In case you weren’t paying attention during the Arab Spring or when the Soviet Union collapsed, you have a brand new opportunity to watch a country collapse under the weight of popular protests. I’m talking about Iran, of course, which instituted a total internet shutdown on Thursday so that the rest of the world won’t be able to see how bad things are inside the country as millions of protestors in more than 180 cities in all 31 provinces chant anti-government slogans while marching on administrative buildings.
This internet information blackout is not new. Iran also shut down internet access during its war with Israel and has suppressed Internet and various phone apps to fight prior protests. But it has other consequences, such as disrupting phone services and shutting down ATMs. The latter might be good for the regime as it slows down the bank runs.
But the communications blackout was the tip of the iceberg. The country supposedly told banks earlier this month to send all their gold to one central location. There are unconfirmed reports Iran is shipping all or most of its $44 billion in gold to Russia on Russian cargo planes for “safekeeping.” Translation: to keep it out of the hands of successor governments and to buy the Iranian political and religious leaders protection and a pleasant life in Russia.
Right now, the world is holding its breath to see if the government will kill thousands to suppress the protests or flee.
Preppers Should Watch for These Danger Signs
The Digital Kill Switch
This kind of internet shutdown is an obvious sign that the government is struggling to control the populace. In this case, it is also trying to keep the news of hundreds of deaths from reaching the U.S. and creating a reason for Trump to bomb Iranian leadership and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC).
Shutting down the internet might have worked when the protests were in their infancy, but the protests have since taken on a life of their own, and coordination via app is not as necessary as it once was. Still, if you see a college shut down Wi-Fi, a celebrity shut down all their public-facing social media, or a country block the Internet, it means there is already trouble and someone expects it to get worse.
Opinions vary on whether the U.S. has an Internet kill switch. I doubt it because too much of our society depends on internet connectivity. Killing the Internet would disable so much of society that it would cause the very collapse leaders would be trying to prevent.
Censorship, however, is a horse of another color. We already saw how the government exerted pressure on social media companies during COVID to squash information that did not align with government propaganda.
If you see mass outages of phone and internet systems across multiple networks, consider it a serious warning sign that something is wrong. The longer it lasts, the worse the problem.
If censorship raises its head, or if all the media sources suddenly appear in lockstep on a single issue, consider that a warning sign, too.
Surviving Bank Runs, Gold Flight, and Currency Collapse
Last year, Iran saw 43 percent inflation, and that’s at official rates. On the black market, its currency plummeted more than twice as much. If that wasn’t bad enough, a secret memo from the Central Bank of Iran instructing major banks to implement immediate emergency and contingency plans was leaked to the media earlier this month. If something similar happens in your home country, consider going to the bank and making a big withdrawal. Doing so may allow you to beat the coming bank run.
Bank runs, like protests, are a sign the populace is losing faith in the economy, financial institutions, and the government. The current protests in Iran started because of bad economic conditions, high inflation, and distrust of the government. The government had just lost face by losing a war with Israel, having its nuclear facilities bombed by the U.S., and seeing its proxies Hezbollah and Hamas rendered ineffective by assassination, exploding pagers, and military attacks. When Iran lost the war, its military might was revealed to be an illusion, much like the emperor’s new clothes. That visible weakness or vulnerability appears to be a contributing factor in the success of these current protests.
If you see a combination of factors—bank runs and food shortages, political strife and high unemployment (especially among the “angry” youth), currency collapse and political vulnerability—then batten down the hatches. While a government might withstand one of these issues, two or more increase the chances of a governmental or societal collapse.
Food Shortages are Another Warning Sign
Ensuring an adequate food supply for the populace is considered one of the basic jobs of government, and when they fail to do so, the governments may fail as well. Consider empty shelves in the grocery aisle a warning sign that something is wrong and may get worse before it gets better. I’m not talking about one food group—like eggs or beef—but multiple, from canned goods to fresh vegetables.
Not all food shortages are caused by government mismanagement. A third of Russia’s wheat harvest was destroyed by drought and high heat in 2010, leading to food shortages in many countries. That doesn’t matter to the populace.
Many protests during the Arab Spring were caused by food shortages and/or rapidly rising prices of food. For example, bread prices tripled in Egypt. The protests in Iran are sometimes called the Bread Rebellion because people are protesting the high cost of food.
Intelligent Iranians are stocking up on food, causing empty shelves in supermarkets. The smartest ones did so well before these protests hit.
As preppers, our prepper pantries should be full and our long-term food storage in place. Food storage remains a foundational must-have for preppers. As a new prepper, it should be the first thing you work on. As an experienced prepper, you need to stay on top of it, rotate out the old, and build your supplies. You can never have too much food.
What to do When you Spot Warning Signs
In a fast-moving scenario like the Iranian collapse, intelligence is your first line of defense. By the time the government or the media admits there is a problem, you’ll be stuck with the masses instead of ahead of the curve.
So if you spot one or more of the above warning signs, what should you do? Here are my suggestions, based in large part on my plan.
Cancel Travel Plans
If you are on the road, go home. If you are at home, stay close to home. Avoid travel by plane or other conveyance you do not control. Limit vehicle travel to less than 125 miles (a quarter tank of gas), unless you are going to your bugout location. Keep gas tanks filled.
If the kids are at school, don’t rush them home unless the sky is falling. Keep things as normal as possible to avoid alarming them.
Go Armed
If you are usually armed, go heavy. For me, heavy means a backup concealed carry piece and a 9mm AR pistol in the vehicle in addition to the AR in the contractor’s box on the back. An alternative might be the Shockwave in the vehicle if someone is “riding shotgun.” The advantage of these shorter weapons is that they are easier to use in the confined space of a vehicle. Try to avoid shooting through your windshield, and be sure you are wearing ballistic-certified eyewear.
Make Last Minute Preps
For us, that means buying chicken feed, hitting the ATM or bank while we are out, and doing a big shopping run for things like fresh vegetables, meat, cheese, butter, and other items with shelf lives measured in weeks rather than years. It also means filling the gas tanks of every motorized device and then topping off the cars and refilling empty gas cans.
Depending on the severity of the problem, the timeline, and the results of the next step, we might place online orders for extra supplies to be shipped to us.
Contact your Prepper Buddies
Discuss the warning signs with them and any family that is aware of your prepping activities. If you are bugging out to their place or they are bugging out to yours, touch bases. Is this the time to bug out? If not, what is the trigger? Remember, better to be safe than sorry.
Make sure your local prepper friends are aware of the warning signs and discuss “what if” scenarios with them. Encourage them to make last-minute preps.
Execute, then Evaluate
In our case, I expect many of these activities will be combined. If the cell phone network is up, I’ll throw my gun into the truck and call our prepper buddies while on the road to stock up on chicken feed. Then I’ll call my daughters on the way home or when I am making our run to fill the gas cans.
Once you’ve made these preps, re-evaluate. Are things getting worse? Are we in a holding pattern? Did new information come out, or did something else happen that might distract people?
If you have kids in school, you have to decide whether to send them to school the next day. Same with going to work. If I commuted by train over a long bridge or through a tunnel, I’d come up with a personal emergency that required me to work from home. An illness can also do the trick, for you and your kids.
At some point, things will get worse or better. You can take the next steps or relax your guard a little, depending.
