Image is from the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists’ recent article on Kashmir.
It looks like the spat between India and Pakistan could be dying down, due to a new ceasefire. As of the time of me writing this paragraph, it seems both sides want to maintain it (despite some reports of violations here and there).
Both sides have declared victory, which is completely expected given their mutual political parties and nationalist histories. It’s a little harder to say which side has actually won, as both sides seem to have managed to shoot down aircraft and hit military bases. India has, in my opinion, had the more embarrassing moments, but international conflicts aren’t cringe compilations. I feel no good-will towards Pakistan’s comprador government, but it is at least nice to see Modi knocked down a few pegs. Regardless of the final technical victor, it’s obvious that - if the ceasefire is maintained - who won are the hundreds of millions of people who won’t have to live in fear of dying in nuclear hellfire.
This conflict is a good example of what multipolarity will truly entail. Countries that have been previously limited in their nationalist ambitions by American pressure will now take opportunities to revolt, sometimes against America itself, and sometimes against other countries in their regional neighbourhood. It’s also why, as communists, our goals do not stop at multipolarity; it is merely the establishing act of a new era of agitation against peripheral and semi-peripheral capitalist countries that are forming powerful national bourgeoisie classes as the international American capitalists are forced away.
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.
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.
China repeatedly fumbling the bag won’t save the US from its numerous internal contradictions and if China refuses to step up, there will eventually be other actors that will step up instead. It’s a bit chauvinistic to suggest that the fate of the world rests solely on the shoulders of China and if China shrugged its shoulder, then the whole world might as well not bother fighting.
The AES is a great counterexample to this. They don’t take cues from China at all, going so far as to expel a couple of Chinese nationals from Niger because those Chinese nationals were fucking up. They take their inspiration from Thomas Sankara and overall have warmer relations with Russia than China. The AES has already exceeded what Sankara has done because Sankara only led a single country while the AES is three countries working together.
The US is at the stage of every declining empire where it is/will soon face a massive crisis. In its attempts to weather the storm, the declining empire has to either completely reorganize itself and resolve some of its internal contradictions or face destruction. The US civil war was this massive crisis with reconstruction being the potential reorganization that would’ve prolonged the empire, mainly by resolving the internal contradiction of the masses of Black people as an internal colony with massive potential for insurgency and instability. But the empire was ideologically incapable of integrating Black people within the largely settler-colonial project, so the internal contradiction still remains and the rot continues to spread.
You’re more optimistic than me and I appreciate that. However, we cannot just be making rhetoric without also confronting the material reality of the situation.
The world has spent the last few decades creating a “global supply chain” that feeds into a system where the US is at its source, running a huge deficit. Countries that extract raw materials, countries that export manufacturing goods etc. have all been integrated into this “global supply chain” where the initial source of spending came from the US, that drives the global economic activity.
There is simply no alternative that can replace this supply chain, or at least, the major countries are not invested in it (except maybe Russia) because they have been the beneficiaries of this very imbalanced system.
So, who can step up if not China? Russia tried its best to cancel Africa’s debt ($23 billion) but clearly it is too weak to do anything substantial. Africa has ~$800 billion debt and the only country that has the amount of dollar reserves being supported by a strong enough industrial economy to actually pay off the debt for the entire African continent is China.
China has 31% of the global manufacturing capacity (US 18%, EU and Japan 5% each, for comparison) and the only country that can challenge US dominance. If China doesn’t want to step up to import the global supply of export goods, then most of the exporting economies will have to compete with China, and they will lose. The end result is the poor countries having their economies going into recession or even depression (because their export-led growth model is no longer working) and become subjects of IMF bailouts. The US finance capital still wins, and China is merely being used as a weapon to destroy those poor exporting countries.
The only way out is for the world to return to a balanced trade, and that means the US has to significantly reduce its trade deficits, and likewise China reduces its trade surplus, such that the global industrial capacity can be redistributed to the rest of the world more equitably.
This is all true, but can a country far more integrated into the “global supply chain” do that? What happens if Thailand, Malaysia, heck, even South Korea tries to do that? Do you think their export-oriented economy can survive sanctions?
Even for the AES, they still need investment and technology, and China can provide them with all that. It can survive just fine, but to actually industrialize and develop is a different story.