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.
iran clearly doesnt really give a shit about the suffering of the palestinian ppl so much as it gives a shit abt securing its own safety and stability and like whatever, i didnt expect any different, but it’s really grating to see them come out with a new statement every day or two being like “we are totally gonna fucking kill the zionist entity guys just wait and see, plans are in motion, our brave palestinian people will not be left waiting” throughout all of this. shit or get off the pot, losers. i used to have some positive feeling for them but they just let israel get away with the most heinous violation of their sovereignty and didn’t do a thing. Hezbollah and Yemen make them look pathetic by comparison.
Iran is literally the only country on Earth arming Hamas, what the hell are you talking about? The Axis of Resistance are the only people who are acting on giving a shit about the suffering of the Palestinian people. They’re playing the long game, and it’s thanks to their efforts the entity will be eliminated. Hezbollah and Yemen both get weapons and training from Iran, they work in concert. They’ll be a response, and it’ll be timed to do maximum effect. You’ve no right to whine unless you’re doing more than Iran to end the suffering of the Palestinian people, and I assure you you’re not.
They don’t actually arm Hamas directly though. Usually it’s Iran who purchases the weapons from North Korea and gets them to Hamas. When asked the DPRK denies selling weapons to Hamas.
I think there’s some wink-wink stuff going on here though, DPRK is always based and supporting the right cause
Yeah I mean the DPRK wouldn’t sell to Iran if they minded Hamas using their weapons. I imagine a lot of this is just plausible deniability.
I’m one doomer post from blocking your ass. Who do you think arms and funds Hezbollah and Ansarallah dumbass?
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https://youtu.be/eHqSH7Gwc7g
This man was beaten to death by the Palestinian Authority for his activism on behalf of Palestine and against Israel. He is a martyr and a hero.
Listen to his words about the nature of Iran. They are the backbone of the entire axis of resistance. If they didn’t care, they wouldn’t be doing this! This costs them dearly economically and politically to stick up for Palestine. Shut your weak quibbling whinging already
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I found a YouTube link in your comment. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
Tired of, most likely crackers who will abandon Palestinian liberation the moment the settlers actually start losing and will start screaming “genocide” when decolonization begins, armchair analyzing the only country arming the fucking revolution.
I’m tired boss. Oh so tired.
It’s funny how people keep forgetting that Israel has nukes.
How would Iran committing geopolitical suicide, by launching an un-calculated response/attack against Israel (it reads like you want Iran to do that) which could result in an Israeli and US response that could turn Iran into Iraq 2.0, help the Palestinian cause? Iran staying stable and safe from imperialist attacks helps the cause! Who do you think arms and funds Hezbollah and the Houthis/Ansar Allah? They are funded by Iran and all their new missiles are of Iranian designs. Without Iranian support these groups would have much less military capabilities. Without Iranian anti ship ballistic missile designs, the naval blockade carried out by Yemen against Israel would not be possible. Iranian drones are crucial to what Hezbollah is doing in northern Israel, their military operation would not be possible without them.
The way to avenge Palestinian lives, take back on attacked sovereignty and avenge all dead leaders is not doing random uncalculated strikes, it’s the destruction of the zionist entity, which will come soon
Fuck off. Iran has killed and been martyred for Palestine on many occasions and they will do it again so you dont get to say shit about them not caring. If they want to take time deciding when is a good time to kill and die that is their right. What have you done for the Palestinians? let me guess you bought a keffiyeh and went and yelled at the sky with a bunch of other people.
Iran has to worry about getting nuked. Iran has 7 million people in once city that could be wiped out if they fuck this up.
“Nothing good ever happens” gang stays winning. Perpetual disappointment means there are no surprises.
Replace Iran with China and you’d be very close to the truth. As it stands though between Russia-China and Iran its definitely Iran with the highest stakes and willingness to act.
That said you’re getting flak for this but in general I’d say nobody should take any claim of military action seriously when its announced days or weeks in advance.
Even ignoring the Ukrainian examples, the first Iranian attack against Israel was announced well in advance and was meant realy as a show of force rather than a serious and real escalation towards war. Of course there are reasons for this as well, why would they start a war overnight when neither China nor Russia are actualy willing to commit troops to defend them?
As a result of these announcements the US had ample time to prepare and support Israel during the attack. Despite being a significant act, it was underwhelming. If you want to clown on anything I think its fair to always be skeptical moving forward.
Heck Ukraine would not have managed anything right now if they made the same literal “Summer War Offensive” movie trailers like they did last year, although I don’t know if that was because they simply didn’t have the resources to worry about it and are desperate or because the west was anxious about the plan.
Either way don’t announce shit in advance should be an obvious standard lol.
This post radiates reddit energy. War isn’t tacticool tit-for-tat Michael Bay explosions.
It took 2-weeks for the first retaliation against an embassy strike.
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