A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like "in Minecraft") and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the first nuclear icebreaker ever built, the Lenin, which entered service in 1957 in the USSR and decommissioned in 1989. It is now a museum ship in Murmansk. I just think it's neat.


My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preambleThe last week has had a lot of Trump admin dipshittery that isn't important enough to be worth remarking on, so I'm just going to skip right past all that. The sanctions campaign against Iran appears to have stalled before it even left the starting line, with China saying that, nope, they aren't going to cut off their ally for the sake of their enemy. From what I've gathered from Naked Capitalism's (albeit limited) reporting on the state of Iran's economy, the impression I get is that while inflation is running kinda wild, everything else, including state revenues, are doing sufficiently well that there isn't going to be an economic collapse this year nor probably next year if we assume a continued no-deal situation over Hormuz.

The underlying geopolitical situation has had some interesting little developments. Iran and Oman appears to have worked out their plan for joint control over Hormuz. Ansarallah is continuing their explosive campaign against the Saudis, who are now begging the US for help. Additionally, the ever-barking never-biting Türkiye is showing some signs that they might soon, finally, after three years of witnessing outright genocide, do 1 (one) (the first numerical digit) action that isn't to the Zionist's direct benefit, by putting up a modicum of resistance in defence of their puppet in Syria; but, quite frankly, I'm not holding my breath on anything truly substantial happening while Erdogan's in charge.

The state of oil flows in and around Hormuz are very hotly debated right now. Many of the oil flow numbers can be dismissed out of hand because they aren't reflective of the reality of Iranian control and vision of the strait. Due to the narrowness of the strait, full visual coverage of the ships travelling through the channel can be achieved with technology no more advanced than a dozen people with binoculars and a not-especially-tall mountain. However, figures that are around 3-5 million barrels per day (compared to the pre-war 20 million per day) seems plausible when including Iran allowing some allied vessels out (notably Iraqi and Chinese vessels, among others). This, plus China's rather odd actions in the oil market over the last six months, have resulted in the US's SPR now draining at "only" 4-6 million barrels per week, compared to 8-9 earlier in the war. However, the war's impact on fertilizer and diesel stockpiles and prices are now unignorable even to those with their heads in the sand, with anxiety steadily building in the mainstream media about food crises next year.

Meanwhile, Trump has decided to pick fights with Canada due to their strange unwillingness to graciously hand over their sovereignty to the US, with the two countries now in a tariff war. That being said, oil seems to be one product that neither side wants to fight over: the US needs a producer, and Canada needs a customer. The only other country in the vicinity with major oil reserves is Venezuela, who has been in the news a lot lately for precisely this reason, but they simply don't have the production to do much of anything to alleviate the US's stockpile issues and likely still won't by the time Trump has left office, and so they can be safely dismissed as a significant player in this ongoing global energy conflict.

On the subject of naval trade routes, a fascinating development is that Russia has finally unveiled the Northern Sea Route as a regular maritime passage, with a small fleet of eight Chinese vessels taking the route as a test run in mid-August. From Shanghai to Hamburg, the route is a little over 7000 nautical miles and goes through no chokepoints (though I suppose the Bering Strait could hypothetically become one), compared to the Suez route which is nearly 11,000 nautical miles and goes through three chokepoints (Malacca, Bab el-Mandab, Suez). Russia has the world's only nuclear icebreaker fleet, and the increased power from those reactors is necessary to provide the sheer force to break up the ice along the route, making them even more uniquely situated to benefit from the route. Many countries, China foremost among them, have identified the advantage of not being subject to chokepoints and hostile waters as the US navy continues its rapid transition to outright piracy, so it'll be interesting to see to what extent the route is adopted in the coming years.


Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.

Please check out the RedAtlas!

The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.

The Zionist Entity's Genocide of Palestine

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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.


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[–] 54 points 1 day ago*

some notes on Iranian anti-ship missile development https://x.com/ripplebrain/status/2094919771494228142 (privated account), https://x.com/pati_marins64/status/2094900204126556506

Financial Times: Russia secretly helping Iran develop supersonic cruise missiles https://archive.ph/Gar7F

The narrative that Iran is dependent on technology transfers from various countries persists, but it does not survive a historical fact-check of the Iranian industry in recent years.

...

I totally buy this one, because:

more

  1. Based on public information, Iran doesn't have an operational ramjet-powered cruise missile
  2. Iran has a strong incentive to develop one, because the anti-ship cruise missile program lags behind their ballistic missile program, and faster cruise missiles will give them a much better deterrent against American naval air defenses
  3. The Russians have deep experience with ramjet propulsion, the first Soviet ramjet powered missiles were fielded in the 60s
  4. The Iranians should be fully capable of developing a fully domestically produced ramjet anti-ship cruise missile. They previously displayed propulsion components and hinted at a ramjet program, so we know they were working on it
  5. The supposed transfer here was quite limited, with the Russians simply offering what amounts to technical advice. It doesn't sound like any components actually changed hands.

The idea that this crosses some kind of "red line" is absurd. If the leaks are legitimate, everything was entirely above board. There was a contract for the technical assistance, and it was signed well after the entire world sanctioned Russia into oblivion. The Iranians have every right to develop decades old missile tech. I don't think characterizing Iran as "dependent" on deals like this is fair either. A contract for technical advice from the Russians would cost them little, and accelerate a program they were already actively working on anyway. If anything, a domestically designed platform made with limited Russian assistance is a significant step away from dependency. Iran's anti-ship cruise missile program was highly dependent on adapting Chinese designs until relatively recently

For anyone who isn't a missilecel, ramjets allow for cruise missiles that are >3x as fast as turbojet designs. Speed is a major factor for overcoming air defenses, it dramatically reduces the intercept window and kinetic energy is a major factor in dealing damage to naval targets. Iran has prioritized its ballistic missile program, which was the right call, but developing advanced ballistic missiles doesn't magically grant the know-how for designing a supersonic air-breathing jet engine. It's a totally different problem space. Iran's anti-ship cruise missile program has mainly been copies and iterative development of Chinese platforms until relatively recently. The Shahed platform mostly fills the role of land-attack cruise missiles for Iran at much lower costs and higher production rates. The only real need they have for cruise missiles is in anti-ship applications. They've also developed anti-ship ballistic missiles which is a totally different and rarely accessed part of the missile tech tree but I already wrote like 8000 words on this so I digress. (https://hexbear.net/post/9199214/7353983) The point being that the cost/benefit analysis for Iran has always been to pump resources into their BM program while the incentives just weren't there to the same degree for cruise missiles.

Interesting factoid: the first functioning (test bench only) Soviet ramjet engine was made in 1933. It took until the mid-60s before they started producing them at scale (in the thousands). The Iranians should be able to do this in a fraction of the time, but it's not a trivial project.

https://x.com/svgmzr/status/2094912514173632589

Still no ramject missiles fielded, why not buy something that actually works like Kalibr or Iskander?

The one they'd want to buy here is the P-800 Oniks. They have good SRBMs already and the Kalibr isn't a particularly good platform for Iran. They need fast anti-ship missiles. The one they'd want to buy here is the P-800 Oniks. They have good SRBMs already and the Kalibr isn't a particularly good platform for Iran. They need fast anti-ship missiles. For better or worse, the Iranians have prioritized domestically developed missile platforms. In most cases this was the right call, but the timing on their anti-ship cruise missile program wasn't ideal. If the US had attacked in 2030 instead maybe we'd be having a very different conversation.

  • source