Now in our second week of the conflict, we have seen continuing damage to both Israel and Iran, as well as direct US intervention which nonetheless seems to have caused limited damage to Fordow and little damage to Iran's nuclear program. Regime change seems more elusive than ever, as even Iranians previously critical of the government now rally around it as they are attacked by two rabid imperialists at once. And Iran's government is tentatively considering a withdrawal, or at minimum a reconsideration, of their membership to the IAEA and the NPT. And, of course, the Strait of Hormuz is still a tool in their arsenal.
A day or so on from the strike on Fordow, we have so far seen basically no change in strategy from the Iranian military as they continue to strike Israel with small barrages of missiles. Military analysts argue furiously - is this a deliberate strategy of steady attrition on Israel, or indicative of immense material constraints on Iran? Are the hits by Israel on real targets, or are they decoys? Does Iran wish to develop a nuke, or are they still hesitating? Will Iran and Yemen strike at US warships and bases in response to the attack, or will they merely continue striking only Israel?
And perhaps most importantly - will this conflict end diplomatically due to a lack of appetite for an extended war (to wit: not a peace but a 20 year armistice) or with Israel forced into major concessions including an end to their genocide? Or even with a total military/societal collapse of either side?
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.
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.
Yeah I wasn't put off by the guy doing "game theory", it's another tool or approach. But the problem is his game theory analysis is not based off historical materialism. His idealism shows through and polluted any analysis and made it cheap. Thinking that Israel is independent of the US and that it will be the US's military competitor in the region shows that no amount of game theory will correct for idealistic world views.
Your comment reminds me of my own rant I have had in the past. It's like when Marxists economists disparage math because neoclassicalists use it. Math isn't the problem, its the base assumptions that bourgeoisie economists have. I'm not even saying that a Marxist analysis requires the same math that neoclassical economists use, but there's a tendnecy, hopefully minor, to throw the baby out with the bathwater because bourgeoisie academics use math. I havent seen that here in Hexbear, but I have come across it in person.
Understanding the material world and our social relations in a scientific manner will require some math, and some analytical tools. It wont be reduced to math, but math is an indispensable tool in understanding material reality. There is a group of Marxist economists, or at least followers that I have spoken to, that are almost like the econ version of Ultras in that they think any math is some bourgeois perversion and wish to stay in the realm of purely qualitative descriptions. This has gotten a little off topic as this complaint is focused in the "economy" side of political economy analysis
I think there's definitely people in the online left (marxist or otherwise) who go too far in clowning on the academics and academic study. I had someone argue with me, right here on this site, that mathematicians should stop wasting time with the meaningless abstract stuff (like voting systems or game theory) and focus on solving real problems.
I'm not surprised.
I get criticism of academics because of its anti-communism. But not criticism of abatractions and research.
But unfortunately most research is wasted because it lacks Marxist insight. And worse, some are attempts at explanations avoiding any insight into dialectical materialism and hence is an attempt at mystification whether the researchers are conscious of that or not. And math is just another tool of these researchers. But I have seen Marxist focus in on criticism of math.
For the situations I am familiar with, such criticisms say that the math both mystifies and gives legitimacy to work to anti-revolutuonary research. Think of political scientists using statistics. The statistics gives the most whack idealist nonsense you find in a political science paper an aura of truth. And I do agree that math serves as a "mask" for bad ideas. But the solution isn't to do away with math because math isn't the cause of this problem. Anti-communism is. Statistics in political science isn't the issue, its the anti-communism of the field itself.
And for an example like voting models, sure studying voting models without an understanding of class power is a huge theoretical mistake. I'd imagine there is a risk of getting people wasting time on finding the perfect bourgeoisie system where we can vote in socialism.
But studying social structures, and how they are or could be organized (including studying voting models) within the context of a class where its material interests ard dentified as well its relations with other classes, groups, etc., is worthwhile I believe. That is using analytics tools to approach a study of the inter-relations (i.e. inner contradictions) of an organization through a Marxist lens.
If such research better informs the Proletariat in our struggle, then it is a proper Marxist science! But it still involves these abatractions
On a somewhat similar note, I would actually like to point out one thing:
People like to reach for idealism bashing, but believing that Pissrael is an actor that is independent from the US doesn't have anything to do with idealism. Subscribing to a framework that, for example, postulates that numbers exist and are not dependent on matter would be both idealist and not have any contradictions with relevant economical-political conclusions that anybody here would make.
I see what you mean about believing that Israel is independent is not idealism in itself, but calling idealist is shorthand for the fact that such a view, at least the extreme version of Israel having some complete sovereignty from the US empire, entity doesn't seem to correspond with a meaningful analysis rooted in imperialism and how the US supports and props up Israel. Israel does have some degree of "independence" in that they are there own actors, but I'd say based off the US propping up Israel for its purposes, that the game theorist YouTube is making a severe error. And he isn't rooting his analysis in historical materialism, i.e. in an analysis of imperialism, capital accumulation, class power, and value flows. For him, Israel is a nation state hence it is on some independent footing as any other nation state. That is some form of idealism to me. Almost like a mystification of Israel as some independent entity because it is a nation state, instead of focusing on the interrelationships between Israel and the US, and how Israel is both a nation state and an extension of US empire. An analysis starting from material facts on the ground will lead to that vs one that treats Isreal as independent from the start.
But, I may be wrong about the details of this hill I'm standing on. So I won't die on it, but I think its a hill that's close to something worthwhile.
Also, an aside on the aside about math. I don't think math can escape materialism. I think most math people disagree with me on this, Platonism appears very common with mathematician. Even if the abstractions are "ideals" and dont exist in a one-to-one way, I dont see this as invalidating dialectical materialism. Ideas in math are abatractions that, like all abstractions, have their roots in the material world and its historical trajectoey. Every abstractions of ours come from this material world, but this isnt some crude materialist view that says that every abstractions has a direct one-to-one material version of it. But I dont believe even math is some pure idealism, even if it is analysis of abstract, ideal, structures.
But some abstractions are definitely harder to pin down to something real. Utility for example. Maybe it could be a proxy, like fitness in evolutionary systems, for something else more material or having a feedback relationship with something in the material world.