this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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Bulletins and International News Discussion from January 19th to January 25th, 2026 - Squaring the Arctic Circle
(hexbear.net)
Image is of a harbor in Tasiilak, Greenland.
NATO infighting? You love to see it, folks.
The latest incident of America's satrapies becoming increasingly unhappy about their mandated kowtowing involves, of all places, Greenland. As I'm sure most people here are aware, Greenland is an autonomous territory of Denmark with a degree of geopolitical and economic importance - the former due to its proximity to Russia, and the latter due to the proven and potential reserves of minerals that could be mined there. It's also been an odd fascination of Trump during his reign, now culminating in outright demands.
Trump has called for negotiations with Denmark to purchase Greenland, justifying this by stating that it would be safer from Russia and China under America's protection. Apparently, Norway's decision to not give him the Nobel Peace Prize further inflamed him (not that the Norweigan government decides who receives the prizes). He has also said that countries that do not allow him to make the decision - which not only includes Denmark, but also other European countries - will suffer increased tariffs by June, and that he has not ruled out a military solution.
This threat has led to much internal bickering inside the West, with European leaders stating they will not give in to Trump's demands, and even sending small numbers of troops to Greenland. The most bizarre part of this whole affair is that the US already basically has total military access and control over Greenland anyway, and has since the 1950s, when they signed an agreement with Denmark. There are already several US military facilities on Greenland, and B-52 bombers have famously flown in the vicinity of the island (and crashed into it with nuclear bombs in tow, in fact). Therefore, this whole event - in line with his all-performance, little-results presidency so far - seems to be largely about the theatrics of forcing the Europeans to continue to submit to his whims. I would not be surprised if they ultimately do sign a very imbalanced deal, though - the current European leadership is bound too tightly to the US to put up even half-hearted resistance.
This is all simultaneously occurring alongside the Canadian Prime Minister's visit to China in which longstanding sore spots in their bilateral relationship are being addressed, with China reducing tariffs on Canadian canola oilseeds, and Canada reducing tariffs on Chinese electric vehicles, as well as currency swaps between their central banks, among many other things. It seems no accident that Canada's reconsideration of their relationship with China is occurring as Trump has made remarks about turning Canada into the next US state, as well as the demand for the renegotiation of the USMCA.
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.
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They wouldn't have been able to without material support from the Soviets and China. The Vietnam War saw a situation where the US army fought a population that could essentially recruit every young person reaching military age, ever year, almost with impunity. Laos was bombed, but China wasn't. And the Chinese also sent instructors to help the Vietnamese organize their forces after Soviet methods proved unsuited for the kind of war that was being fought.
yes, but for example afghanistan (aside from soviet fighting incorrectly) was basically stinger missiles, those you can ship around willi-nilly, would it help against b52? no. would it stop shenanigans such as in caracas, if they were willing to fight that is? definitely.
There are big complicating factors here but first, let me ask, is the problem in Venezuela that stinger missiles can't stop a full scale invasion? I don't think so. China wouldn't supply a Venezuelan guerrilla. Moreover, are US boots on the ground even a thing anymore? People talk about the US being overconfident after Iraq but a lot of soldiers and ideologues understood that Iraq was a once in a lifetime thing. Since then the US have only used proxies and attacked from afar. Hence there being no Venezuelan invasion and no Venezuelan opportunity to wage guerrilla warfare. The US kidnapped the president and that was it.
So let's talk about Afghanistan. Like Vietnam, Afghanistan had the inklings of a pre-industrial pre state society. Don't fall for the Cemetery of Empires thing. It's a meme. For most of its history the region Afghanistan is in has been dominated by outside powers like the Timurids, the Mongols, the various Irans and the Mughals. The problem with powers like the British, the Soviets and ultimately the Americans is their inability or unwilligness to find a modus vivendi with everybody outside of Kabul.
Because that's where Afghanistan's uniqueness comes out. Vietnam back in the day was a self policed society, those are easy to mobilize and wage people's war with. Afghanistan is like that but much, much more so. The entire region is held together by quasi and ad hoc ethnic ties that group different mountain valleys together. Economic activity for this pasture or that farmland is often a matter of old, tribal, gentleman agreements. But why does this feed into the US defeat in Afghanistan? Because the US wasn't working with that culture and society.
When the US invaded Afghanistan the Taliban's government wasn't very popular. Strict religious nationalism is extremely disruptive of a society which is both deeply religious and filled to the brim with strange little rituals that are considered 'innovations' by puritans and simply 'lived experience' by religious scholars and normal people. The Americans came in, put that government down and then started a nation building experiment. Which failed. Why? Because the attempt to create an Afghan Nation-State out of Kabul meant centralizing power. Someone in Kabul gets to decide who owns every piece of land. Whoever used said land before under a system of tribal friendships and relationships isn't shit out of luck. They get to branded illegally armed as well so, behold, they join the Taliban.
The US learned this lesson once before in their colonization of the Phillipines. They once figured they could just kill everyone who opposes them, the islands would simmer down eventually. They didn't so, eventually, the Americans created a modus vivendi with local leaderships. The 2000s USA had forgotten this experience.
Now is the Afghan experience reproducible everywhere? No, I don't think so. The Iraqi, Syrian, Libyan and Lebanese experiences form a real counter-example and at the end of the day we are left with depositing our hopes on surrounded, asfixiated countries like Iran and Venezuela.
The problem in venezuela is having professional military, but secondarily- economy suffering under sanctions can be given a lifeboat or taking advantage from, china (consistently) does the latter (oooh, your oil is sanctioned, you have to sell at discount to us or to no one), and with rmb you get, will happily trade with you, but not like we will finance, say, your solarification or happily take your workers to send money home ( yeah i know they have problem with unemployment, but that’s also result of neoliberal brainrot). They do it on the edges, like with solar energy in cuba and africa, but that’s peanuts to what they could muscle if they put their mind to it
The disagreement here seems to be that China can use their muscle in the form of cargo ships. That's fine if you're talking about Indonesia or Brazil. But Venezuela is under a naval blockade and comes and goes. Unarmed ships can't do much against piracy.
Now, obv, but that was the situation for 7 years, i mean, we can see same behavior both in iran and syria, where most obvious concerns can be acted on or be let to fester. Like, whether recent crash in iran was externally caused or not, what is exactly stopping china from giving them currency swap deal, now, today? They can easily deflate their currency under some capital control conditions inside iran, it’s easily done, if you have desire to. Syria is even more preposterous, they could have subsisted on one billion dollar per year plus development deals, instead they got got with 10 million and 10k soldiers
At some point, most naive calculus says it’s cheaper to support iran and get -2 carrier groups in your vicinity in case of war, instead of getting them all