A reminder that as the US continues to threaten countries around the world, fedposting is to be very much avoided (even with qualifiers like “in Minecraft”) and comments containing it will be removed.

Image is of the USS Abraham Lincoln arriving at Thailand, looking worn after a very long deployment to the Arabian Sea.

My weekly preamble is in spoiler tags below.

preamble

To start briefly with Iran, there’s been two significant developments over the last week. First is that Iran is now beginning to put into practice its policy that allows preemptive strikes - a policy which was authorized by the previous Khamenei a while before his death but has so far gone unused - to strike at Kuwait, Qatar, and Jordan without a corresponding American aggression immediately beforehand. The second development is that Iran is now taking a firmer stand against the US Navy in the waters of the Arabian Sea, beginning by testing anti-ship ballistic missiles against the US fleet - so far without confirmed hits as of me writing this sentence - as it is obviously disadvantageous for Iran to simply not do anything against the blockade even with US logistics under strain. The US has attempted to dissuade these new strikes by striking Iranian oil tankers, to which Iran has responded by striking oil tankers aligned with the West. This is very much not a shooting war that the US wants to get into as oil stockpiles continue to decline and diesel prices are at all-time highs (though if adjusted for inflation, we still have a little more time before we hit absolute highs). The overall picture is of an Iran growing in confidence.

There’s also been some encouraging news out of Yemen, where Ansarallah has been conducting a ground offensive weaken the enemy occupation of the western coast, including some breathtakingly precise drone-drop operations combined with using recon drones to guide ballistic missiles at enemy formations. As far as I’m aware, the blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb to Saudi tankers has been very successful, although stopping Saudi tankers from heading north towards Suez has been understandably trickier. I suppose if push comes to shove, they can continue to strike the very immobile coastal oil facilities rather than trying to hit moving ships at a great distance.

The news out of Russia/Ukraine has been quite miserable for particularly Ukrainian civilians over the past month or two, with Ukrainian strikes on Russian civilian logistics and warehouses being met with much greater Russian responses on Ukrainian civilian logistics and warehouses. Ukrainian ports are now effectively blockaded, making exporting agricultural products in the same quantities as before essentially impossible, and within the cities including Kiev, food suppliers are scrambling to find smaller warehouses to place goods in so that they aren’t as easily destroyed like the larger warehouses have been. I find it sincerely upsetting that the war has progressed to this point, though it’s always worth noting that, first, Ukraine had a few opportunities to sign pretty good negotiating terms with Russia; and second, in comparison, Western wars begin at the step of making a conflict about hurting civilians, even to the extent of it being a detriment to strategic goals by not solely hitting military targets (most famously in Gaza, but also e.g. during Obama’s term by bombing weddings and hospitals).

I will confess to not being as up-to-date on the situation in Europe, and especially Germany, in regards to the Ukraine War as I would like, but as a general statement, nothing I’ve seen over the last few years has demonstrated to me that Europe is capable of fielding a conventional force which would provide a formidable, let alone existential, threat to Russia at this stage. There’s been lots of embarrassing stories about European missile, drone, and shell production being well below standards in both quality and quantity. My thoughts are now that I think the age of the US/NATO posing an existential conventional threat to China, Russia, and probably Iran (and perhaps others like the DPRK?) is now conclusively over, with Western bases proven to be indefensible with existing missile defence programs, their logistics very vulnerable to disruption, and their aircraft not being safe to use over airspace at least as well-protected as Iran’s. The US can still do cataclysmic, nation-destroying damage to smaller, less defended countries like those in Latin America and Africa, but for the anti-US squad in Eurasia, the vast majority of the threat from the US is now a combination of financial/debt offensives and covert intelligence. We still have a long way to go on both those fronts, however - a minimum of a decade or two, I believe, even with Trump’s inadvertently anti-imperialist accelerationism.

Lastly for this preamble, the annual SCO summit took place on September 1st in Bishkek, with the leaders of China, Russia, Iran, India, Türkiye, Pakistan, and others in attendance. A lot of the usual statements were made: down with hegemonies, down with militarising space, down with unilateral sanctions, up with local currency exchanges, up with cooperation, up with peace, etc etc. The big proclamation this time around was the Bishkek Declaration, which reiterated all those points I just mentioned. Overall, it’s one of those documents where the content is mostly cool and indirectly jabs a lot at the US, but I find that paper is a generally ineffective barrier of protection against bombs and missiles, which is a pretty major avenue of… let’s say, “international communication” in the current day. And I would like to see some real contenders to the World Bank and IMF taking shape soon if we’re gonna truly start fighting hegemonism, but I digress.

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

If you have evidence of Zionist crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

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:

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.

  • Tervell [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    62·
    10 hours ago

    https://archive.ph/C0ECq

    What options does the Pentagon have to cover its mounting FY26 operational costs?

    “If I were still in the building, I would say, ‘I’m probably screwed now,'" a former official told Breaking Defense.

    joever

    more

    With Congress headed on break, a continuing resolution in place through Dec. 11 and no hope for a near-term defense supplemental, Defense Department planners are scrambling to stretch available funds and make it through the end of the fiscal year.

    really cool that the world’s allegedly most powerful military is getting put on “desperately waiting on my salary to come in” end-of-month rations. hope you enjoy instant ramen! (although tbh, that’d probably still be better than the “food” they were serving to those sailors…)

    The issue took center stage this week, thanks to a Thursday statement from Rep. Rosa DeLauro, the top Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, where she said the Pentagon is making a “secretive attempt to siphon” billions of dollars away from the National Institutes of Health through an “interagency agreement.” “These funds were provided for lifesaving medical research, not as extra money for the Department of Defense,” she added. “It is no secret that the Department of Defense is facing enormous financial pressure because of President Trump’s war of choice with Iran. But the Trump administration cannot make American patients, families, and scientists pay the price.”

    uh, yeah, pretty sure they can since you’re not going to actually fucking do anything to stop them? biden-the-thing

    In a statement to NOTUS, NIH said the proposed agreement was around a collaboration on medical technologies, and notably, neither NIH or DeLauro said a deal was ever consummated. Appropriations Committee chairman Tom Cole, R-Okla., said in a statement late Friday that “not one dollar has been transferred from the NIH to the Department of War.” DeLauro’s office did not respond to a request for additional details, and neither did DoD and the Office of Management and Budget. DoD also did not respond to multiple requests for comment about ongoing FY26 budget pressures. Regardless of the specifics around the NIH claims, the fact the Pentagon’s budget is under stress is no secret, thanks to a mix of six months of military operations against Iran, National Guard deployments inside the US, increased fuel costs, end-strength overages and the lack of full reimbursement from the Department of Homeland Security for DoD border operations. The White House in June sent lawmakers a supplemental spending request that included $67.1 billion in defense funds, though Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth later said that he expects “certain aspects” of the Iran war to cost $37.5 billion through the end of September. However, with Congress effectively shuttered until after November’s elections, that supplemental isn’t coming anytime soon, if it ever gets done.

    Finding outside sources of money and putting them towards the Pentagon is just one of a handful of options available to defense budget planners, a pair of former defense officials told Breaking Defense. But none of them, they said, are pretty. “Their problem right now is the operating costs that they didn’t plan for,

    YOUR WHOLE JOB IS TO FIGHT IMPERIAL WARS HOW DID YOU NOT FUCKING PLAN FOR FIGHTING AN IMPERIAL WAR!?

    and that has to be solved by 26 days from now,” a former senior defense official granted anonymity to speak freely, told Breaking Defense this week. “If I were still in the building, I would say, ‘I’m probably screwed now.’”

    Viable Options And Roadblocks

    Both the former senior official and Elaine McCusker, an acting comptroller during the first Trump administration, spoke to Breaking Defense before DeLauro’s statement came out. However, they broadly laid out some of the available options to get operations and maintenance (O&M) funds lined up. One option is via DoD requests to reprogram money between coffers. Broadly speaking, Pentagon officials have more legal wiggle room to reshuffle O&M as they see fit — cancelling training exercises, for example, is fully within the department’s decision space. In July, US Pacific Air Forces Commander Gen. Kevin Schneider warned that the military would do just that and was reevaluating its upcoming exercise schedule to help preserve “readiness” in the face of increased commitments around the globe, including the Middle East. Such moves are likely more wide-spread, especially for the Navy given its operational tempo in the Middle East. “[You] can’t really let the services go ahead, go full speed ahead, on training and stuff, on the 45 percent chance that more money will show up because we’ll be broke in the operating accounts if we don’t slow down,” the former defense official added.

    Another option is to seek Congressional approval to move dollars between accounts. In early July, for example, the Pentagon asked Congress for permission to reroute roughly $4.3 billion from FY26 coffers in order to pay for “higher priority items,” including increased personnel and operational costs around the globe. Lawmakers on the appropriations committees did not respond to questions about the status of this reprogramming request, but $4.3 billion is just a fraction of Hegseth’s $37.5 billion Iran estimate and the $67.1 billion requested for defense in the supplemental ask. “Reprogramming requests submitted to Congress, if approved, would help with some immediate cash flow challenges, particularly in the military personnel account, but the sources to fund these reprogramming actions are not good and will need replenished as well,” McCusker explained.

    you’ve heard of debasification, now get ready for robbing-peter-to-pay-paul-ification kelly

    “The Pentagon is close to the cap on general transfer authority (GTA),” she added. “If it does not get supplemental relief, it will have to defer maintenance

    oh well good thing the military doesn’t have longstanding and evergrowing problems with maintenance then!

    and potentially stall acceleration of modernization and procurement. Some bills could carry into next year.” But given the Pentagon is in the middle of a major modernization push, and how officials always like to note that delayed modernization usually costs more down the road, cutting technology buys to fund O&M isn’t ideal. Another option on the table to cut costs by furloughing civilian workers or cutting back their hours. “You could tell civilians to only work three days a week, but the question is how much you can do this late in the year that would really move the needle,” the former senior defense official added. “You could also slow purchases of things that you normally buy with O&M funds and hope for relief later.” Then there are more creative “maneuvers,” like using funds from the $152 billion reconciliation pot to pay the bills, the former senior defense official said. While that money has been earmarked, the Pentagon could shift funding around, similar to how the department diverted $3.8 billion to pay for the wall along the southern border in 2020. Notably, the Pentagon has to get its reconciliation funding on contract this year or lose roughly 8.3 percent of its funds. In theory, that means the department could do some acrobatics and shift money from procurement to O&M, then shift reconciliation to cover those holes in procurement — but eventually, something gets cut. While some of DoD’s funding pressure could abate on Oct. 1 when FY27 starts, it still has funds to backfill and will likely be under a continuing resolution until early December. “The financial challenges will only get worse until a final appropriations bill and supplemental are passed,” McCusker said. “Always wasteful and disruptive, a CR will be particularly destructive this year as only the 2026 base budget will extend. This means an immediate budget reduction of more than $150 billion or about $400 million per day compared to what was requested and planned for 2027.”

    • someone [comrade/them, they/them]@hexbear.netEnglish
      34·
      5 hours ago

      YOUR WHOLE JOB IS TO FIGHT IMPERIAL WARS HOW DID YOU NOT FUCKING PLAN FOR FIGHTING AN IMPERIAL WAR!?

      I would love to be a fly on the wall of the last surviving PNAC ghouls’ conversations on current events. It would be so satisfying to watch their impotent rage as all they dreamed of comes crashing down because their successors actually bought into the propaganda they designed.

      • oliveoil [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        25·
        4 hours ago

        Even with the smallest amount of critical thinking, and even lacking material analysis, they could’ve easily come to the conclusion that this war would be lost.

        It cost them what in Iraq? IIRC - $1 Trillion directly, and $10 Trillion in economic reduction.

        Iran is x4 the size, with terrain more treacherous than Afghanistan, and a way more powerful military. If we are conservative with the figures and say that Iran is x10 harder than Iraq, then we are looking at:

        $10 Trillion in direct costs, and $100 Trillion in economic reduction. The US obviously can’t afford that.

        This is what I’ve been telling noncommunists for over a decade. The US cannot afford such a war. When I spoke of the war hypothetically, I said that the US will sooner run out of money than win such a war.