because potential hegemons are likely to get into wars with all of the other great powers in the system.”

In this context, nothing is more dangerous than American weakness. It is understandable that the United States is looking inward after more than a decade of post-9/11 war. But it is also worrying, because the credibility of American power remains the anchor of global security. [To Continue Reading at The Atlantic…]

July 30, 2014

Russia, U.S. Edge Toward Economic Warfare | The Fiscal Times

Russia and the West appear to be moving ever closer to full economic warfare as U.S. and EU leaders prepare new and harsher sanctions on the Russian economy and Russian lawmakers discuss legislation that would give authorities in Moscow the ability to eject companies from Russia if they are headquartered in “aggressor nations” – defined as countries that have imposed sanctions on Russia. [To Continue Reading at The Fiscal Times…]

July 29, 2014

Paul Singer: This threat is ‘head-and-shoulders’ above all others (CNBC)

Billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer has issued an unusual warning for investors, calling the threat of a widespread blackout from an electromagnetic surge the “most significant danger” in the world.

Called an “electromagnetic pulse” or EMP, the events can occur naturally from solar storms or artificially from a high-altitude explosion of nuclear weapons. [To Continue Reading at CNBC…]

July 25, 2014

Preparing for a Century of Cyberwarfare – WIRED

Cyberespionage is happening every day — our enemies are stealing information hand over fist from government organizations and big businesses. Corporate and government information technology (IT) security teams are fighting the fight, with ever more sophisticated security software technologies . . .

Cybersabotage is the other side of the cyberwarfare coin. There are lots of examples of cyberattacks interrupting Internet and other communications in times of conflict, as well as recent examples of physical cybersabotage, like the Stuxnet worm that is said to have destroyed over 1,000 uranium gas centrifuges in Iran’s nuclear program. Experts anticipate “the big one” is still coming. [To Continue Reading at WIRED…]

July 17, 2014

Russian hackers placed ‘digital bomb’ in Nasdaq – report (CNN)

Russian hackers managed to slip a “digital bomb” into the Nasdaq — one with the potential to sabotage the stock market’s computers and wreak havoc on the U.S. economy.
That’s according to an investigative report by Bloomberg Businessweek, which revealed the details of a 2010 cybergrenade that never detonated. [To Continue Reading at CNN…]

Take a look at the News Stories we listed. These thoughts have dominated headlines the past few weeks. We have been warning specifically about all of this since 2008. Yet, most Americans continue to hit the SNOOZE button. It’s time to wake up!