I know the Rambo title card is a hoax.
The COTW was chosen in the wake of the aborted sequel to the attempted assassination of Trump being performed by a guy who is VERY enthusiastic about Ukraine, to the point of trying to sneak Afghan soldiers into Ukraine by setting up a house in Pakistan to house them and then further transport them. He also apparently offered to send thousands of Afghan soldiers to Haiti to help them combat gang violence. Whomst among us doesn’t have the numbers of thousands of Afghan soldiers on speed-dial. Do you reckon there’s a group chat?
Anyway, while there is still no official recognition of the Taliban’s government by any country, China has taken a different course than the late USSR and the US - forming economic in-roads, rather than trying their own invasion. This has been a big boon for the struggling country, with various mines and oil and agriculture deals helping keep things barely afloat. A total disintegration of the social fabric of Afghanistan is not in the interest of any of the powers that border it - China, Pakistan, and Iran, with Russia not too far away - so an interesting dynamic of helping-without-official-recognition has been established. I wonder who will be the first country to fully recognize them?
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is Afghanistan! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA reports on Israel’s 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.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
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.
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.
It is not a misconception though. See my other response in this thread - this is unique to the US whose wealth is built through financial imperialism.
Most countries on the other hand have industries that produce real goods and services - not real estate or the stock market - that can offer actual material gains to other countries. America can run a huge trade deficit simply because the dollar is the most desirable asset, not because it has anything tangible to offer to the world.
When the dollar is no longer the most desirable asset, its exchange value will plunge, purchasing power will fall, imports will become more expensive, and re-industrialization will be needed to rebuild/reshape its own economy until it has something real to offer to the world. This is going to take decades. Why else would other countries want to sell stuff to America when it doesn’t have anything to offer?
I agree with your broad points throughout this thread although I think that when it gets to this stage, the US will simply balkanize. You make the fair point that state separatism (Texan separatism) is nonviable now because the US can simply sanction the breakaway state and completely destroy that state’s economy. But this relies on dollar hegemony. Without dollar hegemony, the US will internally collapse due to unresolved internal contradictions and the stresses of climate change.
The US isn’t China with 5000 years of history with tradition and institutions that are more than a millennia old and a populace that recognizes its place in that 5000 year old history. The US is an illegitimate settler-colony that’s less than 3 centuries old, less than most major Chinese dynasties. And people might laugh at how Zionists have no ability to handle adversity whatsoever, but if there’s any populace that’s even less likely to handle adversity and even more pampered, it’s Burgerlanders. Can you imagine Burgerlanders eating war rations or having to obey a national curfew when they throw a temper tantrum over wearing a fucking face mask?
National unity only exists because they live high off of hegemony thanks to the dollar. And when that hegemony is taken away, national unity will evaporate overnight. The US is a nation of thieves and when the going gets tough, the thieves will turn on each other.
I think with socialism, countries can reindustrialize fairly quickly though, can’t they? The USSR and China shot up without even having the luxury of the US’s industrialist past, huge wealth they could invest in such efforts, or modern automation techniques.
Socialism can indeed reindustrialize fairly quickly, but it is also contingent on how fast can the landlord/rentier class (i.e. finance capitalists) be rooted out. The purge and the civil war after the Bolshevik Revolution was extremely bloody, and so was Mao’s land reform - both of which were preconditions to neutralize the ability of feudal landlords to mount opposition against industrialization.
Let me just give you an example: with so much of the American retirement/pension fund being tied to the stock market, good luck trying to take out the financial sector. You’re gonna get a whole lot of reactionaries who would fight tooth and nail to oppose seeing their money evaporates. This is not to say it can’t be done, but it’s going to be bloody.
The US empire is unique in that it is the world’s first hegemon/empire that operates as a global debtor, whereas previous empires have all been global creditors. This means that the US simply prints money to get what it wants from the rest of the world (using “debt” that it will never have to repay), without having to build up a robust industrial core to serve a base to expand its imperialist ambitions.
So it’s going to be very interesting to see what happens if the dollar can no longer be weaponized.
I think even with a massive re-evaluation of the dollar, that living standards could still increase for a lot of Americans. A large part of the domestic economy is based around the financialization of critical needs, like healthcare and housing, with prices grossly inflated.
Even if things generally get more expensive, so much would be improved for so many people with just guaranteed housing and the ability to go to a doctor. I don’t think the impact of that can be overstated.
It depends on how fast America can rebuild its own supply chain. If the Global South can form their own alternative economic bloc that decouples from the dollar, then there is very little reason to export to America.
When countries export stuff to places like China, they can actually get real, tangible things in return. When you export to America, you get junk papers in return. For now these junk papers are highly desirable, because you need them to purchase energy/food and pay back your debt, but would you still want to obtain junk papers when you no longer need them?
With so much of US consumer products dependent on foreign imports (seriously, name a Made in America product at your home, and even then, how many of its components are actually locally made), it will ultimately depend on what America can offer to the world that is attractive enough that other countries would want to sell their stuff to you. Hospitals, schools etc. still need supplies, many of which America no longer make. Maybe China can ship some humanitarian aid to America or something.
I think America can still sell fossil fuel and food, but those are fairly low value added goods and not nearly enough to sustain a high income economy. The country isn’t going to starve or anything, but it will no longer be able to get cheap consumer products like it used to.
Yeah. I don’t disagree that the transition would be rough, that there would be a reactionary tide against it. I just also think that there’s a very real underclass in a precarious position, regardless of the larger income compared to worldwide averages, simply because the base costs of living are also inflated.