Bulletins and News Discussion from August 12th to August 18th, 2024 - Marshall Plan: Now As Farce - COTW: Ireland

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

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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.

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What is the most likely scenario for the Ukrainian meat grinder to end at this point? Best case scenario is whatever ends the war fastest and with the fewest deaths, but I don't think that's possible with recent changes.
- What is the most likely scenario for the Ukrainian meat grinder to end at this point?
  
  I think we're looking at it right now. Russia gets past the fortifications it's been gradually grinding down for 2 years and then marches its forces into relatively undefended Ukrainian territory as quickly as that territory can be reinforced and held by Russia and its forces kept safe from drones, missiles, and Ukrainian aircraft. this will still probably be pretty slow all things considered, I imagine they'll grab a bunch of territory, stop and consolidate for some time, grab more, consolidate, and so on, but this is leagues faster than the 10 meters per day we had during most of 2023.
  
  then, either Russia reaches the Dniper and has a great natural defensive formation to reinforce (and possibly advance further from if peace is still made impossible by the West), or Ukraine finally sues for peace before Russia gets there and Russia gets whatever terms it wants within reason.
  
  I hesitate to say we're nearing the end of the war - in fact, we probably have a year, two, possibly more and we might only be halfway through or even less than that - but without direct NATO involvement I just don't see how Ukraine alters the war in any meaningful way from its current course. maybe it had a shadow of a chance in 2022, maybe even in 2023 with some exceptionally good organizing and training, but in late 2024? what's going on in Kursk is a farce of their 2023 counteroffensive, which was already pretty farcical. there's not much to do in this war anymore other than throw men at Russia and hope that a meteorite hits the Kremlin or something.
  
  we've been saying that the outcome has been pretty much baked in since the war began due to many factors, but there was always a chance of a Russian fuckup (and there have been a few!) that meant Ukraine could somehow figure out a way to win, or at least not lose, or at least lose but in such a way that they remain a viable nation-state. crazier things have happened in wars, even between opponents of mismatched strength. but now the outcome is just totally determined. Ukraine could take all of Kursk and I still think Russia ultimately wins in every universe.
- I think a lot of factors are pointing to a conclusion of the war by 2025, maybe 2026 at the latest:
  
  Ukraine is running out of conscripts
  
  Russia is running out of volunteers
  
  Ukrainian defenses in the Donbass (main focus of the war) are seriously crumbling
  
  The Ukrainian population is starting to sour on the war
  
  The West is starting to talk about using their missiles anywhere on Russian territory
  
  Ukraine's energy grid is on the brink of total collapse, with another Russian missile campaign looming in winter
  
  Ukraine is running out of air defense systems/missiles
  
  Ukraine hasn't enlisted real fighting age men yet.
  
  Russia hasn't even declared war yet
  
  Odessa and Transnistria haven't popped off yet, the war will eventually involve Moldova either breaking up or fully reuniting
  
  Ukraine is enlisting old men at this point. They've gone from old people down which is a very odd recruitment strategy, but the only reserves are 18-24 year olds at this point, which is a small window of fighting age men.
  
  If you're forcing people to fight it's probably a lot easier to force weak old men into a van vs able bodied youth .
  
  Plus you'd probably want to preserve the population that has the rest of their lives to potentially create surplus value, and instead get rid of pensioners.
- I think zelensky is gonna get got really soon. The assassin will say he is a nazi and that zelensky betrayed ukraine but there's a possibility he will be doing it on orders from russia. There will be a sort of a coup. The new head of state will order a general retreat and ukraine will begin negotiations which will amount to capitulation. Russia will spend the next few years hunting down the remaining nazi formations inside ukraine.
  
  Alternatively war between the Axis of Resistance and isisrael/nato could go full scale and Russia will get dragged in to that too and we will really be in WW3 then and what happens in ukraine is anyone's guess.
  
  I think zelensky is gonna get got really soon.
  
  Yeah one of the things that worries me about that is the fact that is Jewish. I really don't want eastern Europe to get more antisemitic (the actual kind not antizionism that Israel claims is antisemitic). No matter what Jewish people were going to be blamed for things but to have him literally in charge of the country for the stabbed in the back narrative is bad. It really doesn't even matter how he gets removed from power.
  
  The plan was always to use Zelenski as a smoke screen "Jewish prez= No nazis" and then if/when they failed he would be a perfect stabbed in the back scapegoat.
  
  This will happen, just now americans just have armed millions of european fascists as well. The american left in its weak-kneed both-sideism have once again doomed all the minorities they so eagerly clutch their pearls about.
- The Ukrainians run out of men, we said it was 18 months to 3 years about a year ago, but the Russian high command says 5-10 years. The discrepancy may be due to underestimating how many men the Ukrainians could conscript. We also didn't account for so many western " mercenaries".

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