(End of the American Dream)—Does anyone else think that it is odd that a giant comet named “3I/ATLAS” has suddenly appeared at the exact same time that “World War III” has arrived? Another way that “3I” can be rendered is “III”. And according to Wikipedia an atlas is “a bundle of maps of Earth or of a continent or region of Earth”. In other words, it is a collection of maps of the world. On top of everything else, it is interesting to note that the planet that “3I/ATLAS” will come closer to than any other is the planet Mars. On October 3rd, it will pass Mars at a distance of just 0.19 AU. Needless to say, Mars was the Roman god of war. Perhaps all of this is just a coincidence, but if it is, it sure is a very strange one.
At this moment, a direct conflict between NATO and Russia is dangerously close.
European leaders have warned that they may shoot down Russian aircraft if they violate NATO airspace again, and in response the Russians have warned that shooting down their aircraft will mean war.
Of course the Russians have no intention of curtailing their air assaults on Ukraine. In fact, we just witnessed one of the biggest air assaults of the war so far…
Ukraine’s military said that Russia had launched 595 drones and 48 missiles overnight and its air defences shot down 568 drones and 43 missiles.
Missiles flew over Kyiv – the worst hit city – as anti-aircraft fire rang out for several hours after the Russian forces launched the blitz.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack lasted more than 12 hours and caused widespread damage to a cardiology clinic, factories and residential buildings.
We are being told that “NATO instructors and targeting crews” were among those killed during a strike on Ukraine’s Starokostyantyniv airbase…
Two Russian hypersonic missiles struck Ukraine’s Starokostyantyniv airbase, destroying five US-supplied F-16s, Storm Shadow/SCALP missiles, along with NATO instructors and targeting crews, in a wave of intensified airstrikes.
According to a Ukrainian Telegram channel from the site: “Everyone is dead, everything is destroyed, we are in agony”
Most people don’t even realize that western military personnel have already been dying in Ukraine.
And now that the peace process is completely dead, it is probably just a matter of time before NATO formally enters the conflict.
In fact, it appears that the stage is being set for an incident that will be used to justify that. In recent days, lots of mysterious “Russian drones” have been threatening military bases and airports all over Europe…
NATO has ramped up its air defences after mysterious drones continue to menace military bases and airports across Europe.
More drones were spotted over multiple Danish military establishments last night, while multiple flights were diverted from an airport on a Spanish island after similar sightings this morning.
It comes just a day after suspected drones swooped over Denmark’s largest military base – sparking security fears.
If you see headlines about a major incident involving a “Russian drone” in the weeks ahead, that will be a really bad sign.
NATO may use such an incident to justify a strike on Russian military assets, and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov just warned that any NATO military action against Russia will be met with a “decisive response”…
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told the West on Saturday that any aggression against Moscow would face a “decisive response,” warning against attempts to down aircraft in Russian airspace and accusing Germany of militaristic rhetoric.
For weeks, there have been signs that NATO is preparing for a military showdown with Russia.
And now we are being told that a train carrying U.S. tanks has been photographed in Estonia heading in the direction of the Russian border.
I am deeply troubled by all of this.
Meanwhile, NBC News is reporting that the U.S. is preparing to conduct military strikes inside Venezuelan territory…
U.S. military officials are drawing up options to target drug traffickers inside Venezuela, and strikes within that country’s borders could potentially begin in a matter of weeks, four sources told NBC News.
Those sources are two U.S. officials familiar with the planning and two other sources familiar with the discussions. They spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the plans publicly.
Striking inside Venezuela would be another escalation in the Trump administration’s military campaign against alleged drug targets and its stance toward Venezuela’s government.
We have blown up several Venezuelan boats that were carrying drugs, but actually conducting military strikes inside Venezuelan territory would be an act of war.
Do we really want to go to war with Venezuela?
When asked about this, one administration official said that President Trump is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country”…
NBC asked for comment from the Trump administration about the strike plan, receiving this previous statement from the president: “We’ll see what happens. Venezuela is sending us their gang members, their drug dealers and drugs. It’s not acceptable.”
A senior administration official told the outlet that the president is “prepared to use every element of American power to stop drugs from flooding into our country and to bring those responsible to justice.”
I never imagined that we would be going to war with Venezuela in 2025.
But here we are.
On the other side of the world, Israel continues to take control of more ground in Gaza City…
In recent days, the IDF has expanded the scope of strikes across Gaza City, targeting more than 140 sites each night.
As more than 800,000 of one million residents of the city have evacuated, the IDF has gained operational control of more than half of Gaza City as of Saturday, according to sources in the IDF Southern Command.
Sources in the Southern Command told Walla that the IDF’s territorial gains resulted from coordinated maneuvers at multiple points by various divisions as part of Operation Gideon’s Chariots II.
Various peace plans are being proposed to stop the fighting.
Let us hope that peace prevails, but I have a feeling that more “surprises” are still ahead.
On top of everything else, China continues to prepare for a potential invasion of Taiwan…
A classified US military intelligence report seen by the ABC says China is rapidly building up the country’s commercial ferry fleet to prepare for an invasion of Taiwan.
The report dates from earlier this year and was prepared by members of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) for the Pentagon.
The US intelligence says the large ocean-going vessels have been modified to carry tanks and partake in amphibious operations.
I was very alarmed when I read that.
The Chinese fully intend to take control of Taiwan sooner or later.
And we have also learned that the Russians have been heavily involved in the preparations…
Moscow is helping China to prepare for a potential invasion of Taiwan, according to an analysis of leaked Russian documents by a UK-based defense and security forum.
The Royal United Services Institute’s analysis is based on around 800 pages of documents, including contracts and lists of equipment to be supplied by Moscow to Beijing, from the Black Moon hacktivist group.
The mix of completed and apparent draft Russian documents reference meetings between Chinese and Russian delegations and payment and delivery timelines for high-altitude parachute systems and amphibious assault vehicles.
While all of this is going on, every general and every admiral in the U.S. military will be gathering at a U.S. military base in Virginia this week.
A lot of people are freaking out about this, and now we are being told that even President Trump plans to attend…
President Trump plans to attend the Tuesday meeting in Quantico with generals and admirals that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called last week, according to a source familiar.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. Mr. Trump’s attendance was first reported by Axios.
U.S. officials confirmed last week that generals and admirals were being called in from all over the world for a meeting at Quantico, but no further details were given.
Personally, I would never gather all of my generals and all of my admirals in a single location.
It is just too dangerous.
One man that has forty years of military experience says that he has never seen anything like it…
In my forty years in uniform, I never saw anything like it. While senior leaders have been recalled to Washington to meet with the secretary of defense during all our wars, never once did a secretary summon all of the hundreds of one- to four-stars from each of the services, plus their top enlisted counterparts, from every corner of the globe to a single auditorium. Not during the Cold War, not during Desert Storm, not during the height of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Not Rumsfeld, not Gates, not Panetta, not Mattis, not Austin.
They likely didn’t do it because it is disruptive. It is expensive. And it is unnecessary.
We are seeing so many things happen that we have never seen before.
And I am entirely convinced that the months ahead will be a time of war.
If things go badly, the U.S. could easily end up being involved in three or four wars simultaneously.
Prior to World War I, nobody had any idea how bad it would be.
Prior to World War II, nobody had any idea how bad it would be.
Now we are in the early stages of World War III, and we need to step back from the precipice while we still can.
Michael’s new book entitled “10 Prophetic Events That Are Coming Next” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com, and you can subscribe to his Substack newsletter at michaeltsnyder.substack.com.
Two Storms, One Harvest
Every food crisis in living memory has been a one-shock event. The 2008 price spike was a commodity bubble. The 2020 shortages were a logistics failure. The 2022 grain scare was a war on one exporter’s ports. Each time, the system bent, adjusted, and recovered, and each time the experts assured us afterward that global markets are simply too big and too diversified to fail.
What nobody in Washington seems eager to discuss is that 2026 is shaping up to be something the modern food system has never actually faced. Two independent shocks, one climatic and one geopolitical, are converging on the same harvest cycle at the same time. Not sequentially. Simultaneously.
Start with the weather. The Pacific Ocean is currently building toward what forecasters now openly call a record event. NOAA’s Climate Prediction Center puts the odds of at least a strong El Niño near 88 percent, with roughly two in three odds it reaches “very strong” status, the tier reserved for perhaps three or four events in the entire satellite era. Every major global model now projects a median peak in Super El Niño territory, and most of them project it exceeding the 2015-16 event, which until now held the modern record. Sea surface anomalies were already brushing the super threshold in mid-July, months before these events normally peak. The atmosphere has already shifted into El Niño mode, and the event is forecast to crest in late fall and early winter.
This is not about “climate change.” It’s about the standard cycles of weather, and the cycle we’re currently in is one that has likely devastated societies in the past. We’re better prepared as a society today, but not all Americans are equally prepared.
Serious households have started doing the quiet math on their own. Grocery bills tell part of the story, and the forecast maps tell the rest, which is why long-term food storage has moved from fringe hobby to mainstream line item in the family budget, with established suppliers like Heaven’s Harvest seeing demand from people who five years ago would have rolled their eyes at the idea. That instinct is not paranoia. It is pattern recognition, and the pattern is worth walking through carefully.
Editor’s Note: Heaven’s Harvest IS a sponsor, but the warnings of this article are real and would be written even if we didn’t have a survival food sponsor. With that said, those who take advantage of what they offer can use promo code “Patriot” for 15% off.
The Fertilizer Clock Is Already Running
While the Pacific warms, the second shock has been unfolding in the Strait of Hormuz. The conflict with Iran turned the world’s most important energy chokepoint into a contested waterway, and the consequences reach far beyond the gas pump. Roughly a third of global fertilizer trade moves through Hormuz, and the disruption sent urea prices up 86 percent year over year by March, with a 53 percent jump in a single month.
The World Bank projects energy prices rising about 24 percent in 2026 and fertilizer about 31 percent. By its own accounting, fertilizer prices ran 35 percent higher in the first five months of this year than the same period last year.
Here is the mechanism the nightly news will not explain. Fertilizer is not a grocery item. It is a time-delayed input. The nitrogen a farmer in Iowa or Punjab could not afford to apply this spring does not show up as a problem this spring. It shows up as a thinner harvest six to twelve months later.
The World Bank’s own food security brief concedes that the effects of reduced applications earlier this season “are likely to become visible only later in harvest outcomes.” Translate that from institutional language into plain English and it means this. The damage is already done, it is already in the ground, and we are simply waiting for it to arrive on the shelf.
Now check the calendar. Six to twelve months from the spring planting season lands us squarely in late 2026 and early 2027. Which is precisely when the strongest El Niño in the instrumental record is forecast to peak, bringing its signature droughts to Southeast Asia, Australia, southern Africa, northern Brazil, and South Asia, the very regions that grow the world’s rice, sugar, and oilseeds.
The World Bank warns openly that a strong El Niño “could disrupt multiple crop belts simultaneously” on top of the conflict-driven input costs. Their baseline projection assumes the Middle East disruptions ease by autumn. What in the last two years of Middle East history suggests that assumption is safe?
The System Has No Slack Left
The comfortable answer is that global markets always adjust. But adjustment requires slack, and the slack is gone. Global cereal production is expected to decline from last year’s records even before El Niño does its work. The UN World Food Programme, hardly a den of right-wing preppers, is calling this the most significant disruption to its supply chains since Covid and the invasion of Ukraine, and its supply chain director put the stakes bluntly.
Today’s supply chain challenges are tomorrow’s hunger crisis.
There is also a political dimension that markets cannot price. When food gets scarce, governments do not behave like economists. They behave like politicians. Export bans, hoarding mandates, and panic buying at the national level turned the modest rice shortfall of 2008 into a global crisis, and analysts are already warning that import-dependent nations are the first dominoes.
The 2015-16 Super El Niño, a far weaker event than what is now forecast, threw tens of millions into food stress across Africa and Asia. This one is projected to be stronger, and it arrives with fertilizer already rationed by price and shipping lanes already contested by missiles.
What Joseph Knew
Scripture does not treat preparation for lean years as faithlessness. It treats it as wisdom delivered in advance to those willing to act on it.
Behold, there come seven years of great plenty throughout all the land of Egypt: And there shall arise after them seven years of famine; and all the plenty shall be forgotten in the land of Egypt.
Joseph did not respond to that warning with a hashtag or a committee. He stored grain during the years of abundance, and when the famine came, Egypt stood while its neighbors begged. The lesson is not that famine is certain. It is that the time to prepare is precisely when preparation still looks optional.
Nobody who filled a pantry in a year of plenty has ever regretted it, and nobody standing in an empty aisle has ever been glad he waited for certainty.
None of this calls for panic, and panic is the enemy of sound judgment anyway. It calls for the same unglamorous prudence our grandparents considered ordinary. Keep some cash margin, know your local growers, and put real food in deep storage while it is cheap and available, because the entire arc of this story is that cheap and available is a closing window.
Families looking for a straightforward place to start can visit Heaven’s Harvest and use promo code Patriot for 15 percent off long-term storable food. The forecasts may yet soften, the strait may yet reopen, and we should pray they do. But hope is a fine thing to hold and a foolish thing to eat.