Now in our second week of the conflict, we have seen continuing damage to both Israel and Iran, as well as direct US intervention which nonetheless seems to have caused limited damage to Fordow and little damage to Iran's nuclear program. Regime change seems more elusive than ever, as even Iranians previously critical of the government now rally around it as they are attacked by two rabid imperialists at once. And Iran's government is tentatively considering a withdrawal, or at minimum a reconsideration, of their membership to the IAEA and the NPT. And, of course, the Strait of Hormuz is still a tool in their arsenal.
A day or so on from the strike on Fordow, we have so far seen basically no change in strategy from the Iranian military as they continue to strike Israel with small barrages of missiles. Military analysts argue furiously - is this a deliberate strategy of steady attrition on Israel, or indicative of immense material constraints on Iran? Are the hits by Israel on real targets, or are they decoys? Does Iran wish to develop a nuke, or are they still hesitating? Will Iran and Yemen strike at US warships and bases in response to the attack, or will they merely continue striking only Israel?
And perhaps most importantly - will this conflict end diplomatically due to a lack of appetite for an extended war (to wit: not a peace but a 20 year armistice) or with Israel forced into major concessions including an end to their genocide? Or even with a total military/societal collapse of either side?
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel's destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news.
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don't want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it's just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists' side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR's former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR's forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster's telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a 'propaganda tax', if you don't believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
The 5% GDP military spending thing is really insane, probably just trump doing his classic hard-sell tactic again, because at that point you're really just spending money for spending money's sake.
Just note that when Portugal was fighting a 3 front colonial war its military spending peaked at 4.5% in 1968
These NATO countries are heavily reliant on US weapons manufacturers, so it's basically just a protection racket.
It should be pointed out European countries can waste 5% GDP on military spending, but that doesn't automatically translate to industrial capacity for weapons and munitions or increased recruitment
Most likely the money will flow into American MIC grift schemes and parallel sectors that are most easily financialized
What's stopping the American MIC, which is still the sole producer of most of the state of the art weapons in the NATO Arsenal, from just jacking up prices on exports? Does NATO even have bylaws regulation the procurement of allied weaponry to avoid that?
NATO countries are required to spend more money, but there's no increased production to spend the money on. We're gonna see some wild price tags
The 5% GDP figure is insane. I can see countries leaving NATO over it once Europe's economic fallow bites hard.
It's almost as if the plan is to rearm and make sure no one else can develop rather than attempt to keep pace.
I doubt it. They'll just cut benefits to pay for it like they always do. Neolibs only have one playbook
example: abundance
In addition to the obvious MIC graft, the US wants Europe to be capable of antagonizing Russia on their own, while the US has their hands full with China.
and btw, wtf is a spending goal lol? just throwing away money in hopes of reaching some nebulous goal instead of actually making an efficient military
It is telling that they use the metric of "how much money are you spending" especially when the unsaid part is "how much money are you spending on american weapons/grifts"
The goal isn't to have x number of trained soldiers, y number of operational vehicles, logistical capabilities, or any other number of ways to measure military readiness, but to spend a ridiculous amount of money on (mostly American but also French/British/etc) boondoggles that don't actually work
yeah this is just imposing tribute on imperial vassals with extra steps
This'll probably result in more programs like the f35. Internationally too big to fail and requiring years to fix things that should have been managed properly from the beginning.
once you use a metric as a target it just loses all meaning. Spend 2.3% GDP on your military apart from one (1) bullet from a state-owned supplier that costs the other 2.7%. Reimburse the cost with some accounting tricks and you're golden!
To be sustainable they need to open up at least a few new meat grinders
Also paid for in Euros. I know ECB buys up member debt now but I don't think they'll like Portugal to spend 5% of GDP on military without cuts elsewhere.
The way that this is being discussed here is that the EU won't complain about borrowed money that is used for these military boondogles and the gov is saying that they won't need to cut social services, it's very hard to believe
Apartheid south africa 1989 4% of GDP and 13% of total government expenditure
It is completely maddening to witness. No other kind of public spending worlds like that. Nobody is saying that we have to spend at least X percent of GDP on healthcare or Y percent on education.
It is a way of spending that belies a lack of real purpose beyond power projection itself. It invites waste and corruption. They did not start out identifying problems, analysing them, coming up with probably solutions and then asking what funding would be needed to make those solutions happen — they just did "line must go up!" instead.
And nobody are asking them who is going to pay for all this. But we know who are. It is not the rich. We're going to see worse healthcare, less elder care, less teachers per student, hollowed out pensions and social safety nets. More children will grow up poor and more elderly are going to be cold because of this. It is a fucking disgrace.