Thread image created by yours truly, depicting Iran and Pakistan very impolitely not asking whether America, on the other side of the planet, is okay with them transporting gas around.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has long been obstructed by American involvement in the region. Iran completed its section of the pipeline quite quickly, but Pakistan has been unable to finish its construction for a decade due to the fear of falling afoul of American sanctions on Iran. The United States has repeatedly tried to pressure Pakistan to give up the project and obtain gas from other countries instead. Recent articles on the state of the pipeline are contradictory, with some stating that Iran or Pakistan have given up on the pipeline while American sanctions persist. Pakistani officials reject this framing, saying that they are still working with Iran to try and get the project completed somehow. Nonetheless, Iran is becoming increasingly frustrated and is threatening a legal battle and a demand for reparations.
Meanwhile, back in Niger, the $13 billion under-construction pipeline connecting Nigeria and other West African countries to Spain and Italy will likely face delays due to the sanctions applied by the West and ECOWAS on Niger. Those following the European gas fiasco will be aware that while Spain and Italy have been impacted by the energy crisis, they have been very busy making deals with African countries to replace their Russian gas, and thus stand a better chance than Germany of making it through the crisis with their industries somewhat intact. The coup has thrown a wrench into their plans, though they can still obtain some gas from northern African countries.
And, last but not least, America tried for years to stop the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines between Germany and Russia, which culminated in them deciding to blow them up late last year.
All in all - the United States really does not like it when countries build up energy infrastructure and gain some independence from them.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
This week's third update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
It’s Not Just US Army Soldiers Going Hungry, Food Insecurity Hitting Other Branches of the Military: Expert
spoiler
So, the biggest military in the world has tactics that are entirely geared towards fighting shepherds in deserts, wunderwaffen that cost exponentially more than the hardware they may end up outmatched by, and they still can't feed their soldiers in their own country living on bases. I hope there's a lot of Qdobas and Paneras in Taiwan otherwise China's gonna have a cakewalk.
Yea that's not a good sign when your military logistics network can't provide the barest of necessities while in their home country. And the solution basically being subcontracting it out to fast food joints is too perfectly American. Next you'll hear about McDonald's on bases charging $500 for a big mac, can't leave those military contracting dollars on the table after all!
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milspec tendies
Can't wait for slop commercials with a low gravelly truck advertising voice talking about "military grade meat" and "eating like a warrior"
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VMRE: Value Meal, Ready to Eat
Every military base I've been on has had a wendy's and every foreign US base I've been on has had some form of Applebees or equivalent Amerikkan restaurant.
Usually a Subway for “healthy” options, too.
People don’t talk about rural poverty much - or when they do it’s about the absolute poverty of Appalachia - but there’s been a massive hollowing out of the rural regions between metropoles due to the end of military keynesianism. Bush gutted and neoliberalized the military during the Iraq war and in doing so started to drain out one of the only economic inflows into many of the poorer regions in the south. Recruiting numbers aren’t just down because people don’t want to be war criminals, they’re down because joining up is no longer the guarantee of economic stability that it used to be
o7 thank you Bush for destroying the US military o7
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I was gonna make a meaner joke about the difficulty of making your Dodge Challenger payments when you also have to pay for food.
i have infinite money and cheap food. someone please help me budget this my soldiers are starving
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The average US military grunt gets treated like absolute shit, and the culture makes that the whole point. Follow that trail all the way up and you can see why they allow barracks to fall into disrepair and why they neglect to consider at all feeding the troops domestically. It's very much the sense of hyper-individualism striking again, "they get paid, they can find their own food" without sparing a glance at what that entails.
US Military Brass have the mindset of an Austrian commander in the 1600's, but think that they can contend with China militarily.
First it was the missile gap now it’s the whopper gap
Neat, my Qdoba has a NATO stock number!
This is how you get an officers coup lol
Officers are usually paid well-enough, breaking in at above 40k a year from the moment they start their careers as an O-1, with career officers climbing the ranks making over 200K a year.
Of course this doesn't include military bullshit that garnishes your pay or bonuses that can help subsidize your life in service.
So the only reason if and why we'd see any sort of officers revolt would likely be something spawned from pure ideology - which is also extremely unlikely.
Yes, but officers coups are generally only successful if they can get enough grunts to follow them.
Battleship Potemkin is one of my favorite movies, the first act especially
americans would rather drive an hour out of their way and waste all their money than go without fast food lol