“A society that cannot imagine war will be defeated long before the first shot is fired.”
-adaptationguide.com
Prepared for the Worst: Why Crisis Planning Without War Is a Dangerous Illusion
Preparedness is widely accepted as sensible. Governments endorse it. Corporations nod along. Risk managers put it in PowerPoint decks. Everyone agrees—at least in theory—that planning for crises is good practice.
But what happens when everything gets worse at once?
Climate collapse. Aging societies. Fragile supply chains. Cyberattacks. Power outages. Extreme weather. And then, on top of it all, Donald Trump—again. Or someone like him. Or worse.
This is not a hypothetical risk landscape. It is the one we are already living in.
The uncomfortable truth is this: there is no master plan for crisis preparedness. Not for states. Not for companies. Certainly not for small businesses. Expecting one is a fantasy—comforting, paralyzing, and dangerous.
Small enterprises have zero chance of protecting themselves against every conceivable shock. Even large corporations rarely prepare beyond what feels immediately urgent. And war—the mother of all crises—remains largely taboo.
Speak too plainly about it, and you’ll be accused of panic-mongering.
So we pretend it isn’t coming.
But closing your eyes is not a strategy
Military experts increasingly agree that Russia could be capable of directly attacking a NATO member as early as 2029. That is not a fringe opinion. It is discussed openly in defense circles.
Germany could be pulled into war through alliance obligations—or become a direct target itself.
What would that mean for daily life? For factories? For hospitals? For logistics? For food supply? For electricity?
No one really dares to imagine it. And that lack of imagination is precisely what dulls our awareness of the danger.
Politicians have begun, cautiously, to change their language. “We are not at war, but we are no longer at peace”—a phrase now repeated so often it risks becoming meaningless. Even Chancellor Friedrich Merz has used it.
But the reason for that formulation is deadly serious.
Because the war has already started.
Welcome to the hybrid war you were told not to worry about
Airspace violations. Sabotaged undersea cables in the Baltic Sea. GPS interference. Drones over ports, industrial facilities, and military bases. Attacks on power infrastructure. Cyber intrusions into IT systems. Bridges. Arms manufacturers.
These are not isolated incidents.
They are the daily texture of a hybrid war that has been unfolding quietly, deliberately, and with plausible deniability. A slow-burn conflict designed to be ignored—until the day it suddenly can’t be.
History shows how this ends: the danger is dismissed as exaggerated right up until the moment when everything changes at once.
Preparedness means forcing yourself to imagine the breaking point
Real crisis planning starts with a brutally simple exercise:
What happens to our organization on the day the lights go out?
Who gathers reliable information?
Who makes decisions when communication is disrupted?
Who has legal authority?
Who speaks publicly?
Who keeps people fed, warm, paid, calm?
These questions sound boring. They are not.
They expose chaos.
Many organizations would discover—too late—that their internal rules collapse under stress. That authority is unclear. That contingency plans assume normal conditions. That no one actually knows what happens if the state intervenes.
And yes—intervention is legally prepared.
Few people realize that Germany’s emergency laws, passed decades ago, allow for measures that would currently be unthinkable. Including restrictions on the constitutional freedom to choose one’s profession.
In a real emergency, the market does not decide.
The state does.
The part nobody wants to talk about: people
True crisis preparedness immediately collides with ethical and legal minefields.
In wartime, skills matter more than job titles.
Who has medical training?
Who can drive heavy trucks?
Who understands logistics?
Who has military experience?
Who is a reservist?
Who volunteers with emergency services?
And the darker questions:
Who might be reassigned—or forcibly redirected?
Who has foreign ties?
Who has relationships that could become liabilities?
Who becomes indispensable?
Who becomes expendable?
Collecting this information is almost impossible under current data protection rules. And even trying will trigger suspicion, resentment, and fear. People do not like being evaluated for usefulness in a crisis they’re told won’t happen.
Yet ignoring these realities doesn’t make them disappear.
Thinking about war makes you better prepared for everything else
Here’s the paradox:
Planning seriously for war improves preparedness for all crises.
Organizations that dare to run these scenarios often discover glaring vulnerabilities:
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Skills gaps requiring immediate training
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Critical personnel shortages
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Fragile supply chains with no redundancy
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IT systems that fail under stress
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Energy dependencies with no backup
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Business models that collapse the moment “normal” ends
The conclusions are rarely comfortable.
Sometimes the result is more staff.
Sometimes it’s stockpiling.
Sometimes it’s diversifying suppliers.
Sometimes it’s installing independent power generation.
Sometimes it’s rewriting the entire business model.
Preparedness is adaptation—or extinction.
Why nobody wants this job
Crisis preparedness is deeply unattractive work.
It consumes time.
It costs money.
It produces no visible success.
There are no bonuses for disasters that don’t happen.
At best, someone might notice afterward that things went less badly than expected.
Meanwhile, praise flows to those who increase profits during calm periods. The incentive structure is upside down—and everyone knows it.
That is why crisis preparedness cannot be delegated.
Not to compliance.
Not to security officers.
Not to consultants.
Not to committees.
Preparedness is about survival.
And survival is always a leadership responsibility.
From corporate resilience to everyday survival
This logic doesn’t stop at boardrooms. It applies to households, neighborhoods, and individuals.
Real preparedness looks like this:
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Knowing how to function without electricity for days
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Having food that doesn’t require a working supply chain
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Understanding basic first aid and trauma care
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Being able to communicate without the internet
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Knowing your neighbors—and their skills
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Having cash when payment systems fail
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Understanding how propaganda works in crises
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Being mentally prepared for disruption, not denial
Preparedness is not paranoia.
It is literacy in reality.
The lie we are still telling ourselves
We are clinging to a comforting myth: that catastrophe will arrive with warning, clarity, and leadership.
It won’t.
It will arrive through glitches, shortages, confusion, denial, and arguments about whether it’s really happening yet.
By the time consensus forms, options will be gone.
Preparedness does not mean wanting disaster.
It means refusing to be infantilized by optimism.
And yes—thinking seriously about war is disturbing.
But not thinking about it is worse.
Because the systems we depend on are already cracking.
And the bill for pretending otherwise will be paid—later, all at once, by everyone.
yours truly,
Adaptation-Guide
