How far are we from a SHTF situation like in Bosnia?

[DesertRanger]

I'm sure some of you are familiar with Selco Bagovic, who survived the war in Bosnia Herzegovina in the 1990's. I went back to re-read some of what he wrote about those 3 years living under siege, and found a particularly sobering post of his.  Just how close are we to the dark forces of societal chaos? You can judge for yourself:

Daisy Luther from The Organic Prepper also contacted Selco for an interview. We highlight a couple of the Q&As and you can go to her site if you’d like to read the rest (she focuses on politics and the US situation).

Q: What parallels do you see with events in the US and Bosnia before the SHTF?

US and Yugoslavia (in 1990) on first look do not have anything in common because people are going to say, “The USA cannot have anything similar to any socialistic system.”

This is true but only on first look.

Yugoslavia had somewhere around 20-22 million citizens, six republics (similar to states in the US), 3-4 main religions, and many national groups (ethnicity).

The official state policy was to build Yugoslavian “nationality” (from the end of WW1) and through different ways that effort was successful until the 90s.

We were “something big, united through differences with a strong connection to make something big.”

And then those differences were used to make chaos.

In the late 80s and beginning of the 90s (when democracy came) the problems started and ended up in series of wars and cases of complete collapse.

Things that I experienced in my case prior to SHTF, and things that you might recognize:
 

• Things that make differences between people are more and more problematic (race, religion, political opinion).
• Polarization is getting obviously stronger.
• People want to come to your country, but they do not want to “assimilate” or contribute to the greater good. They want to preserve their way of life which is often absolutely contradictory to the way that your country (society) works.
• The political way of solving those problems often fails, because, in essence, those problems are hard to solve in a democratic way (in the spirit of democracy).
• Your freedoms are “shrinking” as a result of that.
• Calls for “radical solutions“ for the problems are stronger and stronger.
• The media is absolutely working a dirty job, and it is hard to find out what is the truth anymore.
• Suddenly people and events from history are “brought back” so people can judge and argue about it, to write history again, to build myths sometimes.

Q: Anything else to add?

I have seen many people killed, a lot of women and children too, civilians. A huge number of people suffered, were hungry and cold and were terrified through that period.

But I can count on one hand the dead or hungry politicians in that time.

Things were good for them through that period. Some of them ended up even richer. A lot of them are still powerful in the same or different parties, and are still talking about “their people” or “ causes” or “fear from others”.

It is the way it works.

 

[Whisper]

His answer to that last question is something I wish every American would read.  There are a few good politicians around, but only a few.

[krunchnik]

Very right-only a few-

[Dirtshooter]

A tall oak tree and some rope would be a good start to straightening out our political mess!!

[Grayfox54]

How far are we from a SHTF situation? 

One Putin temper tantrum could start WW III. 

[monkeylizard]

Maybe. . . As always, I'm more concerned with China. For now, they have a fat cash cow/gravy train running full speed in their country. If things turn nasty between them and us, the shortages we saw during COVID will look like a blip on the radar. We get in a hot war with China, trade will cease. We get a lot more than Nikes and iPhones from there. A lot of our food supply comes from China now too.

But as pointed out above by Selco, the politicians (in every country) always look out for themselves and a hot war with China is in nobody's best interest . . . for now. I don't think it will ever be in the US' best interest to go all Shooty McShooty with the ChiComs, but they're very dependent on that huge flow of money. If something ever disrupted that, or as it naturally slows due to other global economics (like the rise of Indian manufacturing capabilities) someone in the Party could get an itchy finger to make a power play internally and they could start a fight to make that move.

I could see China making a move on Siberia soon, but that wouldn't affect us in a SHTF kind of way.

1. China has to be eyeing that treasure chest of natural resources.
2. Russia's Army and Navy in Ukraine has been shown to be a shadow of what it was believed to be.
3. China has a much more modern military (paid for by us in large part), reportedly better trained soldiers, and a crap-ton more of them than Russia.
4. Ain't nobody in the world coming to Russia's aid to fend of a Chinese land grab after what they've done in Ukraine.

Edited April 24, 2022 by monkeylizard

[Quavodus]

Don't know how far we are from SHTF but, a lot of people are predicting it or something bad. I hope not but, several people I know are more prepared than most.

[gregintenn]

We are one button push away from all out death and destruction. How much faith do you really have in the folks with access to that button?

[monkeylizard]

17 hours ago, gregintenn said:

We are one button push away from all out death and destruction. How much faith do you really have in the folks with access to that button?

That's been true for a long time, though. We're all still here.

[gregintenn]

5 hours ago, monkeylizard said:

That's been true for a long time, though. We're all still here.

We’ve not always had the, at best incompetent, or more likely evil leadership we see today.

Edited April 26, 2022 by gregintenn

[monkeylizard]

On our side we had the inept Jimmy Carter and the other side they had the hawkish Kruschev, admittedly at different points in time. Neither went nuclear though one could argue it was pretty close under Kruschev.

Edited April 26, 2022 by monkeylizard

[monkeylizard]

I suppose that's what makes this feel a bit different to some folks. It's the first time we've had a weak administration paired up with a seemingly strong one on the other side. But Putin's no fool. He tends to play the long game. Remember when we all thought Obama was playing checkers while Putin was playing chess? He knows that going nuclear, even tactical nukes in Ukraine, would burn him and his oligarchy in every international market, except maybe China. I'm sure China would love to buy Russian gas, oil, and grain for dirt cheap when they're the only ones left for Russia to sell to.

I saw a funny picture the other day comparing Star Wars to Harry Potter . . . it said "Darth Vader took over a galaxy. Voldemort couldn't take over a high school". Right now Putin and his vaunted military are looking more like the later than the former. To me, it shows he's not as strong as his opponents think he is. But that also leads to wondering what the wounded animal will do when cornered.

Edited April 26, 2022 by monkeylizard

[Quavodus]

"They" are trying to kill the middle class. Why? Because we have guns and are tired of all their crap.