Fascinating. While I would have loved to see some refineries owned by oil capitalist monarchs go up in flames, I think the Saudis can see where things are headed and are just getting out while the getting is good.
This obviously isn't some huge change in terms of political allegiances - the Saudis are still pro-Zionist - but it's one less major axis of attack against Yemen. The West will now be limited to striking from the sea, as well as northeast African possessions some distance away. How this changes the calculus of the war, we shall see.
Well, the site isn't letting me post the next megathread, so I guess this one has earned a 3 hour stay of execution until I'm back at my computer to try again
I was under the impression that NATO and the US essentially were de facto controlling the Ukrainian war effort. Not really sure what a general will achieve in the current state of Ukraine but it does indicate that they foresee this continuing for a good while longer, which is in line with predictions that it'll at least reach 2025 without a meaningful Ukrainian collapse
while I still do believe that 2024 is essentially Russia's best chance to finish the war before it turns into a decade-long horrific grind as Western arms manufacturing becomes somewhat online in 2025 and beyond, I just... don't know if I can really say with any conviction that Russia will actually try and end the war next year. the Russian reaction to Ukraine openly stating that they're going to take a more defensive posture seems to be a resounding "meh". they seem pretty content with the attrition strategy still, and for a good reason, though if Russia is truly going to wait until they've destroyed every last tank and IFV and artillery piece and missile launcher and Ukrainians aged 14-80 and all the mercenaries that the West can buy, etc etc, before they advance in order to minimize Russian casualties, then we really could still be talking about Russia reaching the Dniper any day now until fucking 2029. I mean, Europe's mostly out of stuff, but the US still has hundreds or even thousands of exportable Abrams, and South Korea still has lots of artillery shells last time I checked, and so on.
Russia might be hoping for a collapse in the West's enthusiasm for the war, and that may indeed happen depending on what happens in elections, but even when the enthusiasm is gone, it could still take a year or more to finally reach the bloody conclusion, whether that be a peace deal or a Ukrainian surrender. The US can, AFAIK, fairly easily keep propping up the Ukrainian economy at least until the beginning of 2025 depending on who wins the election (and if Trump decides to revoke funding if he does win, and he obviously might not revoke the funding regardless) and there's probably still enough bits and pieces in the "arsenal of democracy" to throw at Russia until then to still present something of a vaguely threatening force or at least hold back a Russian... not offensive, I guess, but the kind of non-commital pokes and staggering forward a few kilometers that have characterised semi-recent Russian moves at Ugledar, Avdiivka, Kupyansk, etc
Oh, and you tankies think people don't like centrism? (/s)
I've noticed that even the more conservative people that I have regular interactions with are getting a little antsy about it.
Like, the problem that Israel has is that they want two, contradictory things: they want to make the October 7th attacks look like horrific terrorist unjustifiable mass atrocities, but also don't want to appear weak in the face of those same "terrorists", and so don't want to highlight their massive L. They tried to do this by saying that actually all the people killed were civilians and all the places Hamas went were peaceful villages where they gunned down innocent people and took them hostage, but that narrative just wasn't really able to hold together for too long in the face of other evidence. It doesn't make sense if you think about it for more than a few seconds, and there's like, actual videos released by Hamas of them entering barracks and killing soldiers and shit. I've seen a few of them, they are undeniably soldiers.
If this had happened, say, 20 years ago when social media wasn't such a prevalent thing, then I think public opinion would be much more in favour of Israel, because the Gazans wouldn't have been able to communicate as well with the outside world, and everything would have come from journalists and maybe the odd leak from a whistleblower. But now that there's hundreds and hundreds of videos taken inside Gaza of men, women, children, and actual fucking babies being killed in indiscriminate airstrikes and being shot at and executed, anybody who's paying even slight attention to the conflict is just inundated with a stream of awful videos showing that Israel is very obviously committing genocidal war crimes, and so as long as you aren't approaching this already from the perspective of "Palestinians are worthless subhumans who are lower than bacteria" like a few well-known Zionist figures seem to think, and have even the slightest sympathy towards your fellow man, then by like week 12 of watching non-stop airstrikes and war crimes and atrocities, you start to be like "...uhh... maybe Israel should... chill out a little?"
And because Israel is so loathe to post even the vaguest L, to the point of saying that there's been like 3 fucking deaths and 5 vehicles destroyed in 2-3 months when it's literally like 2-3 orders of magnitude higher if combining all fronts, then it just comes across as this totally heartless enemy doing this shit for no reason. Honestly, if Israel was even a little more honest with its numbers, then I wonder if sympathy would start increasing a little. If they said that, idk, 500 or 700 or 1000 soldiers had been killed so far like they have, then people might be able to point at that and go "See! Hamas does deserve to be destroyed and the civilian casualties are worth it, look at the lovely professional soldiers being killed by them!"
bro, please. just a few more years of war against Yemen bro. it'll work this time bro. the houthis, bro, they'll be ousted and the real government of yemen will rule. i swear bro. we just need more bombing. don't worry about the oil refineries throughout the gulf bro, they'll be fine, there's no possible way this could have massive global ramifications due to oil markets and shipping lanes bro
I offered a starving homeless guy a piece of rotten bread that had been left out in the elements for a week. You morons are saying that I did not try and give him food. Here's why you're toxic and using gaslighting techniques to make me seem like a bad person. 🧵 1/242
It'll be like Brexit but worse, I imagine. A strong core of genuine diehard reactionaries surrounded by increasingly disillusioned people who only voted for it to punish the government for being useless capitalist fucks (even if they don't have the language to blame capitalism or financial institutions for their problems) who only stand to lose from the economic turmoil. Except the effects of Brexit weren't nearly as immediately dire and only represent a long-term decline, as opposed to what's going on in Argentina.
I feel like basically every country now has to go through a Trump-like figure, and on the other end of that is usually a socdem at best. It's what happens when the only allowed dichotomy is right-wing centrism and fascism, diluted to different degrees based on the state of the country's economy and class inequality.
The weekly update is here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Yemen!
As mentioned in the preamble, feel free to post or recommend any material related to Yemen, 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):
The previous country was Canada.
This is our Geopolitics Reading List so far! Please chime in with suggestions!
General Theory:
Canada:
Chile:
Lebanon:
United States:
Venezuela: