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Iran has been invited to join talks in Vienna this week with Russia, the United States and European nations on whether a political resolution is possible in the Syrian civil war. If Iran accepts, it will be the first time Secretary of State John Kerry will enter formal negotiations with Tehran on issues beyond the nuclear accord reached in July. Russia has been pressing to include Iran, the only other major power giving military support to President Bashar al-Assad in his effort to remain in power. Senior American officials have begun to acknowledge in recent weeks that no serious discussion of a possible political succession plan in Syria can happen without Tehran’s involvement.But the American denunciation of Iran’s activities in Syria, including its support for Mr. Assad’s forces and for terror groups like Hezbollah, has always prevented the United States from including Iran in formal talks about the Syrian crisis. Continue reading the main story Related Coverage Turkey Confirms Strikes Against Kurdish Militias in SyriaOCT. 27, 2015 U.N. Rights Investigator Highly Critical of IranOCT. 27, 2015 Assad Makes Unannounced Trip to Moscow to Discuss Syria With PutinOCT. 21, 2015 The State Department spokesman, John Kirby, buried that policy at a briefing on Tuesday, before it was announced that Mr. Kerry would attend the meeting on Syria in Vienna on Thursday and Friday. “We anticipate that Iran will be invited to attend this upcoming meeting,” Mr. Kirby said.

Mr. Kirby added that the United States still opposed what he termed Iran’s “destabilizing activities” in Syria. But he said that the United States “recognized that at some point in the discussion, moving toward a political transition, we have to have a conversation and a dialogue with Iran.”The change is another example of how Russia’s military entry into the Syrian war has changed the power dynamic of the sporadic negotiations. For a long while the United States argued that Mr. Assad must go — as President Obama declared four years ago at the White House — before negotiations on a successor could begin. That position was altered recently to say that a political solution could be sought as long as it included an eventual transition of power, perhaps to another Alawite-dominated government.But the latest shift is a recognition that Russia and Iran may well be the two biggest voices in who succeeds Mr. Assad — if any political transition can be engineered — and that to leave the Iranians out of the conversation was “simply ignoring reality,” one senior American diplomat said.

The Air Force announced today the contract award of engineering and manufacturing development and early production for the Long Range Strike Bomber, or LRS-B, to Northrop Grumman Corp. 

Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James said the LRS-B is critical to national defense and is a top priority for the Air Force. “We face a complex security environment,” she said. “It’s imperative our Air Force invests in the right people, technology, capability, and training to defend the nation and its interests – at an affordable cost.” The future threat will evolve through the introduction of advanced air defense systems and development of more capable surface to air missile systems. The LRS-B is designed to replace the Air Force’s aging fleets of bombers – ranging in age from 50+ years for the B-52 to 17+ years for the B-2 – with a long range, highly survivable bomber capable of penetrating and operating in tomorrow’s anti-access, area denial environment. The LRS-B provides the strategic agility to launch from the United States and strike any target, any time around the globe. “The LRS-B will provide our nation tremendous flexibility as a dual-capable bomber and the strategic agility to respond and adapt faster than our potential adversaries,” said Gen. Mark A. Welsh III, Chief of Staff of the Air Force. “We have committed to the American people to provide security in the skies, balanced by our responsibility to affordably use taxpayer dollars in doing so. This program delivers both while ensuring we are poised to face emerging threats in an uncertain future.”

The Long Range Strike Bomber contract is composed of two parts. The contract for the Engineering and Manufacturing Development, or EMD, phase is a cost-reimbursable type contract with cost and performance incentives. The incentives minimize the contractor’s profit if they do not control cost and schedule appropriately. The independent estimate for the EMD phase is $21.4 billion in 2010 dollars. The second part of the contract is composed of options for the first 5 production lots, comprising 21 aircraft out of the total fleet of 100. They are fixed price options with incentives for cost.  Based on approved requirements, the Average Procurement Unit Cost (APUC) per aircraft is required to be equal to or less than $550 million per aircraft in 2010 dollars when procuring 100 LRS-B aircraft. The APUC from the independent estimate supporting today’s award is $511 million per aircraft, again in 2010 dollars.

Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif and three of his deputies will attend multilateral talks on Friday in Vienna that seek to resolve the conflict in Syria, the foreign ministry was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

Ambivalence, political twists and turns and the adoption of mutually exclusive decisions on Syria clearly show how completely lost the Saudi leaders are and their distinct lack of understanding of the fundamentals of modern foreign policy. The leaders of the wealthiest countries in the world, the leaders of the Arab and Muslim world have fully displayed their political inadequacy, inability to manoeuvre and adapt to the realities of the modern world. The once infinite riches are melting away rapidly, and soon ordinary Saudis will be faced with the issue of cost-cutting in their simple everyday problems.

The current policy which is so inconsistent and lacks any elementary logic was not only unsuccessful, but plunges Saudi Arabia ever deeper into an abyss of hardship and misery, setting new, complex problems before the King. Primarily, this concerns the economic and financial problems that the once wealthy Saudi society has not yet encountered. As the director of the Middle East and Central Asia Department of the IMF, Masood Ahmed, said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal, the cumulative budget deficit of Middle Eastern oil-exporting countries in the next five years could reach $1 trillion. Moreover, the treasury of the regional leader, Saudi Arabia, is at risk of running dry, and the “kingdom of the welfare state” can expect bankruptcy. Up to now, financial holes – the budget deficit, which this year is projected to be 21.6 percent of GDP, has been covered by the earlier petrodollar savings. In particular, this summer the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency was forced to withdraw $70 billion from foreign investment funds assets. It can be assumed that this is only the beginning of the return of capital to their homeland, to tide over the emerging new outgoings. Otherwise, a sharp reduction in expenditure could lead to a social explosion in the Kingdom, whose citizens have become used to living a well-off life during the oil boom.

Saudi Arabia is currently exploring the possibility of higher energy prices for consumers within the country, as reported by the Oil Minister Ali Al-Naimi. Responding to a question about whether the Kingdom is going to reduce energy subsidies in the near future, the Saudi official said: “Your question concerns whether we are considering such a possibility? Yes, we are considering it.” Energy prices in Saudi Arabia are among the lowest in the world. Saudi Arabia is in fact the leader of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC). Meanwhile, the Kingdom is losing out on potential revenue by selling oil on the domestic market at a much cheaper rate than on the foreign market. Currently, Saudi Arabia spends about 86 billion dollars a year in subsidies for oil producers.

Syrian opposition figures and Gulf commentators dismissed on Wednesday a Russian draft proposal for a process to solve the Syrian crisis, saying Moscow's aim was to keep President Bashar al-Assad in power and marginalize dissenting voices.A draft document obtained by Reuters on Tuesday showed Moscow would like Damascus and unspecified opposition groups to agree on launching a constitutional reform process of up to 18 months, followed by early presidential elections.Russia, which with Iran has been Assad's top ally during Syria's nearly five-year conflict, has denied any document is being prepared before a second round of international peace talks in Vienna this week.The text, obtained by Reuters, does not rule out Assad's participation in early presidential elections, something his enemies say is impossible if there is to be peace."The Syrian people have never accepted the dictatorship of Assad and they will not accept that it is reintroduced or reformulated in another way," said Monzer Akbik, member of the Western-backed Syrian National Coalition."The Russians are now trying to play the game they have been playing since Geneva," he told Reuters, referring to United Nations-led peace talks that collapsed in 2014.

Syrian soldiers fought their way into an air base in northern Syria on Tuesday and freed military personnel inside, state television said, after a nearly two-year siege by Islamic State insurgents at the facility.A military source close to the government said the army was working to secure the Kweires air base in Aleppo Province, where soldiers and officers have been under attack since 2013.It is the most high-profile victory for Syria's army since Russia launched an air campaign in support of President Bashar al-Assad on Sept. 30.

A former Moscow policeman was convicted of spying for the CIA and of passing state secrets to a foreign intelligence agency on Thursday and sentenced to 13 years in prison, Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB) said in a statement.The FSB said that a Moscow regional court had found Evgeny Chistov guilty of state treason and said he had betrayed his country for cash and had himself initiated contact with the CIA."He was recruited by the CIA and fulfilled its tasks, collecting and handing over information classified as state secrets for three years in exchange for material reward," the FSB said. It said the secrets concerned the work of Russia's interior ministry and that Chistov had fully admitted his guilt during court hearings.

The European Union's move to label goods produced in Israeli settlements is the latest expression of international disapproval of one of the country's most controversial policies. The Palestinians view Jewish settlements in the West Bank and east Jerusalem as a major obstacle to reaching any two-state solution, saying they carve up lands expected to form a future Palestinian state. Virtually the entire international community, including the United States, views the settlements as illegal or illegitimate. Israel has long dismissed the criticism, saying most settlement growth is in areas it expects to keep in any future peace agreement and that the issue should be resolved in peace talks along with other core issues like security and borders. Many Israelis want to keep the West Bank and east Jerusalem -- territories captured from Jordan in the 1967 Arab-Israeli war -- citing security concerns as well as the deep religious significance of the territories for devout Jews.

The settlements are now home to more than 570,000 Israelis, according to the Israeli anti-settlement watchdog Peace Now. They range from small wildcat outposts on West Bank hilltops to fully developed towns with shopping malls, schools and suburban homes. Many Israelis choose to live in settlements for economic and quality-of-life reasons. Some 2.2 million Palestinians live in the West Bank, with another 300,000 in east Jerusalem.

— In 1972 there were just over 10,000 Israeli settlers, with 1,500 living in the West Bank and the rest in east Jerusalem. — Twenty years later, ahead of the Oslo peace accords between Israel and the Palestinians, there were 231,200 Israelis living in the territories, with 105,400 in the West Bank and 125,800 in east Jerusalem. — At the end of 2000, when the second Palestinian uprising began, over 365,000 Israelis lived in the territories with more than 198,000 in the West Bank and some 167,000 in east Jerusalem. — In 2008, the year before Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu took office, over 474,000 Israelis were living in the two territories, with about 281,000 in the West Bank and some 193,000 in east Jerusalem. — Some 570,700 settlers now live in the territories, according to the latest Peace Now figures from the end of 2014, with 370,700 in the West Bank and 200,000 in east Jerusalem.

U.N. prosecutors said on Thursday they had evidence suggesting international forces in Afghanistan had caused serious harm to detainees by subjecting them to physical and psychological abuse.The court has been investigating alleged crimes committed since 2003 by all parties to the conflict in Afghanistan, but in previous reports on the status of its inquiry it has been far more circumspect about alleged crimes and the harm caused.In its latest report on the many preliminary examinations it has open, the court's Office of the Prosecutor said U.S. investigations of alleged crimes by its soldiers had not yielded convictions or risen high up the chain of command.The determination marks a significant escalation of the court's long-running investigation and could prove controversial in the U.S., which is not a member of the court and has in the past opposed it vociferously. "The infliction of 'enhanced interrogation' techniques' ... would have caused serious physical and psychological injury," prosecutors wrote.

They also noted that there was evidence of violations committed by Taliban and forces that supported the Afghan government, adding that neither appeared to be seriously investigating allegations against its own side. Up to 37,000 civilian casualties had been attributed to anti-government forces since 2007, and pro-government forces appeared to have meted out "gruesome" treatment to some 5,000 detainees, prosecutors said.They were still trying to determine the gravity and scale of any violations committed by international and U.S. forces, they said. All NATO members contributed to the International Security Assistance Force mission to Afghanistan that ran from 2001 until last year. Forces from the U.S. and other countries remain in the country on a NATO training exercise.

On Thursday, Attorney-General George Brandis introduced a new national security bill into the Senate. This is the fifth tranche of national security legislation to be introduced into parliament since July 2014.

This bill includes a host of new measures designed to address the evolving threat posed by terrorism. These include: a new offence of advocacy of genocide; amendments to the control order regime, so it applies to persons 14 years and older, and new measures to monitor controlees; and clarification of the basis for issuing a preventative detention order. But the bill’s most concerning aspect is the proposal to expand the secrecy provisions available to courts in control order proceedings. Keeping national security information secret in court Since 2004, legislation has been in place to deal with information that is likely to prejudice national security in federal court proceedings. This legislation created a special closed hearing procedure to determine whether national security information could be disclosed in court and, if so, in what form. This process regulates disclosure between the parties – that is, who gets to see what.

The bill expands this by creating special provisions that allow the court to consider sensitive material that the controlee and legal representative have not seen in proceedings to impose, confirm or vary a control order. It provides that a court can consider all of the information: contained in an original source document in control order proceedings, even where the controlee and their legal representative have been provided with only a redacted or summarised form of the document; contained in an original source document in control order proceedings, even where the controlee and their legal representative have not been provided with any information contained in the original source document; and provided by a witness, even where the information provided by the witness is not disclosed to the controlee or their legal representative. The bill’s effect is to allow secret evidence into control order proceedings.

American businesses could be required to report requests by U.S. intelligence services for data on European online users under a trans-Atlantic data-transfer pact now being negotiated, according to the European Union’s justice commissioner.

The UN brokered evacuation of about 2,000 Jihadi insurgents from the Syrian capital Damascus to Raqqa, the de facto capital of the self-proclaimed Islamic State, has been delayed after an air strike of the Syrian Air Force took out the commander of Jays al-Islam, Zahran Alloush. On August 21, 2013, Alloush, in his function as supreme commander of Liwa-al-Islam, gave to order to launch the chemical weapons attack on the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus.

The exterminated Zahran Alloush was, until he became the commander of Jaysh al-Islam the supreme commander of Liwa-al-Islam; a position he continued to hold until his death. An in depth investigative report published by nsnbc international in 2013 shows that Zahran Alloush was the field commander who, on August 21, 2013, gave the order to launch the chemical weapons attack against the East Ghouta suburb of Damascus. Zahran Alloush has been on the payroll of the Saudi intelligence service since the 1980s. Despite certain media reports to the contrary it must be noted that the air strike that ended the life of Zahran Alloush was carried out before a ceasefire that should allow the evacuation of the 2,000 insurgents to Raqqa came into effect. Jobar is of immense strategic importance for foreign backed insurgents’ logistic support from Turkey, Lebanon, Israel and Jordan.

Liwa_al-Islam Commander and Chemical Weapon Expert Zahran Alloush has been working for Saudi Intelligence since the 1980s

After almost two decades of discussion, the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will be proclaimed on 31st December. The AEC is a potentially significant and competitive economic region, should it be allowed to develop according to the aspiration of being a “single market and production base, with free flow of services, investments, and labour, by the year 2020”.

The ASEAN region as a composite trading block has the third highest population at 634 million, after China and India. GDP per capita is rapidly rising. The AEC would be the 4th largest exporter after China, the EU, and the United States, with still very much scope for growth from Cambodia, Myanmar, the Philippines, and Vietnam from a diverse range of activities ranging from agriculture, food, minerals and commodities, electronics, and services. The coming AEC is already the 4th largest importer of goods after the United States, EU, and China, making it one of the biggest markets in the world. Unlike the other trade regions, the AEC still has so much potential for growth with rising population, rising incomes, growing consumer sophistication, and improving infrastructure. Perhaps the biggest benefit of the upcoming AEC is the expected boost this will give to intra-ASEAN trade. Most ASEAN nations have previously put their efforts into developing external relationships with the major trading nations like the EU, Japan and the US through bilateral and free trade agreements. To some extent, the potential of intra-ASEAN trade was neglected, perhaps with the exception of the entrepot of Singapore. The AEC is an opportunity to refocus trade efforts within the region, especially when Vietnam, Cambodia, Indonesia are rapidly developing, and Myanmar is opening up for business with the rest of the region.

There are no integrated banking structures, no agreement on common and acceptable currencies (some ASEAN currencies are not interchangeable), no double taxation agreements, and no formal agreements on immigration. There is not even any such thing as a common ASEAN business visa. These issues are going to hinder market access for regional SMEs. Any local market operations will have to fulfil local laws and regulations which may not be easy for non-citizens to meet and adhere to. Even though there are some preferential tariffs for a number of classes of ASEAN originating goods, non-tariff barriers are still in existence, which are insurmountable in some cases like the need for import licenses (APs) in Malaysia, and the need to have a registered company which can only be formed by Thai nationals within Thailand. Some of these problems are occurring because of the very nature of ASEAN itself. ASEAN was founded on the basis of consultation, consensus, and non-interference in the internal affairs of other members. This means that no formal problem solving mechanism exists, and the ASEAN Secretariat is a facilitator rather than implementer of policy. Illegal workers, human trafficking, money laundering, and haze issues between member states have no formal mechanisms through which these issues can be solved from an ASEAN perspective. This weakens the force for regional integration.

On Monday, CNN released a poll indicating that 40 percent of Americans think the terrorists are winning the war on terror. It's a grim, weird finding that offers more questions about perceptions of terror than answers. Why are people in rural areas slightly more concerned about being killed in a terror attack than people in cities, as the poll finds? It doesn't make much sense, given where terrorists usually find their targets. The poll also had some good news for the White House: More than half of the country has a great deal or a moderate amount of confidence in the administration to protect the country from future terrorist acts. Among Democrats, 83 percent have confidence in the administration's ability to tackle terrorism, compared to only 17 percent of Republicans. That's pretty close to President Obama's Gallup approval ratings by party, with Republicans a bit more confident in Obama's ability to protect us than they approve of his job performance. The "who's winning the war on terror" question is similarly split on party lines, though less dramatically. Seventy-five percent of Democrats think that either the U.S. is winning or there's no clear winner, while more than half of Republicans think the terrorists are winning.

With big splits like that, it's little wonder, then, that even something like the imminent threat of a terror attack is viewed through a partisan lens. Among Democrats, 61 percent are not too worried about being killed in an attack, according to that CNN/ORC poll. Fifty-nine percent of Republicans are. And that almost certainly answers our rural/urban terror question. People in rural areas are probably worried about terror attacks because they're Republican, not because of where they live. Partisanship soaked in deep.

The sun has not risen above the North Pole since mid-September. The sea ice — flat, landlike, windswept, and stretching as far as the eye can see—has been bathed in darkness for months.But later this week, something extraordinary will happen: Air temperatures at the Earth’s most northernly region, in the middle of winter, will rise above freezing for only the second time on record.On Wednesday, the same storm system that last week spun up deadly tornadoes in the American southeast will burst into the far north, centering over Iceland. It will bring strong winds and pressure as low as is typically seen during hurricanes.That low pressure will suck air out of the planet’s middle latitudes and send it rushing to the Arctic. And so on Wednesday, the North Pole will likely see temperatures of about 35 degrees Fahrenheit, or 2 degrees Celsius. That’s 50 degrees hotter than average: It’s usually 20 degrees Fahrenheit below zero there at this time of year.

Poll results released last month show that Americans are sharply divided over the influence of Israel on U.S. politics, and those divisions often fall along party lines. On Dec. 4, The Brookings Institution, a highly influential Washington-based think tank, released the results of a study of American attitudes toward Israel and the Middle East. The report comes after a year in which Israel’s influence on America’s governance and foreign policy received heightened scrutiny, especially following a controversial speech to a joint session of Congress by Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on March 3. AIPAC, the powerful Israeli lobbying group, also faced increased criticism. The bulk of the poll was based on the opinions of 875 randomly selected Americans, but the study’s author, Shibley Telhami, a nonresident senior fellow at Brookings’ Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, also polled an additional 863 additional Americans who self-identify as Evangelical or Born-again Christians to determine how their attitudes differed from the average.

When asked “How Much Influence Does the Israeli Government Have in American Politics?” 37 percent, or just over 1 in 3 Americans, feel Israel has too much influence. Eighteen percent say Israel should have even more influence over our government, while the largest group, at 44 percent, feels Israel wields an appropriate level of influence. Almost half of Democrats, 49 percent, feel Israel has too much influence over U.S. politics, while a slight majority of Republicans, 52 percent, are comfortable with Israel’s current level of influence. Among Evangelical Christians, meanwhile, 39 percent believe Israel has too little influence and 38 percent are satisfied with the country’s level of influence. Telhami also asked respondents about their views on the conflict between apartheid Israel and occupied Palestine. Twenty-nine percent of Americans reported that they are “very concerned” about recent events in Israel and Palestine, while 38 percent are “somewhat concerned.” When asked who is to blame for strife in the region, the most popular answer, 31 percent, was the lack of a peace process, “while 26% equally blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement, expansion in the West Bank, and Palestinian extremists.” These results also showed strong partisan differences:

“[A] plurality of Democrats, 37%, blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion, followed by 35% who blame the absence of serious peace diplomacy, while 15% blame Palestinian extremists. In contrast, 40% of Republicans blame Palestinian extremists first, followed by 27% who blame absence of serious diplomacy, and 16% blame continued Israeli occupation and settlement expansion.” The report noted a slight increase in support for a one-state solution to problems in Israel compared to findings in 2014. Under a one-state solution, Israel and Palestine would become a single, multicultural, multireligious nation, as opposed to two-state solutions which would divide Israel and Palestine into two separate, independent countries. “Those who advocate a one-state solution, 31%, are now comparable to those who advocate a two-state solution, 35%,” Telhami wrote, adding that Republicans saw the largest increase in support for a single-state solution. “The most notable change is that Republicans this year equally support a two-state solution vs. one-state solution (29% each).” More people are also willing to accept a single-state solution if a two-state solution proves impossible, he added: “Among those who advocate a two-state solution as their preferred solution, 73% say they would support a one-state solution if the first option were no longer possible (in comparison to only 66% in 2014).” The poll also found that Netanyahu’s popularity has fallen sharply over the last year, at least among Democrats. Thirty-four percent now view him unfavorably, up from 22 percent in 2014, while Republicans’ opinions of him remain largely unchanged.

Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon declared on Tuesday that if he was to choose between Iran and ISIS – “I prefer ISIS.” Speaking at the Institute for National Security Studies’ (INSS) conference in Tel Aviv, Ya’alon sought to clarify that “Iran is our main enemy, after I heard voices saying different things.”

Tehran, he said, “is a rogue regime with designs on a regional hegemony. Hezbollah is Iran’s proxy, with the ability to declare war. Iran currently has terror infrastructure in place in five continents: Asia, Africa, Europe and both in South and North America.” Th nuclear agreement signed between the Islamic Republic and world powers, the defense minister said, “pushed back the clock from three months to one year. If Iran feels economically secure, it can breakout and produce a bomb even faster.” Ya’alon doesn’t put much stock in the Russians’ ability to retake Syria from jihadists- including ISIS – who took over large swaths of land. “The Russians thought they’d get to the Euphrates River in three months,” he said, noting the Russian army is not reaching its goals and failing to achieve much in the Golan Heights. “There are achievements in the fighting against ISIS – led by the US,” Ya’alon said. “ISIS is suffering serious defeats in Iraq and Syria.” “We believe ISIS will be eventually defeated territorially after the blows it has been suffering, and in light of the attacks on its oil reserves,” he added. The strategy in Syria, he said, should be “to strengthen local forces with ‘boots on the ground,’ like the Kurds are doing.”

The Department of Defense is organizing itself to address the effects of climate change on the U.S. military, some of which are already being felt. “The DoD must be able to adapt current and future operations to address the impacts of climate change in order to maintain an effective and efficient U.S. military,” according to a Pentagon directive that was issued last week. See Climate Change Adaptation and Resilience, DoD Directive 4715.21, January 14, 2016. Among other things, the new directive requires the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence and the Director of National Intelligence to coordinate on “risks, potential impacts, considerations, vulnerabilities, and effects [on defense intelligence programs] of altered operating environments related to climate change and environmental monitoring.” “The Department of Defense sees climate change as a present security threat, not strictly a long-term risk,” DoD said last year in a report to Congress. “We are already observing the impacts of climate change in shocks and stressors to vulnerable nations and communities, including in the United States, and in the Arctic, Middle East, Africa, Asia, and South America…. Although DoD and the Combatant Commands cannot prepare for every risk and situation, the Department is beginning to include the implications of a changing climate in its frameworks for managing operational and strategic risks prudently.” See National Security Implications of Climate-Related Risks and a Changing Climate, DoD report to Congress, July 2015.

“We are almost done with a baseline survey to assess the vulnerability of our military’s more than 7,000 bases, installations, and other facilities,” wrote then-Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel in a 2014 Climate Change Adaptation Roadmap. “In places like the Hampton Roads region in Virginia, which houses the largest concentration of US military sites in the world, we see recurrent flooding today, and we are beginning work to address a projected sea-level rise of 1.5 feet over the next 20 to 50 years.” “Politics or ideology must not get in the way of sound planning,” Secretary Hagel wrote.

In the fall of 2015, the world descended into an economic apocalypse that will transform the globe into a single cashless society. This bold prediction is based on trends in nations all over the earth as shown in the article below. As we enter 2016, we are only beginning to see this Epocalypse form through the fog of war. The war I’m talking about is the world war waged furiously by central banks against the Great Recession as the governments they supposedly serve fiddled while their capital burned. The governments and banks of this world advanced rapidly toward forming cashless societies throughout 2015. The citizens of some countries are already embracing the move. In other countries, like the US, citizens fear the loss of autonomy that would come from giving governments and their designated central banks absolute monetary control.

The Epocalypse that I’ve been describing in this series will overcome that resistance during 2016 and 2017 as it wrecks economic havoc to such a degree that cash hold-outs will be ready for whatever holds the greatest promise of saving them from their collapsed monetary systems, fallen banks, deflated stocks and suffocating debt. One has only to think about how quickly and readily American citizens forfeited their constitutional civil liberties after 9/11 when George Bush and congress decreed that search warrants were not necessary if the government branded you a “terrorist.” If this sounds like some wild conspiracy theory, consider the following: no less Sterling standard of global economics than The Economist predicted thirty years ago that by 2018 a global currency would rise like the phoenix out of the ashes of the world’s fiat currencies:

Charging people to keep their money in the bank is hard to do so long as cash is available, as people may just withdraw all of their money from those banks in the form of the national cash and squirrel the cash away. In order to penetrate the twilight zone of economics, central banks need to abolish cash to terminate this escape route. Then they can force savers to spend, thereby increasing the flow of money through the economy, by raising the cost of holding money in a bank account as high as it takes to get people to spend their money. No sense letting perfectly good money waste away in an expensive bank account. Transitioning into a cashless society is the ultimate central planner’s dream as it gives central banks total control over money, and money is their proprietary product.