ISSS Resilience Centre

PREPAREDNESS: Community, Individuals & Networks

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Citizen's View


Citizen's View


The section below is the first in a monthly series showing the perspectives of two individuals on the need for individual preparedness. These are un-edited personal views which show the potential differences in opinion.

Written by:   Doug

Location:     Winsconsin, U.S.A.

Age Group: 40-65 years

Citizen:       U.S.A

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ISSS asked the following question:

"Could an event, outside your country, have a significant impact on 

your daily life?"

The biggest concern that us as American’s have is the Ukraine and Russian crisis over the Crimea. Our primary concern is that America had just finished 12 years of war in Iraq and Afghanistan and that we may get dragged into a military conflict with the Russians and more American lives will be lost. Obama and Putin had both issued very firm warnings to each other about interfering in the Ukraine crisis. Some of the threats that each other had made were about economic sanctions. The most serious threats came from Vladimir Putin he had threatened to outlaw the use of the U.S Dollar and also to dump between $200-300 Billion worth of American debt on the world market. Our next concern is that there is an American naval presence in the Black Sea and I worry that through some miscommunication or not that American forces will engage the Russian military. If we take a look at our history books we would see what is happening now is the same as it was in 1914 Europe, we see a rise in nationalism and each country in Europe has an economic and military alliance with other countries in Europe. I worry that a conflict with Russia will not just be between America and Russia but it will drag the entire world into a military conflict.

Whether economic sanctions or a military conflict that happens with the Ukraine crisis I believe we will see the collapse of the American dollar and the U.S dollar will no longer be the world reserve currency. This will have a significant impact on my family because the prices of food and fuel will increase. If we see the stock market collapse we will see unemployment numbers and percentages elevate higher than it was in 1929. In any crisis the importance is how we respond to it, for my family I will continue to increase food storage, medical supplies. If the crisis in the Ukraine escalates and food and fuel prices continue to increase my family will have to stop eating out at restaurants and restrict travel in order to save on fuel and purchase the things that we need.



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** The opinions shown are personal perspectives on preparedness, written by private citizens, and do not necessarily represent the opinion or views of the ISSS.