Image is one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver's seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it's not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I've seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we're reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - "You're telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!" - and given Trump's deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it's clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been "destroyed" as Western propaganda claim, though it's impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world's greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
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
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's a threat to Russia and China.
But it doesn't mean anything for Iran.
What I mean is "how are these going to impact the battlefield". And don't say quickly.
you use weapons like these against opponents that have top of the line anti-air defence systems when you really want something to go boom. currently that only means russia and china, because for iran, the US/Israel have better aircraft/missile delivery systems than the iranians have anti-air defence. in the event that the US itself is launching hypersonics at Russia/China, then the battlefield impact you should be concerned about is "did I plant enough potatoes to survive the winter"
I hope this test is not a signal to Russia and China to "stay out of it when we nuke Iran"
Dark Eagle vs Oreshnik in the European theatre is very much a re-hash of Pershing-II vs RSD-10 Pioneer, with both sides doubling down on their respective philosophies, but with key differences.
With the Dark Eagle, the US is doubling down on maneuvering and gliding to defeat anti ballistic missile defence, with the Pershing-II being the first MaRV equipped ballistic missile in it's range class, and now Dark Eagle showcasing long glide phases at hypersonic speeds with multiple turns. With Oreshnik, Russia is doubling down on quantity to defeat anti ballistic missile defence, with the RSD-10 having 3 separate re-entry vehicles, and Oreshnik having 6 seperate re-entry vehicles.
One key difference is payload, both Pershing-II and RSD-10 Pioneer were nuclear weapons with warheads in the 100s of kilotons. Dark Eagle and Oreshnik are conventional only. Could they be modified to deliver nuclear payloads: of course, but as it stands now these are conventional prompt strike weapons. Dark Eagle has tungsten rain at high speed impact, thousands of pre scored tungsten rods with a lateral bursting charge. We've seen the use of this technology, on a much smaller scale, in Iran with PrSM. Oreshnik has 6 cluster munitions per re-entry vehicle, for 36 total. The fact that both sides are seeking a conventional prompt strike capability is both good and bad. Good, because it shows that both sides are seeking non nuclear options for such strikes. Bad, as they're non nuclear, chances of use are increased substantially.
In the Pacific theatre, the character is entirely different. It allows the US to hit a bunch of stuff in China from Guam.
I'm short on time so I've tried to condense this as much as possible.
With high velocity AND from unexpected directions
it's also only really a threat to Russia and China if they manage to make more than a dozen a year
I mean if they build up a few hundred and put nukes on them that's a huge threat to Russia and China given the deranged mentality of the Evangelical class who would rather burn the world to a cinder than see their "great Christian empire" fall to a communist power and a similar diseased mentality of the bourgeoisie and imperialists, white supremacist in nature who likewise might gamble they can take out China with weapons like these, hide in their bunkers and emerge to rule the ruins under capitalism.
Basically the biggest hope I had for humanity was China being able to build systems to neutralize the US nuclear card which would be used in the dying gasps of empire. Without that pretty good chance the US uses nukes and with nothing to stop them China kind of loses. We can certainly hope for a USSR type collapse of corruption and ineptitude but the USSR was fundamentally run by decent if bamboozled and revisionist people who didn't want to end the world over them losing power and who stood to personally gain from plundering the result of the failure in some cases. The US and its rulers only stand to lose from the collapse of the US and are sadistic monsters.