A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.
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.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.
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.
dont siege leningrad , take it immidiatly.
Edit: found nothing besides this post - so proably BS
They're calling this the most made up news story of all time, folks
I'm not going to delete this post, in the hopes that leaving its head on a spike will act as a warning to other posters to do better.
> airdrop into the middle of a desert
> walk(?) on foot to Tehran, through a desert, like you're fucking Alexander the Great's army (I guess they might have enough ISVs by now to deploy with them? but even if mounted, they'll definitely still be a plain light infantry force with no heavy firepower whatsoever
> have no method to resupply? you're literally in the middle of enemy territory, completely cut off, reenacting the Anabasis for some reason, except you don't even have a cool warrior-poet like Xenophon leading you, just a drunken Hegseth piping in AI-generated aura farming posts straight into your headset
(I guess you can try to just keep airdropping supplies, but numerous efforts in WW2 demonstrated that there's a lot of issues with actually implementing that in practice)
> ...?
> overthrow the Iranian government, I guess? (which doesn't do anything since as per the mosaic doctrine actual military operations are decentralized, so all the guys lobbing missiles at Israel and the comprador states will go "oh no! anyway" and keep shooting)
folks, they're, uh... not sending their best
This can't be real it's way too ridiculous of a plan
100,000??? lmao are they gonna parachute in some mobile suits too? Maybe some Zaku-IIs and a couple Land Ships while they're at it
Tiny, slow-moving flesh sacks are actually better than missiles
I really liked this movie lol
everyone does
What movie is it?
It's the groundhog day remake with tome cruise and robots.
Funnily enough if you Google search my description you find the movie.
Ah yeh i thought it was that one because of the exoskeletons, didn’t remember this scene though (it’s been a decade since i watched it).
My Little Pony: The Movie
If they can just take Jaburo they're going to win the war
"shut up liberal, this works all the time in HOI4"
This can’t be real but I really want it to be
Good luck getting them back out in one piece
this hasn't been the meta on hoi4 for years now
This is literally the exact same tactics the Dune Imperium tried to pull off on Arrakis before getting completely humbled lmao. What's next, the Iranians gonna lob a surprise ~~nuke~~ family atomics at a nearby mountain to cause a landslide?
Just spam paratroopers all over their capital.
Tehran gives extra victory points, so the war will end in no time.
spoiler
They are just walking into the lion's denThere's no way thats what they're actually going to do. And the Israelis just ate shit in Lebanon trying to pull off a similar move.
If the Israeli just tried it, then that is decent evidence that this is the type of strategy they come up with and may use.
I do not believe it
This account is run by an actual antisemite
Operation Market Garden 2: Revenge of the Ayatollahs