SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]

“Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be followed by surreal continuity as the old order cadaverously fights back.”

  • 209 Posts
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Joined 4 years ago
Cake day: January 3rd, 2022
  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPtonews@hexbear.net•Bulletins and International News Discussion from November 3rd to November 9th, 2025 - The 47th ASEAN Summit + Trump and Xi's DealEnglish
    38·
    1 month ago

    I do wonder if there’s any comparisons that can be made between Yemen and Venezuela, in terms of predicting how a conflict would go

    Because on paper, Yemen is very disadvantaged compared to the US (and indeed can only get missiles through to the US navy by depleting interceptors first) but in practice has been a monumental thorn in the US’s side when trying to reassert control over the Red Sea; merely bombing Yemen hasn’t seemed to achieve much either militarily or politically, and certainly not compared to the material costs in terms of manpower and drones and interceptor missiles and the constant expensive maintenance that bombing raids require (as we all know, money itself is no object to American imperialists, but the materials and time to manufacture the weapons certainly matters)

    Does Venezuela have any kind of comparable missile or mass drone production capable of engaging in gradual attrition against the US, or would such an attritional war only really arise if the US tries to put boots on the ground (or hires boots inside Venezuela) and then the socialist militias begin resistance operations? I’m assuming here that the Venezuelan air fleet would be taken out fairly quickly, and optimistically would “only” take out a ship or two before no longer being a threat (and indeed might not take out anything at all), which seems like a good assumption to me but I guess depends on what exactly Russia and China decide to do and send them.

  • SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him]@hexbear.netOPtotheory@hexbear.net•Imperialism Reading Group - Empire's Workshop: Latin America, the United States, and the Making of an Imperial Republic - Week 3English
    3·
    1 month ago

    I think this sort of campaign of terrorism and genocide is the sort of thing that the current US capitalist base is bending towards as China more clearly manifests as a looming stormcloud on the horizon threatening their intricate system of international debt peonage. This campaign is what they did when the US and Europe were in imperialist competition over nations with cheap land and resources, so surely it must work today; and in some, perhaps many places, it might, for a while.

    The US vs China contest isn’t inter-imperialist of course (as China is not imperialist), but there is a different dynamic to it than the US vs USSR contest, where China is explicitly disinterested in exporting revolution or visibly helping countries resist American aggression via compradors or otherwise but is interested in competing for resources and infrastructure deals, though at a much, much better deal than the US would ever willingly provide.

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