Image is sourced from this article depicting the 28th ASEAN Plus Three Summit, which took place at the same time as the 47th ASEAN Summit.
Last week concluded the 47th summit of ASEAN in Malaysia as well as a swathe of concurrent summits surrounding ASEAN. For those unfamiliar, formally, China is not a member of ASEAN, but is part of the ASEAN Plus Three (as part of the “Three”, alongside Japan and Occupied Southern Korea). And while not really ASEAN, there is also a yet wider organization, the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership, which tacks on Australia and New Zealand to the group of countries that are currently in ASEAN (which is the single largest trade bloc on the planet). At the summit, Timor-Leste was officially introduced into ASEAN, making it the 11th country to do and the first since Cambodia in 1999.
Many important figures throughout Asia, as well as Trump, Ramaphosa, and Lula, attended the event. As you can imagine, Trump’s appearance was not exactly positive - signing four rather coerced bilateral deals there, including with Malaysia, which forced those countries to buy American goods in exchange for certain exemptions from Trump’s high tariff regime. The US is currently in a bit of a panic due to China restricting access to rare earths, a critical component of many weapons technologies (and electronics in general) and is looking around for countries to help supply them. After the summit, the US and China signed a deal related to tariffs and rare earths, but it seems very unlikely that this is the end of the saga; the US politically, economically, and militarily cannot tolerate China’s existence as a sovereign actor and will try to overcome them until the American Empire topples.
Meanwhile, China did as they ordinarily do, and urged higher regional integration and trade without high tariffs, as well as adherence to the Global Governance Initiative (which, as we here never tire of noting, is an interesting thing to try and encourage while the US only more feverishly violates the sovereignty of nations everywhere). One hopes they’re supplying a bit more than just speeches to Venezuela, Cuba, and beyond, as the US prepares to start bombing.
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
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 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.
Thanks for this post. What is the point of a weapon like this in today’s world? ICBMs are near-uninterceptable and can be launched faster than an aircraft can be scrambled, and there’s risk of aircraft getting intercepted en route. Is this just to be used against smaller countries so a rival power doesn’t launch a retaliatory strike after mistaking the target of the missiles?
Not necessarily. With the very long range of such weapons, likely over 2000nmi/3700km in this case, the bombers can remain relatively safe, especially if accompanied by escorts. Large parts of Russia can be hit by bombers flying over the Arctic, large parts of China by bombers flying over the Western Pacific. Also, the B-21 stealth bomber will be a carrier of the new LRSO nuclear cruise missile, allowing for stealth standoff or stand in strikes as well.
As for survivability on the ground, during a time of high tension, B-52 bombers can be lined up, armed, on the “Christmas tree” at strategic airbases, and take off in 30-45 second intervals, in a minimum interval takeoff. All bombers can be in the air within 15 minutes, which is quicker than it takes for an ICBM to arrive. The US recently carried out such a drill.
It also gives the ability to strike first or respond in a calibrated way instead of relying on higher yield or less accurate ballistic missiles or using gravity bombs, which is a risky mission that requires a lot of support from other aircraft, even in the case of stealth aircraft. In a low or limited scale nuclear war, such is a useful option.
Bombers also convey deterrence in a way that ICBMs or submarines do not. If the US parks a bomber in Japan or Europe during times of high tension, and does a photo shoot of it armed with nuclear armed cruise missiles, that sends a message that other assets can’t convey. Bombers can also be withdrawn during times of crisis to signal winding down. In a conventional sense, this can also work for deterrence, the US does this now with B-1B bombers in Japan, which are conventional only.
The biggest reason is that if your opponent chooses to defend against such an attack vector, it can become extremely costly for them. The introduction of the AGM-86 ALCM nuclear armed cruise missile was part of why the USSR went bankrupt. The ability to launch hundreds of low flying, stealth, relatively small nuclear weapons flying at high subsonic speeds and avoiding air defence coverage is almost impossible to defend against. 10 B-52s is 200 incoming missiles. 25 is 500 missiles. This directly effected the development of the S-300P and Tor air defence systems, and the development of the MiG-31 interceptor and Su-27 fighter. The Soviets felt forced to include more advanced features, such as the giant long ranged PESA radar with advanced look down shoot down and clutter rejection on the MiG-31, the inclusion of dedicated low altitude clamshell surveillance radars on the S-300P, high mobility and advanced sensors in Tor, and the passive IRST on the Su-27. All to try detect and shoot down low flying cruise missiles. Moscow was protected by 56 S-300P batteries in the 1980s! All great technology, but incredibly expensive.