On Tuesday and Wednesday, this year's NATO summit will take place in Vilnius, Lithuania, in a grand meeting of some of the most awful ghouls currently populating the planet
Despite strong efforts and words from Ukraine, membership is still very unlikely to be forthcoming and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Sweden might not get membership for a while either, as Erdogan continues to play both sides off each other, but who can truly say.
All of this is in the wake of Biden announcing the delivery of cluster bombs to Ukraine, as he admits that they are running out of other munitions to send, ensuring that Ukraine, its people, and its children - the ones that remain, anyway - will continue to suffer for many, many generations to come. Cluster bombs have, I believe, already been used in the conflict, but now will presumably be used at a higher rate. The leader of Cambodia, a country that is a major victim of US cluster bombing, has said:
"It will be the worst danger for the Ukrainians for decades or even centuries if those cluster bombs are used," Hun Sen said.
"I know for sure that Cambodia is small and weak, and our voice is weightless, but with our pity towards the people of Ukraine, I call on the U.S. president, the provider, and the Ukrainian president, the recipient, not to use cluster bombs in this war because the real victims will be civilians, especially the Ukrainian ones," he said.
What a perfect exemplification of the conflict as a whole. Millions of Ukrainians will be thrown into the inferno, entirely disposable in the eyes of the West, so long as we burn some Russians in the fire.
The suffering is the point.
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.
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
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.
Why does the US want to go to war with China.
The US' political economic system is built on a house of cards that is carefully maintained by imperialism, itself backed up by financial and military weapons. China is undercutting the financial weapons by simply existing with its productive capacity, its refusal to let the finance sector balloon, and forming more equitable trade relationships with peripheral countries.
This is correctly perceived as a threat to the US-dominated status quo, as it provides an alternative, and more appealing way of running a country, one that isn't subservient to the US, and therefore will lead to less extraction by the US and its allies.
This will eventually lead to economic crisis for the US from which it cannot recover with its first line of attack, its financial weapons. The US has hollowed out its productive capacity in order to reap profits through imperialism, it can't just turn inward and exploit its populace to escape (though it will try). That leaves actual military weapons.
On the long term, that's why the US' current movers and shakers want a hot war. An alignment of bourgeois and state interests.
Over the short term, the US is trying to "contain" China. It wants to do trade wars, prevent other countries from making mutually beneficial agreements with China, apply sanctions, and otherwise limit their productive growth. To do this, it needs to manufacturer consent for why China and the Chinese people are deserving of punishment. So we also now see official state sinophobia, racist and orientalist speech and terrorism, and a general push for "China bad" vibes. The new cold war won't work if the public isn't propagandized into supporting the destruction of China.
deleted by creator
this is a very good answer, the only addendum I would add is that the bourgeoisie are divided on this because while some are directly threatened by competition with China (competition that they cannot simply buy out or destroy due to Chinese state support), others see enhanced profit to be made by working with China.
I predict an intra-class battle for the coming years as tensions rise, and hopefully the working class can take advantage of this in some form
in short: China is within the world capitalist system (like basically every country on earth) but is outside the American-dominated corporate monopoly system, and most importantly is exceeding the United States' efficiency, which is why they must be stopped at all costs before the locus of world capitalism shifts away from the West and diminishes their power
deleted by creator
In addition to what you said, some of this also comes down to members of the ruling class who take the CPC at their word that they are still trying to achieve communism, while others think it's just an act at this point.
China is based while the US is cringe.
There’s no good outcome to a war with China, it makes zero fucking sense. And consent has been manufactured already, all the libs are into it because of free honkykong and taiwan, all the fascists are into it because America number one.
I feel like Carmella in sopranos after she breaks up with tony and she starts crying and says “I feel like I’m going fucking crazy”
When has the U.S. not wanted war with any country which doesn't absolutely bend the knee to it, agree with and help it in all its sanctions and other foreign ventures, etc.? The thing that would be odd beyond imagining would actually be if the U.S. just said, "Eh. We're good with it this time. No worries," and let it be. We'd have to wonder if we'd slipped into some parallel dimension or something.
deleted by creator
deleted by creator
Yeah I considered as much, I’m losing my mind
I'm not saying we wouldn't get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 or 20 million Americans killed, tops! Uh, depending on the breaks.
deleted by creator
Fundamentally, it's the US's belief in Thucydides's trap, which is the geopolitical principle that the upstart hegemon, in this case China, will military contest the current hegemon, in this case the US, in order to dethrone the current hegemon. Notice that it's heavily disputed whether Thucydides's trap is actually a thing.