Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
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Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Saturday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Yemen! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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Last week's thread is here.
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 daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
::: spoiler 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.
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.
imo bidens got a good chance of keeping the US' hegemonic position if hes able to steal all of european industry to reindustrialize in a timely and effective manner. in this ukraine and nordstrram has been a resounding success. problem is that hes not appreciably ahead and while private capital has not proven itself to be great at playing from behind, state driven industrial policy's track record in the 20th century speaks for itself.
at this point its basically a competition of whos national/bureaucratic bourgeoisie can inflict the least damage with their neoclassical policies. multipolar axis dropped the ball this interest rate cycle imo because they got worked over by said economists (also were unprepared to capitalize on the actual amount of global antiamerikkkan sentiment), while the amerikkkans got their bluff called by putins intervention/covid and were forced to raise rates earlier than they would have liked.
now we get to sit and wait and see how everyone arranges their pieces in anticipation of the next cycle.
The US is never going to re-industrialize, and has no intention of doing so. The Wall Street financial capitalists are never going to let it happen.
This is why I find so many Geopolitics Understander analyses like The Duran completely lacking at this stage - they are all still assuming this is the old industrial empire struggle like how the US supplanted the British Empire.
Post-2008 United States is already a hyper-financialized economy. The United States’ economic growth will never surpass that of China’s, and it is all but certain that China will overtake the US technological level in due time. And the US Empire understands this very well.
The next conflict is going to be the ultimate showdown between finance capital versus industrial capitalism. This is a war between systems. It has no historical precedent. And the US is going to utilize its overwhelming financial power to keep China as an exporter country, and to completely replace China’s industrial export through the other peripheral countries (which are being financed by China’s very own Belt and Road Initiatives, the supreme irony of it all). This is the only way the US can come out on top.
A lot of people don’t like it when I say China is in a losing position because they still think this is a struggle between industrial powers. Somehow the decrepit US empire seeks to regain its past industrial glory. No, the US knows very well this is never going to happen and once you understand this, US actions will start to make sense.
The real battle line is going to be drawn on how de-dollarization can take place, and that critically hinges on whether the world is willing to start a massive debt cancellation program.
China/BRICS begin a global debt jubilee movement = instant checkmate against the US empire
China fails to transition into an internal circulation economy and continues to be a global export power = win for the US empire
I truly believe that Marx’s Capital Vol. 3 is the key towards understanding the current crisis of capitalism, and Michael Hudson’s Super-imperialism should really be essential reading for all leftists at this point if they want to understand how the US will behave as a financial power to retain its global hegemonic status.
China's share of global manufacturing value added is smth crazy like 35%. It's industrial might overshadows most of the world combined.
On top of that in context of the deleveraging and derisking of the real estate issue the investing and credit domesticaly has been shifting heavilt away from the real estate sector and towards industry and manufacturing
Yeah Chinese household consumption is low (tho I have seen recalculations that put it at or around Japan and SK levels and not notably lower).
So I'm asking you in light of this. How can China NOT be an exporter country? Even if household consumption along with median income approaches western levels (which is a shift that it's unreasonable to ask the Chinese state to manufacture in this short timeframe) China's manufacturing and industrial output is so large that it would still be an exporter country right? Even more so if productivity gains increase in China and the rest of the world doesn't pick up manufacturing wise.
So what does not being an exporter country entails in light of all these? China becoming more financialized and it's manufacturing base not expanding or even decreasing?
Because at current scales, and given that real estate related contributions to gdp are to shrink and have already shrinking the growth, it's industrial and manufacturing sector will only become more dynamic , versatile, efficient and productive while providing jobs to hundred(s) of millions.
It's domestic consumption can't and won't absorb anything close to it's big majority in the foreseeable future even in good case scenarios. So how can China become significantly less of an exporter country or not at all?
Also what would that mean for its foreign relations and soft power? A China that isn't the biggest exporter to most nations is a China easier to isolate with countries more likely to fa in line with US coercion, now having less to lose. Unless it becomes a comperably big importer of goods from these countries, especially as they develop too. So now China will have to absorb a much larger part of its own production and also import enough from other countries to counterbalance the loss in soft power from decreased exports of capital and goods?
Also the US "replacing" it's Chinese imports with other countries (Mexico, Vietnam) is a Potemkin village isn't it? These countries just import parts from China and assemble them to export to the us. Their imports from China follow the growth of their exports to the US EXACTLY. They become more dependent and inter tangled with China while the US isn't untagling itself from Chinese supply chains and production or industry. Just adding a middle man. Have you seen any "decoupling" and "manufacturing moving" that hasn't been that? Why is that such a good deal for the US?
I have an effort post that is way overdue and should be out before New Year detailing this (quite provocative and should be a good read even if you don’t agree with my premises), but the upshot is that China’s economy is so heavily geared towards export and entangled with the global supply chain that the decline of the US economy is extremely detrimental to a healthy economy in China and opens up China’s economy where it could be feasibly sabotaged.
The problem with China staying as a net exporter economy is multi fold. First, it drains significant resources, labor and investment from the internal consumption development towards the coastal exporter, which in turn makes it vulnerable to fluctuations of the global economy (China’s current property market crisis is a direct consequence of the 2008 US subprime mortgage crash and the ensuing financial recession in 2009) and financial warfares of the West.
Second, the growth of industrial productive capacity of the peripheral countries is inevitable - and many of which are aided by China’s Belt and Road investment and BRICS New Development Bank funding themselves. The massive export capacity of those countries that will emerge over the coming decades will become a direct competitor to China itself (remember, China is the massive industrial giant it is precisely because the US had destroyed the industrial capacity of the rest of the Global South and concentrated them in China, because they thought it would be easy to control the global supply chain through China, at least in the 1990s and early 2000s). So what is happening today is simply the reversal of the concentration of industrial productive capacity in China as the peripheral countries began to regain the opportunities to industrialize themselves.
The US is not going to re-shore or friend-shore anything. Its goal is to build an alternative logistics chain through India (IMEC) and allow it to absorb the massive export capacity of the newly industrialized countries, and transport them back to the US. Because the investment loans were made mostly in dollar (which is a crucial mistake here), those countries need to earn dollars to repay their creditors, whether it is China or BRICS. Meanwhile, the true advantage of the US as a global financial empire is that it can simply print an infinite amount of dollar to absorb them, very easy task. The only way to deny the US from taking advantage of this is if China is the one that absorbs these foreign export capacity if it can develop a strong consumer base in time, helped by a healthy internal consumption model that makes it more or less resilient to Western sanctions (like the USSR did).
If the US has its way, and China fails to transition into an internal consumption economy in time, and staying as a net exporter country, then China will just end up competing with the rest of the world as exporters. Once the US replaces China with the peripheral countries as their treats supplier, and get them addicted to the dollar (which is far more convenient a liquid asset than any other currency), then China is screwed.
Which brings us to the third point: the only way to deny the US imperial ambitions is de-dollarization. To help emancipate the Global South from the dollar addiction, China (and BRICS) either has to cancel or write down much of its dollar-denominated loans, and use its huge dollar reserve currency to pay back as much dollar debt as it can for the Global South. Right now, China is still making trade surplus in dollar and not knowing what to do with the dollar (they don’t want to buy US treasuries to finance the US economy), use those dollar profit to lend to other countries, but this is just kicking the can down the road: it pushes the borrowing countries into dollar debt and that means they need to export their commodities in dollar (win for the US) while in direct competition with China itself.
China staying as a net exporter country means it’s very hard to restructure those dollar loans into RMB-denominated loans, because China wants to export more than import (its trade/current account balance will always remain in the positive), that means it wants you to use yuan to purchase from them rather than storing them as a reserve currency. This means there will never be enough RMBs to circulate in the global economy that is liquid enough for the peripheral countries to adopt to pay back their loans, and so the dollar will continue to be the king in this regard. As long as rest of the world continues to rely on the dollar, they are vulnerable to the US financial threats and sanctions.
China has the ultimate advantage of that the PBOC remains a state bank rather than being run by private creditors. This means the Chinese government ultimately holds the card of being able to cancel both domestic and foreign debt, though this is a delicate matter because so much of Chinese wealth has been over-invested in real estate that a mistake could easily make matters worse for its consumption economy.
The problem for China is that it doesn’t have enough time. With the US running at 8% budget deficit this year, freshly printed dollars are going to flood the world soon. If China cannot stop this in time, the world will become addicted to the dollar again (contrast to the brief period of dollar liquidity hunger when the US raised interest rates in 2022). It needs to move fast if it wishes to come out on top of this.
Interesting post but you have made those points again elsewhere in the last couple of weeks ,i know your analysis and i agree in part even if i feel like some assumptions that it takes for granted are less so. But I was not arguing against it or against the point that China should or should not move away from being an exporter country or if thats where the whole play is. My response is questioning the viability and possibility of China NOT being an Exporter country given certain economic sizes and trends and what would such a tranformation entail and its consequences both for the composition of its domestic economy and its worldwide soft power. If the math even works out? I feel like you didnt answer those questions. Maybe the "facts" i laid out are wrong assumptions to begin with so id like to go over my comment and answer me when you have the time ?
If you happen to be able to read Chinese, I highly recommend 贾根良’s 《国内大循环: 经济发展新战略与政策选择》 (Jia Genliang - The Great Domestic Circulation: New Strategy and Policy Choices for Economic Development) published in 2020, it’s all about transitioning away from an export oriented economy into an internal consumption model.
I will try to translate some articles and excerpts from his books when I have time but I have so much backlog (still have a whole series of Wen Tiejun’s videos I haven’t transcribed and translated yet) I simply don’t know when I will get to that.
Seriously, his Marxian + MMT + Listian approach is such a powerful triple combo that they essentially cover each other’s blind spots!
If you combine all three of them in your analyses, you will understand class struggle, the role of monetary system and (global) trade all at once!
I think the crux of this discussion is an uncertainty you yourself mentioned. Is the Chinese consumption market on the levels of SK/Japan, or not? I find that hard to believe, but if it is then China is in a situation akin to Germany and is trapped into its role as an exporter. If it isn't, then China can and should seek to increase consumption at home while maintaining what exports markets it is simply too efficient or crucial to be isolated (which, from what I understand, is the double circulation ideal).
I’m in the middle of vol. 2 and plan on starting vol. 3 in 2-3 months or so; is there anything in particular in vol. 3 that you would recommend I pay attention to vis-a-vis the current crisis, or more just the broad strokes?
Read this excellent primer from Michael Hudson based on his lecture for the China’s School of Marxist Studies in Beijing. It’s more than a decade old now but it’s all about Vol. 3 applied to the post-2009 financial crisis!
https://michael-hudson.com/2010/07/from-marx-to-goldman-sachs-the-fictions-of-fictitious-capital1/
As a CNC machinist. I don't think this is possible. US industrial capacity is growing, but there are limits. There are only so many machine builders out there (mostly in Europe, Japan, and occupied Korea, with a handful of domestic ones). There are only so many skilled machinists, CNC programmers, technicians, etc. There are lead times for the acquisition of industrial machinery, then installation and validation takes time (and there are a very limited number of technicians for these machine builders), then developing and refining industrial processes takes time on top of that. The pace can be accelerated to a degree, but an industrial economy is like a forest. You don't plant the seeds one day and have a forest the next. It requires years and years of continuous development.
Finance is fluid. As we see, finance can pack up and leave at a moment's notice, but industry is fixed capital. Factories open and close, but it is far less instant. If you decide to build a factory today, you probably won't see any finished goods for several years, and a return on investment for several years more. As much as the nationalists want to see re-industrialization and a decoupling from China, the investors will always be risk averse. They will not invest in anything unless it is guaranteed they can reap profits 10, 20, 30 years into the future. They are much happier speculating and seeking rents otherwise.
Also, there was a reason why America deindustrialized in the first place - fleeing the rising tide of high wages in America to go where labour is cheaper. Is state intervention really going to be enough to reverse this flow? What happens if the Republicans achieve power and don't care for industrialization, with lobbyists telling them to keep the financial profits flowing instead?
I think it'll work to some extent - we're seeing the American chip industry slowly, haltingly come online, but IIRC the factory being built in Arizona is just one step in the process of making chips. And what if the mighty potential of Chinese chipmaking is brought online considerably sooner than the pessimistic estimates of 2030? Big strides have already been made in that field. And given America's warmongering, what happens if Taiwan pops off?
Competing with China in state capacity doesn't seem like a winning strategy for America. They can inflate their GDP as much as they want - in concrete terms, they're behind China in several fields as various foundations keep worryingly reporting, and I don't think they can catch up.
Where the US government is willing to subsidize industrial development (read: using public funds to ensure a return on private investment, removing any risk from the equation), we will see industrial development. It absolutely won't reverse the decades-long trend of deindustrialization, but it is a shift from the decades-long status quo of doing nothing. These subsidies will be limited to "strategic" sectors though. Chip foundries, aeronautics, arms, surveillance tech, etc. The production of consumer goods is never coming back under this model, and neither is the robust network of business-to-business industrial activity we see in Chinese industrial hubs - where the manufacturers of electrical components, circuit boards, screens, motors, sensors, plastics, fasteners, tool and die, industrial robots, etc. are all present in a concentrated geographical space. The sparse population of extremely specialized high-tech industries is nowhere near enough to support such a rich environment of industrial suppliers.