A simulation of a theory based catastrophe of global bankers collapsing the financial system was conducted fairly recently. There was a striking similarity between this event and the infamous “Event 201” that was held in late 2019.
Last month, high-ranking international banking representatives and organizations convened in Israel for a worldwide “war game” simulation portraying the global financial system’s downfall.
The tabletop experiment was similar to “Event 201,” a pandemic simulation drill held in October 2019, just before COVID-19 made its global debut.
Commencing December 9, 2021, the “Collective Strength” project was hosted at the Israeli Finance Ministry in Jerusalem for ten days. Reservations over the Omicron variant led to its relocation from the Dubai World Expo to Jerusalem.
Treasury officials from the United States, Austria, Germany, Italy, the Netherlands, Switzerland, Thailand, and the United Arab Emirates were among the ten countries represented amongst the Israel led contingent.
Supranational institutions such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank, and the Bank of International Settlements (BIS) were also represented.
The exercise, dubbed a “war game,” aimed to replicate the reaction to a variety of theoretical large-scale cyberattacks on the world financial framework, such as the leak of delicate financial data on the “Dark Web,” hacks designed to target the global foreign exchange system, and ensuing bank runs and market disarray largely driven by “fake news.”
The core emphasis of “Collective Strength” does seem to be the enhancement of worldwide collaboration in cybersecurity and the financial sector, rather than the simulation of such intrusions, as the proposal’s title suggests.
Participants in the exercise debated multilateral approaches to a possible global financial catastrophe, according to Reuters. Debt settlement grace periods, SWAP/REPO agreements, synchronized bank vacations, and coordinated delinking from major currencies were among the policy remedies proposed.
Because of it’s timing, the concept of simulated delinking from key currencies sparked several questions – around the same day that participants congregated to inaugurate “Collective Strength,” rumors surfaced that the Biden government was contemplating eliminating Russia from the global electronic-payment-messaging system recognized as SWIFT, abbreviation of Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication.
This step might be a component of a broader set of economic penalties imposed by the US if Russia attacks Ukraine.
The roster of participants in the “Collective Strength” simulations, which incorporates the IMF and World Bank, as well as the World Economic Forum (WEF) indirectly, could stir yet more concerns.
In October 2019, the World Economic Forum, in collaboration with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, held a simulated “Event 201.”
The WEF also backed the establishment of financial devices, including such credit and debit cards, which could very well track “personal carbon allowances” on a personal level.
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, in partnership with the World Economic Forum, released an executive summary in November 2020 that detailed the nature of circumstance that was simulated as part of “Collective Strength.”
Tim Maurer and Arthur Nelson, the report’s authors, depicted a globe witnessing ” an unprecedented digital transformation… accelerated by the coronavirus pandemic.”
“Cybersecurity is more important than ever” in this kind of a society, the authors contended.
The research described global financial system protection as a “organizational challenge,” noting that there is no single international entity in control of safeguarding the global financial system or its digital infrastructure.
The executive summary even described a “disconnect between the finance, the national security and the diplomatic communities.”
Maurer and Nelson came up with the following solutions:
- The requirement for “greater clarity” in terms of roles and obligations
- Strengthening international collaboration
- Enhancing “internationalization” and minimizing fragmentation across “siloed” financial firms
- Creating a framework that can be applied to unspecified “other” industries
But which “other” industries are we talking about?
