Image is sourced from this Economist article.
Most of the information in this preamble is from the Cradle; notably here, here, here, and here.
The features of an effective American war (proxy or otherwise) is that it is a) against opponents with much less military power than you; b) with very low American losses; c) with victories you can visibly show off from time to time to justify involvement, and d) with a profit margin beyond merely giving money to military corporations. The war against Yemen was none of those; airplanes tumbled off aircraft carriers, and the navy complained of the hardest fighting conditions in decades. Conquering Yemen for its resources was inconceivable given the terrain, lack of good intelligence, and the strength of Ansarallah, and all that seemed to be visibly harmed were empty patches of desert and civilians.
Apparently, the ceasefire last month merely stipulated that they stop attacking merchant vessels in the Red Sea; it said nothing about attacking Israel. Therefore, Yemen is absolutely free to create a new blockade of Israel by just striking their airports and seaports, and all Israel can seem to do is try and bomb them in retaliation, a futile strategy which has failed to produce a military or political change in Yemen for the last decade when many other countries have tried it. And if America directly attacks them in response to attacks on Israel, the ceasefire is off, and expensive equipment will continue to be lost.
Across the strait from Yemen is an interesting array of countries. Egypt's position in this war is well-known, and Somalia is under a kind of US occupation under the guise of fighting terrorism (Trump withdrew most troops, but they were then sent back under Biden). The other three are Sudan, Djibouti, and Eritrea. All three are increasingly being drawn into the anti-imperialist camp, as they cooperate with Iran, Russia, and/or China. Sudan is undergoing a civil war, but the rebels fighting the government are famously backed by the UAE. Djibouti has refused to allow themselves to be a launchpad for US strikes on Yemen.
Eritrea has a fascinating history of flip-flopping between West and East over the past few decades, but has, since 2020, sided with the East. It was one of the five countries to oppose the 2022 UN resolution condemning Russia's war with Ukraine. Eritrea sends two thirds of its exports to China, and Iran has reportedly supplied them with military equipment. If a stronger link could be reforged, then Iran would have significantly less trouble sending military technology to Ansarallah, and to other friendly groups throughout the region.
Naturally, the lidless eye of the imperial core is shifting its gaze onto Eritrea. Meanwhile, Ethiopia - a country that has experienced frequent conflict with Eritrea - is part of BRICS+ and their economy is increasingly reliant on China (as is most countries' economies nowadays). If a permanent resolution between the two could be created, it would be a victory for themselves and the Resistance, and a defeat for America, which thrives on conflict and destabilization.
Last week's thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 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.
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.
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.
Simplicius, who publishes on Substack. Like others, his political analysis should be soundly ignored, but his knowledge of weaponry and military strategy is generally quite good.
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://t.me/AMK_Mapping/11770
https://t.me/AMK_Mapping/11790
~~Kerch bridge just got sabotaged (allegedly with planted explosives), then "attacked" a second time. It doesn't seem to have collapsed or anything, but it might be out of commission for now.~~
Update: The video initially posted by Ukraine was old. Seems like there was only an attack by naval drones, which was successfully repelled. Traffic has reportedly resumed on the bridge: https://t.me/kalibrated/20825
Russia does not depend heavily on that bridge for military purposes anymore, so it's not very consequential in that respect. I believe it's still pretty important for civilian supplies to Crimea, though.
Another notable development is that Russia is flying MiG-31K's (launchers of hypersonic missiles) again, after ~6 months of not doing so. Probably a response to these escalations, maybe threatening potential decapitation strikes.
If Russia continues to avoid massive retaliation for these serious attacks, I think it supports my theory that they are preparing a big war-ending campaign which will require vast resources. They don't want to be wasting anything now on otherwise inconsequential responses.
The role of the Kinzhal has mostly been replaced by longer range Iskander-M ballistic missile variants over the past six months, nicknamed Iskander-1000. That's why we see reported Iskander ballistic missile strikes at ranges of 750km or even 800km for instance, beyond the range of 500km for the normal Iskander-M. And why Ukraine wants more Patriot batteries.
This makes sense because fundamentally the Kinzhal is an air launched Iskander-M, that gets a range, trajectory shaping or speed boost from being launched at high altitude and speed by the MiG-31, the fastest and highest flying aircraft in the Russian inventory. Kinzhal likely also uses more advanced propellants. Kinzhal can also be launched from an Su-34 or even a Tu-22M3 for instance, but we don't see that because these platforms give a minimal benefit to an air launch versus a ground launched Iskander-M, you need the MiG-31 to get the full benefits of an air launch.
But with the existence of Iskander-1000, where this range boost can be achieved from a ground launched ballistic missile, the need for Kinzhal strikes has decreased, Russia can reach deep into Ukraine via ground launched ballistic missiles like Iskander-1000. Will we see a "Kinzhal-1500" in the future? Kinzhal already effectively replaced the shorter range Kh-15 air launched ballistic missile, which had a range of 300km, a warhead of 150kg, and was designed to target high value assets like high level air defence systems, very similar to the Israeli ROCKS missile.
Here's an article on the subject from August 2024
Patriots seemed to be at least partially capable of intercepting Kinzhals in a way they don't seem to do as often with Iskander-Ms. Is that just coincidental on my part?
Probably due to target selection and the protection radius offered by Patriot batteries against ballistic missiles.
Against ballistic missiles, due to the nature of a ballistic trajectory, the radius of protection an air defence system can offer is primarily defined by it's maximum altitude ceiling, and not it's maximum range. For example, the Patriot interceptor missiles, depending on the specification (PAC-2, PAC-3, PAC-3 MSE) have an altitude ceiling of between 20-36km for ballistic targets, much shorter than its maximum range of 160km versus an aerial target with PAC-2 missiles. Iskander-M ballistic missiles can fly as high as 50km+, and Iskander-1000 as high as 130km. So Patriot systems protect against a much smaller area against ballistic threats than they do versus aerodynamic targets (35km vs 160km), which means they are only placed at key locations, protecting high value counterforce targets (military) or countervalue targets (civilian).
This is important because Iskander-M is used across the entire front in large numbers, and many sections of the front will not have an air defence system capable of engaging ballistic threats stationed there. Meanwhile Kinzhal was/is used sparingly, against high value targets or against targets at longer ranges before Iskander-1000 was introduced. At these high value targets, it's much more likely that an air defence system capable of engaging ballistic threats (Such as Patriot, S-300, SAMP/T) is present and providing coverage. With this in mind, we can see why interception rates for Kinzhal seem higher than Iskander-M.
The way to solve this problem for Ukraine would be to obtain air defence systems that can provide engagement throughout the entire flight envelope of the ballistic missile they are defending against, then the radius of protection offered becomes a function of maximum range again. For example, the Arrow-2 system has a maximum altitude ceiling of 50km, which is equal to the Iskander-M maximum altitude of 50km. So Arrow-2 can engage Iskander at almost all stages of flight. This means that the maximum protection radius offered becomes a function of maximum range again, assessed to be between 90-150km for Arrow-2. So Arrow-2 would offer a lot more protection vs Iskander-M. For Iskander-1000, something like THAAD would be needed, which has an altitude ceiling of 150km and maximum range of 200km.
However, these higher tier systems can't cover lower altitudes. Arrow-2 has a minimum altitude, an altitude floor of 8km. THAAD has an altitude floor of 40km. So other systems are still needed to cover these lower altitudes and threats present there. This is why systems like Arrow-3 and SM-3 would be inappropriate for Ukraine, their altitude floor of 100km means that they can't engage many of the threats Ukraine faces.
It is also highly unlikely Ukraine will get any of these systems. Arrow-2 would be the biggest "game changer", but I highly doubt that Israel would sell it to Ukraine.
Maybe .. just maybe Kerch Bridge needs to Burn first for Ukrainians beeing able to think about peace or something , like its a Collectiv Pathological Blueball issue or something ... what percantage of their Missiles did they fire at it by now.. its deeply Patholocial Behaviour.
I think the symbolism of the Kerch Bridge is why it matters. It is a link to the rest of Ukraine but also a sign that Russia has fully integrated Crimea.