The imperial core is continuing the process of self-cannibalization as the interimperial wars between Europe and the US over resource and territorial control continue. Greenland, populated with less than a hundred thousand heavily exploited people, is the newest territory to fall under Trump's gaze. The main draw is the mineral resources present there, of which it boasts nickel, copper, cobalt, and platinum, and much more than remains unexplored under the ice. But the ice is melting, and profit must be made. There is an additional element of wanting Arctic territory to counter Chinese and especially Russian interests and aims; Russia is increasingly eyeing the northern Arctic route as an alternative to more vulnerable routes through the Suez Canal or around Africa, and is investing heavily in icebreakers for that purpose.
However, even if Europe possessed the desire to resist American annexations - and they absolutely do not, at the end of the day - they do not even have the ability. Denmark may, to a lesser or greater extent, make angry sounds and talk about national honour or some such, but their military would be trampled underfoot by even the New York Police Department, let alone a concerted military effort by the US. If Trump wants Greenland, he will have it. This will naturally increase the grumbling in Europe about reconsidering the Transatlantic alliance, and that grumbling may, in the medium-term future, as the American Empire continues its decline, lead to meaningful results. But in the short term, Europe shall have to bear whatever Trump throws at them, for they obviously cannot now ally with Russia, who was the natural counterweight to American interests for decades before 2022.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
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.
Glad Ansar Allah at least isn't waiting around to get hit.
They just got hit unfortunately. Without air defence systems that can reliably hit aircraft above 50 000ft, there's not much that can be done to stop US, British or Israeli airstrikes. Sure they can shoot down MQ-9 Reaper drones and force the USA to fly the RQ-4 Hawk drones which operate above 50 000ft, but that's the limit to their current air defence capabilities. Even with air defence systems, stand off weapons still exist, Israel used the Rampage air launched 12 inch calibre artillery rocket in recent strikes against Yemen, which has a range of 250km/155mi. But forcing the enemy to use stand off weapons and keep their aircraft at a distance is always a better situation to being directly bombed overhead. Syria before and after the HTS takeover is a good example of this. Before HTS took control, Israel still bombed, but were restricted to standoff weapons due to Syrian air defence systems operated by the SAA. After the HTS takeover, those systems were no longer operational and Israel could carry out hundreds of strikes, with thousands of munitions, within 72 hours.
Yeah, I expected them to get bombed, I was just saying I'm glad they didn't sit around waiting for it. Maybe they will launch another couple of those anti-ship ballistic missiles at the Truman.
No anti ship ballistic missiles have been launched in a while, by my observations Ansar Allah have been scaling down operations in preparation for the ceasefire, not in the number of operations (these have actually stayed the same or increased slightly) but rather using less sophisticated weapons systems. On attacks against Israel they've gone from using Palestine-2/Kheibar Shekan/Fattah-1 series missiles, to Zulfiqar series ballistic missiles, and yesterday even using SCUD derivatives like Qiam/Rezvan (which Ansar Allah also call Zulfiqar, very confusing). And no Anti Ship Ballistic Missiles as mentioned earlier.
I did a whole post on this earlier