Whatever your medium-term plans are, get them done soon

So, if you're planning to build a shed or carport, or paving the driveway, or restoring that vehicle, or building that race car, buying that new PHEV or BEV, or even setting up that high-end gaming rig, it might not be a bad idea to get it done while labour and materials and components remain somewhat affordable and somewhat available.

And if you were hoping to travel, especially to a country that isn't likely to be on our side (from a militaristic point of view at least), then go and visit it before they get any more afraid of westerners, or any less safe to travel to, or any less affordable for everyone (although, for a few obvious unsafe examples it's already too late for this idea).

I realise this may be starting to sound a bit alarmist so let me explain my reasoning.

COVID-related precautions should be taken whatever that plan is, but the world's international relationships are changing and it seems to be turning into a two-sided us-versus-them situation like much of the 20^th century experienced. That is not only going to affect military decisions and travel, but also trade relationships with sanctions being weaponised like never before, affecting the global economy, manufacturing and supply chains more than COVID has already.

Global food supplies are also likely to be under pressure soon, with Ukraine unable to export (or in many fields for at least a season, grow anything) what is usually a significant percentage of the world's crops, and Russia is not likely to be exporting much either if its imports remain restricted (a nation has to feed itself before it can export the surplus to anyone who is in need of it).

As demonstrated recently through AUKUS we continue a close military relationship with the USA, Britain and their allies, and in August 2019 Australia and NATO signed a renewed partnership agreement, so that makes the list of other nations who will be on our side and friendly to us a bit clearer.

While we can live in hope that Russia's attack on Ukraine will end by the time you've read this, it's not likely and even if it did, the disruption would still be felt for quite some time. Russia appears to be in this for the long haul though. They exerted their sphere of influence as much as they could on their neighbours before implementing this part of their overall security strategy.

That strategy is to essentially restore that sphere of influence out to the USSR's borders because of the protection the geography (particularly the mountain ranges over there) provides against conventional warfare. They also perceive NATO as an existential threat and more than one academic has said that expanding NATO rather than disbanding it after the Cold War was a huge mistake. Others argue that Russia would have wanted to extend its sphere of influence back out to where it was regardless. So fear on both sides (America and Russia) seems to have been exactly what made those fears come true.

Russia also spent the last several years (at least) building up a colossal reserve of gold and foreign currency, they have one of the lowest debt-to-GDP ratios of any nation, and they ensured that western Europe especially was absolutely reliant on their carbon energy resources, especially gas and oil (so at the start of 2022, western Europe was buying almost a billion euros worth of gas and oil per day which is very difficult to pivot away from).

Russia has also formed an alliance with China, who themselves might just make the so-called developed world regret giving them preferential treatment to pull themselves out of poverty (just to be clear, the World Bank giving them low-cost loans was ethically the right thing to do, allowing relationships with China to turn sour again was not).

China would also, long term, like to finish what it started in the civil war after they forced the previous government to retreat to Taiwan (who today still produce most of the world's microchips) at the end of 1949. And the USA is even more focussed on that tension than anything else, continuing to offer protection to Taiwan and other allies in the South China Sea, which China is also trying to claim way too much of. And Australia has already chosen sides in that one.