Submitted by Jeremiah Johnson (Nom de plume of a retired Green Beret of the United States Army Special Forces) via SHTFPlan.com,

As can readily be seen by the current events, the world has not been this close to a nuclear war and World War 3 in a long time. There are four major flashpoints right now that could easily escalate and ignite a powder keg, transforming from a regional conflict or conflicts into a world war: Syria, the South China Sea, Ukraine, and North and South Korea. The “reconstruction” of a Cold War-type faceoff, initiated by the U.S. and NATO building up forces in Eastern Europe and facing off against Russia.

A nuclear war will be initiated by an EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) detonation over the continental U.S., followed by a nuclear exchange and a war with conventional forces.

As of this writing, the U.S. has “mistakenly” bombed Syrian governmental military forces, causing at least 60 deaths with more than 100 others wounded. The Russian government is sizzling, especially with the response by (of all people) Samantha Power, U.S. Ambassador to the UN had this to say to the media, as reported by CNN:

“We are investigating the incident. If we determine that we did indeed strike Syrian military personnel, that was not our intention. And we of course regret the loss of life.”

True humanitarians, all, and especially she, the wife of Cass Sunstein and a true Marxist disciple of the Weather Underground (along with Cass) regrets the loss of life. The airstrikes occurred just two days before the U.S. and Russia were supposed to have joint airstrikes against ISIS. As ISIS is a creation of the U.S. State Department and the administration, it seems the U.S. decided to strike their true intended target…the Assad government forces…as it wants to topple Syria, and escalate things with the Russians.

Meanwhile last week, the U.S. flew two B-1B nuclear bombers along the DMZ to bluster North Korea with a show of force in response to the nuclear bomb test they conducted just a week prior. South Korea also threatened to reduce Pyongyang to ashes, while North Korea prepares for yet another nuclear test in the near future. More than 20 missile tests have been conducted by North Korea just this year alone. This is not counting the satellite launch at the beginning of the year in which they placed their second satellite into orbit…a path of trajectory, mind you, that takes it over the continental U.S. several times per day.

Ukraine cease fire agreements between the populist forces (rebels) in the eastern provinces and the U.S.’s puppet Poroshenko-government has been violated innumerable times as the fighting in Donetsk continues. In the meantime, the IMF just approved a 2-billion-dollar loan to Ukraine and the U.S. is supplying Poroshenko’s government with “nonlethal” U.S. military equipment. Russia has been posturing a tremendous number of troops (some DOD estimates range as high as 150,000) on its western border facing Ukraine: they have conducted military exercises, including some within Crimea, which they annexed from Ukraine in 2014.

The United States has been beefing up its presence in the Baltic States of Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, as well as in Poland and Moldova, the latter emplacing U.S. missile systems for “defense” that can be converted to offensive, nuclear missiles in hours. In addition to this, the U.S. is deploying B-61 nuclear bombs to Germany’s Buchel airbase. Russia has countered with ordering the deployment of the Iskander-M missiles to Kaliningrad, Russia’s westernmost military base in a direct standoff against the U.S. buildup in Germany and Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile things in the South China Sea are heating up as the U.S. has moved naval assets into the area in a show of force in support of Japan over the disputed Senkaku islands face-off between Japan and China. Last week the Russian navy linked its assets with China’s in the two countries’ joint naval exercises that could turn into a combat operation and a Chinese invasion at the drop of a hat.