(credit to RomCom1989 for the title)
Image is of an Iranian soldier exulting in the launch of a ballistic missile aimed towards the imperialists.
short summary this week: US doing pretty bad and Iran doing pretty good all things considered, Strait of Hormuz is closed and will almost certainly remain so until the end of the war, Trump has no idea what to do, global economic crisis from strait closure is basically guaranteed at this point but who will ultimately benefit most and who will ultimately lose most is still up in the air.
longish summary is below in the spoiler tags
longish summary
While there are still major debates raging about how badly things are actually going right now and what the post-conflict map may look like, as we blaze past the two week mark on this conflict, it's becoming ever more obvious to almost everybody involved that this war is not going according to plan, if there ever was one. US airstrikes are, from what I can best determine, still mostly done with relatively less powerful (but still very dangerous!) and much less plentiful standoff munitions launched from bombers, though certain border and coastal areas are being struck with more powerful and more plentiful short-range guided bombs. This indicates that Iranian air defense is still sufficiently functional throughout most of Iran that the kinds of true carpet bombing done against Korea and Vietnam in the past (and Gaza very recently) is still too risky, though their airspace is still very much under assault, as we appear to have images of small groups of Western fighters breaching relatively deep into the country. Under some kind of Iranian pressure (drones? missiles? speedboats?) one aircraft carrier has retreated to a thousand kilometers from Iran, hiding behind the mountains of Oman; the other is sitting in the Red Sea, rather pointedly out of range of Yemen. As such, the ranges that Western aircraft must travel to bombard Iran is increasing, which reduces their frequency and increases strain on maintenance and logistics in the medium and long term.
While there is tons to say about the current social, economic, and military state of Iran, I don't think I have a reliable enough picture to give a good summary beyond "they aren't close to defeat or regime change". What has instead captured much of the world's attention is the continuing blockade of the Strait of Hormuz, which has inspired some of the most delusional statements I have seen so far in my life, which is sincerely a profound achievement. For those out of the loop: the strait is currently closed to all shipping except those going to very particular countries (I've seen China and Bangladesh mentioned, and apparently India is in the process of working something out and may succeed or fail). This is because most ships are not risking the trip due to the ~20 tankers and container ships that Iran has already struck and disabled in the strait and in the Persian Gulf. Additionally, the threat from Iran's military to Navy ships is such that attempting to create a convoy to guide tankers through it is suicidal to both the Navy and merchant ships. Right now it cannot be done, and it very well might be the case that it could never be done, simply due to the combination of Iran's naval forces (hundreds, perhaps thousands, of armed, specialized speedboats designed for exactly this purpose), their drones (in the tens of thousands), their torpedoes, and if all else fails, their naval mines.
The Western reaction to this has been so moronic that it has almost integer underflowed into being philosophical: what does it truly mean for a passage to be "closed"? Has Iran truly "closed" the strait, or is the risk of traversing it simply too high for these cowardly sailors (who, for some strange reason, seem to care about their "lives" and "families")? How is it possible for Iran to have closed the strait if, according to the West, Iran's military has been totally obliterated? All these questions and more plague the minds of those who cannot accept the now-proven fact that there are indeed military forces on this planet that the US Navy with all its aircraft carriers and destroyers and submarines cannot defeat; and one of those minds is, rather hilariously, Trump himself. His thrice-daily positive affirmations that Iran has been defeated are taking on an increasingly deranged and almost pitiable tone; the lamentations of a man who has finally found a situation where him merely stating that something is true is insufficient to change the situation one iota. Despite stating that some kind of naval compact or alliance is being established to protect shipping, every Western country so far - from the UK, to France, to Japan, to Australia - has publicly stated that they will not risk their ships to do so. All this as the continued blockade yet further guarantees a worldwide energy, production, transportation, and food crisis that will have major global ramifications for at least the rest of the decade and almost certainly beyond.
If the anti-imperialists play their cards right, the US could lose much from this crisis, and others, like China and Russia, could gain a great deal. To quote Nia Frome (co-founder of Red Sails): "An effective Marxist has to be enough of an accelerationist/pervert to treat the obviously bad things that are going to happen as the political opportunities they are."
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against the temporary Zionist entity. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on the Zionists' 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
@Tervell@hexbear.net shared the best analysis of the material limits of the US military industrial complex I've seen since the newsmegas began in 2022.
My commentary below, but I strongly encourage people to click through and read the article in full.
spoiler
The distinction between practically infinite JDAMs and the finite stand off weapons, antiair interceptors, and radar/detections arrays is sorely misunderstood. All of the finite weapons are what allow the US to do what they're doing now with the current state of attrition. US bases in GCC countries are partially evacuated, there have been some fighter and tanker airframes down, both carrier strike groups are manageable threatened but active, and something like low hundreds of US casualties. This is more of an ass kicking than the US has gotten in a long time, but not terrible militarily when viewed in a vacuum.However, as what Trump calls the "exquisite" class of materiel is consumed, then maintaining a meaningful tempo of operations will require higher risk approaches: use of JDAMs over Tomahawks, which requires closer approach/flyover of Iranian territory increasing the odds of more F35s getting shot down. Bigger holes in anti air systems, meaning more damage to existing soldiers and military assets on the ground in the GCCs/Israel, also more attrition of any larger concentrations of forces that would have to consolidate for any future ground operations. More damage to the air tankers needed to fling fighters from the CSG off the coast of Oman to Tehran. Either the US will have to accept higher casualty rates and damage, or meaningfully slow down the pace of operations in a war of attritoon where Iranian state survival alone is a strategic victory.
This attack on Iran has already blown years of what is functionally irreplaceable production in weeks. This war of choice is best a quagmire that will destroy large parts of the world economy, including America's, and is at worst a strategic defeat that will make the replacement of the Taliban with the Taliban look dignified. All of the above looks even worse in the context of America's medium term ability to do things in any other theatre, like supporting Ukraine or God forbid, fighting China. The opportunity cost is enormous.
Going to be honest I disagree with the article. Munitions numbers and types are all wrong.
The US is using the stockpile now because the stockpile was never sufficient for China. Not before February 2022, not before October 7th, not before June 2025. A lot of this was due to political decisions, people believing that missile defence doesn't work, or policy being run by "escalation managers" who simply don't understand how it works. Production numbers for a war with China or deterrence would need to be way higher. But it is sufficient for war with Iran. The US can continue this for weeks or even months. Iranian rates of ballistic missile fire at a dozen or two per day are manageable. This is not something that is going to force the US to go home. Air and missile defence is not designed to create an infinitely lasting, impenetrable, airtight shield. It is designed to give one's offensive strategic forces (in the case for the USA, their airpower) time to degrade the opponent's offensive forces to manageable levels. This is the massive misunderstanding when it comes to US air and missile defence that people refuse to understand.
As for losses, in the first 20 days of the air campaign in the Gulf war, the US lost between 50-60 tactical fighter aircraft to hostile fire, excluding friendly fire. Now, they've lost one plane which managed to limp home. Yes the US has deployed a lot less fighter aircraft, but not 50x less. US loss rates are historically low for an air campaign of this size. Four mid air refueling aircraft taking light shrapnel damage, and one taking heavy shrapnel damage is also quite low. A mid air collision between two other tankers is probably the most alarming for the USA, but not unexpected given just how high the tempo is. The US is probably prepared to lose 25% of deployed tankers going off of loss estimates from previous air campaigns. In a war against a country with an air force with long range air to air missiles, they'd lose a lot more than they've lost currently. Loss rates are sustainable and low. The ghost of Kuwait being the only friendly fire incident is surprising to me, I expected more friendly fire.
How, given that the article specifically goes over the reliance on rare minerals which are mainly sourced from China? Like, this is literally the entire core argument, that these weapons cannot be replaced within a reasonable timeframe, no matter how much money you pour into it, because that money cannot be converted into actual raw materials. I genuinely do not understand how you can make this point, what possible indication is there that the US would be able to successfully scale production, beyond outrageous claims by MIC CEOs that they're totally going to start making 1000 Tomahawks, eventually, trust me bro? It's been 4 years of the Ukraine war and the scaling-up of NATO military production has been... disappointing, to say the least.
(note, the main meat here is the 2nd article in the replies, the Economist one is just a very broad overview and it does seem to mainly focus on interceptors, since I assume the writers didn't want to try diving into explaining what the hell stand-off and stand-in are to a general audience, or, uh, whoever reads The Economist)
The article isn't just about air defense, but also about standoff munitions, the expenditure of which is no way manageable.
But... they've literally abandoned numerous bases already? Like, sure, thanks to tankers and carriers they can keep flying and striking from further away, but the logistics strain of that is much greater than if they could just fly from bases directly, as they could in the Iraq Wars - they already *have" "gone home" from their main power projection capability in the region. They did it before the war even started!
Which... has not happened? Iran's strikes on Israel are not "manageable". Iran's strikes on oil infrastructure are not "manageable". The strikes on the Green Zone are not "manageable".
This is a very myopic view of the cost of military operations - equipment is lost not to just outright destruction, but also to wear-and-tear. The US air fleet, at this point, doesn't really have a lot of hardy reliable planes left - it's either ancient stuff, which has low readiness because of its age, of the F-35, which has low readiness because it's the F-35.
It's also important to take into account the state's ability to replace lost equipment (y'know, what the article is all about, although with a focus on munitions rather than airframes). The Soviets lost nearly 50k T-34 tanks during WW2 - by this same logic of "in a past conflict they lost more", we could watch Russia lose 5k tanks and dismiss it, which would be very incorrect given that the Soviets' capacity to make T-34s is radically different from current Russia's capacity to make T-90s and refurbish T-72s/T-80s. The US industrial capacity to manufacture planes isn't what it used to be in the '90s, which isn't what it used to be in the '80s, and so on. The fleet is shrinking, both in sheer number of airframes and in the time those airframes can actually stay up and conduct operations.
Yeah, I didn't want to add too much extra commentary, since the article was long enough as it is, but there was the part "the coalition can keep bombing Iran for years at this rate", and, like, no they fucking can't? I mean sure, ineffectually lobbing JDAMs shortly off the coastline, but actually hitting any meaningful targets deep inside the country?
I mean, considering the F-35's rate of production and falling readiness rates, just wear-and-tear from years of constant missions might significantly shrink the fleet, even without considering potential shootdowns.
Going by your link they have 120k of those and 60k of another type of bomb. So let's say 200k. Apparently they carry between 250 kg and a ton of explosives each.
The Russians fire 40k shells worth 40 kg each day.
So even assuming they can fly wherever they want. Those 200k bombs are about enough to sustain a bombardment campaign similar to Russia's in Ukraine for 3-4 months. So not for years.
They don't have enough volume, neither dk the Iranians. But geography favors them.