My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.
preamble
After an uncertain beginning to this second major period of hostilities, we can now see the overall plan for either side.
For the Americans, their fire has been primarily focussed on southern Iran, where they have been attempting to break Iran’s control of Hormuz by a steady campaign of striking both military and civilian sites. Additionally, it looks like the US is attempting to shape the battlefield around Bandas Abbas and Qeshm Island for some kind of incursion, as we have seen bridges and tunnels in the vicinity struck by missiles. The key word there is “attempting”, because there are several things wrong with this plan both tactically and strategically.
Tactically, Iran has demonstrated the ability to very quickly get their transportation infrastructure repaired, and the US simply isn’t firing volleys in the required amounts - and towards the right targets (they’re using several missiles on purely civilian targets, like fishing boats) - to meaningfully degrade Iranian control of even this sector of the coastline. Additionally, an amphibious assault on Qeshm Island in the style of the WW2 Pacific theater is essentially impossible unless Iran, for whatever reason, allowed it. The gauntlet that any ship holding Marines would have to run to get to the island precludes this, let alone also transporting heavy weaponry and materiel for resupply. Using helicopter-borne troops or paratroopers would be much more feasible, but runs into even greater logistical problems if the US wanted to do anything there other than a brief skirmish before withdrawing. Strategically, even if the US waved a magic wand and took Qeshm Island, it’s unclear what this would do to fulfill war aims. The most obvious intention would be to trade it back to Iran in return for a major Iranian concession, but what if you take the island, you call up Iran saying “Alright, let’s get this deal running! First, I want no Hormuz tolls–” and Iran just… hung up, and kept firing drones and missiles and artillery at your forces on the island until they either all died or were forced to retreat? It’s not a tenable position to hold, and Iran’s capabilities to affect shipping in Hormuz are obviously not all concentrated on one single island.
So, what is Iran’s strategy? It’s what one analyst (Amerikanets) has termed “debasification”. If the first phase of the war from late February to mid-April was focussed primarily on generally destroying and disrupting the US’s military infrastructure in the region, what this second phase has planned is something more like a region-wide missile advance. Starting from the Gulf states and their US bases, the plan is to push back American planes and soldiers to further and further afield bases and thereby make sorties against Iran take much more time, fuel, and use more resupply planes. Iranian strikes are, as of me writing this, concentrated on Jordan, where a recent Iranian strike caused the first admission of soldier deaths in quite some time. The Iranian goal is clearly to push back all US planes to at least the Zionist entity, by which point, unless they are withdrawn further back all the way to Europe, the planes will all be so concentrated on so few bases that it will become a physical impossibility to get them all scrambled before Iranian strikes hit. Compared to the US’s strategy, Iran’s is immediately bearing fruit, with US strikes already very limited in intensity compared to the first phase of the war months ago. The irony of the US breaking off negotiations - again! - to pursue a new strategy that already looks to be profoundly failing is truly some inspired stuff; the genocidal architects of American imperium in the mid-20th century are rolling in their graves.
Last week’s thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists’ 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
Content isn’t crank but the presentation is
Vintage MS paint aesthetic
Richard Medhurst has better analysis that arrives at a similiar conclusion.
Richard Medhurst has gone full defeatism ever since the fall of Assad. Every single tweet he posts is either him claiming US dominance, or him calling out another person for daring to have faith in those who fight back against the empire. I had to stop following him because it’s gotten really tiresome.
Why would a Syrian refugee not go into full doomerism about Palestine being genocided, 70% of Gaza under Israeli occupation, 20% of Lebanon, massive chunks of Syria, West Bank on its way to completely being annexed, his home nation and family members being taken over by Zionist ISIS agents who slaughter anyone who is correct or good, being arrested and extradited to multiple countries over his coverage of said genocides, nobody really helping him and then endless inability of the anti-imperialist world governments to realize the scale and extent of the imperialist threat and continued working with them and collaborating. I would be fucking railing at the idiots pretending everything is going according to plan and victory is imminent too, who think America will just end itself and China just needs to sit back and do nothing and Iran will escalate to a war which destroys Israel instead of making compromises. Greater Israel seems like it’s still going to happen to me, unless a world coalition led by China, Iran and Russia forms to destroy them - which I don’t see anybody doing.
His overall analysis has taken a nosedive. Just look at this: https://xcancel.com/richimedhurst/status/2077727549564526675. It’s unironically “don’t siege Leningrad, just take it immediate” with anti-imperialist characteristics. Not sure how a hypothetical nuclear power Iran is supposed to transport nuclear warheads from Iran to Venezuela without the USN just sinking the ship carrying those warheads.
Yeah that part is a bit silly. I do see his point about the lack of preparation on Venezuela’s part for US intervention. Iran however has been developing indigenous non-nuclear deterrent over the course of half a century and has now only had its first opportunity to prove it.
Richard is criminally insane, potentially a neuralink test subject. The cure? Beatings. From every group chat available
This is an amusing response, what is the background?
The main guy who posts on here is going no contact w me again, I believe for fun, so this is just off the top of my head. I’m not clear what insigated this crazy doom spiral. I would lean towards “grapheneOS is not quite secure and richard got got”. My supervisor said he was like this on breakthrough news before and this is the logical progression. Note that he sent that to me from his grapheneOS phone maybe he is coping idk
👆 Richard is literally an entertainer.
He is more correct than not, and Marmite can attest to the level of bullshit and cope in the alt infosphere about supposed American incompetence. He’s going a bit deep into doomerism, but whomst amongst us hasn’t - especially when frustrated with ostriches with their heads in the sand.
Would someone who was decrying and dooming over the collapse of the USSR not be treated more sympathetically here? What Richard is witnessing is the genocide and destruction of his home region. Russia, Iran, Hezbollah lost in Syria vs. Israel, Turkey, USA and ISIS. It was a straight up defeat and massive disgusting multi decade setback that resulted in even more genocide and Zionist lackeyism. It seemingly caught the alt infosphere completely off guard and snatched defeat out of the jaws of victory. He is viscerally connected to the destruction in a way most here are not.
If you believe the alt infosphere, F35s are jokes that don’t fly in rain and are totally useless. Like come on, they are being used to decimate nations with anti-air systems with extremely minimal losses. We can end the bullshit already. Yes the US is a paper tiger in many ways but they are also the most capable and advanced military in human history (in absolute, not relative, terms). They usually aren’t great at achieving their stated strategic objectives, but the amazing thing is it doesn’t matter really because of how they are positioned and how they pick their battles and what their true strategic objectives are. Even if they lose it’s a stalemate for them effectively, and any victory is a nice bonus. It benefits imperialism to just destroy a bunch of capital and halt development in an area, which is guaranteed. They are always on the offensive, in distant lands, with regional support and local extremists and reactionaries. That’s not an accident, they worked hard to get that and if they didn’t have it they would not be picking the fight.
This isn’t as mutually exclusive as you think it is.
Highly complex engineering designs are difficult and costly to maintain. The F35 program has had so many disasters caught on camera - outside of any combat.
But when the maintenance is done and done properly, the complex design helps it to do things other fighter jets can’t.
The combat readiness of complex designs also degrades much faster than simpler ones.
What was it, 4 hours of maintenance for every 1 hour of an F-15 flight? And then 10 hours for the F-35.
This isn’t a perfect number where if you maintain on schedule - you would always catch the damage or defect on time. Sometimes defects can be lethal.
Even with the massive overspending and boondoggles, the final product is still the most sophisticated and advanced even if the value per dollar is terrible. The US Navy and Air Force has a lot of mechanics, more maintenance hours per flight hour just means they need to spend more to hire and train more mechanics and get more F35s. You can’t easily attrition down a system that makes profit from war, it loves more destroyed or damaged products - that means more demand for replacements, it loves more proprietary maintenance - that’s more ongoing profits. As long as the infinite money printer goes brrr, the US can just dedicate more and more of its resources and workforce to running its military until it hits some kind of material limit.
There is a giant AI bubble that’s drawing skilled labour away from the defense industry.
And China’s ban on rare earths is a material limit.
And the US running out of refueling planes due to Iranian strikes - as well as losing oil in their reserves is another material limit.
Their depleting standoff munitions that help them avoid SAMbushes is another material and labour limit.
Don’t just handwave away the troubles of the empire’s wunderwaffe.
It’s true.
One of the few positives is that Iran isn’t making it as easy as expected, which is paralysing and depleting the US more than they bargained for. Iran and Russia are two of the most effective non-empire militaries and they’re still just buying time in a stalemate.
The world is changing, but right now the best countries can do with, immense effort, is make themselves unpalatable to chew on. It’s still not a real fight, but it’s better than the alternative.
i argue countries could do more but it would disrupt their porkies. China/Russia/Iran/DPRK and a few others could integrate all defenses, extend nuclear umbrellas, sign a formal military alliance to become a bloc and start mass producing for total war and getting serious about cutting off Israeli and US and European exports if they fully reacted appropriately to the incoming threat of war against them - but instead they are still in denial about it, trying to not form alliances and trying to not disrupt trade and still relying on diplomacy to save them when it will not. Think about how Belarus and Russia have integrated, that could be done at a much larger and more urgent scale but we see nothing. We saw no serious push for de-dollarization on the economic front either when the iron was hot.
The one key point here you’re forgetting is manufacturing capability accumulation by China vs US. Every year that passes, China improves its energy independence, its manufacturing volume and precision, its international standing, and the reliance of third parties to Chinese manufacturing. The NATO block simply cannot say the same: manufacturing capabilities are at best maintained and at worse degraded, they continue to be equally reliant on external energy, and they lose economic power over the rest of the world. 20 years ago, economic sanctioning of a country by the US spelled doom. Nowadays, the DPRK example proves that this isn’t the case anymore.
The longer China delays this conflict, the better position it will be in at the start.
Me. Who is marmite? I have never gone through a cycle of panic over this until I realized we were actually looking at a potential WWIII scenario this year, like 5 days ago. Low likelihood but still.
If you’re still following this through discourse rather than directly scraping news sites etc yourself that’s sus at this point. With an RSS feed you are a solid 72 hours ahead of people like Richard even starting their bullshit.
Never meet your guys who made that one video.