If you look up ‘beyul khenpajong’ on yandex or duckduckgo, you get almost exclusively articles about Chinese aggression and some tourism stuff. Most of them came out between March and August 2021, and the original source in English appears to be a Foreign Policy article from February 2021. That same article is what they are following up on, here. They also all use some variation of a phrase about the valley (which is what ‘beyul’ means) being sacred to Buddhism or important to the royal family of Bhutan. The smug phrasing about how awful and aggressive China is sets my teeth on edge.

Reading between the lines of this article, China and Bhutan have had a number of territorial disputes since the 80s, running down from the PRC liberating Tibet. In the FP article, they even quote a Tibetan exile slaver who refuses to comment on whether Tibet has a right to the lands in question even though he says China does not. The point of these articles is to create a unfalsifiable sense of truth. If there are ten articles, all saying more or less the same thing, from different sources, across months or years, then they must be on to something. It hardly matters if it’s the same three claims from the same source, repackaged over and over.

It looks like China is building up in two valleys or villages in the hopes of switching them for the ones they actually want. i do not know what areas, specifically, they want or why they want them. Taking over an important valley and giving it infrastructure improvements in hopes of a swap seems to reflect a rational negotiating strategy. Any and all mention of fortifying the border with India or provoking India is journalistic malpractice if they do not mention that this is the border where members of the Chinese and Indian army cannot have guns, and beat each other with pole arms. This region is rough terrain, to put it mildly, so there is no risk of an army from either side sneaking in via a handful of extra runways and helicopter pads. If China was actually the devil, they would take the land they wanted by force of arms or they would offer some BRI project or debt relief plan that Bhutan couldn’t refuse

Even if it turns out that Mr. Ghaani has been killed, this article is mere Western speculation. The mention of Iranian media does not erase the original source: the New York Times. Many others have posted these rules, but they bear repeating. Most especially:

Never spread the occupation’s propaganda, and do not contribute to instilling a sense of defeat

i mean no disrespect, comrade, but you can see how this could be bait to reveal information about Ghaani, right? Or bait to demoralize parts of the Resistance, or to provide cope for zionists. If the general is dead, Iran will tell us so in a matter of time. i do not personally think it is reasonable, at least outside of the PR-based warfare of the West, to provide photos of your general while they are presumably planning and coordinating in the field as Lebanon is invaded

it’s mostly just the deranged fascist demons. Russia also recently announced a draft of official changes to their nuclear policy, but apparently they have that meeting annually. Ukraine has been kinda sorta pushing for nuclear war for a while, but that’s just because they want to keep escalating and they are otherwise facing a wall. the USA and UK has been saying no to deep strikes, and hopefully they keep doing that.

my biggest doomer take is based on the paper talking about the climate effects of nuclear war. i believe a (relatively) low yield strike in either the Middle East or between Pakistan and India is hypothesized to decrease global temperatures by over a degree and didn’t threaten agriculture enough that politicians or rich people would feel it. the USA is internally incoherent at its best, so i’m confident there’s at least one person in the government who thinks this way. no clue how close they are to the button, though

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/an-american-coup.html

An article from a few weeks ago about the Pentagon allegedly putting their foot down over the President. i agree with Yves that this does not count as a coup. The current zionist escalations can be seen as either taking advantage of the lack of leadership or driving hard to get the Pentagon in the war. i can imagine General John Quartermaster looking at USamerican arms supply, production, and recruitment rates and saying, “We cannot do all of that shit, please stop.” i also know that liberalism can easily detach itself from negative numbers. The CIA (and the gang, i don’t have a better umbrella term) has operated as an independent arm of military and foreign policy since its inception. Additionally, the professionalism and competence of the federal bureaucracy, already a joke on account of the career path into lobbying, has been seriously upended by waves of inter-liberal partisan purges. i believe the Biden administration made it past the first year with hundreds of positions not filled across the government, including ambassadors and assistant secretaries of state. The military, intelligence, and state departments are pulling three different ways. i believe the role of the President is to wrangle and command the different branches of the federal government. Intellectually, many liberals declared victory in ‘91, which led to complacency. “We’re America, who cares about diplomatic decorum or procedure, let’s start a 30 year long invasion of Iraq.” Complacency has led to an empire running on fumes, and now that our alleged drivers can hear the engine sputtering, they assume they have all the diplomatic power in the world. i’d like to say they are wrong, but i have no words or explanations for the gullibility of the President of Iran.

https://www.eastisread.com/p/zheng-yongnian-asia-pacific-destined

A translation of an interesting article about why and how Asia is shaping to be a theatre of global conflict. The comparison between the rapid economic growth and militarism in Europe in the 30 years before 1914 and the last 30 years in Asia is particularly fascinating to me. i don’t know how anyone can say “China is the main enabler of Russia’s war aggression against Ukraine,” with a straight face, let alone the Secretary General of NATO. The West can issue out a constant stream of actions and threats to froth up the water, but certainly it will be the mendacious and dangerous Other who starts this conflict. In terms of nationalist tensions, i believe the South Koreans dropped all complaints about Japanese actions in World War Two in order to start military drilling and training together. That is nothing other than provocation towards the Chinese and Korean people. How to respond to these changes is an imminent and serious question.

https://archive.ph/20240823141136/https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adl6547 (i’m sorry that my archive link doesn’t come with graphs, but you really just need to see the abstract and then i’ll copy down the policies that achieved success.)

A Science article about which policies in the last twenty years have actually led to emissions reductions. Broadly, in the studied countries, most actual reductions in emissions occur when two or more policy or enforcement mechanisms overlap. Successful policies include carbon price floors, phasing out coal, requiring renewables in a portfolio, stricter air pollution standards, and “strengthening financing mechanisms for energy efficiency investments” (it’s one of those articles). Labeling standards, reducing fossil fuel subsidies, building code reforms, and energy efficiency mandates all only work to reduce emissions when combined with other policies. The standalone policies pretty much double in effectiveness when used in a package. In developed countries, the most effective type of reform is pricing. In developing countries, the most effective type of reform is regulation. The paper cautions that all of these are only effective when pricing, regulation, information, and subsidy reforms are used together. i don’t know how exactly those categories are defined. Now, to translate that, climate change reform is good, and it has the most effect on emissions when we do a lot of it. Doing a lot of it entails multiple kinds of climate reform in multiple countries and multiple industries within a country. The policies that are enacted and that people are asking for work, they just aren’t being implemented enough. Now there’s a Science article that confirms what most of us would probably call common sense.

https://gordonhahn.com/2024/09/22/a-river-runs-through-the-end-of-the-nato-russia-ukrainian-war/

An article discussing the future significance of the Dnieper as a defensive line in the SMO. The naked capitalism discussion linked is a good one, about how much of Ukraine is flat and so its water systems are based on pumps and dams. This means that to achieve one of its war aims (fresh water access to Crimea), Russia will need to ensure Kiev does not dump raw sewage upstream. The least desirable option there is having Ukraine (or whatever) control Kiev, and Russia has to rebuild infrastructure. Actually taking Kiev is its own can of worms. The most effective and somewhat heartless option is the Russians continue to focus on power infrastructure. This is necessary for heating and water, especially as we enter northern hemisphere Autumn. Without power, the population density that can be supported is very low. This will cause refugee flows west, but i have also seen estimates that Ukraine has already lost half of its pre-war population. War is tragic.

https://splash247.com/91-hours-left-to-avert-supply-chain-mayhem-in-the-us/

An article about an imminent (October 1st) strike by the International Longshoremen’s Association. This sounds really cool, and the US Chamber of Commerce seems very concerned. Keep in mind the ILA has pledged that cruise ships and military deliveries will not be affected by the strike. If this does happen, expect oil and gas to go nuts. The biggest hubs for oil and gas are on the Gulf Coast, and the majority of Liquid Natural Gas terminals and capacity are also there. If the US cannot export natural gas to Europe, then the EU might be forced to reach the negotiating table before NATO (more realistically they further set their economies on fire voluntarily).

https://www.channelnewsasia.com/asia/chinese-and-russian-firms-among-first-foreign-investors-indonesias-new-capital-nusantara-building-projects-4639486

An article about BRICS+ investment in the construction of Nusantara. For those unaware, Indonesia has been looking to replace Jakarta as the capital for decades, and the plan has been moving forward now that part of the city is below sea level. In theory, this will be an opportunity to correct for the poor sanitation, overcrowding, bad traffic, lack of green spaces, flooding, and depleted ground water of the much older and organically developed Jakarta. The new capital is being built on the east coast of Borneo. Hopefully, basic infrastructure gets more money than hotels and luxury secondary schools, though i do understand that the latter things make for better news articles.

https://www.kitklarenberg.com/p/british-intels-counter-disinfo-war

A article about how parts of the British intelligence community are seen as experts in mis- and dis-information, and how they are now exporting their experience. There is some detail about intelligence interacting with social media. The discussion is rooted in a leaked slideshow from an intelligence meeting in 2021. The exact way the author talks about the Biden admin’s Covid “censorship push” sets off my personal crank alarm, but the analysis of the leaked slideshow is not affected by this. Saying ‘counter-disinformation’ instead of propaganda might be a rehash of changing the ‘department of war’ to ‘defense’. Sir Kid Starver and many of his Red Tory compatriots are actual, factual MI6 assets. Czechoslovakian Internal Ministry documents from the Cold War had a whole file on the then-Mr. Starver. It’s also known that the British are more gung-ho about Ukraine than the US, and also that the Ukraine project was CIA before it was NATO. You can almost see the shades of our future where a need for internal security and countering Russian influence can only be entrusted to apolitical, non-partisan intelligence experts. See also the USAF intelligence general sending out an email requiring all federal and state candidates to agree to uphold election integrity as decided by the intelligence community.

https://www.aa.com.tr/en/asia-pacific/japan-says-it-received-no-advance-notice-of-chinas-intercontinental-ballistic-missile-launch/3340804

A short article about Japan rattling sabers over the PLA testing an ICBM. The article is from the Anadolu Agency, a news site from Türkiye with a logo that looks exactly like American Airlines. It’s Turkish bourgeois media, but Türkiye is trying to join BRICS+, so we might see reporting contrary to Western spin. Even if China informed every possible party and followed international law, the more important fact is that Japan is rapidly rearming under US encouragement (and, i believe, some popular discontent with militarizing). Every statement made now is building up a raft of ‘provocations’ and ‘lines crossed’ and ‘aggression’ for whenever the USA decides it wants a war in East Asia. See also the Philippines ‘accidentally’ having Typhoon missiles left in their country after exercises with the USA.

A discussion of what seem to be Zelensky’s future diplomatic plans. The author, Mr. Bhadrakumar, is a professional diplomat who writes about foreign affairs, but he is not a Marxist. He talks about Zelensky’s continued purge and the three point plan he intends to present to Biden. To the second half of the article, some milbloggers think Zelensky’s plan is an intentional over-ask. Zelensky will get his ‘betarayal’ from the West, and pivot to negotiations and conceding the status quo, at least. With that possibility in mind, the first part of the article suggests that perhaps Zelensky is legitimately trying to break with the CIA. They’re certainly not the only people in Ukraine credibly threatening Zelensky’s life. https://www.indianpunchline.com/zelenskys-victory-plan-is-his-survival-kit/

An exclusive report on electronic warfare measures affecting commercial flights. GPS spoofing is affecting airlines around the world (but only people in the West could be reached for comment). Companies, regulators, and pilots are split on what to do. It’s worth noting that as flying gets more stressful or dangerous, there are already major pilot shortages in USamerica from Covid, expensive training, and mandatory retirement at 65. The Wall Street Journal does produce original journalism. Their ideology is known. Functional air travel is in the interests of everyone, especially journalists. i did not read the comments and i don’t think people should. https://archive.md/RztnK

A very good analysis of Mexico-USA-China relations. It is quite long. It goes over AMLO’s judicial reform and the USA attempts to stifle it. The DEA are doing what, in another country, one might call “election interference”. In response, AMLO has been talking more with China. On the liberal/ diplomatic side of things, there are a lot of statements from diplomats, which are nice to read because sometimes i forget what real diplomacy sounds like. On the material side of things, it’s worth noting most Mexican imports from China are to be either assembled and then shipped to the USA or to be shipped to the USA to dodge tariffs. Mexico and China are the two largest exporters to the USA, and are competing to sell products. On the other hand, the USA has no answer or equivalent to the Belt and Road Initiative. A transoceanic railway link from the Gulf to the Pacific could compete with the Panama Canal, and all of the investment in it is Chinese. Chinese cars and electronics are gaining market share, and BYD is promising a dealership in every state and one factory, somewhere. The article concludes with a quote from Forbes Mexico, which really shows how outrageous recent USamerican actions have been. It is a further example of USamerican arrogance in the face of a changing world. When confronted with things not going as they plan or desire, they can never adjust the plan or cooperate. The ruling class of these times can only reach to violence, tariffs, and threats. https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2024/09/beijing-and-mexico-focus-on-deepening-cooperation-as-bilateral-trade-surges-to-record-levels.html

since 2022, there has been significant tension between the aims of the russian state and its military industry and the central bank. interest rates have been sitting at 18% since 2022 because the bank is run by neoliberal, USamerican educated economists. if the fact that russia’s central bank is serving as an obstacle or neoliberal holdout dooms the russian economy, they have never had a chance and we should have all stayed in our armchairs the whole time. you can spin anything out of anything; that same reuters article says that the current head of the russian imf, who brought russia in in ‘92, is stepping down and being replaced by someone sanctioned by the USA by name. shouldn’t a person who can’t legally enter USamerica have different personal, material interests than someone living in washington?

the US has had the complete control and buy in of every private and public bank in europe after 2009 and quantitative easing. they have been trying to get russia in since 1991. the US economy is based on formalized lying. the tried and true method is relying on powerful regulatory and legal bodies to exploit other countries. you like to point out how the USSR’s purported economic value was cut in half by the switch from gnp to gdp as some example of the awe inspiring abilities of USamerican finance. i think this misses the point that your chosen method of judging economic success grows out of the barrel of a gun. if various compradors hadn’t overthrown the government and gleefully participated in the looting, then the on paper decision to switch accounting methods would have done nothing. the existence of US-influenced economists does not represent subjugation.

the chinese banks complying with the sanctions was an L, i can’t disagree with that. but the USA has been ‘pivoting to Asia’ since 2015? 2014? it was definitely obama + hillary. the tpp fell through, and as it turns out the US has no actual interest in leaving SWANA. the idealized plan is to win and pivot and win and pivot. even the second invasion of iraq was meant to be a quick win before pivoting to war with iran. every single pivot has simply led to overextension. the war on terror has units deployed from central asia to the sahel. the nato-russia war seems set to cook at this pace for years. all of this is happening as the neoliberal hollowing out of the US starts to kill the logistical tail and manpower of the US military. every single service has missed recruiting targets for several years, and i don’t need to explain here how ‘cutting-edge’ US equipment is anything but.

it is in my view also a mistake to refer to a ‘focal point’ of imperialism. there is no oz beyond the red, white, and blue curtain. neocons and liberals and people who couldn’t articulate a view but like money all have different views of iran, china, and russia. there are also disagreements on which to get first and what order. the USA in its arrogance is convinced that it stands astride the world and will conquer all while it can’t complete freedom of navigation operations against a country without a fleet. it will continue to bluster and make announcements as if all is proceeding swimmingly. even in the last ten years, the decline of USamerican influence is palpable. even the screwing of the EU reflects this. if you can get your vassals to obey without force, they are loyal. if you have to force the point (like nordstream), that means they would not have listened otherwise.

i appreciate your perspective comrade, but we have to have hope. and there can be no hope without revolutionary optimism

a provocative headline and a bit of a negative tone, but an interesting article from strategic culture. just for clarity’s sake, the referenced lavrov announcement was in june.

i think the critique of the ‘fence-sitting’ or ‘playing both sides’ from a (i believe) leftist perspective is worth keeping in mind, especially because the material interest of every country trying to join brics is doing so to play as many sides as they can. diplomats and states are not set out towards de-dollarization or ending hegemony as such, but rather towards what they see as prosperity, peace, etc. i don’t personally see brazil’s venezuelan election comments or india’s military industry as a dagger at the heart of brics+. that said, if brics really is going to be a meaningful international and economic forum for the global south, as many of us hope, they will inevitably have to manage and incorporate countries that want economic relations with the USA, Russia, and China.

comrade, i want to preface this saying your analysis was thought-provoking, and i enjoyed your perspective. i hope this doesn’t come off as aggressive or attacking you.

trump will not fumble US imperialism so much as point it in a different direction. the difference between trump and biden represents a historic tension within the american bourgeoisie. you rightly point out that the factories of old were removed in the interest of finance capital, and true on-shoring would undo that economic trick. however, there are at least two sorts of bourgeois still around that have contrary interests to that. first, members of the military industrial complex and anyone who seriously wants a USamerican hot war wants/ needs industrial production in order to wage war. this is not going very well, as we can see with efforts to bring chip fabs to USamerica and in failures to scale up 155 mm shell production. the economic incentives for these bougies, as newsheads are well aware, encourage massive boondoggle wunderwaffe in order to shore up profit margins, not actually taking on the dirty work of making weapons.

the second group is the still existing national bourgeois of the US. while they don’t necessarily produce 80% of the world’s steel anymore, they are much more likely to be seen and heard in a community. a five person private equity firm can nominally produce most of the world’s seat belts, but local fields and factories provide jobs that feel more real to the common person, even if they don’t make as much money. additionally, the agriculture and manufacturing interests broadly support trump. to give an example local to me, a comrade of mine has been working software at Haas Automation for a few months now. the management and ownership support trump. they cannot produce machine tools that are price and quality competitive with chinese competitors, because of supply chain inefficiencies in southern california, the rising cost of materials, and radical shifts in the immigration and labor arena that mean they can’t pay assemblers minimum wage anymore. trump is offering to fix that, somehow. we know it won’t work, but the pitch is being made to people who really want to hear it.

if the cost of capital inputs in the US goes up in order to encourage offshoring out of the US and brain drain into the US, there are still bougies with an interest against those capital incentives. could the average cattle rancher or drone manufacturer explain this process? no, USamericans lack education and curiosity. while i agree with your analysis that finance capital has a dominant role in the US, it is not irrational for a group of bourgeois who feel they are being left out to try and break in. it’s unlikely they’ll succeed, but the resolution of the contradiction between financial and industrial interests will come to a head in USamerica if we keep playing chicken with china.

to your first point, i think you could more easily explain most of the BRI with china’s repeated commitment to win-win diplomacy and the real issue of producing more stuff than their domestic market can handle. if your nation’s company uses your excess steel to build essential infrastructure that you get to collect partial income from while the country you’re doing it in thanks you for it, then that’s in your self-interest. i will say i’m broadly skeptical of the idea of biden as a savvy operator, but specially how do railroads in laos and ports in kazakhstan build USamerican supply chains? i could be wrong about the numbers here, but i believe the reason 70% of the loans are in dollars is because the serious use of loans denominated in national currencies didn’t start until 2022, and the BRI started in 2013.

to your second point, educated immigrants are the cause of a labor crisis for some bougies. yes, finance capital sees the college educated coders of the worlds and wants them in SF and NYC. for decades, most of the states bordering mexico have in some way or another built parts of the economy on the assumption of cheap, readily available, fairly skilled labor. people expect to be able to hire latinos who are fully qualified, do not complain, and work for less than minimum. it’s a reflection of the deep seated entitlement and white supremacy of our culture. now, the real cause of the decline in this availability was a combination of labor organizing amongst migrants and improving material conditions in mexico. see the above about the education and curiosity of the USamerican people.

to your third point, i think you are completely correct about the actual long term consequences of lowering interest rates. to trump and the average USamerican and the average USbougie, the rest of the world does not exist and they miss cheaper mortgages/ loans for their companies. did biden meaningfully differ from this? i mean i know there’s the veil of ignorance between the fed and the president, but i think the USbougies, finance and otherwise, are legitimately split on whether to lower interest rates or not. the firehose of free money was really nice, even if some naysayers keep saying you can’t have infinite money forever.

to your fourth point, donald trump’s claims of being anti-war are complete bluster. he tore up the intermediate nuke treaty, he tore up the iran deal, he droned more people than obama, and he stopped reporting civilian casualties from drone strikes. yemen, somalia, iraq, and syria experienced no lightening in US imperialism under trump. he moved the USamerican embassy to jerusalem. afghanistan got several years of no change before a half-assed negotiated withdrawal. what trump understands is that the people are tired of war, or at least of this war on terror. they are especially tired of the wars where US soldiers are really officially present, which was just Afghanistan. USamerica is now postured with a dozen little tripwire forces around the world to stir things up, with no major casualty causing commitments. in theory, that’s all so we can better transition towards the pacific. that aligns with a faction of the intelligence and state apparati. biden’s emphasis on nato and israel are commitments unique to him, and people interested in one or the other have aligned themselves with him.

to your fifth point, during obama’ second term, 15.8 gigabarrels of oil reserves began extracting in the US in megaprojects (producing >20k barrels/ day). that’s using the best probable estimates of some of the reserves. this was broadly seen as restarting american oil production. under trump’s term, 440 gigabarrels of reserves began extracting in megaprojects. the amount of crude oil USamerica extracted tripled from 2010-2020. the north dakotan and texan shale fields over bet on oil prices, started overproducing, and accidentally brought the price of oil down. trump happened to be president. in terms of signing off permits for exploiting public land and gutting the EPA, the trend line of evermore oil and gas in the US increased just as stably under trump as obama.

to your sixth point, you claim trump is an incompetent imperialist for trying to force NATO to spend more on the military, but biden is a genius imperialist for aiding the brain drain of europe and the dismantling of its infrastructure. are these not dual processes? increasingly bellicose rhetoric makes europe ratchet up spending, which forces cuts on social services. declining standards of living and the increasing risk of having to make or wield weapons leads to the people who can afford to leave leaving.

i’ll readily agree that trump seems to be less bloodthirsty about russians and eastern europeans. but doesn’t he more than make up for that with how heinous his rhetoric and actions are towards latin americans? in terms of preserving imperial hegemony, it’d be smartest to cut bait on the failed ukrainian experiment. depending on whether you think we need a war with china or not, the next step people within the state and intelligence agencies could want is double checking that the US grip is secure under the incredibly chauvinist monroe doctrine. i do not think trump is the dark horse anti-imperialist-by-way-of-incompetence some claim.

I feel like it’s not that she doesn’t know the answers, it’s that the answers are not politically convenient. My understanding of the situation is that in the course of training the various GPTs, OpenAI and Microsoft have realistically scanned every piece of text and imagery that’s available on the internet. It didn’t matter how good or bad or who made it, the models needed every available data point. That was all well and good until covid led to a tightening of interest rates, which meant the VC overlords of Silicon Valley finally had to pay a bill. All the vapor ware companies that have never turned a profit are scrambling now, and we see the mass layoffs of the last three years. Microsoft, however, got to be King Shit of VC Mountain because one of their startups invented “AI”. Say what you will about it (and I will), the public interest in and corporate adoption of AI has meant that there is a positive revenue for a tech company. Now regardless of rationality, all tech executives must find a way to cash in on the Golden Calf. Some companies are designing new applications or creating new services. The majority are realizing that they some how, sort of kind of, are the original data the models were made from, and they’re trying to extract rents from it. For now, that’s really only for content in the future. If the CTO here publicly claims that their product relies on YouTube or anything, Alphabet or whatever parent would be stupid not to come and sue for whatever they might get.

If Maryland produced 60% of the worlds’ semiconductors and was the only place that could make 3 nm chips, then more countries might be willing to risk global catastrophe over Maryland. Taiwan is a golden goose for most of the US economy that positively contributes to the line going up, and semiconductor manufacturing is one of the last technological edges the “West” has. The Department of Defense and its corporate halo are perpetually in a contrived state of disarray when it comes to talking about things that need money, from their supply chains to research. While it’s true that price gouging and rent seeking probably don’t lead to good weapon systems, I think the people writing this article are assuming the average policymaker already is onboard with the necessity of Taiwan, and they are emphasizing a shopping list of things that need evermore endless funding. If we ever actually went to war with China, then all these weapons companies would need to start making more weapons and less money.