Russian president Vladimir Putin has become the “boy who cried nukes.”But if social mood shifts, bluff could become the blaze of war.
This week, global tensions between Russia and the West reached a new extreme after U.S. President Joe Biden approved Ukraine’s use of U.S. made ballistic missiles against Russia. In retaliation, Russia launched its own intercontinental range ballistic missile (IRBM) at Ukraine for the first time since the war began in Feb. 2022.
Explained the Guardian Nov. 22: This type of missile “has a theoretical range of below 3,420 miles (5,500km). That is enough to reach Europe from where it was fired in south-western Russia, but not the US.“
“World War III has officially begun,” announced Ukraine’s ex-top general. (Nov. 22 Politico)
Well, not quite yet. But could we get there?
The just-published December 2024 Socionomist intervenes with a timely report “Cold War II or Hot War III?”, which explains why hostilities between Russia and NATO allies have escalated — and what’s preventing a broader military campaign from breaking out. From the Socionomist:
The January 2007 issue of The Elliott Wave Theorist said that negative mood reflected by bear markets makes people more “fearful, distrusting and angry. They are impelled to prepare to defend themselves or to attack an enemy.” North Korea and Russia fit this description. Social mood in North Korea is negative based on South Korea’s KOSPI index, which socionomists use as a proxy for social mood on the Korean Peninsula. The index continues to trade below its June 2021 record close. Meanwhile, Russia is in a long-term bear market in terms of both nominal and real-money (adjusted for gold) prices.
Chapter 16 of The Wave Principle of Human Social Behavior featured a chart showing a correlation between trends in the Dow Jones Industrial Average and in the number of annual worldwide nuclear weapons tests in the previous 20 years. Figure 2 is an update of that chart. It shows that testing has leveled off in conjunction with the rise in the nominal Dow.
The United Kingdom, the U.S. and France ended nuclear testing during the 1990s bull market. As noted in the January 2007 Theorist, positively trending mood causes people to become “more confident, trusting and content. They feel little need to prepare a defensive or offensive force.”
Fortunately, even Russia has said that it will not test a nuclear weapon if the U.S. continues to refrain from testing – although both countries have built new facilities and dug new tunnels at their nuclear test sites in recent years (Reuters, September 23, 2024).
Editor’s Note: Russia’s IRBM attack on Nov. 21 is called a “nuclear-capable weapon.”
Whatever President-elect Trump’s intentions for a diplomatic conclusion to the Russia-Ukraine war, the December Socionomist report asserts: There’s only one thing that can “curtail” a catastrophic nuclear event.
You won’t want to sit this one out! Purchase the new, December 2024 Socionomist today for $50 – and get instant access to the full report, along with its cover story on the rise of the sigma male, all the way to the highest house in the land.