To All SNS Members:

Our plan for this week was to issue a Global Report on the questions nearly everyone is posing today: What's Next?  Whether you are an investor, manager, pollitician, or just plain curious, the world is waiting and worrying about the answer to that question.  

But something happened during my writing of this issue which changed both the size of the task, and its subject importance.  In starting with what the media call the Trade War, and which we call the Tariff War, it rapidly became clear during research and pattern analysis that these titles and thoughts were insufficient to the challenges the world now faces.

Why are so many things going wrong at once?  Why are so many areas of enterprise and investment suddenly fraught with concern and uncertainty?  

Are there, in fact, ANY areas of current living that are not?

It was at this point, after much serious thought, that I came to the conclusion that we are not even in what we've been calling an "economic war."  

Specifically, one should ask, Why do countries go to war?  Answer: Money, power, territory.  China's model has provided a path to all three, without firing a shot.  In fact, in the traditional sense of war, it is the last thing China wants (since it would lose).  

If one fights wars to get these three things, and China has found a way to get them without traditional warfare, where does that leave us?  First, that China will never declare war with its victims; after all, it needs them.  And second, that we should, if not declare war, at least recognize that we are already engaged in a state of war.

And while I deeply respect those in the Pentagon and armed forces everywhere, who insist on using the term only when live ammunition is involved, next week we will be describing the fact that we are now at war. 

I am writing to you on a Friday, a day one does not dedicate to the publishing of important issues.  I would ask you to forgive us therefore for putting this discussion forward until early next week, when I hope you will take the time to read your next volume of the Global Report: "SNS: At War"

Your comments are always welcome.

Sincerely,

Mark Anderson