news

President of Venezuela, Nicolas Maduro, calls on his counterpart from Guyana, Irfaan Ali, not to allow the US Southern Command to turn his country into a military base and thus encourage an escalation of conflict with Venezuela around the Essequibo.

I guess the US lost their chance by invading Venezuela using Brazil and/or Colombia.

The Danish succdem party is having more trouble than they're used to. Normally succdems are a complement bunch who will clap at their leadership like trained sealions at every party congress but these days the succdem-led right-wing government is facing harsh critique from succdem mayors and other local politicians over plans to go ahead with further tax cuts at a time where welfare services are lacking resources. The succdem local politicians are joined in the critique by several unions, including the nurses' union as well as by the influential national interest organisation of the elderly.

For two decades "welfare or tax cuts" has been a prominent succdem slogan used to set them apart from the openly right-wing parties that used to be their electoral rivals. Now however with the succdem party heading a purely right-wing "across the aisle" government their two coalition partners, especially the Liberal Party, are pushing for tax cuts which has been their great object of desire since forever.

The succdem leader and prime minister Mette Frederiksen has no appetite for engaging with any kind of criticism and has tasked her minister of justice with answering the critique. He is claiming the economy is doing so well that there's money enough to do both, that the government has already given more money to welfare services and that instead of trusting their own lying eyes the disgruntled mayors should wait and see how good it's going to be once they get the extra money.

The relationship between the succdems and the labour movement has been extremely close bordering on the incestuous for generations but following the succdem party's decision to form a coalition with the employers' parties on the right wing and their subsequent abolishing a paid day of without even pretending to consult with unions relations has frozen to a point where succdem politicians, who used to be the main speakers at mayday parade, were actively told they were not welcome at this the labour movements' mayday events this year.

The Country of the Week is Singapore!

As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to Singapore, whether from a thousand years ago or yesterday. You can post it anywhere in the thread, but you can also reply to this comment if you wish.

If you're feeling particularly ambitious and want homework, you could take on any or all of these questions (no reward, but I'll be very proud of you):

• Who are the main political actors? Are they compradors, nationalists, international socialists, something else?
• What are the most salient domestic political issues; those issues that repeatedly shape elections over the last 10, 20 years. Every country has its quirks that complicate analysis - for example, Brexit in the UK.
• What is the country's history? You don't have to go back a thousand years if that's not relevant, and I'm counting "history" as basically anything that has happened over a year ago.
• What factions exist, historically and currently? If there is an electoral system, what are the major parties and their demographic bases? Are there any minor parties with large amounts of influence? Independence movements? Religious groups?
• How socially progressive or conservative are they? Is there equality for different ethnic groups, or are some persecuted? Do they have LGBTQIA+ rights? Have they improved over time, or gotten worse?
• What role do foreign powers play in the country’s politics and economy? Is there a particular country nearby or far away that is nearly inseparable from them, for good or bad reasons? Is their trade dominated by exports/imports to one place? Are they exploited, exploiters, or something in between?
• If applicable, what is the influence of former colonial relationships on the modern economy and politics?
• Is the country generally stable? Do you think there will be a coup at some point in the future, and if so, what faction might replace them?

Last week's country was Chile.

Discussions included:

• Chile as part of the lithium triangle.
• What if there had been no coup in Chile in 1973?: The Thirty-Sixth Newsletter (2023)
• Discussion of the current Chilean political system and factions.
• A list of books I found on Chile.
• Various articles in both last week's and this week's update post.

This is our Geopolitics Reading List so far! Please chime in with suggestions!

General Theory:

• Super Imperialism, by Michael Hudson.
• Imperialism in the Twenty-First Century: Globalization, Super-Exploitation, and Capitalism’s Final Crisis, by John Smith.
• Superexploitation and the Imperialist Drive of Capitalism: How Marini's 'Dialectics of Dependency' Goes beyond Marx's 'Capital', by Andy Higginbottom.
• Capital Volume 3 Lecture Series, 32 videos, 10-15 minutes each, by Andy Higginbottom.
• World-Systems Analysis: An Introduction, by Immanuel Wallerstein.
• Geopolitical Economy: After US Hegemony, Globalization and Empire, by Radhika Desai.
• Capitalism, Coronavirus and War: A Geopolitical Economy, by Radhika Desai.

Canada:

• Canada in the World: Settler Capitalism and the Colonial Imagination, by Tyler Shipley.

Chile:

• 1000 Days of Revolution: Chilean Communists on the Lessons of Popular Unity (I cannot personally find an online version).
• Santiago Boys Podcast, analyzing Allende's government and Cybersyn.

United States:

• Drug Cartels Do Not Exist: Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture, by Oswaldo Zavala.

Kosovo update:

A firefight has broken out last night in North Kosovo. One police officer was killed, one wounded and another one was injured. The shootout is still ongoing and the information is currently quite sparse. Kosovo's PM says that around 30 heavily armed men were behind the attack and that they are currently surrounded.

Edit: Kosovo Police claim that one attacker has been killed.

Edit #2: Kosovo Police claim that another two attackers were killed and one was arrested. Serbia's president is expected to hold a press conference later today.

An interesting and controversial opinion on Karabakh situation:

"The UN Security Council meeting on Karabakh, initiated by France, predictably ended in nothing since everything was already over. However, even so an interesting moment arose.

The Armenian Foreign Minister in his speech called for the deployment of UN peacekeepers to the region, without once mentioning Russian peacekeepers.

Pashinyan will now be able to solve two main tasks: to finish off the former elite of Armenia within the country, which brought it to it's current state, and - in the field of foreign policy - he simply must make the most of the situation to distance himself from Russia and replace it with other security guarantors.

The paradox of the situation is that Pashinyan’s power even strengthened after the fall of Karabakh, since now his opponents (the so-called Karabakh clan) have been defeated and a space for new solutions has opened up for him - now free of this insoluble conflict. "

Source (in Russian) https://t.me/anatoly_nesmiyan/12969

Edit: here is a quick summary of it all, in just one image - https://news.am/uploads/images/000000/23/karabahskaya-bojnya-sorosa-i-ehrdogana.jpg

https://ghostarchive.org/archive/U7MgT

Forbes own Axehole Dave is back with some fresh cope but with a special side dish of dunking on the French.

Ukraine’s French Recon Vehicles Are Too Flimsy For Frontal Assaults, So The Marines Are Using Them As Artillery. By David Axe

Long story short, "armored" does not belong in the same sentence as "reconnaissance". Also the French are taking Ls in their trash war gear alongside the U.S, U.K, and the krauts.

The Ukrainian marine corps is using its French-made AMX-10RC reconnaissance vehicles as artillery, deploying them behind the front line and leisurely aiming their 105-millimeter guns at Russian positions

Nothing new here. Ukrainians are still so strapped for artillery they're having to cobble together viable replacements for their dwindling forward artillery support.

A video that appeared online last week depicts a platoon of AMX-10RCs firing their main guns from an open field in broad daylight, while a separate video from inside one of the vehicles underscores the crew’s unhurried attitude.

It’s obvious the AMX-10RCs aren’t in much danger from return fire. They’re far enough from the enemy that they can shoot and scoot before anyone shoots back.

Pretty normal for both sides when you're basically taking potshots at random against each other.

This isn’t the role French firm GIAT designed the 15-ton, wheeled AMX-10RC for—nor is it the role French forces usually assign to the type. But barring a major breakthrough by Ukrainian marines onto open terrain—an unlikely contingency given where the marines are fighting—it might be all the four-person AMX-10RCs can handle.

Aka the counteroffensive has failed and all those shiny western wunderweapons fail when used as designed therefore Ukrainian forces have to adapt them to the material conditions of the battlefield.

Last winter, France pledged 40 AMX-10RCs to the Ukrainian war effort. The pledge came as Ukraine’s foreign allies were scouring their vehicle parks and warehouses for armored vehicles they quickly could donate.

The United Kingdom offered Challenger 2 tanks; Germany pledged Leopard 2 and Leopard 1 tanks and Marder infantry fighting vehicles; the United States pledged M-1 tanks and M-2 and Stryker IFVs.

And then had them get driven into minefields for the loss.

France’s donation of AMX-10RCs stood out. The AMX-10RC isn’t a tank. It isn’t a fighting vehicle. No, it’s a lightweight reconnaissance vehicle. As designed, it operates in small groups, speeding ahead of the tanks and IFVs in order to probe enemy defenses.

"lightweight reconnaissance vehicle" with a fucking 105mm turret. It's a shitty glass cannon tank destroyer on wheels by design best used for ambushing. Recon is the domain of light infantry because it's easier for a human to hide than a fucking tank with toilet paper armor.

An AMX-10RC isn’t supposed to stand and fight; it’s supposed to sneak around, fire a few rounds, provoke a response, register enemy positions and then speed away. Which is why GIAT emphasized the vehicle’s speed and optics and deemphasized its firepower and armor protection.

See last paragraph.

The AMX-10RC has an accurate and effective main gun—but the gun lacks stabilization, meaning the vehicle must halt before shooting. However, the AMX-10RC’s greatest weakness is its thin aluminum armor, which offers the equivalent of just a few tens of millimeters of steel

Told ya. Literally designed for ambushing shit.

The problem, for the Ukrainian units that took ownership of the AMX-10RCs—the 37th Marine Brigade, for one—is that, early in their long-planned counteroffensive, which kicked off across southern Ukraine on June 4, they didn’t need ground reconnaissance vehicles. After a year of intensive drone surveillance, they knew where the Russians were.

Lmao you don't fuckin say.

Pre-counteroffensive aerial reconnaissance rendered moot the AMX-10RC’s primary function. But inexperienced Ukrainian officers, apparently keen to make use of all of their recently-donated Western equipment, deployed the AMX-10RCs, anyway.

Translation: aerial drone and foot recon is all that's needed in modern war.

Also fuck you axehole, those "inexperienced Ukrainian officers" were told to do NATO tactics regardless of what reality dictates.

When the 37th Brigade and other units pushed across Russian minefields and pre-sighted artillery kill zones toward Velyka Novosilka in southern Ukraine’s Donetsk Oblast in early June, the AMX-10RCs were in the lead.

The results were predictably tragic. At least two, and perhaps as many as four, of the AMX-10RCs were immobilized or destroyed. Russian forces captured one of the immobilized vehicles.

I think I remember talking about this before specifically about how suicidal it was driving these shit things into minefields a few weeks back.

The marines learned their lesson. “The guns are good, the observation devices are very good,” the major said of the AMX-10RCs. “But unfortunately, there is thin armor and it is impractical to use them in the front line (attack).”

Wait no I might be thinking of those shitty kraut tanks that also suck.

It should come as no surprise that, as the Ukrainian marines finally broke through Velyka Novosilka and fought their way south along the narrow Mokri Yaly River Valley—an effort that continues three months later—they led with T-80 tanks and British- and American-made armored trucks, and held back the AMX-10RCs.

Lmao

But it was unclear what the Ukrainians were doing with the surviving three dozen AMX-10RCs until the recent video depicted them in the indirect-fire role.

(To be sure, the French vehicle is a solid shooter. When the first AMX-10RCs began arriving in Ukraine back in the spring, then-defense minister Oleksii Reznikov described the vehicles as “sniper rifle[s] ... on fast wheels.”

Toilet paper tank

The combination of precise day-night optics and a reliable main gun means an AMX-10RC crew reliably can hit targets a mile away or more. And that’s while shooting directly. Elevate the gun and shoot ballistically, and the maximum range is 4.5 miles.

Don’t expect the same accuracy at that distance, of course. Firing from beyond visual range, an AMX-10RC functions as a kind of improvised, extra-survivable howitzer: aiming at target coordinates registered by drones or forward observers.

See, adapting poorly designed tech for alternative purposes better suited for them.

And it’s not alone. Those hundreds of 70-year-old T-54 and T-55 and 60-year-old T-62 tanks the Kremlin has pulled out of long-term storage and shipped to the front? They also are functioning as howitzers, respectively firing their 100-millimeter and 115-millimeter guns out to a distance of up to 10 miles. Ukraine’s Challenger 2 and Leopard 2 tanks are doing the same.

Axehole Dave gotta do some "muh both sides" while also listing the ages of Russian tech to still cope at the fact that modern tanks are being relegated to being used as self-propelled artillery systems.

Omnipresent drones, mines and anti-tank missile teams have made the Ukraine front line a very dangerous place for tanks and recon vehicles. So more and more, the Ukrainian and Russian armies are deploying their big-gun armored fighting vehicles—recon vehicles and tanks alike—as artillery. It’s a compromise that protects the vehicles without wasting their firepower.

No shit, solid entrenched defenses are fucking hard to break through for anyone.

“They make for an inefficient form of artillery,” analysts Jack Watling and Nick Reynolds wrote about the tank-howitzers in a recent study for the Royal United Services Institute in London. “Nevertheless, these engagements can often be made from positions that would not be viable for artillery.”

Aka closer to the frontline.

The AMX-10RC works just fine in this compromise role. Which is fortunate for the marine brigades operating the type. Because the only other mission the recon vehicles are good at—speedy reconnaissance—is irrelevant as long as the front line is so stiff and over-surveilled ... and there’s nothing for the vehicles to reconnoiter.

They aren't recon vehicles, goddamnit!