🥫 Pentagon VS NATO

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Three Minute Prepper - Pentagon Steps Back From NATO

Pentagon just announced cuts to US participation in NATO advisory groups. The move will affect about 200 military personnel and will mostly diminish US involvement in the alliance's 30 Centers of Excellence. These centers seek to train NATO forces on various elements of warfare. Rather than withdraw all at once, the Pentagon intends not to replace personnel as their postings end. This process could take years according to officials. Among the advisory groups facing cuts are those dedicated to the alliance's energy security and naval warfare. The Pentagon will also reduce its involvement in official NATO organizations dedicated to special operations and intelligence. Since Trump returned to office, the US military has pulled back from Europe as the administration presses allies there to take greater control of the continent's collective defense. Last year the Pentagon abruptly announced it would withdraw a brigade of troops from Romania and cut security aid programs to the three Baltic nations that border Russia. When empires start pulling personnel from advisory groups, when Centers of Excellence get defunded, when special operations and intelligence involvement gets reduced, those withdrawals are not strategic repositioning. Those withdrawals are empires contracting before they collapse.

More stores were permanently closed in the United States last year than ever before. A staggering 8,234 US stores permanently closed in 2025. That is 12% more than the previous year's total of 7,325 closures. This is the highest number ever recorded. We set the bar really high in 2024 and then we smashed that number by 12% in 2025. The fact that so many are being closed says a lot about where things are heading. This month there have been all sorts of signs that America's retail apocalypse is getting even worse. Francesca's has suddenly announced that all locations will be permanently closed and all inventory will be liquidated. Over 450 more stores are gone just like that. The parent company of Value City Furniture has decided that now is the time to permanently close all 89 of the stores that it runs. Macy's is currently closing 14 stores as part of a plan to shutter approximately 150 locations by the time we reach the end of this calendar year. Saks Global, the parent company of Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus and Bergdorf Goodman, filed for bankruptcy protection. GameStop is closing more than 470 stores nationwide to start 2026. Unless some sort of a miracle happens, we are going to shatter the all time record for store closings that we just set in 2025. When 8,234 stores close in single year, when iconic brands disappear overnight, when bankruptcy filings multiply across retail sector, those closures are not market corrections. Those closures are proof that middle class purchasing power has been destroyed.

Gold and silver price forecasts have become outlandish after analysts badly missed 2025. The 2026 Forecast Survey says that on average professional analysts and traders now see this year's average daily gold price rising by almost two fifths from 2025. The annual average price of silver is projected to double. Both of those silver and gold price forecasts are by far the most bullish average forecasts on the LBMA's Survey back to the early 2000s. Today's consensus gold forecast now projects a rise of $1,310 across 2026 to $4,742. This comes after analysts on average missed 2025's gold price rise of $1,045 per ounce by almost $700, a record bad miss. Last year's LBMA Survey consensus also missed silver's annual average outcome by a record. Now the 2026 predictions on average foresee a rise of 98.8% to more than $79.50. Gold touched $4,747 per ounce today with its seventh new daily high in 13 sessions so far this year. Gold bullion in global trading hub London has risen more than 75% since Trump was sworn in as the 47th President of the United States 12 months ago today. That is the sharpest ever 12 month move for gold prices under any US President other than the start of Richard Nixon's second term in 1973, which ended with his resignation over the Watergate scandal. When professional forecasters project silver doubling and gold rising by two fifths in single year, when those same forecasters missed last year by record margins, when metals post sharpest moves since Watergate, those forecasts are not bullish speculation. Those forecasts are analysts finally admitting what preppers already knew.

Pentagon withdraws from NATO while 8,234 stores close and gold rises 75% in 12 months. When all three happen same year, preppers who understood that empires contract before collapse, who recognized that retail apocalypse proves currency destruction, who stacked physical metals before analysts admitted defeat see convergence pattern. Alliances fracturing. Stores closing. Metals surging. Prepare accordingly.

Alex Simm

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