Image is of President Hakainde Hichilema and President Xi Jinping on September 15th, from this article.
Zambia is a country of 20 million people, located in southern Africa. Breaking free from British rule in the 1960s, the new government was a one party state ruled by the socialist UNIP party with its leader Kenneth Kaunda, who was a strong supporter of the Non-Aligned Movement (and was its chairman from 1970-73). Its economy has been and remains characterised by copper exports - it is the second-largest copper exporter in Africa - and the economy deeply struggled in the 1970s due to the price of copper plunging. After the fall of the USSR, and due to violent protests, Kaunda stepped down and instituted a multiparty democracy, which has been maintained without (successful) coups to this day, though there are warnings by the leader that some are plotting a coup, given the trend right now.^AA^
Earlier this year, in June, Zambia struck a deal to restructure the $6.3 billion in debt that they are burdened with, of which China is the single largest creditor.^Reuters^ Though he has typically been more West-friendly, last week, President Hichilema traveled to China for two days, meeting with various companies, and Xi Jinping himself. They elevated their relationship to that of a comprehensive strategic cooperative partnership.^Xinhua^ He and Xi have agreed to the increased use of local currencies in trade.^BB^
Hichilema said Zambia thanks China for supporting the African Union's entry into the G20 and China's positive role in resolving the Zambian debt issue. The Zambian side abides by the one-China principle, highly appreciates the guiding philosophy and principles of Chinese modernization, and hopes to learn from China's development experience.
Hichilema has also said:^AN^
"We can do more, faster, because the needs are tremendous in Zambia. I heard some of the solutions are here. All we need to do is to combine the two together."
Check out @[email protected]'s discussion of The Wretched of the Earth!
The Country of the Week is Singapore! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
The news summary for last week is here!
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
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.
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 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
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.
The Azerbaijani Ministry of Defense announced the start of a military operation in Karabakh region with the aim of disarming the de-facto Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
When it's Russia protecting Russians in Ukraine it's a "brutal invasion".
When it's Azerbaijan ethnically cleansing Armenians it's a "military operation".
Azərbaycanın şöhrəti?
It seems consistent to me. When Ukraine invaded the Donbas it was just an anti-terrorist operation. When Russia (finally) invaded to stop the ethnic cleansing, that was an illegal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine.
So Azerbaijan gets to ethnically cleanse Karabakh but if Armenia or Russia attempt to stop it then that would be brutal invasion.
It’s consistent when you look at the reality, but the rhetoric doesn’t match. They claim that evil Ruzzia wants to end Ukrainian independence or even genocide Ukrainians. But when Azerbaijan explicitly wants to do those same things to Artsakh, they turn a blind eye.
The only rhetorical consistency here is their fetish for “international law” and “territorial sovereignty”. Ukraine and Azerbaijan are both “protecting” their “internationally recognized territory”. (Of course they conveniently forget about that when it comes to Chinese territory.)
I'm looking as Artsakh/Karabakh as the Donbas Republics and Azerbaijan as Ukraine. If you do that then the rhetoric from the west is the same, with both the people of Donbas and Karabakh being considered "unworthy victims".
I think the Armenian's in Karabakh lost the right to complain about ethnic cleansing after they ethnically cleansed their neighbors and destroyed entire villages just a couple decades ago.
Because Azerbaijan didn't ethnically cleanse either, nor were there pogroms targeting Armenians before the war ever started.
Clearly the solution to ethnic cleansing is even more ethnic cleansing. I'm sure that will stop the ethnic cleansing.
What happened in the 90s was horrific, both sides committed atrocities. How is restarting that a good thing?
What an interesting time frame to cut off at, instead of including the ethnic cleansing of Armenians in NK in the 1920s, the policy of "Azerification" in the 70s and 80s, or Operation Ring, which saw the Russians and Azeris attempt to ethnically cleanse Armenians from NK in 1991. How exactly did NK go from being 94% Armenian in 1923 to what it is now?
god fucking damn it
not yet between Armenia and Azerbaijan proper at least. the Armenian government is saying that they have no connection to the Nagorno-Karabakh forces currently taking on Azerbaijan's forces.
crowds in Yerevan are calling for Pashinyan's resignation
This isn't a surprise. Azerbaijan has been blockading Nagorno-Karabahk for some time now after they won the 2020 war. Things were dire supply wise in Nagorno-Karabahk a week ago and then Azerbaijan attacks.
There's three main questions in regards to Armenia's response to this.
Whether Armenia intervenes militarily. So far this is a fight between Azerbaijan and the Artsakh Republic, the Armenian breakaway province of Nagorno-Karabahk which developed as the Soviet Union was collapsing and ethnic strife blossomed. In my opinion, this was a typical CIA stoke ethnic conflict job. If Armenia intervenes this can turn into a massive multiyear war much like the first Nagorno-Karabahk war. The conditions that started that war are the exact same as these as Azerbaijan invaded what was the Soviet Autonomous Oblast of Nagorno-Karabahk and Armenia intervened.
Whether Russia intervenes. Pashinyan which overthrew the mafia government led by Cheburashka in a color revolution has consistently distanced itself from Russia and has opened talks with the US and EU. So Russia does not trust Pashinyan, and is hesistent to provide aid that may later be used against itself. In my opinion, Russia kept its distance in the 2020 war until they were sure that Pashinyan had a black enough eye that the Armenians would overthrow him. This didn't happen and Russian peacekeepers are still nominally involved.
Whether the West intervenes. So with Pashinyan dragging Armenia into the West's orbit it will be interesting to see whether that has brought any fruit. I doubt it has, the West want to peel another country out of Russia's orbit and they already have that. Why would they care about Armenia when they already got what they wanted. We can see how they treat a country that has their complete support and I doubt the average Hayastanci (Armenian Armenian not Lebanese/Iranian/American Armenian) wants to be like the Ukrainians. The weird thing is that this is supported by Turkey, everyone's favorite NATO member, so NATO itself has it's hands tied, but Turkish EU relations are low again and I don't know what USA Turkish relations are at the moment.
There are some other questions too, but not massive. Iran has an interest in preserving it's current border with Armenia while Azerbaijan wants to create a land bridge between the mainland and Nahkchivan. Iran has stated that this is a red line that they would intervene, which would spark a whole thing as there are more Azeris in Iran than Azerbaijan. If the Artsakhis decide to fight to the last man like it was the 1990s all over again. I see this as a possibility. Artsakhis are treated like dirt in Armenia, they are seen as wealthier, or at least were during the Soviet era and impoverished Hayastancis weren't fond of aiding them. This is what I've learned from talking to refugees from the collapse. I haven't talk to modern Artsakhis, so this attitude might have changed but I doubt it. What the Turkish role is in all of this. A major takeaway from the 2020 war is that NATO Turkey trained and I may be misremembering but took over some Azeri units
I just hope for peace, enough blood has been shed in the Caucasus. If Azerbaijan wins there will be massive ethnic cleansing. If Armenia wins there will most likely be massive ethnic cleansing. The status quo with less Azeri fuckery along the Lachin corridor will be nice.
Why did we welcome the fall of the Soviet Union ? In two days, Armenians would have been celebrating independence, but it has only brought us violence and poverty.
I completely agree with your analysis.
I stopped following Armenian politics after 2020, is Kocharyan still the main opposition? I have no idea who would take over if Pashinyan is overthrown.
If Pashinyan is overthrown I have the feeling society will turn very reactionary. I hope fascism and revanchism don't come to Armenia after this. In my little diaspora community I just see constant blame towards communists, like they're still in power today. And from what I hear anti-LGBT reaction is still pretty strong in the country. This is disastrous.
Thanks
Strangely, I do kinda see why Pashinyan is doing what he is doing trying to court the west. Like yeah it sucks that he is doing that and he seems like a lib, but it's not like in 2020 Russia did shit, why would you trust them? Like it's suicide to court the west, but Armenia is backed into a corner.
This sucks
And the problem with that line of argument is that the only thing that really drives Turkiye and the US apart is diplomacy and politics. The turks have abysmal PR while their erstwhile opponents - the greeks, the armenians, sometimes the french - all have more purchase in Washington. At the end of the day american politicians may not like Turkiye and Erdogan, but the military brass more or less understands that Turkiye is almost like a natural marcher state for NATO in general and the US in particular. Hell, the americans make a point of always saying that the turks are merely 'suspended' from the F-35 programme. Meanwhile the turks go on to have spats against half of NATO and half of NATO's enemies, while making deals with everybody at once because the country is bankrupt and Erdogan just rolls like that. Worse. The azeris didn't just win the 2020 war, they actually have a decent lobby in DC.
Given all of that it's hard to make the case that NATO should prevent the Lanchin Corridor from happening. Sure, states don't want other states to gain more power, but NATO is fighting a war against Russia right now, gearing up to continue their trade war with China, and even Iran seems to be on the other side of the aisle when it comes to a pan-turkic caspian connection. Even as Turkiye refuses to become a loyal vassal of NATO, something at some point is gonna give. And that something might end up being Armenia's territorial integrity. If the new 'great game' is to see who controls the landbridges across greater asia, wouldn't NATO eventually prefer to see Turkiye at the end of that road rather than Russia or Iran? The only problem if you can even call it that is that Russia also doesn't seem to mind Turkiye as a trade hub.
Azerbaijan has pull in DC, because they make it rain on US think tanks. The issue is that there is basically no Azerbaijani diaspora in the US, whereas Armenian Americans are the most well-organized and politically influential of any Armenian diaspora and can sway a number of elections in the LA, Boston, and NYC area. Plus, as stupid as it sounds, Kim Kardashian calling a US politician a genocide enabler would probably sway an election.
Really giving the Balkan powder keg a run for their money
they're currently striking air defense systems