These are good questions, and i’ll try to answer them as best i can as a certified SMO-watcher since spring ‘22. Russia is broadly prosecuting the war as gently as possible. War remains a horrific sacrifice of human life, but Russia has almost totally avoided striking major civilian infrastructure, let alone civilians. The only major incident i can think of is the TV broadcast station in Kiev. They constantly attack power switching stations, but not power plants. Ukraine has almost no functional transformers or switching stations, and many parts of the country have 16 hour rotating blackouts. Russia did not strike heat and electrical generation until this last winter. Now, why is this? Some people say it’s a combination of optics and the sense of fraternity between Russians and Ukrainians. More cynically, you could say they want to keep a state around to negotiate with and don’t want to further encourage the formation of Ukrainian ISIS.

Many NATO military theorists really only understand manuever and big arrows on a map. Attrition, that is the exchange of matériel until one side can’t continue, is seen as a failure or defeat state. Any NATO general caught in such a “trap” would try and force some kind of breakout to regain initiative. It would be disingenuous to say all Western military planners are incapable of understanding other ways of warfare, but the journalists and analysts definitely do not. The Western commentariat have created an alternate reality, where Russia promised to win the war in three weeks, but the map lines have actually barely moved because of NATO. In warfare between people of roughly equal or similar capacity, you cannot fight or breakout beyond small, well-planned actions of combined arms. Taking terrain would involve sacrificing personnel and equipment for almost nothing. There are individual tree lines and villages that have seen excess of ten thousand casualties in Eastern Ukraine. This chipping away strategy is a reflection of a lot of new technological developments in war, but the end result is a slow and grinding conflict.

This leads into your next questions, why would anyone want a slow and grinding war? The fact of the matter is that Mr. Zelensky is not freely governing his country, and there are significant Banderite neo-Nazi factions in Parliament, industry, and especially the military. The Azov Nazis and their ilk would assassinate Zelensky, and really any President, who tried to settle for peace. They nearly negotiated peace in Istanbul in ‘22, but Ukraine shot their own negotiator. For all that Russia is a reactionary shithole that hates queer people, they sincerely meant “de-nazification” as a major war aim. Until the people who actively want millions of Ukrainians to die in a bid for ethno-nationalist glory do not have money, guns, or influence, the war will continue. For better and mostly for worse, this means the war will continue for the foreseeable future. A decapitation strike like you’re imagining wouldn’t be aimed at Zelensky or many MPs, but at milita commanders and fascist propagandists. These people are embedded into society, and have moved themselves into the back lines or blocking positions to escape death at the frontline.

Hey, check out this Nature article from 2022 that says a nuclear exchange between India and Pakistan would effectively reverse the ocean temperature and global temperature effects of climate change without majorly impacting caloric availability for rich people in the West. The lower yield version minimally effects the West, and the higher yield version of India-Pakistan is only safe in Australia and New Zealand.

The flip side is that the Indian subcontinent is subject to incredible and unique pressure due to climate change, and India and Pakistan have despised each other for decades. Pakistan has a nuclear first-strike doctrine because they think it’s the only thing that can protect Lahore (11 million people, 10 kilometers from the Indian border). The USAmerican retreat from global affairs towards the Western Hemisphere and Pacific (alleged for decades, kinda happening now) will free up regional powers. It makes sense that the first place to see this go hot is a place that hasn’t been directly pushed down by USAmerica. It’s basically impossible to say if the agency is involved with this specific terrorist attack, but the recent coup in Bangladesh suggests they’re in the region

i’ve been seeing it as a justification for massively expanding deportations. While imprisoning large numbers of people who lack formal protections would probably extend the lifespan of capitalism and the current settler system in the USA, there aren’t enough prison spaces for the citizen prisoners. There also isn’t enough bourgeois unity on the issue. A little over a decade ago, California was federally court ordered to shed prisoners because they had people triple bunked. Prison populations are only down like 30,000 since then, and i don’t believe we have built any new prisons. One of the many hellish propositions my neighbors agreed to last November was bringing back three strike laws for theft and drug offenses. i was able to successfully persuade “conservative” people that the prop was a bad idea because we would need to foot the bill for multiple new jails.

i understand that in many parts of USamerica there is a long history of using incarcerated slave labor for agriculture. In California, it’s not that i think any of the government officials are like, morally opposed to it, it just doesn’t make sense logistically. We are already going to be stuffing the jails full of shoplifters and narcotics possessors. What’s more, things like picking strawberries and pruning grapes are actually highly skilled tasks. Like, where i live grows a lot of strawberries, and they have tried to build robot pickers (not delicate enough to grab, too much dirt in the field) and training/ hiring US citizens who were veterans or unhoused or ex-felons (they were too slow/ couldn’t hack it). Now part of that is because pickers are overworked and underpaid, but you cannot pull someone off the street and then expect them to be able to fill ten flats an hour.

The only Ag Barons who would agree to have their disposable labor that can’t ask for help from local services because of language barriers and government indifference taken away in exchange for government supervised contractors with paperwork would have to be so racist they couldn’t understand profit. It’ll be a battle between the people who actually run farms or otherwise abuse migrant labor and people who delusionally think that the slur-named deportation operation from the 50s could be pulled off again tomorrow.

unlimited overpriced LLMs on the US military

12ft.io got around the paywall for me, if anyone wants to read the whole thing

then google it. mr. klein has been publicly feuding with hasan for months. people here are broadly familiar with that. you pushing the glasses up on your nose and saying, “um, actually, if events aren’t mentioned in the article from fox news, then they didn’t happen,” is asinine. no investigation, no right to speak

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://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.middleeasteye.net/explainers/israel-war-lebanon-what-arms-hezbollah-have

A detail-light breakdown of the main equipment being used right now (drones, rockets, short and medium range missiles, and ballistic missiles). When thinking about the ranges, keep in mind the current depth Hezbollah seems to be attacking is roughly up to 80 km from the border, and “israeli” censorship begins at Haifa, roughly 80 km from the border. This depth is Hezbollah’s escalation ladder. Incredibly, they also seem to have found a Western military professor with eyes, who comments “…the Hezbollah threat [is] one that Israel cannot destroy militarily.”

https://militarywatchmagazine.com/article/three-carriers-simultaneously-china

A description of PLAN deployments in its own waters. The ocean surface isn’t the only thing getting hotter in the East Pacific. For those who don’t like ship details, it’s worth noting that Kuznetsov class carriers are really missile cruisers with a flight deck. The titular Russian vessel has anti-air, anti-missile, and anti-submarine defenses as well as 12 anti-ship cruise missiles and 24 8-missile Kinzhal batteries. The USamerican Nimitz class super carrier (which admittedly has a larger flight deck) has anti-air and anti-missile batteries, and no offensive armaments. Presumably, the Chinese have their own missile systems. There is one US carrier group asea in the Pacific, and i think it’s leaving through the Straits of Malacca. Always a good time to drill and train your ships when the enemy isn’t there.

https://www.labornotes.org/2024/09/strike-threat-wins-boarding-and-retro-pay-american-airlines

A little positive news about successful labor action. Every time i’ve been to LAX since 2021 or so, there has been a billboard about labor action on Howard Hughes (the main drag that we must sit in traffic before entering the airport where we sit in traffic). Covid kind of ravaged them, but there seems to be more and more airline related labor action. While the pilots, flight attendants, and transit workers are not necessarily radical unions, every win for labor lets the snowball roll forward. The reputation shift of unions is not because of messaging, it’s because of results. Good to get in the last hits before Trump or Harris guts the NLRB (which is doing pretty good under this admin, exceptionally critical support with an eye to past betrayals).

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

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.