i've been following fred for years due to what he says and how he does so. here is a good example of his words and reasoning as well as our upcoming conflicts;

I expect my columns to be gems of lucidity and concision, such as to arouse despair in other writers. I have been expecting this for decades now. It may still happen. Meanwhile I fear today’s effort will be helterskelter, having the literary aspect of a tossed salad. I beg patience.

The Earth holds some eight billion people. It is interdependent with most relying, sometimes for life itself, on things from somewhere else: food, oil, gasoline, fertilizers, parts crucial to machines also crucial, electronics controlling the crucial machines and networks. A world war, even with conventional weapons, would kill incalculable numbers, if only by breaking supply chains. We don’t know how many since we haven’t tried it yet. Nuclear? Far worse.

Of the eight billion, how many would it take to start a world war? Who are they? Why do they hold the power of death by burning or starvation over the rest of us? Why would they do it?

Biden, not very smart, pathologically aggressive, exploring early senility, Desperate for reelection, might be able to do it alone. One man. In theory he could order a nuclear strike or Russia, though it is unlikely that he would do so and not clear that the military would obey. Simply ordering US fighters to attack Russian aircraft over the Ukraine, or Syria, might do the trick. He is commander-in-chief, after all..

And Washington is poking hard at Russia in the Ukraine, escalating and escalating, raising the ante. We now have troops on the ground in Gaza, America is preparing for war with China. Situations of this sort are not predictable. Say Hezbola attacks Israel with Iranian support, America bombs Iran, Russia downs American planes, the US is now at war with Iran, which destroys American bases in the region and the large Russian reserve forces in the Ukraine roll toward the Polish border. It’s nuke’m or lose’m.......more. ..........