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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[–] 55 points 1 day ago (3 children)

https://archive.ph/KftW7

Ousted Ukrainian defense chief lands Palantir CEO as first investor in new venture

Ukraine’s recently ousted defense minister Mykhailo Fedorov is teaming up with Palantir CEO Alex Karp to launch a new defense company focused on developing technology that will “ultimately make the world safer,” the duo announced on Tuesday.

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The former minister left office in July but had said little about his future outside of government until last weekend, when he confirmed that he would not be returning to government and that he would instead begin focusing on several new projects — including building a major defense investment fund and advising the Italian Ministry of Defense. “During the full-scale war, our team gained unique experience working with defense technologies in Ukraine and seeing firsthand how technology is transforming modern warfare,” Fedorov said in a press release. “Now we want to use this experience to build technologies that will strengthen Ukraine, help our allies and ultimately make the world safer.”

Karp’s backing could mean billions in investment for Fedorov and Ukraine’s defense industry. Palantir posted 93% year-over-year revenue growth last quarter, and Karp has watched the company’s valuation soar past $440 billion — up nearly 28-fold from its 2020 stock market debut. Roughly half of its total revenue comes from U.S. government contracts. Fedorov built his reputation as Ukraine’s tech-first defense chief in part on his backing of Delta, Ukraine’s state-of-the-art battlefield management system that fuses drone feeds, radar and field data into a layered dashboard that can be used to oversee the front in real time or learn from a battle’s lessons afterwards. “Ukraine’s Delta common operating system, their modular open system architecture command and control system, is absolutely incredible,” outgoing U.S. Army Secretary Dan Driscoll, who resigned from his role this week, told the U.S. Senate in May. U.S. Army systems, meanwhile, remain “compartmentalized, isolated and ineffective against modern threats,” he said. The American equivalent of Delta is Palantir’s Maven Smart System, which uses Anthropic’s AI model to similarly combine real-world data and intelligence analysis into a single powerful tool for battle planning and briefing. Karp was among the first Western tech executives to travel to Kyiv after Russia’s 2022 invasion, and Palantir’s tech has since been deployed by more than half a dozen Ukrainian government agencies.

Ukraine’s Brave1 Dataroom, a joint project between the defense ministry and Palantir launched earlier this year, runs on Palantir’s infrastructure and lets Ukrainian companies train AI models — including target-detection systems for countering Shahed-type drones — on real combat data. “We’ve worked together for a half decade,” Karp said in a joint video with Fedorov announcing the partnership. “I have been absolutely inspired by what you and the Ukrainians have pulled off, and very... delighted that we could play a part.” Karp reportedly reached out to Fedorov almost as soon as news of his dismissal broke over the summer. Fedorov told reporters at the time that Karp had called to propose “we do something together,” though he said he asked to revisit the conversation later. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy abruptly dismissed Fedorov from his position in July, despite the former minister’s widespread popularity among civilians and soldiers alike for his tech-first military strategies and aggressive initiatives aimed at tackling some of the government’s toughest wartime challenges. His departure set off weeks of nationwide protests demanding his reinstatement. Fedorov said in Tuesday’s press release that despite his new international ventures, “Ukraine will be the priority for me.”

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  • [–] 16 points 1 day ago

    “I have been absolutely inspired by what you and the Ukrainians have pulled off, and very… delighted that we could play a part.”

    Cheers to several generations of dead, maimed and traumatized Ukrainians. The war ends, but it never leaves them. Well done Alex, you did it, sink a few million into med-tech stocks.

    🥂

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