Image is of Iranian missiles in one of their many fortified underground facilities. I sincerely hope this isn’t AI generated, because I’m very wary of posting footage of explosions or combat and having it later turn out to be fake.
Now that the initial shock of the war’s beginning is over and there’s a meaningful dataset to analyze, the takes from the many hundreds of Geopolitics Understanders are flying in, with predictably extreme variance about how long they predict this war to last and who will ultimately be the victor - and, indeed, what victory even looks like for either side. There are some who are already toasting to their side’s victory, but most serious analysts seem to believe that if there isn’t any negotiations, and it’s just attrition to the death, then it’s gonna be a long war (months or even years), and then, depending on the analyst, either the US or Iran then concedes defeat.
All of these takes are being informed by quite possibly the worst information environment yet conceived by humanity. There’s the usual stuff: falsehoods, lying by omission, wild exaggerations, state propaganda, doctored videos, masses of bots boosting certain narratives, etc - but now also easily accessible AI which creates images and videos that can be quite convincing unless further inspected by tools online, and people claiming that some non-AI videos were made with AI. On top of all of that, censorship across the Middle East is now in full effect, spawning arguments about whether Iran’s strikes have actually decreased in intensity (and if they have, then why), or if we just aren’t seeing them as much on social media anymore. Scant footage here and there confirms that strikes are still happening, but I suspect that most of the evidence of further damage to Western facilities will either be satellite imagery or indirect indicators like rescue crews gathering in certain areas, as well as the he-said-she-said of official statements by either side. Given the West’s utter lack of reliability with reporting… well, pretty much everything, but especially the Ukraine War, I know which side I’m predisposed to believe, but obviously Iran’s government generally isn’t going to report successful strikes by Western forces for a myriad reasons.
However, the military conflict is being gradually eclipsed in importance by the growing likelihood of a global economic crisis of massive proportions. A very large proportion of the fuel that keeps the world running is now not moving, and may remain so for weeks or months. Some are even predicting that 2026 will be the year of the biggest energy crisis in world history, dwarfing the crisis of 1973, as countries around the world begin to restrict oil and gas exports and tap into limited reserves. In such a situation, Iran clearly holds all the cards, because even if the US eventually achieves air supremacy, it is still relatively trivial to fire cheap drones en masse at tankers in the strait and at oil facilities throughout the Gulf. Assuming that Iran and the US do not negotiate, then even if the US eventually somehow wins and can reopen the strait within a few months, the global economic and political situation may be so degraded that the victory will be pyrrhic.
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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:
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.
It never left! How is it that, when international law has never been more clearly a fiction, China are still liberal idealists? How can you even think negotiating with amerikkka is gonna accomplish anything at this point? Even if you make a deal, they’ll break it whenever they want!
WW1 led to the first successful communist revolution. After WW2, a significant portion of the world went communist. What has the UN, “peace”, and appeasing the capitalist-imperialist world ever accomplished? The death of world communism. Get fucking serious
It’s just diplospeak. They don’t actually believe in that shit. The PRC will continue to advocate for peace and harmony and shit while giving Iran satellite intel.
Some believe it, some don’t. China is a huge and complex place, and it does indeed have its liberal idealists
God I wish that I could belive that. I wish the PRC was cool with all my heart. There doesn’t seem to be any evidence for that that I’m aware of though.
Obviously I can’t really know how much behind the scenes assistance they’re giving, I hope it’s a lot. But it seems like they could do so much more. Like, just an example, with the US pulling assets out of the far east to move them near Iran, why not stage some big naval exercises near Taiwan? Stuff like that. Take a more aggressive posture militarily. Remind amerikkka that is needs to keep a presence there, maybe take a bit of pressure off of Iran
@Bolshechick @Boise_Idaho China has no formal military treaties with any other nation except for one: North Korea. China does not form mutual defense treaties like the US does, they operate with a different diplomatic playbook (learning from the failure of the USSR). If you try to apply an American framing to their actions, you’re going to end up confused.
Yes they’ll continue providing assistance behind closed doors, but it’s highly unlikely they break their streak of no foreign wars.
If there is one thing the USSR didn’t fail at, it is their diplomatic playbook. They literally enabled China, Vietnam, DPRK and Cuba to become what they are now. China is no longer allowed to be the friendly commies on the other side of the world, they’re the enemy of the west now, and they must react accordingly asap.
Or talking about concerns with the strait, knowing full well they get to pass
This is for all the critics: you have to consider what adhering to peace and diplomacy makes you look in this time of turmoil. China is the only adult in the room.
Also as Communists we should want peace and prosperity for all.
I also think they need this record of preferring diplomacy over violence so when they take taiwan they can identify it as a natsec risk brought about by the criminal U.S
Yes, but also, as communists, we recognize that this is impossible under capitalism and so capitalism must be overthrown (inevitably a very violent process - war is the only path to socialism)
Like spineless do nothings who just want to return to business as usual? It certainly doesn’t make them look like revolutionaries interested in challenging capitalist imperialism.
How many Chinese people should the CPC sacrifice to bring socialism to pass for you? China is too preoccupied with improving the lives of the Chinese people to be sacrificing them in foreign wars to fit your purity standards. The CPC will likely continue to use realpolitik and diplomatic speech to maintain the trade ties necessary to keep improving the lives of the Chinese people, while providing non direct military intervention assistance to the global south as they have been doing (see BRI, giving BeiDou satellite access to Iran, exporting advanced military tech such as the YLC-8B and more). The rest is up to the workers of each nation.
Edit: We had our war for socialism and it cost us nearly 20 million people then we fought for our neighbour and it cost us another 1.5 million and we could only get them half of their peninsula. I can’t imagine why the CPC is hesitant to intervene militarily.
Like the only piece of flotsam strong enough to hold your weight. Think, for the love god. Overthrow of capitalism, or not. Most people just want to live, work, and trade.
Give everyone in the world, certainty. Let them know they can trade and make deals and none of that will be reneged. Because Communists are good and righteous in their cause. Because serious people are in charge.
I don’t think this is about negotiating with the United States.
For all its two faced-nature, the thing about the rules based international order is that it is popular. People want there to be sensible agreements, want to know level heads are prevailing. Of course the US isn’t gonna back down just because China called them out; the point is to demonstrate to everyone else that there is someone trying to make good on that false promise.
Exactly. China gets to paint themselves as a reasonable, restrained, law and order country to allay fears. To paint the US as the outlaw who wants to dismantle stability and China as fair, interested in justice, law, etc which are popular ideas and associate China with upholding these ideas.
They are not even impressing anyone with this talk. The imperialist West dosn’t care about pretending about the rules based order anymore and is turning to mask off fascism and imperialism. And the victims of imperialism already know the rules never applied equally. Seems like China is becoming the very last bastion of liberal idealism in the whole world.
I’m not sure how much we can gleam from Chinese press statements versus what they say and do internally. Clearly, China’s statescrafters are moving towards their own confrontation with the imperial core… and are increasingly embedded in propping up the other members of their tripartite. I don’t think they’re as principled communists as many hope, though imo they’re playing dumb because it’s an easy façade.