Over the last week, Sri Lanka has been hit by their worst national natural disaster since the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami. Over 2 million people (about 10% of the population) were affected; the death toll is currently climbing past 600; nearly a hundred thousand homes have been damaged or destroyed, transport infrastructure is heavily damaged; industry has been damaged; and farmland has been flooded. The cost of damage so far looks to be about $7 billion, which is more than the combined budget spent on healthcare and education in Sri Lanka.
While there is plenty to say meteorologically about how this yet another concerning escalation as a result of climate change (Sri Lanka does experience cyclones, but they are usually significantly weaker than this), it’s important to note that such disasters are, to at least a certain extent, able to warned about and their impacts somewhat mitigated. However, this requires both access to early detection and warning equipment, and an economy in which development is widespread - in this case, particularly in the construction of drainage systems and regulated construction, which has not generally occurred.
The IMF, on its 17th program with Sri Lanka, is doing its utmost to prevent such an economy from developing, as they instead promote reductions in public investment. On top of this, the rebuilding effort for Sri Lanka is already being planned and funded, and such donors include, of course, many Sri Lankan oligarchs, who will rebuild the damaged portions of the country yet further according to their visions, while sidelining the working class.
Perhaps neoliberalism’s decay into its eventual death occurring concurrently into the gradual intensification of climate change and renewed wars signifies the rise of the era of disaster capitalism.
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 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.
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:
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.
So with the arrival of the first batch (6 out of 24) of ex Royal Danish Air Force F-16AM/BM MLU to join the Argentinian Air Force, the US scores a point against China in South America. The whole deal of this weapon system transfer fiasco was to prevent Argentina from incorporating a similar number of JF-17 Thunder fighter jets, which would have been not only a much cheaper option but also a superior one because the jets would be, as we say here, “0km” (totally brand new), and they would come with chinese assistance as well as the possibility to explore other options such as radar systems, missile systems and even upgrades for the Navy and the Army. At the expense of Argentina’s shaky finances, the US prevented China from entering the region through military hardware.
There is, still, an unavoidable reality: The purchase of these jets means the Argentinian Air Force can recover supersonic interceptor capabilities. Since the Air Force retired it’s Mirage IIIs/IAI Neshers weapon systems in the mid 2010s, the defense of the entire national airspace was left up to the old and subsonic A4AR Fightinghawk figherbomber (less than a dozen are available for duty) as well as a number of light attack/advanced trainer IA-63 Pampa series (which don’t even carry air-to-air missiles). With the arrival of the F-16s Argentina can now recover some of it’s balance against it’s two historical rivals: Chile and Brasil. But is it really the case though? I’ll try to explain to the best of my abilities:
In the case of Chile they have been operating the F-16 platform for about two decades now. The total amount of airframes is 46, not all would be immediately ready for service but I think that number should be higher than 6. The variants operated by Chile are 10 C and D Block 50/52+ variants, which joined in 2005, and 36 examples of the F-16AM MLU and F-16BM MLU purchased second hand (as well as a single F-16A example for training) from the Netherlands starting one year after the arrival of the C and D variants. Apart from the numerical advantage, at least on paper, Chile has two operational E-3 Sentry AEW&C aircraft, with a third used for spares. Argentina has none of that. The Chilean Air Force also operates a small number of old but modernized F-5s.
In the case of Brasil there is simply no competition at all. For the time being Brasil is in the process of incorporating a fleet of JAS 39 Gripens (seeking over two dozen airframes in total) while phasing out their larger fleet of F-5 and AMX International attack aircraft. However, the main news is that Brasil conducted a live fire exercise of a METEOR BVR missile fired by one of their Gripen E aircraft not long ago(Source in Portuguese) which tips the balance on their favour. On the other hand, Brasil has an actual industry supporting it’s armed forces. EMBRAER is a highly valued company which produces not only commercial aircraft (third largest in the world behind Boeing and Airbus) but also military aircraft as well, including technical support for their existing airframes. In comparison, Argentina has the state-owned FAdeA (which briefly belonged to Lockheed Martin in the 2000s) which is planning to fire around 200 workers this week. That should tell you everything. They have a number of Embraer E-99 aircraft for AEW&C and SIGINT operations. This entire force is also joined by a small number of A4KUs purchased from Kuwait which flew from their former aircraft carrier São Paulo (Clemenceau class). In comparison, Argentina’s Naval Air Arm retired it’s Super Etendard and Super Etendard Modernisé years ago after a botched purchase (blocked by Britain too).
This comparison gets even worse once we consider other factors such as the Army, Navy and also the general state of things, that is, the social, political and economic realities of the three countries. I guess you can tell which one is the absolute loser here. Despite all this, there is no danger of armed conflict among the three countries. So there’s that.
So I think these new aircraft for the Argentinian Air Force doesn’t do much apart from scaring airforceless countries like Uruguay, Paraguay and Bolivia. There is also the United Kingdom and their permanent military base in RAF Mount Pleasant. From what I can gather the US allowed for the F-16s to be transferred but prohibits Argentina from flying them anywhere close to the islands. The UK didn’t protest much either, they always did so in the past.
There are some questions that have been raised with this transfer. First, the cost: It’s around 300 million USD for the 24 aircraft and another 350 million USD for the weapon systems. It’s A LOT of money for second-hand aircraft. According to La Nación, the danish authorities didn’t have much hope to sell these aircraft for more than 60 million USD, but then came Argentina and the US geopolitical goals which allowed Denmark to offload pretty much it’s entire fleet in one go and begin converting it’s units to F-35s for a ridiculous price. Another question is how badly worn these aircraft are? How many hours did they clock in with the Danish Air Force? They already had their Mid-Life Upgrades done, so are all 24 examples in serviceable condition? If so, for how many more years? Are these platforms durable until at least, say, 2035? 2040? Is this a stopgap measure until we explore better long term choices? What kind of armament will be shipped? Do we receive exactly how much technical support from the US and other F-16 operators? How much does it cost to keep these aircraft in flying condition? How much does a single hour of operations cost? Can the country, with it’s finances in pure agony, keep them operational?
And, I think, the biggest question of them all: Is it really worth it? We’re purchasing second-hand F-16s from a country that wanted to get rid of them so they can now fly 5th generation fighters. We paid a lot for it too. However, what happens if tomorrow Argentina takes a different political and economic path and we get on some kind of “black list” made by the US? Who is going to sell us spares and replenish spent munitions? I think we purchased a short term solution but a long term problem. In a few years these aircraft will be grounded due to lack of funds (This is, after all, the country that had one of it’s largest navy vessels sink in port due to lack of resources), and if we get on the bad side of the US they’ll suffer the same fate as the Venezuelan F-16A/Bs and the Iranian F-14 Tomcats, slowly being phased out because, while their operators do magic to keep them running, the spares do run out and the aircraft can no longer fly.
We also angered Ukraine too lol
Anyways death to “israel”
This is just transparent imperialism lmao. Using their puppet government to force the purchase of substandard equipment for above market rates while forcing out a geopolitical rival which was offering better terms.
The US pulls off shit like this so much and so effectively. Forcing even more outrageous debt onto a Global South “ally” in order to lock a Global North “ally” into purchasing a bunch of expensive military equipment that makes both countries more dependent on the US while funneling ridiculous unearned, non-market profits to its corporations.
That depends. The JF-17 is a very lightweight fighter, with a single RD-33/93 engine, and only 4x underwing hardpoints. Essentially a modern MiG-21. The combat radius is going to be tiny, and if you put 2x external fuel tanks/drop tanks on, then there’s only 2x underwing hardpoints available. Very low payload. The older F-16s have a significantly more powerful engine in the F100, and 6x underwing hardpoints, so there’s a vastly superior combat radius and payload capacity for the F-16s when drop tanks are factored in. The one advantage the JF-17 block III variants have is an AESA radar and an upgraded RD-33/93, but the upgraded engine is still inferior to the F100. And this AESA radar is only available on the block III, older variants have a pulse doppler radar like the F-16 MLUs. So the two advantages the JF-17 offers are a brand new airframe and an AESA radar if you buy the latest version, at a big sacrifice to combat radius and payload.
12.5 million USD an aircraft isn’t that bad for the capabilities offered if they get supported and maintained. The F-16 MLUs have performed decently in Ukraine, and can still carry out frontline bombing missions against Russian positions with SDBs, given low altitude flying and electronic countermeasure support. They’re also good at defensive counter air with the option for APKWS vs drones and cruise missiles now. In a way it can be seen as an entry point into the US military ecosystem and weapons platforms, one that will be available immediately. Argentina can get AIM-120C-7, AIM-9X and SDBs tomorrow, a combat proven combination in Ukraine. They can get a lot more if they are prepared to pay for more (lol). Meanwhile Brazil with the Gripens, while technically superior, have to rely on Europe for Meteor or domestic weapons integration on Gripen. Gripen is also dependant on US engines and avionics. A lot of false promises from Saab on domestic weapons integration about how it’s so much easier than anybody else, in reality it’s just as difficult to integrate domestic weapons as anyone else, the first A Darter (modern infrared guided high off boresight air to air missile) rounds are only being produced now after a decade plus, and South Africa was just incapable of integrating R Darter/Python Derby (radar guided beyond visual range air to air missile) onto their Gripens, meaning that the South African Air Force still has no radar guided air to air missiles to this day.
The real question here is if it’s even the correct move or desirable for Argentina to enter the US sphere of influence in this manner… Sure the aircraft and capabilities are decent for the price, but there are big downsides to entering the US sphere of influence morally, geopolitically, etc, and big downsides with the aircraft being second hand, this is probably both an entry point and a stopgap until Argentina can get F-16V. But given the finances of Argentina, I fear that this stop gap will become a permanent solution it was never meant to be.
Yeah a closer comparison would be the J-10B or C which was designed to compete with and subsequently surpass the F-16. I don’t think China is willing to sell those to such an unreliable government in Argentina ATM though.