Image is of the Te Pati Maori (Maori Party) cofounders, Rawiri Waititi and Debbie Ngarewa-Packer. They have 6 of the 123 seats in the New Zealand parliament.
Officially confirming that the Republican primaries were a gigantic waste of time for everybody involved, Trump has massively beat everybody else in Iowa, and will very obviously be the Republican candidate for 2024. Given the abysmal state of the US economy (for everybody who isn't in the top 1-10%, which is mainly what national statistics reflect when they aren't telling blatant falsehoods), it's more plausible than ever that Trump may indeed once again become President - though I personally refuse to predict one way or another due to how volatile politics and geopolitics currently are. Project 2025 is coming, folks - either as the official Republican governance program, or as what the Democrats will do in 2026 after the midterms, stating that they have no other choice and have to reach across the aisle as they are the Adults In The Room™.
In other news...
Late last year, New Zealand voted in a new and very right-wing government, composed of the center-right National Party, the libertarian ACT Party (ACT stands for the "Association of Consumers and Taxpayers", good lord), and the fascist New Zealand First party. By what I can tell, this was the well-trodden path of "Vaguely center-left party does neoliberal austerity and causes a recession and workers fucking hated it and voted in a different party out of desperation," though the flooding and cyclones did add challenges to Chris Hipkins' short reign after Jacinda Ardern resigned.
It's worth noting that Hipkins was at least fairly China-friendly, meeting up with Xi Jinping on a five-day visit in the summer. They still do the whole "We have concerns about human rights" thing, but of all the countries of the imperial core, New Zealand is - or, perhaps, was - one of the most amicable. In 2021, China was New Zealand's single largest trading partner, with a third of exports going to China (more than Australia, the US, Japan, and South Korea combined), and they receive 22% of their imports from China too, more than any other single country.
Christopher Luxon, the new Prime Minister and sentient thumb, has said that he is exploring a closer relationship with AUKUS:
Luxon said New Zealand was interested in becoming involved in AUKUS Pillar 2: a commitment between the three partners to develop and share advanced military capabilities, including artificial intelligence, electronic warfare and hypersonics.
“We’ll work our way through that over the course of next year as we understand it more and think about what the opportunities may be for us,” Luxon said. “AUKUS is a very important element in ensuring we’ve got stability and peace in the region.”
This is not to say that Hipkins wanted nothing to do with AUKUS or Western organizations aimed generally against China - in fact, pre election, "he was open to conversations about joining Pillar II of AUKUS". But the current government is pushing down on the accelerator pedal.
The left-wing Maori party, Te Pati Maori, has stated that they want New Zealand to remain non-aligned, as joining AUKUS would erode the sovereignty of the country:
As Maori we cannot allow our sovereignty to be determined by others, whether they are in Canberra or Washington. Aotearoa should not act as Pacific spy base in the wars of imperial powers. Joining AUKUS will severely undermine our country’s sovereignty, constitution, and ability to remain nuclear free. There is too much at stake for our government to make a commitment of this magnitude without a democratic process.
In general, the party leaders of Te Pati Maori want New Zealand to be the "Switzerland of the Pacific", which is perhaps not the greatest analogy given all the problems Switzerland had and has, but we understand the intended meaning of desiring neutrality.
The Country of the Week is New Zealand! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
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.
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.
https://archive.is/FnJNp
Some delicious brainworms relating to wunderweapons circlejerking dipshits love to do.
Yes you correctly read that. Some dipshit pilot actually thinks he'd totally win a one-on-one battle with a peashooter against someone with fucking missiles.
Which is why it got retired in favor of more shit planes.
THATS RIGHT! ANOTHER DOGSHIT OPINION FROM QUORA!
YOU JUST READ IT CORRECTLY! NO, AN F-15 EAGLE WOULD FUCKING STRUGGLE TO SURVIVE IF ITS DOWN TO IT'S GUNS AND ITS BEING CHASED BY A JET ARMED TO THE TEETH
Translation: push button to hopefully make it easier to dodge missiles that are hunting it down faster than it flies.
You can viscerally feel this dude just cranking his hog to this top gun level wet dream he's conjuring up
It is literally more likely for the f-15 pilot to shit himself mid-flight than it is for him to score a dog fighter style kill on another jet.
Oh no
Screams "millennium challenge" forced handicap to me
From my understanding of aerial combat, actual engagements would always occur miles away, waaaaaayyyyyyyy out of eyesight, with modern "dogfighting" taking place closer but still far away as hell. Not even including the fact you would rarely be flying alone if you're in contested airspace.
Please make it stop
Okay dude. Totally not arrogant
Translation: we've been rolled by our allies who were using older commercial versions of Soviet tech and we think we'd win now after getting our asses kicked.
As far as I am aware, the US first got their hands on a mig-29 in the late 80s or sometime in the 90s. So based on the timeline this guy was, what, flying "air superiority" missions in Panama? Grenada? Maybe during one of the times America bombed Iraq? I wonder if he's ever seen an enemy aircraft while he's in the air, let alone had to deal with one trying to shoot him down or intact enemy anti-air systems
In 1991 after German reunification. GDR had a couple MiG-29s, they were immediately used to fly Red Air in simulated engagements. Shredded F-16s for breakfast.
..."Anyway, that's what I would have done if I wasn't immediately shot out of the sky by a consolidated Russian air defense system that has prepared months in advance for this exact situation because we advertised what weapons we are handing to Ukraine well in advance."
Is anybody else just kinda... sad about this? I was annoyed for a bit, but then I finished the article and just felt kinda bad for the guy. Like, did the journalist just catch this dude on a lunch break and was describing the daydream he just had? I feel like laughing at a person who is overcome with delusion is kind of in bad taste, but then I guess this guy is a fucking American pilot who would probably feel no emotion whatsoever about bombing thousands of civilians.
Alright well this hubris reminds me of when I was taking with a former air force pilot years ago. He was at least a lot less ridiculous than this individual in the article. What stood out to me was that basically he said they'd win for sure because the Soviet/ Russian pilots weren't trained right because their respective military was too afraid they'd just leave with the planes. He also added the ones that were any good were also too by the book with no freedom to operate independently based on the mission.
It's something I feel like I've heard once in an article shared here about the Chinese pilots as well. Not sure if that's just kool-aid moving through the system and how true it is exactly. I'm sure some of it is doctrine related and most of it is kool-aid.
PLAAF is a lot more realistic about dogfighting when BVR missiles are a thing:
There's probably a grain of truth to this, apparently the Americans and Soviets alike were shocked at how effective North Vietnamese pilots were and both established advanced air combat schools to try and teach their pilots similar tactics (Top Gun in America and the 1521st Aviation Base in Turkmenistan for the Soviets).
I could be wrong but the thing about them training pilots wrong deliberately to stop them defecting sounds like bs in my opinion (surely if Soviet military morale was that bad they'd be more worried about whole ships, submarines or military units regularly trying to cross over?), reminds me of nowadays where people go on about Chinese pilots being rigged up with bomb collars so they can't defect, just seems incredibly made up.
Yeah I suspected there's a bit of truth in there on the first part, the second bit seemed more like pure propaganda as they're needs to be some crazy explanation for the lack of defectors.
I did not realize the soviet's also setup an equivalent.
Same until someone mentioned it on a Youtube video I was watching, haha
I mean, Soviet pilots did suffer from a training problem because until Vietnam air force doctrine was purely focused on intercepting nuclear bombers. Having to relearn how to fight other planes instead of just shooting fat ass b52s is hard
cavalry brain
Ok, honestly, while the dude's conclusion is beyond stupid, his reasoning isn't that bad. BVR A2A missiles have a horrendous kill rate in practice, and if you're WVR things get dicey. However, if you fail to get a missile lock before an F-16 can close the 20nm necessary to have it's guns actually do anything... Well, either you didn't pass flight school or your sensors got so jammed by EW it didn't see an F-15 running full afterburners to close the gap.
The realistic scenario is that the Su-27 spots the F-15 on radar, locks on, and fires. The F-15 can burn whatever countermeasures it has, but eventually a missile will go through. Even if all missiles miss, the Su-27 turns around and separates because no reasonable doctrine will sacrifice a pilot in a shit show of a dogfight when it could just have another fully-loaded fighter in the air ready to dump missiles at the target. And, again, as established, the F-15 cannot separate because it's a slower plane.
This is besides the fact that most Russian doctrine does not have jets operating far away from anti-air in a modern war zone because anything that can be 'struck deep' will be done with cruise missiles. It is insane for them to prep for this scenario or even have this that well games out because the chances of it actually happening, let alone going down like that, are basically zero.
They are prepping for the battle they want to have, not the battle that they will have. Crazy.
American wargaming in a nutshell. See: Millennium Challenge.
Tbh f15 will retire after f22. Not because it is an awesome plane
This is just the plot of Top Gun narrated by a man who is furiously masturbating the entire time
Also calling the F-15 the greatest air-to-air gun platform in existence is fucking hilarious when it's armed exactly the same as every contemporary fighter (a single 20/30mm cannon for emergencies) and isn't particularly agile... Especially compared to the Su-27, famously one of the first jets to have supermaneuverability, basically controlled stalling to break the laws of physics in a fight
Bro's never heard of high off bore sight IR missiles and head mounted sights. Even if you somehow get within visual range, you're just getting smoked by the missile from someone who just has to look in your direction and shoot.
This is just your average WarThunder US jet main.
Why are you reading Quora
I'm not. Why are you reading Quora
I need to find out where the sun's energy comes from.