There is a currency war, insists Gerald Celente, editor and publisher of the Trends Journal, and it’s going to degenerate into all out combat.

Celente's declaration and forecast stand in sharp contrast to those of global finance leaders who are aiming to bury concerns about a currency war, as the act of competitive currency devaluation is called.

At last weekend's G-20 meeting, the finance leaders promised to “refrain from competitive [currency] devaluation.”

Declassified: ‘Financial War’ Could Wipe Out 50% of Your Wealth’

“It’s quite clear … that everyone around the table wants to avoid any sort of currency dispute,” Canadian Finance Jim Flaherty told reporters, according to Reuters.

“We all agreed on the fact that we refuse to enter any currency war,” Reuters said French Minister Pierre Moscovici told reporters.

“Who are they kidding?” Celente asked.

“The only reason the world economies — the United States, Europe and even China — are doing anything is because of all the cheap money they are dumping into the system. But they don't call it currency wars. They have white shoe boy names for them,” he told Yahoo.

Names such as OMT, or Outright Monetary Transactions, and QE, or quantitative easing, sound nicer. They sound “proper,” he noted. But Celente said these programs and efforts by the likes of Japan and Venezuela to devalue their currency are part of a currency war that is definitely occurring.

If he is correct, many would cite much cause for concern, as this type of competitive action is considered risky. According to Celente, it is more than that. It's disastrous because history shows that the outcome of a currency war is world war.

“Japan during the 30s went off the gold standard. [They] lowered their currency. It devalued 60 percent against the dollar, 40 percent against the pound sterling. It was a trade war that was first, then the world war,” Celente said.

Now he points to the same cycle. There was the great global recession of 2008. That was followed by a depression that is occurring in much of the world right now, in places like Spain, Portugal, Greece, Slovenia and even a lot of America, he explained.

He encourages a look around that globe at the other events that are also occurring. There is combat in places like Syria and Yemen. There is class warfare in Portugal and Spain.

“The world wars are already beginning. People are ignoring the facts,” Celente said.

Look at the trade sanctions against China and the complaints, which have “quadrupled.” And then too Japan is back tinkering with their currency again. Driving down the value is helping to boost exports, but simultaneously it drives up the cost of their imports.

“These are only financial games when they lose all else they take you to war. It's a repeat of history,” Celente declared.

Declassified: ‘Financial War’ Could Wipe Out 50% of Your Wealth’