Threats That Could Cause a Collapse – with Dr. Drew Miller, Col USAF (Ret)

We had a sit down with Dr. Drew Miller, Col USAF (Ret) about his view on the future, and how he is making sure he’s prepared for disasters, along with helping others achieve that as well! Watch the interview below, and then read more here!

Dr. Miller’s View

Contrary to popular belief, national security threats are worse now than at the height of the Cold War.  New technologies threaten, promise many experts say, to destroy a large part of the human race.

Bioengineering Technology Threats

Bioengineering technology now enables a nation state, terrorist group, or just one dedicated individual to unleash a new virus that could kill most of the human race.  A cyber-attack, an EMP blast from the sun or from a high-altitude nuclear detonation or terrorist attack, could take down our fragile electric system.  Artificial intelligence, nanotechnology, easier new means to enrich uranium for nuclear weapons, and many more technological advances are dramatically increasing the ability of a small nation state, terrorists, or lunatics to cause more deaths than all our prior wars combined.

Trigger Disasters

Worse than the increase in “trigger disasters” like a pandemic are the cascading effects that will likely lead to a “collapse”:  a shut down in economic activity and widespread, long-lasting loss of law and order.  Our economy is highly dependent on electricity, just in time delivery of key materials from overseas, experts who must show up for work, or production and transportation grind to a halt.  And unlike the last big pandemic that killed 50 to 100 million people when most of the population were farmers or had wells and gardens and local sources of food—we depend on daily food shipments into city supermarkets and municipal water systems that will not work if the electric system goes down.

Our interdependent, fragile, “just in time delivery” economy can’t operate with even minor disruptions to daily deliveries.   Supermarkets will be empty hours after a pandemic, or collapse of the electric system, or other disaster strikes—and it may be weeks, months, longer before production and transportation may resume. Unlike old, simple agricultural economies; we are dependent on daily shipments of food and materials, highly interdependent, very vulnerable to disruptions.  Even hospitals maintain only small inventories.  An EMP attack or severe solar storm can destroy electronics, computers.  Cyberattack as well as EMP can take down our electric system for months or years, leaving businesses, emergency services, water systems, inoperable.  A pandemic may be worse: few will report for work, and those that do (medical/police) will catch the virus.  Almost all economic activity may cease, no production, no public transportation.  For a few days people will survive on food/water in their home; but many without will start going out to loot, and if necessary, kill.  Relatively minor disasters like Katrina illustrated how some people quickly turn to violence.  Food truck drivers will likely not work during a pandemic—too much risk of catching the virus or being shot by a marauder out to steal food.

The exhibit below is a good summary of why we are so vulnerable to disruptions and collapse today.

Catastrophic Disaster

Put these trends together and you’ve got a formula for catastrophic disaster, a collapse that could kill hundreds of millions, billions, some experts say most of the population.

We have so many gang members today, and bad people eager to loot and worse when any opportunity presents itself, that a collapse may be triggered not by an enemy attack or huge natural disaster—but social media.  4 nights of looting, arson and murder in the UK in 2011 illustrates this new risk:

No one would be surprised after the next Presidential election to see a breakdown in law and order from the growing divide and animosity in the country, some even fear Civil War.

A Prepper’s View

While 99% of the population is oblivious to threats and the likelihood of a collapse, there are millions of Americans who are “preppers”—aware of the need to be able to survive without outside food and water or law enforcement in a violent environment.  Preppers are also different in how they see news and events.  They read information that the rest of the population ignores.  For example, a former CIA Director and head of the EMP Commission warned in 2017 that a North Korean EMP attack, delivered by one nuclear weapon exploding in the atmosphere over the U.S., could destroy our electrical system and yield a “societal collapse” that kills 90% of the U.S. population:

“a single warhead delivered by North Korean satellite could blackout the national electric grid and other life-sustaining critical infrastructures for over a year—killing 9 of 10 Americans by starvation and societal collapse.”

Can you imagine a more credible source than a former CIA Director?  This was in the media, but not on front pages, and 99% or more of the population doesn’t look for information like this, and missed the warning.  If anyone doubts how much death will result from a non-functioning economy and loss of law and order, this one sentence summary of the results of the loss of our electric system (damage will take over a year to fix) lets you know the magnitude.  90% of the U.S. population could perish.  Reduce the casualties by an order of magnitude—just 9% of the population perishes, and that’s 30 million people!

The Black Swan

So why aren’t alarm bells being sounded?  Because it is human nature to ignore even obvious, looming “Black Swan” threats and because your Big Government is focused on winning votes and political correctness—not warning people that a pandemic is imminent, that our fragile electrical system can be taken down by mother nature or a single nuclear detonation, that during a collapse they will not be able to maintain law and order, or that some of the key preparations include guns and plenty of ammo in every home.

Nassim Taleb, a brilliant financial analyst and philosopher, published a New York Times bestselling book, The Black Swan:  the Impact of the Highly Improbable, explaining why we consistently fail to anticipate and prepare for very foreseeable pending disasters.

Government officials won’t sound alarms about the growing threats we face, or acknowledge the likelihood that our economy and law and order will collapse under stress.  There is little threat for them—they will be taken care of during a collapse, sheltered and protected in Mount Weather and at other facilities at taxpayer expense.  Even in small cities, the #1 priority of law enforcement will be to protect top elected officials.  The rest of us are on our own.

Fortunately, there is a growing prepper community in the U.S. and worldwide that recognizes the need to prepare for a collapse.  We’re probably only 1% of the population now, but hopefully many more will recognize the need to prepare before it is too late.

What are my qualifications for issuing these warnings?  I’m a USAF Academy graduate, received an academic scholarship to Harvard University where I earned a Masters Degree and then PhD in Operations Research.  As an AF intelligence officer, I analyzed threats and reported on them.  We do a fantastic job of tracking traditional threats of other countries military forces, but other than experts whose warnings that are ignored, pay little attention to the threats of new technologies or vulnerabilities that could lead to a collapse.  I also served in the Pentagon in the Senior Executive Service, and at the top Dept of Defense think tank, and in many business leadership positions.  I’ve been a prepper for decades, and about 5 years ago after analyzing the best way to prepare, I founded Fortitude Ranch, a recreational and survival community.

Fortitude Ranch

At Fortitude Ranch, we track 50 “trigger events” that could lead to a collapse, including pandemics (natural mutations, an accidental lab release, bioengineered virus, bio attacks); an electromagnetic pulse, solar flare, cyber-attack, or physical sabotage that takes down the electric system; nuclear war; nuclear plant accidents or sabotage; meteor strikes and super volcano eruptions (that can cloud the atmosphere and cause worldwide crop failures for years); massive earthquakes; terrorist wildfire and arson attacks; nanotechnology disaster; artificial intelligence misuse; financial system breakdown and economic collapse; and dozens of additional trigger disasters that could lead to enough economic or social disruption to yield a collapse, long term loss of law and order.  Individually, the likelihood of a particular trigger event may be low, but collectively, the likelihood of a collapse disaster is high now—and growing due to overpopulation and new technologies.

We track these threats and periodically poll experts to get an estimate of the likelihood of both the trigger events occurring, and the disaster escalating into a collapse.  Experts use terms like “inevitable” to refer to pandemics, but the timing is unpredictable unless you’re the attacker.  There is of course tremendous uncertainty in these forecasts, but we estimate the probability of a collapse at anywhere from a few percent each year up to 33%.

It is very clear that we need to be prepared for a collapse that could come from a wide variety of sources, and last for months or years.