OK so with that introduction out of the way, we first turn to Andreas Malm’s Fossil Capital, a really wonderful book. He shows thoroughly how the British bourgeoisie first set up factories using water wheels connected to streams across the midlands, and these water wheels provided the power necessary for the operation of various factories across the island. This water was cheap (free, really!), effective, consistent, and these factories worked great. There was a problem though: they were located very far into the countryside, because they had to be built where streams for the water wheels were. This ended up giving their labourers immense power, because they had to be housed there, far away from everything else. If those workers decided to strike, it was really hard to break it because you had to ship a shit ton of labour to bumblefuck nowhere English Midlands, and also house them, and provide food, and all these other logistical nightmares. So strikes were short and workers usually got what they wanted. This was obviously a no-go for factory owners, so they switched to coal as the power source for their factories because they could build those factories in cities, near a ton of other labour, and didn’t have to provide for food or lodging. And they could utilize the reserve army of labour to keep wages down and worker power at a minimum, as they could be easily replaced during strikes. Malm does a great job of detailing how coal during the switch was actually more expensive than water wheels; the reason for the switch, as documented in lots of correspondence he goes through between factory owners, was coal allowed for factories to be moved to cities and therefore more power to the owners vs their workers. The main concern with energy in this instance was accessibility and the power it gave, not price. Of course coal couldn’t be prohibitively more expensive than water, sure, but price was not the main motivation here at all.

Timothy Mitchell in his Carbon Democracy also examines another energy switch, this time from coal to oil as the main source of power and energy. Contrary to “progressive” narratives of oil just Being Better, the switch to oil was again motivated by control and power rather than price. You see, the problem with coal is that it’s heavy and physical, and relies on trains to be moved around. You had to physically move coal from place to place on railways, and railways require a lot of workers. You see where this is going. The bourgeoisie realised real quick that coal puts way too much power into the hands of railworkers, who could disrupt the entire economy of a nation by going on strike, blocking coal and thereby closing factories. Coal requires workers to move, and the workers in charge of moving that coal, which now powered the entire economy, had too much power. This had to be broken, and the solution was oil. Again, oil was not cheaper than coal. Oil was just less liable to disruption, because rather than rail you just needed to build a pipeline. Pipelines required no workers. Oil derricks, too, required few workers to operate, as opposed to coal mines. And a disruption to a pipeline can be fixed quickly; oil flows, it does not need to be transported via the rail network, and there’s no group of workers who can go on strike and shut down the entire country. Again, this switch was about power and control, not price.

Now, with Iran shutting down the Strait of Hormuz, we see that one country can control the flow of oil to the entire world, and this makes the global economy far too vulnerable. You might be thinking wait, didn’t this already happen in the 70s? Yes, the oil shock of OPEC already demonstrated this, but during that time there was no alternative to oil at all. Regardless of price, you couldn’t buy another energy source besides coal, but at this point coal can’t power cars and jets and all sorts of other things. So this kind of energy transition didn’t happen. But now you can get cheap renewables and electrify everything. China will sell you solar panels at low cost with no issue. You can buy EVs, you can electrify factories, and thereby take energy control back from oil. Long term I think this kind of trend is inevitable, just like the above two cases. The third Gulf War is highlighting this path, and many countries will take it. Whether the West does so however remains to be seen…

Tehran, March 23 (Prensa Latina) Iran today rejected accusations of an alleged ballistic missile attack on the Diego Garcia military base in the Indian Ocean, calling such claims misleading.

Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmail Baghaei denied the reports circulating in Western and Israeli media, and questioned recent statements by senior NATO officials.

In an interview with CBS News, NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte stated that the alliance could not confirm the Israeli assessment that attributes the missile launch toward that strategic facility to Iran.

Reacting to those statements, Baghaei expressed on the social network X that “the refusal of the infamous secretary general, who pressures members to support a war against Iran, further confirms the falsity of Israel’s latest deceptive claims.”

The Wall Street Journal reported last Saturday, citing anonymous sources, that Tehran had launched two medium-range ballistic missiles toward Diego Garcia, although neither had hit the base.

For his part, the Israeli Chief of Staff, Eyal Zamir, asserted that Iran used a two-stage intercontinental ballistic missile with a range of up to 4,000 kilometers, and maintained that such weapons would not be aimed at Israel, but at European capitals such as London, Paris, and Berlin.

However, British authorities cast doubt on those claims. The UK Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Steve Reid, stated that there is no concrete evidence that Iran is attacking or has the immediate capability to attack British territory.

The Diego Garcia base, located in British territory in the Indian Ocean, is a strategic enclave that houses US bombers, nuclear submarines and destroyers equipped with guided missiles.

Since the end of February, tensions have escalated between Israel, the United States, and Iran, with exchanges of attacks that have resulted in numerous casualties and material damage.

Tehran responded to the bombings against its territory with the launching of missiles and drones, as well as with actions against US interests in Arab countries, acts that have been condemned by the affected nations.

While the air force remains committed to the ongoing procurement of KC-46s under the service’s original 2011 contract with Boeing, vice chief of staff General John Lamontagne says a separate deal for even more of the aerial refuellers is on hold until outstanding issues with the 767-based jet have been fixed. “We are working through a couple of issues with the contractor and we’re not going to get a new contract for another 75 KC-46s until we work through some of those deficiencies,” Lamontagne told elected lawmakers on members of the Senate Armed Services Committee earlier this month. In July, the USAF announced it was exercising options to purchase 188 KC-46s under the original 2011 procurement contract with Boeing – the maximum amount allowable under that deal. A $2.4 billion firm order covering 15 jets under Lot 12 of that 2011 deal was later definitised in November, putting 183 of the total 188 aircraft formally under contract. At the same time, air force officials approved a new acquisition strategy for 75 additional KC-46s, for a total potential fleet of 263 aircraft. The decision ended years of uncertainty about the USAF’s medium-term plans for modernising its tanker force, which is primarily composed of aged Boeing KC-135 Stratotankers.

For a time, the air force considered an entirely new refueller dubbed KC-Y to serve as a bridge between the KC-46 and the Next Generation Air-refuelling System (NGAS) – a clean-sheet tanker platform intended to be survivable in a modern air combat environment. That vote of confidence in the KC-46 came after years of struggle with deficiencies on the jet, including stiffness issues with the fuel transfer boom, flaws with the Remote Vision System (RVS) that controls the boom, problems with the cargo load management software and structural cracks that temporarily halted deliveries. The air force had previously told Boeing to correct those issues, including ordering a full redesign of the RVS. Flight testing on an updated RVS 2.0 began in late 2025. Boeing has racked up in excess of $8 billion in losses owing to the KC-46 programme. Originally, Boeing bid it as a fixed-price contract that allowed little margin for the ballooning costs and production delays generated years later by the Covid-19 pandemic. In light of those issues, Congress restricted retirements of KC-135s. It imposed temporary limits on acquiring new KC-46s until the air force develops a corrective to resolve all Category 1 deficiencies with the aircraft. Those represent the most-severe category of design failure, denoting issues that could cause severe injury or death to personnel, or the loss of aircraft.

Despite the many headwinds, the KC-46 was certificated by the USAF for global combat use in 2022 and is actively supporting frontline operations. Senior officials, including the cabinet-level secretary of the air force Troy Meink, have repeatedly expressed support for the 767 derivative. “KC-46 is a great airplane,” Meink said at the Air & Space Forces Association Warfare Symposium in February. “There are some challenges and they’re working through them.” Lamontagne, who previously headed the Air Mobility Command that manages the air force’s tanker fleets, says he is “confident that a good plan is in place” for addressing the mechanical shortcoming and continuing the KC-46 acquisition programme. “We’ll deliver [the plan] here next year,” he says. A contract for the second tranche of 75 KC-46s will then follow in “subsequent years”. Lamontagne also revealed that the USAF is in the process of permanently transferring additional KC-135 tankers to Eielson AFB in Alaska, where they will support fourth- and fifth-generation fighters from both the US and Royal Canadian Air Forces, which are increasingly being called upon to intercept air space incursions by Russian military aircraft in the Arctic.

➤ The spokesperson for Saraya Awliya al-Dam resistance faction Abu Mahdi al-Jaafari said Washington and NATO asked Baghdad to secure a pause so forces could withdraw.

➤ Most resistance factions agreed, on the condition that Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF) positions between Samarra and Karbala are not targeted.

➢ “But if you return [to sin], we will return [to punishment]. And We have made Hell a prison for the disbelievers," the spokesman said.

➤ According to al-Jaafari, US troops are now confined to the Kurdistan region, having been pushed out from all other locations by resistance factions.

➤ NATO has now withdrawn all personnel from its mission in Iraq as of Friday, March 20, with several hundred troops from NATO Mission Iraq departing after recent Iranian attacks on Western military bases; spokesperson Allison Hart said the alliance would “adjust its presence” for security reasons, while a source cited by Al Mayadeen said the Italian contingent had fled to Jordan.