Image is of one of Ireland's only manned navy ships, the Samuel Beckett. Image sourced from this BBC article.
Putler has been HUMILIATED by the Kursk offensive and this proves that Russia's army is in tatters and unable even to defend its own territory. However, it is simultaneously true that Russia poses an existential threat to countries thousands of miles away, as this recent Politico article demonstrates. Ireland - a country that immediately springs to mind as one surrounded by enemies - is being bullied due to its lack of military.
Despite bearing responsibility for 16 percent of the EU’s territorial waters, and the fact that 75 percent of transatlantic undersea cables pass through or near Irish waters, Ireland is totally defenseless. And I mean completely unable to protect critical infrastructure, or even pretend to secure its own borders. [...] Ireland’s “navy” of six patrol vessels is currently operating with one operational ship due to chronic staff shortages. [...] Ireland simply has no undersea capabilities. How could it, when it barely spends 0.2 percent of GDP on security and defense? And it has, in effect, abdicated responsibility for protecting the Europe’s northwestern borders.
For all we know, the dreaded sea-people from the Bronze Age Collapse could soon emerge from the North Atlantic.
Unfortunately, things are even worse up in the skies. Ireland has no combat jets, and it’s the only country in Europe that can’t monitor its own airspace due to the lack of primary radar systems. Instead, the country has outsourced its security to Britain in a technically secret agreement between Dublin and London, which effectively cedes control over Irish air space to the Royal Air Force. This must be the luck of the Irish — smile and get someone else to protect you for free.
While this is very silly, rearmament has long been a part of US imperial strategy on an economic level. Desai, discussing the US imperial strategy in the WW2 period:
By 1947 [...] the domestic postwar consumer boom was nearing its end. While financing exports became more urgent, the 1946 elections returned a Congress unlikely to approve further loans. Now the Truman Administration concocted the ‘red menace’ to ‘scare the hell out of the country’, enunciated the Truman Doctrine of US support for armed resistance to ‘subjugation’ which launched the cold war, and Congress granted $400 million to prevent left-wing triumphs in Greece and Turkey in 1947.
One reading of history states that the US was so intimidated by the USSR that this forced a policy of massive arms production even outside of official wartime. Why this arms production is not occurring today can be puzzling, and (very reasonably) explained by neoliberals exporting industrial production overseas. However, a different historical reading can explain both the first Cold War, and the ongoing situation in which American weaponry is being almost purposefully given in insufficient numbers to give Ukraine a chance of victory and thus only prolonging their suffering (while generating massive profit for the military-industrial complex):
In this sense the Cold War was not the cause of US imperial policy but its effect. It combined financing exports with fighting combined development by national capitalisms as well as communism. When such ‘totalitarian regimes’ threatened ‘free peoples’, ‘America’s world economic responsibilities’ included aid to countries battling them.
By selling massively expensive weapons to Europe, America could simultaneously guarantee export markets for its industries, trap Europe into reliance on American industries at the expense of their own, and divert European funds away from constructing factories which could compete with American ones. Providing a way to defend against Soviet communism (and now Russian "imperialism") is merely a happy side-effect, and so the lack of effectiveness of American weaponry is causing no great panic among the military-industrial complex, nor an urgent plan to quintuple artillery shell production or Patriot missile production - the deals for F-35s and such are still there, and they are what matter.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Ireland! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
Twitter user @EmissaryOfNight shares what is allegedly the US's vision for a resolution of the Gaza genocide: https://xcancel.com/EmissaryOfNight/status/1824237079011926458
Thread
Assuming this is accurate, the only way this deal gets accepted is if the Palestinians living in Gaza are truly broken. The idea that not only "terrorists," but any "armed group" in Gaza should lay down their weapons while the colonizers get to keep their nuclear weapons is preposterous. That they would trade their arms for the promise of an unimpeded flow of aid. This is the exact state of affairs which lead to Gaza being turned into the biggest concentration camp in history, with the colonizers literally imposing quotas on the number of calories being shipped into the ghetto.
The idea that a "transitional period" needs to be imposed from outside. Installing the PA in Gaza will work just about as smoothly as installing Guaido in Venezuela. It's a farce.
If this is seriously what they're pushing in these negotiations, these negotiations will not last very long. Jacking off into a toilet would be a more effective use of our diplomatic resources.
The idea of a state that can't operate an armed group. What a fucking joke. A two state system where Palestine can't operate a military is a state that doesn't exist.
Even if I wanted two states to exist, it’s a joke if one has nukes and the other doesn’t. Take away Israel’s nukes and restrict the IDF to the size of Palestinian forces maybe we can start to talk.
The golf course countries all talk about a "two-state solution" but what they and the zionists actually want is the current "state and a half-solution" where Palestine is a state whenever it benefits the zionists but otherwise not. Palestine is a state when it comes to being responsible for the welfare of their people, for providing utilities etc. but not when it comes to things like controlling their own borders or maintaining armed forces.
Did bantustans have their own militaries?
please bro cede to the material conditions deemed so fundamentally unlivable that October 7th happened but this time don't resist bro this is how we get peace bro this is compromise bro
Deeply unserious. A lot of words wasted when two can summarize: unconditional surrender.
This can work and still work out for the left. For example the IRA disarmed but that did not stop the cause. The issue as I see it is that this is impossible while Palestine is non-contiguous. It will always be easy for different groups to take control of either Gaza or the West Bank politically through force. Even if everyone disarmed and you had a military under the one new state, that military will split into factions and those factions will eventually be used to take control of one or the other, splitting governance of the two halves of Palestine.
This would be a huge gain of land for Palestine, because Israel has reduced it and broken these lines across the West Bank today.
Lol this just means "we must make it so that this thing never happens and drags out forever and ever"
The idea of disarming Gaza is just about as workable as the idea of "gun control" in the USA. Disarming Gaza has essentially been Israel's #1 war objective and despite unleashing the most barbaric bloodletting of the 21st century, this objective appears no closer today than it was on October 7th. If Israel managed to confiscate every gun, mortar, and rocket from Gaza, they would still be pelted with rocks, and recovered explosives from their own munitions.
Organisationally you could do disarmament but not without Palestine itself having a formal official military force as a form of replacement. Disarmament without this is just turning Gaza into something defenceless for Israel to take.
Also, how is this disarmament going to happen? If you want someone to lay down their arms you either have to get them to agree to do so or you have to force them. The first option is ruled out by the resistance not being recognised as part of the negotiations which leaves a forced disarmament as the only remaining option.
Who is going to forcibly disarm the resistance? The Fatah puppet regime who does not control Gaza in any way, shape or form and who would probably lose what little legitimacy they have left by doing the dirty work of the Zionists? The zionist occupiers who have tried and failed to do this for almost a year, despite using the most horrendous and barbaric girls of terrorism to do so?
I hate to say it, but you've already connected the dots here and already figured it out. That's the only reason the deal is being considered...
The Palestinians in Gaza may or may not be broken, but Hamas is far from that point, and they are who call the shots. And an earlier comment in the megathread has said that Hamas isn't even attending the ceasefire talks, which doesn't exactly scream desperation. I think that militarily, things are going about as well as things could be given the circumstances. Total civilian catastrophe that will require decades if not centuries to fully recover from even if the war and Israel ends tomorrow, but I've been watching things fairly closely and see no indications that the Resistance is backing down out of fear of being beaten (apparently Hezbollah is just ignoring the threats given to them by Western countries); just a lot of Western wishcasting about how X or Y force is definitely intimidated or about to give up that then gets ah-well-nevertheless'd later on.
So this is when Hamas gives Hezbollah and Iran the signal to go nuts, right? The moment when Gaza genuinely can't take any more without assistance?
Maybe, but that doesn’t mean they will do anything. Israel’s nukes aside, even if the west cannot win a war against Iran and Lebanon, it would still be extremely destructive to their already fragile societies. If the US doesn’t win militarily, the conditions may foster domestic discontent and that could result in an overthrow or civil war
It's true. I could not expect anyone to endure what they have endured and remain standing. Still, I have no impression they are on the brink of surrender.
Glad to be of assistance!
So public coffers of foreign countries should pay for the destruction wrecked by the zionists? What happened to "if you break it, you pay for it"?
Also, that "support" is going to be a giant Trojan horse, allowing the west to penetrate Palestine with NGO's and other foreign agents.
So the illegal zionist entity should be disbanded? Oh... It's just the Palestinians who should unilaterally surrender and disarm in the face of an ongoing occupation and genocide?
Good luck with that. At most you will get them to do a rerun of the previous "withdrawal" from Gaza where no boots are on the ground but where the occupiers remains firmly in control, reserving the right to cause death, terror and destruction at will.
So the future Palestinian Bantustan will be run by the quislings of the PLO who lacks any legitimacy. That's going to work fine.
What negotiations? You just said they should surrender and disarm. Why would the zionist occupiers make any concessions to people they consider subhumans when these people have no leverage. This is just more of that western "diplomacy" where they refuse to even talk to their counterparts until they have calculated unconditionally.
Also, what is the point of negotiating a peace agreement if you don't include the resistance? The kapos of Fatah are not representative of the Palestinian liberation movement in general or the resistance in particular. If the negotiations are going to go anywhere it is a prerequisite that all parties are included, which means the resistance is going to be there.
US arms shipments to the zionists' ongoing genocide against Palestine tells exactly how deep-felt this sentiment is.
Not only does reactionaries want to be in charge of you, they also want you to live and admire them.
Why on earth would the Middle East "accept, recognise and integrate" a settler-colonial project that considers then to be subhuman, are threatening them with violence and are lusting to colonize then?
Yes. The axis of resistance must work together to defeat the occupiers.
We all know how this is going to be enforced. If a Palestinian slams a car door too loudly, the collective west is going to withhold aid and demand that the Fatah puppets crack down on them whereas the zionists can keep and expand the settlements inside the designated Palestinian Bantustan, send fascist settler mobs to do pogroms against Palestinians and terror bomb Palestinians and at best, all the "international community" is going to do about it will be too awful the zionists to investigate themselves.
Like that is every going to happen. We know exactly how this goes, violence is the only language the zionists understand. They will not hold any promises unless they are forced to.
Should the white supremacist zionist entity implement a comprehensive programme of abandoning racism and apartheid? No, that's not necessary. What the region really needs is for those primitive Orientals to become more civilised and learn to be good little limp liberals.