The always thoughtful Alasdair Macleod, Head of Research at Goldmoney.com, has often written about the end of the credit cycle caused by central banks that will bring credit and currency crises but in this essay, he focuses on what is ahead for the U.S. economy and the implications for the U.S. dollar.  

​Click here for more.

As Chinese President Xi consolidates power in a way no Chinese leader has done since Chairman Mao, his vision of China as a global power promises to overturn a Chinese tradition that dates back some four millennia. 

​Click here for a thoughtful analysis of President Xi’s global vision as presented to the recent Communist Party Congress.

In a series of articles published in a popular Chinese military newspaper, China National Defense, Chinese naval strategists have stated their perception of the causes behind the catastrophic at-sea collisions suffered by the U.S. Navy over the last couple of years.

​The articles are thoughtful, surprisingly sympathetic in their tone and quite professional in their analysis. Click here to read more.

As North Korean officials continue to threaten significant nuclear tests over the Pacific Ocean, the U.S. National Command Authority is taking extraordinary steps to pre-position forces into the Pacific theater of operations ahead of the president’s trip to Asia.

By missile defense drills with Japan and South Korea, staging 12 new F-35A Lightning II jets and 300 support personnel into Okinawa and, most ominously, deploying three nuclear carrier strike groups into the region, the U.S. and their allies are signaling loudly to the North Korean leadership.

​Whenever the U.S. gathers three aircraft carrier strike groups into a single theater, it is an unambiguous indicator that the U.S. is prepared to commence combat operations without further notice. Click here for more details of the latest deployment.

As you might imagine, the Trump administration is taking active measures to mitigate or preempt threats from North Korea.

Late last week, the White House announced the amendment of an executive order that, according to Bill Preston-Schmalfeldt at Breitbart Unmasked, “allow[s] the secretary of defense to call any recently retired member of the regular U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps and Air Force back to active duty.”

​In fact, “Trump is granting the secretary of defense full power to recall anyone who served and/or retired in the last 20 years. Section 688 of the U.S. code deals with the recall of retired service members,” and Section 690 limits how many officers from each service are subject to recall. Click here to read the actual executive order.

Last week, I recommended a congressional report and an interview with Dr. Harald Malmgren, both of which described the threat posed by a North Korean electromagnetic pulse (EMP) weapon.

To better understand what an EMP threatens from day zero to one year later, click here to watch a short video and to read a day-by-day description of the effects an EMP attack would have on an advanced society like the United States.

Hat tip to Admiral Cotton for the recommendation. "Restoring conventional US military deterrence is a long-overdue course change. Building off the strategic and analytical foundations of AEI’s defense strategy, To Rebuild America’s Military, this report develops programmatic depth and detail to the principles and objectives identified in that publication." Click here for an American Enterprise Institute analysis well worth your time.

In what promises to be a technological race similar to the scale of the Manhattan Project, governments around the world are working with their defense, intelligence and academic sectors to develop quantum computing ahead of their near-peer competitors.

As FedScoop writes, “Because quantum computing is based on encoding data into the superposition of states and creating quantum bits, or qubits, rather than the ones and zeros in the binary digits of electronic computers, quantum computers would be able to crack the large number of Rivest-Shamir-Adleman [RSA] cryptography currently in wide use.”
​
​Given the advances already announced by both China and Russia, the Anglo-American alliance of the United States, United Kingdom, Australia, Canada and New Zealand need to expand beyond their traditional intelligence collaboration into co-development efforts on quantum computing and its revolutionary cryptography. Click here for more details.