Image is of Yemen seizing the first ship in its blockade of Israel (the Galaxy Leader) with a helicopter raid.
Alternate title: What If It Was The Bab El-Womandeb And It Was Just For The Ladies?
Ansarallah is a key component of the broader Resistance movement, backed by Iran, and has been a stalwart member in engineering the ongoing collapse of Zionism. It has steadily escalated both its rhetoric and, rarely nowadays, its actions, proving that the mythical "red line" might actually exist in the world after all, after going MIA in both Russia and China. It has been striking first Israel-owned ships heading through the Bab el-Mandeb - the strait that leads into the Red Sea and then to the Suez Canal - and, recently, has demonstrated its promise that any ships that intend to dock in Israel will be attacked. While this is really only half a blockade, the cost of going around Africa is significant, and Western insurance companies really don't like it when their ships get blasted by missiles and drones. Several shipping companies have already stated their intention to alter/stop shipping routes through the Red Sea, trying to prompt the West to find a "solution".
Despite US naval presence in the area, Yemen possesses the ability to strike the oil refining facilities of the Gulf monarchies, leaving the US in a very difficult position. If they attack Yemen, then not only do Western ships risk being attacked directly, but those oil refineries may go up in smoke depending on if they help the West - and global oil prices will skyrocket, in an already declining world economy - and it might cost several Western leaders their leadership positions, including Biden himself. A regional war could ultimately tumble into worldwide chaos.
Equally, however, the US cannot afford to lose Israel. It is the single most important American imperial outpost, perhaps alongside Taiwan. If Zionism is destroyed as a local destabilizing influence, then the Russia-China-Iran axis will find itself in a leadership position over the region. Israeli military losses in Gaza increase every single day as they advance further into the labyrinth death trap under the obligation to show some kind of military victory, with Hamas' strategy of attrition taking its toll. And Hezbollah sits there, having destroyed most of the border infrastructure, silently threatening the obliteration of Israel's infrastructure under the rain of a hundred thousand missiles.
As world attention gradually shifts away from the Gaza genocide, we continue to approach the brink.
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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.
As a CNC machinist. I don't think this is possible. US industrial capacity is growing, but there are limits. There are only so many machine builders out there (mostly in Europe, Japan, and occupied Korea, with a handful of domestic ones). There are only so many skilled machinists, CNC programmers, technicians, etc. There are lead times for the acquisition of industrial machinery, then installation and validation takes time (and there are a very limited number of technicians for these machine builders), then developing and refining industrial processes takes time on top of that. The pace can be accelerated to a degree, but an industrial economy is like a forest. You don't plant the seeds one day and have a forest the next. It requires years and years of continuous development.
Finance is fluid. As we see, finance can pack up and leave at a moment's notice, but industry is fixed capital. Factories open and close, but it is far less instant. If you decide to build a factory today, you probably won't see any finished goods for several years, and a return on investment for several years more. As much as the nationalists want to see re-industrialization and a decoupling from China, the investors will always be risk averse. They will not invest in anything unless it is guaranteed they can reap profits 10, 20, 30 years into the future. They are much happier speculating and seeking rents otherwise.
Also, there was a reason why America deindustrialized in the first place - fleeing the rising tide of high wages in America to go where labour is cheaper. Is state intervention really going to be enough to reverse this flow? What happens if the Republicans achieve power and don't care for industrialization, with lobbyists telling them to keep the financial profits flowing instead?
I think it'll work to some extent - we're seeing the American chip industry slowly, haltingly come online, but IIRC the factory being built in Arizona is just one step in the process of making chips. And what if the mighty potential of Chinese chipmaking is brought online considerably sooner than the pessimistic estimates of 2030? Big strides have already been made in that field. And given America's warmongering, what happens if Taiwan pops off?
Competing with China in state capacity doesn't seem like a winning strategy for America. They can inflate their GDP as much as they want - in concrete terms, they're behind China in several fields as various foundations keep worryingly reporting, and I don't think they can catch up.
Where the US government is willing to subsidize industrial development (read: using public funds to ensure a return on private investment, removing any risk from the equation), we will see industrial development. It absolutely won't reverse the decades-long trend of deindustrialization, but it is a shift from the decades-long status quo of doing nothing. These subsidies will be limited to "strategic" sectors though. Chip foundries, aeronautics, arms, surveillance tech, etc. The production of consumer goods is never coming back under this model, and neither is the robust network of business-to-business industrial activity we see in Chinese industrial hubs - where the manufacturers of electrical components, circuit boards, screens, motors, sensors, plastics, fasteners, tool and die, industrial robots, etc. are all present in a concentrated geographical space. The sparse population of extremely specialized high-tech industries is nowhere near enough to support such a rich environment of industrial suppliers.