Which preparations (if any) are you making or intend to make for a possible global conflict?
Some possible considerations:
- Work / employment
- Financial situation
- Home / residence
- Resources (energy, food, water, etc)
There's some sucky things about living neutral, like the possibility of being colonized by a superpower for oil. But I think it's worked fine here. There's still an economy, and less reason to be firebombed.
Still I've always been paranoid about the possibility of war and climate change, which is why I don't like lifetime investments like houses. Tech has always been ideal. People say the risk of startups is high, but what's the odds that your beachside home won't be worthless in 50 years? My country has spent up to 70% of its history as a colony. What's the odds that another empire won't colonize us within the next 50 years?
9/11 shouldn't have happened. The crash of 2007 shouldn't have happened. Covid was predicted yet we were unprepared, or at least very under-prepared. Invasion of Ukraine? Who really saw that coming.
That's the thing about predicting the future...no one gets it right. Ever. Complex systems are unpredictable. We can put odds on things but "no way", in the context of history's lessons sounds naive.
Russia had taken Crimea a few years back and before that some other area, its kinda what they've been doing for a while along with putting in puppet governments in various "independent" nation-states on their borders. Your statement is kinda like a person in the US saying they are shocked/surprised there was a mass or school shooting.
I bet there were experts in various capacities that stated "its only a matter of time before ..." regarding a foreign terrorist attack, pandemic outbreak, etc. happened.
Also US who knew about invasion few months before.
Global pandemic is kinda once every few 100 years think so unlucky for us that happen right now.
History lessons show that to global or even continental conflict you need to have blocks of equal powers (from Ancient Greece (Peloponnesian War as local but "big" conflict) till modern times and Napoleonic Wars/WW1/WW2) and there is no block that can rival US right now (maybe in 10 years if China go back on tracks and push more funds into army)
Lets just assume for a sec global conflict does indeed occur, the scenario presented will most likely wipe you out anyway in some form or another.
Therefore I life my live as good as I can, idenpendently of immenent doom.
Furthermore, if there is one thing Corona has taught us, its how to life comfortably at home and improved efficiency to think of food as "food for a week" or even "food for a month", so yeah, if anything at all I stopped doing smaller trips to the supermarket and now go for bigger hauls.
Finally, I still do believe in the good of community and thus am sure, that within a short period of time, local communities will form. Sure Mad Max et al is a possible scenario, but I rather believe that humanity as whole will muster through.
This entire world we live in is based on mutual trust in people and therefore I am sure we can rebuild in any case. If we cant, no preparation in the world will suffice.
I'm very certain that the world's course will just continue. People will be stressed, but they will get over it. Some places still have an economic boom and if you're in programming, you will never be obsoleted.
Another poster talks about nukes so nothing you can do there. Just get out of cities I guess?
I was thinking more of disruption to supply chains, perhaps where Countries ban all exports entirely for example. Perhaps companies with foreign labour are regulated too highly to make it viable.