Argentina is an interesting microcosm of the more widespread war that every other currency is waging against the dollar - in this case, the yuan is taking on the dollar in gladiatorial combat.
The Argentinian economy, like many, is fully permeated by the American dollar, but it has its own official currency, the Argentinian peso. This may not be for long: one of the major contenders for the Argentinian presidency has proposed replacing the national currency of Argentina with the dollar, which would therefore mean that an even more substantial part of the economy would be decided, with no input from Argentina, thousands of miles away. This is not unprecedented - Ecuador already does this, as does Zimbabwe, Timor-Leste, Micronesia, Palau, and the Marshall Islands. The motivation for doing so may also be convincing to Argentinian voters, as the country has faced hyperinflation, ever-increasing benchmark interest rates, and chronic shortages of dollar reserves.
However, the yuan has entered the scene, particularly over the last couple months. The Economy Minister met with Chinese officials in early June to sign a co-operation plan to promote the Belt and Road Initiative. Commercial banks can now open deposit accounts in yuan, and securities can now be issued in the yuan. The Western media, as one might expect, emphasizes how utterly desperate Argentina must be to go to the yuan - the yuan! - to sort out its economic crisis.
Whirlpool Corp, a major American appliances company, has said that it is considering paying with the yuan to import parts for a new factory in Argentina. Over 500 Argentine companies making a plethora of products have requested to pay for imports in yuan.
The share of yuan transactions in Argentina's foreign currency market hit a daily record of 28% in late June, compared to a high of 5% in May.
And last week, Argentina opted to use the yuan to settle part of its debt with the IMF for the first time, and it will be interesting to see if other countries follow their example.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.
The first update this week is here in the comments.
The second update this week is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can, thank you.
Resources For Understanding The War Beyond The Bulletins
Defense Politics Asia's youtube channel and their map. I recommend their map more than the channel at this point, as an increasing subscriber count has greatly diminished their quality.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have decent analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: neo-conservative sources but their reporting of the war (so far) seems to line up with reality better than most liberal sources. Beware of chuddery.
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 journalist reporting in the warzone.
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 still quite reactionary in terms of gender and sexuality and race, so beware). 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 ~ Another 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's army.
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.
That's probably been my favorite type of article/post, all the foreign volunteers complaining that this war isn't like shooting farmers and bombing weddings. I remember one that was complaining they didn't have the resources (airstrikes) to "shape the battlefield" and that they weren't being given priority missions and were instead being used as line infantry. I'll see if I can dig it up
Edit: This article is close
Edit2: Here's another complaining that war is hard from a guy who was there for 2 weeks
Not the comrades you'd want watching your back!
Last Edit: this article is chock full of brainworms, from "good businessmen make good commanders" to the "Ukraine is le epic harry potter Luke Skywalker vs the Russian Voldemort" paragraph at the end
These dumbasses basically functioned as hyper - militarized police back when they were occupying impoverished, desert countries. They were closer to acting as Paris police are today than they were to soldiers fighting any kind of peer conflict. Their humiliation is cathartic and I hope more of them volunteer.
Also, does this mean that NATO doctrine called for total air superiority in the event of a conflict with the USSR? Was that ever actually feasible? I don't actually know the relative strengths of each military's respective air forces from that time
I’ve heard soldiers talk about their time in Iraq and this is dead on.
They were essentially police with the authority (and in their view, duty) to gun down an entire crowd of civilians from inside their humvee if anyone nearby shot at them.
If you weren’t willing to gun down a crowd of innocent people, you couldn’t be the machine gunner. The vets often made fun of that kind of “coward”.
i mean, NATO didn't really commit any of it's air force to the conflict right? (i think?) i guess it would stand to reason that they didn't war game this out -- they really didn't think their instigations would escalate into a russian invasion, or thought that economic sanctions would be sufficient to force terms. i would think that NATO otherwise is prepared for a "peer" conflict, but one in which it isn't sitting on its hands, and withholding its air force (and it all its trained soldiers, trained in state of the art equipment, ready to go, etc.).
The only thing worse for NATO than Ukraine losing the war with their old hand-me-downs is Ukraine losing the war with their shiniest, most profitable NATO wunderwaffen
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And these people demand respect for the “wars” they served in
If I were a Ukrainian officer I would send the western mercs in as meat shields not give them “priority missions”
Not only is it easier to send foreigners to die instead of your countrymen, but Westerners are an absolute liability for as long as they're alive and anywhere near you. They can't fucking stop posting their geolocation on social media even when they know it could get them killed.
Pretty sure the actual on-the-ground officers also think that way, at least judging from the reports that a lot of the mercs have given after leaving in either an ambulance or in a body bag.
Russian intel has been tracking foreign mercenaries and targeting them with missile strikes, etc.
They warned them to stay out
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