Image is one of many rallies in Iran in support of the government and the leadership.
short summary here, longish summary in spoiler tags below: Western standoff munition stockpiles now substantially depleted, therefore Western aircraft activity directly over Iran increasing (as is footage of attempted and actual hits against them) as the US attempts to transition more to using bombs dropped directly onto targets, Iran is increasingly in the driver’s seat and controlling the conflict, world economy is fucked and yet could still get much worse very soon, if you require a car to live (especially if it’s not electric) and cannot work from home then you have my sincere condolences
longish summary here
While I’ve seen several estimates on the current stockpiles of US and Zionist missiles and interceptors - somewhere in the realm of a third depleted, perhaps even up to half - it seems like we’re reaching the point at which the US does not want to commit even more standoff munitions and is trying their luck against the Iranian air defense network directly.
We have already seen footage of Iran attempting to shoot down, and sometimes actually striking Western fifth generation planes like the F-35, and more footage along those lines is appearing for other plane models (with one side claiming that they evaded interception and the other claiming they hit it, etc etc, propaganda is everywhere, you know the drill). How much the US is willing to test their planes against Iranian air defense is a matter of debate. Strictly speaking, a few fighter jets and bombers shot down would be no catastrophic loss in the grand scheme of things, as the US has hundreds. However, the narrative of such a thing would be quite bad for the US - “You’re telling me an OBLITERATED Iranian military can shoot down some of our most advanced equipment?? What are we gonna do against China?!” - and given Trump’s deranged jingoistic rhetoric aimed to buoy markets, it’s clear that he cares very deeply about narratives. Additionally, with Chinese exports of several critical metals to the US banned, the prospect of replacing these aircraft (and indeed the standoff munitions and the interceptors and the ground radars etc) is looking questionable.
All the while, Iran continues its strikes across the Middle East. Missile and drone strikes are reportedly on the uptick again, demonstrating that Iranian military capabilities have by no means been “destroyed” as Western propaganda claim, though it’s impossible to sure there was ever a significant downtick due to Western censorship and outright fabrications. People around the world are gradually realizing the magnitude of the economic disaster that is occurring and may yet occur. Refineries and factories which deal with oil and gas directly are starting to slow down or stop production, and those who make products downstream of those are starting to follow them like dominoes. Outrage at gas station prices is rising, and many countries are considering limiting civilian driving and implementing work-from-home policies akin to the coronavirus pandemic. And now, threats are being made by Trump against both Kharg Island (where most Iranian oil is shipped from) and the Iranian electrical grid - which is highly decentralized and would require a prolonged bombing campaign to completely take out -and the promised Iranian reprisal would be apocalyptic to the Middle East. It would make oil prices rise to previously unfathomable heights as oil infrastructure turned off and remained off for months, perhaps years, and set in motion one of the world’s greatest humanitarian catastrophes as the desalination necessary for tens of millions of people is shut down. It would also not be a symmetrical problem, as Iran does not rely on desalination for its water supply.
Last week’s thread is here.
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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 the Zionists’ 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.
Mirrors of Telegram channels that have been erased by Zionist censorship.
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.
I wouldn’t be so fast with these conclusions. It’s one thing to hit static sites which can’t be moved like the radar in Qatar, fuel storage in Kuwait, etc. It’s another thing entirely to hit forces on the move. From the start of the war, the US has operated rocket artillery/ballistic missiles (GMLRS, ATACMS, PrSM), MQ-9 Reapers, and even placed the USS Abraham Lincoln aircraft carrier strike group, all well within Iran’s Weapon Engagement Zone (WEZ). And yet, we haven’t seen or heard of a single successful counter battery engagement by Iranian forces on US rocket artillery. The USS Abraham Lincoln started the war 300-350km from the Iranian coastline and stayed there for a while, a lot closer than most expected, within range of a lot of Iranian weaponry. The most likely successful hit on an MQ-9 Reaper on the ground was the hits on Al Dhafra Air Base in the UAE, the MQ-9 installation hit in Kuwait is Italian. The latter shows the challenges of real time ISR. However, Iran does seem to have human intelligence sources which inform them of which hotels the US military is using to house servicemembers, and Iran conducts one way attack drone strikes on them. But again, how many US casualties have resulted from this? Hitting a specific room on a specific floor of a high rise building, while the target is present in that room, is a big real time ISTAR challenge. Israel does it in Lebanon because they can fly reconnaissance drones everywhere, and probably because every system connected to the Internet in Lebanon, including hotel check ins with electronic payment systems, IDs and key cards, is compromised by Mossad.
“Kill chains” are a lot more complex than just having a munition to shoot at something. The big story of the Gulf War wasn’t necessarily precision guided weaponry (even though that is a very big story), it was the inability for Iraq to amass forces without the USA seeing them, with the USA’s ISR capabilities, and real-time Ground Moving Target Indication (GMTI) by platforms like the E-8 JSTARS. In Russia and Ukraine, neither side can amass forces without being spotted because of real-time ISR performed by large fleets of various classes of drones. If the Russians try amass an armoured column, Ukraine sees it and GLMRS and FPV drones follow shortly. If Ukraine does it, Russia sees it and Tornado-S and FPV drones follow shortly. The question is if Iran or the US can do similar if ground forces get involved. We simply do not know that right now.
Radio War Nerd made the point in like 2009 in This is How The Carriers Will Die that the reticence to change strategy is just part of the deal of military thinking, perhaps. He compared it to Heavy Cavalry charging into longbow fire and losing repeatedly 700 years ago as a matter of doctrine until after Agincourt, because the leadership had invested so heavily into heavy cavalry (the armor, training, horses, weapons, etc). And no small part it was a romantic coolguy thing to do - wear heavy plate and charge, neat when you’re ploughing into some peasants in leather not so neat when their weird muscley cousins draw over a hundred of pounds of weight on a bow lol. Now, Radio War Nerd was saying the US Navy sticking to carriers for 60 years while anti-ship missiles were growing more effective was the same deal, but the same thinking could apply to the US air force too. Why not pivot to drones, missiles and insist on crewed aircraft? Well, they’ve invested so heavily into it, jobs are reliant on it as a make-work project, people make a lot of money designing and building the fucking things and they’d rather continue making money so they lobby hard, and yeah I think you might be right - its that romantic fascistic coolguy urge over material reality too. Fighters and bombers are just cool and have been since that first guy started shooting other planes and dropping shit in 1914 instead of doing his normal ass job of air reconnaissance.
I guess its just the wars the US was fighting too. Assumed air superiority, precision strikes against insurgents, bases around the world any time you want to use them, no one capable of hitting back past the horizon in the unipolar moment (mostly because you just don’t mess with the ones who could anyway).
And yet, the carrier hasn’t died, the USS Abraham Lincoln has played a vital role in the Iran war operating well within Iran’s WEZ for anti ship missiles, and China is going to make multiple nuclear powered aircraft carriers with stealth fighters during the next decade (2025-2035). The Chinese air force is also heavily invested in stealth fighters, SEAD/DEAD, etc. If it’s so obsolete, why is the USA’s primary adversary investing so much in that capability? I’ll trust Chinese military planners on this one, I think the “death of the carrier strike group” is quite premature. The strike group is a whole integrated force projection package of which the carrier is the centrepiece. Air and missile defence, standoff strike, it’s air wing, the carrier itself as an air base, they all travel together as one logistics package. We’ve seen how much logistical effort it takes to create a “carrier strike group on land” in the US military buildup vs Iran. And an air base is static, the carrier can move, in the open ocean it could be argued that the carrier is more survivable than an air base within range of missiles and drones.
China has the luxury of having industrial capacity so mind-bogglingly massive that they can afford to hedge their bets, and develop a whole bunch of technologies concurrently - they’re still making substantial investments into their missile force too. They’re one of a handful of countries to actually have Rocket Forces as an independent branch of the military, after all. The US was such a country once too - back during WW2, they could have a massive navy, a massive air-force doing multiple missions, and a not-so-massive-but-at-least-excellently-equipped ground force. The Soviets, conversely, had to focus their resources primarily on ground forces, and relegate their air-force mainly to CAS, they simply didn’t have the resources to develop extensive strategic bombing capacity. China is now in the role of the US, being able to develop all areas of the military concurrently - but the US isn’t really in its own role thanks to decades of industrial decline, and corruption among the capitalists holding the remaining industrial capacity.
And we also don’t necessarily know how many stealth fighters they plan to actually field in the end - the US went pretty hard into the F-35, expecting it to replace a substantial portion of its existing fighters, which hasn’t really panned out due to slow production, while China has continued further iteration on pre-stealth aircraft designs all along, like the J-10 series (now up to the J-10C) and the Sukhoi-esque J-16.
Same thing for the carriers, currently they’re expected to be going for nine, but how far are they going to keep going past that? As US experience is now showing, even with 11 carriers, maintenance needs can bring your active fleet down to two, and that’s with one of them having its deployment repeatedly extended until it just can’t manage it anymore and has to be sent home after a major accident. Chinese carrier doctrine is also presumably not going to be the same as the US - China is not an imperial power, they’re not necessarily seeking the carrier as a tool of imperial power projection, and they don’t need the capability to do their own Gulf War. We don’t necessarily know the specific details of what their doctrine is going to be, but it’s likely they intend on a more defensive posture limited mainly to the Western Pacific, which pretty substantially changes the evaluation of the concept’s viability.
Against missiles, sure. But carriers have to also contend with the additional threat of submarines. CSGs of course include ASW assets, but thanks to the Cold War fortunately not having gone hot we haven’t necessarily seen a proper combat test of modern sub and anti-sub capabilities against one another.
And the thing is, the carrier being dead, or least much more vulnerable, doesn’t necessarily mean it’s not better than land bases - the same technology that makes carriers vulnerable, indeed makes bases vulnerable to an even greater degree. The “death” of the carrier is really the death, or at least severe decline, of imperial power projection as a whole.
GOOD post
I doubt china is going to use its carriers for defensive purposes. they are probably making them in case they might need an airbase thousands of kilometers away from china. being on the move does not mean much when even startup companies can point your location on satelite. carriers are much more fragile than airfields while being much more expensive. you can’t sink an airfield. there were cluster bombs that make airfield hazardeus for aircraft but militaries learned how to patch the airfield up quickly if I remember correctly. also you have to sacrifice some stuff to make your aircraft be able to take off from a much shorter aircraft carrier. I also think iran did not sink carrier on purpose, there would be very high retaliation, you can call it cope too that is reasonable.
Which have limited range, and, from the locations available, are mainly limited to striking targets along Iran’s coastline, plus the ones in Kuwait can hit some stuff in Khuzestan and parts of Bushehr. The PrSM improves things a lot, but that’s a new munition not available in large numbers, and even with it you still can’t reach a lot of Iran - eventually later increments will get to a 1000+ km range, but not yet. Those forces on the move also can’t just tool around the desert indefinitely, they need sustainment, and for that they are reliant on static sites, like the bases where extra munitions are stored or the airfields where planes resupplying need to land.
And yes, hunting down missile batteries is hard, just as the US itself struggled with against Iraqi Scuds. But it’s hard because it’s individual trucks maneuvering around, which also really limits the volume of fire that can be delivered - if you concentrate a ton of them in one place, they’d be easier to target (the same limitation applies to the Iranians, but they have a lot more real estate to work with, and geography much more favorable to hiding assets).
And Russia actually has had decent success in counter-battery strikes - the Iranians certainly have more to learn, but this clearly isn’t a foolproof tactic.
And it eventually retreated, after being shot at. Perhaps the Iranians can’t reliably hit it, but just the potential threat of doing so was enough - with the US being down to literally two active CSGs (now one with the Ford going home), they simply can’t afford the risk.
And likely the reason why it was brought so close to begin with was because of the Gulf bases being under threat.
Wars aren’t determined by K/D ratios. Forcing the US to evacuate numerous highly valuable bases is an incredible strategic feat, regardless of how many soldiers they actually killed to do so.
Iran already did that, against the Kurds - they’d been hitting US bases in Iraqi Kurdistan since the start, but pretty much as soon as news started getting bandied around about a Kurdish ground incursion, they escalated further. Just yesterday they hit another base. It’s very much possible that this strike campaign played a role in the plans for a Kurdish incursion getting shut down.
PMF forces have also already struck targets in Iraq and mostly forced what limited troops remained there out.
And clearly the US believes Iran can do that, or they wouldn’t have preemptively abandoned their bases in the region and dispersed forces among hotels. Iran doesn’t even need to strike amassing American troops, there aren’t a lot of places left where such troops would amass in the first place.
Seconding the point about the Kurds, since the rumors of a ground invasion began, the Iranian opposition in Sulaymaniyah has been pounded by drones. The most recent video from Saraya Awliya al-Damm was targeting Kurdish positions