Image is a frame taken from this video of Iranian missiles raining down on Israel without interception due to a weak and depleted air defense system after a year of war and genocide.
Mao, 1956:
Now U.S. imperialism is quite powerful, but in reality it isn't. It is very weak politically because it is divorced from the masses of the people and is disliked by everybody and by the American people too. In appearance it is very powerful but in reality it is nothing to be afraid of, it is a paper tiger. Outwardly a tiger, it is made of paper, unable to withstand the wind and the rain. I believe the United States is nothing but a paper tiger.
When we say U.S. imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left, knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end.
Strategically, we must utterly despise U.S. imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously. In struggling against it, we must take each battle, each encounter, seriously. At present, the United States is powerful, but when looked at in a broader perspective, as a whole and from a long-term viewpoint, it has no popular support, its policies are disliked by the people, because it oppresses and exploits them. For this reason, the tiger is doomed. Therefore, it is nothing to be afraid of and can be despised. But today the United States still has strength, turning out more than 100 million tons of steel a year and hitting out everywhere. That is why we must continue to wage struggles against it, fight it with all our might and wrest one position after another from it. And that takes time.
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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.
Hezbollah released a new video showing the drone side of their operations yesterday.
The video starts in a warehouse showcasing dozens of Ababil-T and Shahed 101 attack drones. A Hezbollah soldier then picks up a piston engined and petrol/gasoline powered Shahed 101 drone, with a single radio antenna on the front. The video then cuts to the battlefield.
In the next scene, we can see Hezbollah drone operators preparing a group of Shahed 101 "suicide drones" for launch. However, there is one very big difference seen here, along with a few smaller ones. These Shahed 101 drones have electric engines and are battery powered, with the charging and data cables clearly visible. They also have a fresh coat of camouflage paint applied. This is done to reduce the chances of detection, an electronic motor has a lower heat signature than a piston engine, due to the lack of exhaust gases and cooler operation. They are also quieter, making less noise. The camouflage paint scheme is also designed to reduce detection, with a drab olive to dark green top to make the drone blend in with the ground when viewed from above, and a sliver bottom to blend in with the sky when viewed from below. The reduction in heat signature, along with a reduced visual and audio presence, makes the drone harder to detect. The drones also have no radio antenna or cameras, suggesting a one way attack approach with a pre-programmed flight path. We can see a drone operator presumably uploading flight data from his laptop using a USB interface. This makes them ~~immune to being jammed.~~ more difficult to jam, see discussion below.
All in all, the modifications made to the Shahed 101 drone by Hezbollah to make it harder to detect, combined with the rocket fire in a close range saturation attack to overwhelm Israeli air defences, allowed the Shahed 101 one way attack drones to carry out their attack undetected and without interception. The drones are relatively small with a small warhead, which limits targets to soft unprotected ones, like the dining hall hit yesterday.
How would they preprogram a flight path but not have any communications? A preprogrammed flight path still requires some way to recognize course and make corrections. That could be gps or similar external guidance or it could be internally powered image recognition/mapping software on board. I'm not sure how these could have neither antenna (for external support) or camera/sensor bubble (for internal support). Do you have a sense of how they get where they're going?
GPS is a passive system on the part of the navigator, there is no outgoing signal
Right, which means it is subject to jamming - see all the missile EW in Russia v ukraine.
Probably a combination of commercially available GPS/GLONASS internally without external antennae, with an Inertial Navigation System(INS) like other Shahed drones. I doubt these drones have military grade GLONASS, so they're probably susceptible to GPS jamming. I made an error in the original post with regards to that, sorry. The INS cannot be jammed, but then you can run into errors with inertial navigation which are compounded by flight time, windspeed, air pressure, and various other factors. However, as soon as GPS signal can be obtained again, the drone would be able to correct course. I've read about techniques that also involve the use of the INS to improve anti jamming performance. The combination of the two seems to allow for accurate strikes.
While radio silence is a huge benefit to stealth capabilities, these drones still require some means of radio navigation (not remote control) to reach a target accurately, which means they aren't immune to jamming. Without radio navigation, the wind would carry these drones significantly off course.
GPS is the most well-known means of radio navigation, and the most accurate, but it is susceptible to localized jamming (and spoofing on the unencrypted civilian frequencies). Other methods used in civil and military aviation include VOR / DME (VHF Omnidirectional Range / Distance Measuring Equipment, used to find bearings towards/away from beacons), NDBs (non directional beacons, can be homed on and indicate distance), and TACAN (basically fancy military VOR/DME). These are less accurate, but less likely to be jammed due to their importance in civil aviation (jamming could cause immediate autopilot malfunctions on civilian aircraft).
Yeah I made a mistake there, I'll fix it now. Apologies. From what I understand, the Shahed drones use a combination of GPS and an Inertial Navigation System (INS). Some have been found with LTE or satellite phone SIM cards, but those seem to be experimental and not in mass production. The GPS can be jammed, and in such a situation the drone will be relying only on inertial navigation until it receives GPS signal again. If the GPS jamming is only localised to the target area, the inaccuracies from relying only on inertial navigation shouldn't be too big, and with multiple drones aimed at one target, there's a high probability at least one will hit the target. Widespread GPS jamming would present a bigger problem and require some sort of anti jamming measures, potentially using the INS as a sensor in the loop to determine which signals are abnormal?
It seems that, at least for now, the combination of GPS and INS has allowed for a successful attack.
I don't mean to come across like I'm correcting you. Just trying to add on what I can. No need to apologize!
Herein lies the secret sauce. When there is a human in the cockpit, this "Inertial Naviation System" is referred to as "Dead Reckoning." Basically, if you are flying due north with a ground speed of 60 knots for one hour, you know you should be about one degree latitude north of where you started. By combining your heading and airspeed (obtainable by self-contained instruments) you can estimate your location fairly accurately. As time passes, the margin of error increases, but you still have a good idea of what is likely and what is impossible (setting aside the Langoliers).
Regardless of which radio navigation systems are in use, this is the fundamental logic which needs to be implemented on the drone in order for it to operate in radio silence. It can either be very basic, or very sophisticated. The more sophisticated it is, the more hardened a drone can be made against interference. Maybe you can spoof a (couple of) GPS signals, or send it a VOR signal from the wrong location indicating the wrong radial. If the flight computer is sophisticated enough, it should be able to detect when these readings are straight up impossible and fall back on alternate methods, rather than allowing itself to be directed off into the sea, or back towards friendly territory (You know Mossad would NEVER shut up about it if they managed to do this).
It is a challenge, but nothing insurmountable. And once you develop these control systems, you can flash them onto however many micro-controllers you want.
I imagine these are used for reconnaissance. LTE can be used to transfer photographs or short videos across longer distances than off-the-shelf FPV drones (taking advantage of established networks instead of direct line-of-sight). They might also be used for signaling, when there is a potential need to alter the flight plan in the middle of a mission. If it is not needed, it is a waste of money and practically turns the drone into a beacon though. We've seen from very early on in the Russia-Ukraine war how consumer cell phones get soldiers exploded.
Corrections are always appreciated though, I'm just a normal person looking up stuff on the internet, I don't have any insider knowledge or anything like that.
spoiler
That's what my CIA handlers said I should type 🤫🤫🤫Didn't the zionist entity recently close down a lot of civil aviation? Could part of this be to expand their ability to jam drone navigation?
I've been wondering if it's as much to prevent mass emigration as anything else.
I had the same thought. But I don't know how easy or hard it is for settlers to get out now.