Image is of Cuba's National People's Power Assembly.
The most recent geopolitical news around Cuba is the arrival this week of four Russian vessels, including a nuclear submarine - not carrying any nukes, (un)fortunately - to Havana. This will, in Putin's words, merely be a visit celebrating historical ties and no laws are being broken. Nonetheless, it's not hard to imagine how American politicians and analysts are taking the news, especially as it comes shortly after Russia promised an "asymmetrical" response to further NATO involvement in Ukraine (notably, officially allowing the use of US weapons such as missiles in Russia, albeit in a small part of Russian territory, near the border).
Meanwhile, China has been increasingly co-operating with Cuba to overcome the economic hardship created by American sanctions. China has recently re-allowed direct flights to Cuba and has recently donated some small photovoltaic plants as part of an initiative to eventually boost the Cuban energy grid by 1000 MW - and any electrical expansion helps as Cuba is plagued by blackouts which last most of the day. Additionally, the EU has made meaningful contributions to Cuba's energy situation too, with large solar installations. Hopefully, the Belt and Road Initiative will help preserve the Cuban revolution against reactionary forces as the power of US sanctions wanes. The proximity of Cuba to the United States makes this much more challenging than it would be for countries elsewhere, however. Similarly to the situation in Mexico, it seems unlikely that the US's influence over Cuba will massively diminish for decades to come unless there is a catastrophic internal collapse in the American authoritarian regime.
The Havana Syndrome will continue until American morale declines.
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 Cuba! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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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.
In Ukraine - Russia war news:
The Ukrainians seem to be committing to their asymmetric strategy, they know that they can't beat Russia on the frontlines, so Ukraine is launching an increased amount of attacks against high value targets within Russia. One of the most significant of these is the loss of a Russian Su-57 5th generation stealth fighter jet while it was on the ground, as confirmed by Russian telegrams. It is the first combat loss of a 5th generation fighter aircraft in history, and Russia currently only has a handful of Su-57s that are operational, so a very costly loss. It was unprotected on a runway, and not in a concrete hangar, which is a major oversight from Russia.
In general Russian aviation has lost quite a few high value aircraft throughout the war, both to friendly and enemy fire, including an Su-34 NVO to friendly fire at the beginning of the war (one of only 10, and one of the few fully capable SEAD and EW aircraft at Russia's disposal), and the suspected loss of various AWACS jets both to enemy and friendly fire, and the loss of the Mach 3 capable MIG 31 aircraft, which were also on the ground and unprotected while they were bombed. The Su-57 loss has a tactical impact, as Russia has made extensive use recently of the stealth kh-69 cruise missiles, which the stealthy Su-57 can carry deep into Ukrainian territory to extend their effective range, due to it's own stealth capabilities, to enable strikes on power infrastructure deep in Western Ukraine. A double stealth 1-2 punch. However multiple fighter jets in the Russian Air Force can carry the kh-69. The recent MIG 31 losses also have an impact, it is the only normal sized fighter plane/non bomber that can carry the Kinzhal, and flies to high and fast for most Ukrainian air defences to shoot down.
All in all these losses will not change the trajectory of the war or the reality of the frontlines where Ukraine has no answer to Russia, and losses are to be expected, but it does show that Russian aviation's doctrine is well behind battlefield realities. The lack of proper SEAD/EW aircraft and outdated SEAD/DEAD doctrine, the failure to build protective hangars to protect high value aircraft, and friendly fire incidents are not things an air force of Russia's size should struggle with. It's almost as if there has been no modernisation since the end of the cold war.
Outright insane that this is true.
Even in peacetime, why not put it in a shed?
If you owned a $30 million car, you wouldn’t park it outside no matter how nice the neighborhood.
Insane.
I mean the photo speaks for itself
Picture looks like it was taken with a potato.
I mean it's publicly available satellite and drone imagery, sadly we don't have access to the super spy satellites China, Russia and the USA have that can take a photograph of a pimple from space.
lol Washington isn’t providing Ukraine with their satellite imagery? Or are they prohibiting it from being shown publicly? I know Trump got a bunch of heat from liberals because he exposed some satellite photo
Fuck
I mean leaving such valuable aircraft out in the open is just terrible tactics from Russian aviation. Surely a concrete hangar would be much cheaper than an Su-57.
the more demonstrative kicks up the ass Russia gets before a potential conflict with NATO, the better. Russia seems to be much better at learning how to solve problems once they've already happened and less good at coming up with preemptive solutions, so you get one big costly failure and then it rarely happens again. seems to me that it indicates a fairly rigid military structure where advice doesn't percolate upwards quickly, but it functions well enough on the day-to-day. at least it's better than the West, which experiences a dozen big costly failures and then designs a quadrillion dollar missile which is meant to solve that problem forever and then it turns out that missile can't even get off the ground or whatever and then there's a dozen more big costly failures and then a withdrawal
some doctrines have to be written in blood
When you really boil it down, the Russian military's purpose is to do military actions, whereas the US military's purpose is to funnel money into the military industrial complex
absolutely
for example: while I do think the line of "NATO isn't a defensive alliance, it's an offensive alliance" is relatively effective and isn't strictly wrong, I do think it's a little misleading to portray NATO like that.
it's a little like being critical of US imperialism and wars in the Middle East, but framing that in terms of "we didn't invade Iraq and Afghanistan for democracy and freedom, we did it for oil/mineral wealth!" again, there might indeed have been some corporations that really wanted that oil and minerals, and framing it like the US is evil for wanting loot and plunder rather than a moral global order is more or less how US imperialism functions on the day-to-day basis of exploitation of underdeveloped countries, but like - the US already has a shitload of fossil fuels and minerals.
rather, I think it's worth stressing that NATO's primary purpose (post-USSR, at least) is to provide an exclusive market for the American military-industrial complex, and it being, y'know, an actual military alliance is really its secondary role. because flipping the primary and secondary purposes around, while sounding principled and anti-militarist and anti-imperialist, fails to really get at the heart of the engine of American imperialism and how the empire truly functions, because the US isn't at war with everybody, all the time, nor threatening to be. 98% of the time, it's just the grinding gears of exploitation and capital accumulation and striking down any reforms. the US has done an awful lot of warring over the last century or so, but the wars are not the empire. the enforced dollar currency and the debt and the capitalists backed by soft power and intelligence agencies are the empire. the wars are just what happens when a country refuses to accept that empire.
and in the "US invading the Middle East for oil" case, I similarly think it's much more complete and explanatory to frame it as "the US invaded the Middle East to disrupt any potential anti-hegemonic power forming in the region, and invaded Afghanistan especially due to its proximity to Russia and China, as well as more general military-industrial complex profiteering." but obviously the reason why libs would be unable to accept this framing is because they agree that China and Russia are bad and must be stopped by any means, but still want to be regarded as pseudo-anti-imperialists against the Bush administration. so "it wasn't freedom and democracy, it was just oil! haha funny joke about how I spilled some oil in my kitchen and now America wants to invade me!" remains the prevailing narrative to comfort the libs.
Hmm. Well, I think the synthesis is that there's no conflict between oil and hegemony. Really the oil is a major mechanism of hegemony. As we are seeing play out in Europe right now, and saw in Ukraine with the separation from Russian fossil fuels (esp. gas) prior.
The problem when people say "it's JUST about oil" is that they don't know what "oil" really means and refuse to look deeper.
I kinda disagree with the notion that NATO isn't at war/threatening everyone, at least to some degree. The thousand or so U.S. military bases around the world (plus all the "guest" U.S. military presence in bases which aren't technically owned by the U.S./NATO) are absolutely a threat; a constant reminder that if the "hosting" (or a nearby) country thinks it can step out of line, it is a very, very short "hard power" leash they are on. Glen Ford of Black Agenda Report has done some really good talks/articles about this.
I remember reading one of the reports post-9/11, either from the investigation report or some report justifying the subsequent invasions, that they specifically cited China’s proximity to the Middle East as being a valuable asset to take advantage of even though nominally they’re trying to fight Osama lol
Good post. There's also some good agitation potential in that realisation. "The West is evil" is a true statement but it is hard to swallow for soft squishy liberals. "Taxpayer dollars is being wasted to buy overpriced junk that doesn't even work that well" is a message that has a wider audience and that can prepare listeners to accepting the message about imperialism.
Perhaps. But it can also naturally lead to the conclusion of “you’re right. We need to make more effective weapons and impose austerity to lower government spending”
GOOD post