Macron has recently called a snap parliamentary election in the aftermath of the far-right getting a large proportion of the votes in the EU elections. Why exactly he called an election at a point of profound weakness is a little beyond me. Explanations that I've seen range from "He thinks the element of surprise will benefit his party and not others," to "WW3 is about to start and he doesn't want to be leader for it," (which, like, isn't true - Macron is the President of France, not Prime Minister, he won't be unseated by this election and he has said he will not stand down regardless of result), to "He doesn't want to swim in the shit-filled Seine."
While we still have a couple weeks to go, the polling I've seen generally puts the far-right in first place with the left-wing coalition slightly behind, with Macron's party all the way back in third place. Anybody who knows anything about French politics knows that while France does actually have something of a left opposition in aggregate (in contrast to the two wings of the Capitalist Party in the UK and the US, for example), French left coalitions are profoundly unstable and this one will inevitably split - perhaps even before the voting begins - meaning they aren't nearly as useful as they otherwise could be.
Living in a France governed by far right parties would be awful, but maybe they might at least be against the carnage in Ukraine, and sue for peace with Russia? Well, possibly not, if the example of Meloni in Italy is anything to go by. It seems that the differences between the "centrist" parties and the fascist ones truly are not that great, beholden to the exact same set of capitalists regardless of which party wins, and will likely bend the knee to NATO, though they may grumble a lot. Would a left coalition be better on Russia/NATO? They have already helpfully told us that they won't (only opposing sending French troops to Ukraine but otherwise being full steam ahead), and additionally are genocidal Zionists. Western leftists have long been hampered by a dramatically faulty misunderstanding of how geopolitics works, with many seemingly believing "imperialism is when countries interact with other countries" and "democracy is when you can vote between two parties even if widely popular policies aren't at all represented by either of them, and if those popular policies are enacted but it's by a one-party state then that's authoritarian evil" and other such strange ideas, making them terminally useless on foreign issues and pretty unremarkable on domestic issues too. France is no exception.
And just to top it all off, this is coming in a period of further imperial decline for the tattered remains of the French empire, with West Africa rebelling and Kanaky (New Caledonia) deeply unhappy with recent French decisions.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you've wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don't worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is France! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week's thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish 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 (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
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.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
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.
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.
An overwhelming majority of Wikipedia editors have voted to ban the ADL as a source for the Palestine conflict. A ban on the ADL for anti-Semitism is expected soon as well.
Impossible to imagine because if China was doing it the west would be too, but also China wouldn’t do it
There is routine mass Western hysteria over China doing things the West also does
I remember a solid week of absolute pearl clutching and fainting that China was about to deorbit and drop a used booster rocket onto some random (white) city in the world... A year ago? Two now?
China had obviously calculated the trajectory for it to land in the ocean like every other space agency in the world, but the news was going feral about how China was going to just drop it on people and kill thousands out of carelessness
And then the booster splashed down into the water as China said it would. You had a few libs sniffle and go "w-well it could've missed a-a-and landed on Australia!" and then that was it. No reckoning with the story, just buried it
What if he car-ized satellites? Everyone gets a personal satellite that they can configure and maintain. You can buy new and used satellites at deslerships. It’ll be like getting star named after you but this time you make the world worse.
Ok stick with me on this:
What if we could put a device in every home that provided internet to people long term? A device that doesn’t burn a hole in the ozone layer, and doesn’t need a rocket to go to space? I’m just spitballing here, but what if you could even service the device directly whenever you had connectivity issues?
What if it was made entirely of metal and weigh 50 pounds and the material does nothing to its performance
The real solution is we need to start making wood home WiFi routers
Cant wait for matrix operation dark storm that blocks out the sun but instead of nanomachines its a bunch of starlink space junk
And for it to be marketed as a giganto-brained geo-engineering climate "solution" as well.
Wake up babe new Israeli polling. Highlights:
Only 40% of Israelis are confident of their victory in Gaza
2/3 of Israeli jews want an invasion of Lebanon, with 1/3 after Gaza is wrapped up and 1/3 immediately
Netanyahu remains hatedafter Gaza is wrapped up
Yeah, and after I invent a time machine and game the lottery, I'll spend my trillions on funding a hedonistic woke palace
half a century ago: after this whole business in Vietnam is wrapped up, China's next on the chopping block
2 decades ago: After Iraq and Afghanistan are wrapped up, we’ll be in position to take down Iran
Also 2 decades ago: After Iraq and Afghanistan are wrapped up, we'll be in a position to take down North Korea
So... what about the 6.6% of people who aren't confident of their victory in Gaza but also want a war with Lebanon? What's going on in their head? "we should give up on Gaza because we cant win and then attack Lebanon to prove to everyone we aren't total cucks" Kinda like the "we should cut ukraine loose so we can get into a war with China" usians?
I don't like what's behind door number 1, let's open door number 2
What’s causing the low confidence? Israeli propsganda is pumped 24/7 and makes you think they’re just casually strolling in bombed apartments because Hamas is losing so bad that the war is boring. Are their dead fathers and brothers opening their eyes?
hamas and hezbollah rockets, plus fireworks
their precarity must be on the forefront of their minds
invasion of Lebanon? as if they don't struggle with anything that isn't exclusively bombing
Israelis: lose to Hamas, decide to pick fight with Hezbollah that is like ten times stronger
and they can't bomb Lebanon because Hezbollah specifically broke everything Israel had which could do that
France has been handing out fines for people shopping with watermelon pins on lately. Tweet
So public support for Palestine is just straight up outlawed then? Wonder if they're already handing out fines to people wearing keffiyeh yet?
I believe there has been. People have certainly been arrested or forced to remove keffiyeh in Gemrany. There's also been incidents of arrests simply for people speaking Arabic in public or having Arabic on their clothes, although these will likely eventually get thrown out for those that can find it or find legal aid / orgs to help.
Some people got assaulted or shot in the US for wearing a keffiyah
So what would happen if a large crowd of protestors also happened to be fans of extreme sports and wore cheesy athletic shirts like
Show
I'd guess something like what happened to the three young women with paraglider stickers on their jackets at a protest here in the UK: they'd be charged and convicted of terrorism offenses, pilloried non-stop in the media for weeks, and have their lives ruined.
I won my wiki edit war to get Kiui's gender changed from "Female" to something else, page got locked after reverting to my changes. This is very important and newsworthy and not at all extremely petty.
UN food chief: Poorest areas have zero harvests left
Droughts and flooding have become so common in some of the poorest places on Earth that the land can no longer sustain crops, the director of the World Food Programme’s global office has said.
Martin Frick told the BBC that some of the most deprived areas had now reached a tipping point of having “zero” harvests left, as extreme weather was pushing already degraded land beyond use.
He said that as a result, parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America were now dependent on humanitarian aid.
Mr Frick warned that without efforts to reverse land degradation globally, richer countries would also begin to suffer crop failures.
The Global Environment Facility estimates that 95% of the world’s land could become degraded by 2050. The UN says that 40% is already degraded.
When soil degrades, the organic matter that binds it together dies off. This means that it is less able to support plant life – reducing crop yields – and absorb carbon from the atmosphere.
Soil is the second largest carbon sink after the oceans, and is recognised by the UN as a key tool for mitigating climate change.
“There's too much carbon in the air and too little carbon in the soils,” Mr Frick said. “With every inch of soil that you're growing, you're removing enormous amounts of carbon out of the atmosphere.
“So healthy soils – carbon-rich soils – are a prerequisite to fixing climate change.”
Land degradation can be caused by modern farming techniques removing organic content from soil, but also prolonged droughts interspersed with sudden, extreme rainfall.
Scientists say many extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and intense as a result of climate change.
While it is hard to link climate change to specific droughts, scientists have said global warming has made certain ones, like the recent one in East Africa, more likely.
Mr Frick said that in Burundi, in East Africa, months of heavy rain and flooding had damaged 10% of its farmland, making it unusable for the upcoming harvest season.
He pointed to a UN report, released in March, which found that cereal crops in the Darfur region of Sudan were 78% below the average for the previous five years amid civil war and drought.
95% of the world’s land could become degraded by 2050
Jesus fucking Christ.
Makes me so fucking dejected. Not even just for myself, but I have wonderful nieces and nephews and they don't deserve this shit
Thankfully, the country where good things are still able to happen
developed a way to store carbon in agricultural soil to improve carbon content and pH.This is how I stay somewhat optimistic. I tell myself that if any society has a chance of surviving the future long-term, it will require a type of planning and action that capitalism can't provide. The future is tragic, but there's hope. New spaces will open.
Here is a link to the science in question in regards to @BobDole@hexbear.net’s comment above
I'm hoping China can spread this far and wide to other countries (and as cheaply as possible obviously) because it's this kind of shit that will actually provide some technological solutions (it will never be the solution, major changes to the world economy and ideologies are also required or we'll bake ourselves alive chasing infinite growth) to climate change. Rather than like, some AI startup that wants to drop larger and larger ice cubes into the ocean with drones.
Mr Frick
You don't have to self-censor here, it's Mr Fuck
One of the Anti-communist founders of DSA writes article spitting on the legacy of American communists and says DSA is becoming just as bad as the old CPUSA because they won't condemn hamas, confirming my bias that todays DSA - somehow - collectively is a more communist party in substance than todays CPUSA.
https://archive.is/pMud1
What the Failure of American Communism Should Teach the Left
Ideological fervor is no substitute for popular support.
By Maurice Isserman
Very funny how he claims that the only way to achieve socialism is by building power in the system but 100 years after Debs there is no socialist party of america and its still a 2 party system
The condemn Hamas thing pisses me of so much. It's on the same frequency as the Ukrainian peace summit, without Russia. Like it or not they are the acting political (and military obviously) power in Gaza. To ignore one of the main factions in conflict is so stupid. For the western left it just makes a false equivalence to the IOF and is meant to depress efforts on Palestines behalf and ultimately empower the genocidal entity.
What does condemning Hamas do, exactly? The government doesn’t care because breathing in the general direction of a zionist is antisemitism, and most democrats and young people are outraged by the genocide. The problem is that the democrats - while most apparently acknowledge it as a genocide - will vote blue no matter, and some screed denouncing Hamas and communism isn’t going to make them support your wholesome non-authoritarian democratic socialism.
Condemning Hamas gives you permission to speak. Until you open your mouth and say anything else, of course.
its very american for the names of the parties to be unrelated to the programmes
Say what you will about Milei, but you have to admit it’s pretty impressive how in a few months he has turned Argentina into the first ever 5th world country
It's a biblically accurate kitty. There was this meme a while back about biblically accurate angels, which gives angels a surrealist representation. The kitty is a play on that. Similarly fifth world problems is a meme that plays on first world problems where all the complaints have some weird or surreal twist. So the biblically accurate kitty represents the fifth world.
Israel is making claims that Hamas smuggled prisoners of war into Sinai, guess this is the excuse they'll be using to invade Egypt
If they're genuinely plotting an invasion of Egypt, they're the dumbest motherfuckers alive
I always think to myself "did these mfs ever read a history book?" then I remember, not reading history is their thing.
"Let's make the mediterranean spicy and open a.. Lets see, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Yemen... An 8th front!
They did. Their conclusion was “the funny mustache man wasn’t wrong. He just chose the wrong people. We’ll fix it for him”
Too busy creating an alt-history that legitimizes their shitty settler colony.
Two wars on entirely opposite sides of the country and another insurgent war inside it is the stupidest way to overstretch yourself.
Israel complaining that their POWs aren't being kept in an active warzone currently subject to a genocidal bombing campaign? But I have to admit that it's going to work, considering their target audience consists of the dumbest and most genocidally gullible people to ever exist
An invasion of Egypt would be more of an end to the entity than an invasion of Lebanon
If this happens, the usa should help egypt, it is a more reliable ally as it is despotic and economically desperate, Israel is a liability at this point
Muslim vs. Judeo-Christian
ie Black vs. White. Good vs. Evil. Man vs. Orc. Garden vs. Jungle.
This is how the childish morons who run the world think in the west
Tbh, not really. If elections or an uprising occurs, something like Muslim brotherhood will gain control which is very pro Palestine. If that doesn't happen and military rule continues, sisi is like the most pro Israel coup general compared to previous ones. Sisi replacement will most likely won't be this loyal to west
What reason would they have to invade Egypt? They allow Hamas to smuggle but it doesn’t seem like it’s turning the tide, unless the israelis are lying about their performance 🤔
Sisi made a wish on a cursed monkey paw to not have to worry about the Palestinian genocide
Egypt isn't really allowing it. Rather, it happens on tunnels whose locations are unknown to them
Egypt's government spent 6+ months doing everything to stay neutral, no matter how much blood was on their hands because of that decision. Yet, would you look at that, the fascists are gonna shoot anyways because they told you they were a scorpion before you picked them up.
India, Mexico and Brazil chose not to endorse Zelenskyy's unilateral Ukraine peace summit communique. Argentina's ultra-neoliberal President Javier Milei gave it his full support - anything for his US masters.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has blown a white supremacist dog whistle, calling Brazil "uncivilized" because it didn't sign his "Ukraine Peace Summit Communique". Like China, India and Mexico, Brazil doesn't believe peace negotiations can take place without dialogue between both parties.
Like China, India and Mexico, Brazil doesn't believe peace negotiations can take place without dialogue between both parties.
we really are at the point where Western diplomatic acumen has atrophied so much that they still believe they can dictate terms despite being in a losing war. like, I guess it's kinda encouraging that state competency has decayed this much, but it does also mean that WW3 is probably inevitable
kinda encouraging, and some days I can even find some mirth in it in a bleak and absurd way, but goddamn nukes are scary
I guess it's kinda encouraging that state competency has decayed this much, but it does also mean that WW3 is probably inevitable
As long as China and Russia have contingency plans for the us nuclear arsenal, ww3 will be over so quick lol
Policymakers in the Chinese and Russian governments must be in heaven, having such predictable geopolitical rivals.
I heard Brazil didn't even want to send a diplomat so they sent an observer instead. It would have been funny if they just sent a cardboard cutout of a person and propped it up in a chair.
This is different from my usual posts. It is an open letter from one of the only Marxist formulations in my country. I think it succinctly addresses a lot of the local arguments that are of interesting rhetorical value and in which I assume a lot of the people here are not often exposed to, especially when Western media often likes to picture Malaysia as Pro-Hamas and Pro-Palestine.
Note: It is common to refer to people by their first names in formal settings because a majority of the ethnic groups here have no concept of a family name. This is true for Indonesia and Brunei as well.
Palestine is more important
I take note of Tengku Zafrul’s defence of BlackRock, which has strong links to Israel, arguing that it has major shares in Apple, WhatsApp and Facebook. I take note of Defence Minister Khaled Nordin defending the inclusion of Lockheed Martin and BAE Systems, both complicit in Israel’s military dominance, in the recent Defence Service Asia (DSA) 2024 expo held in Kuala Lumpur with the argument that Malaysia is a free trading nation. I take note of Anwar’s urge of caution against not participating in the Rim of the Pacific Exercise (Rimpac), a US-led maritime military exercise which includes the participation of the Israeli army.
But one thing remains. Palestine is more important.
Zafrul should understand that the deep roots of BlackRock in all major cultural mechanisms of the world is a cause for concern, not submission. Khaled should understand that giving space for those actively involved in the cleansing of innocent souls to put up a booth in our nation’s capitol is indirect endorsement of their practices. Anwar, so vocal with his support for Palestine when a microphone is in his hand, should understand participating in any US-led military exercise, especially with the direct involvement of Israel, makes his supposed support ring hollow. None of these have to do with global participation or the United Nations, whose highest court ordered Israel to halt its offensive in Rafah.
We understand that this capitalist government alongside every other capitalist government we have had bends the knee willingly to the US and it’s allies no matter how many lives are lost. We understand the need for free trade and the intricacies of navigating an unfree world with the conglomerate of NATO nations bullying others willingly. We understand that taking any material step to disrupt the lives of the US, Israel and their military industrial complex is an immense risk for our nation.
Having said all of that, Palestine is more important.
We know this government wants to make political gains against Perikatan Nasional, so every Palestine protest by them is labelled a political ploy. We know Perikatan are also only using this issue for clout, using the issue to further divide Malaysians on the basis of race and religion. We know the mudslinging on both parts is to distract from the real issues people like BDS Malaysia and Gegar are pushing.
We acknowledge all of that. But Palestine is more important.
Have some perspective. There is a genocide happening. There are pictures of children being dismembered. There are videos of bombs raining down on innocent Palestinians. Bombs made by whom, funded by whom? And at this time when the world is divesting, when people around the globe are protesting and day-by-day, though the bombs keep raining down, the will of the Palestinian people remains unbroken. When victory approaches as each material step is taken by those who claim to be allies of Palestine. When necessary military action is taken by all who can over the land Israel occupies. Is it at this time we want to play the card of free trade, global citizenship and national security?
It is time to take some risks. Begin withdrawing from all of the above actions. Send back the US ambassador until the conflict is over. Take some risks because, to us, Palestine is more important. To you?
Powerful letter, thanks for sharing it.
Palestine is more important is going to be my go to rhetoric next time some lib cries about “project 2025 vote blue no matter who” nonsense
degrees of harm reduction stop mattering when there so much wilful harm being done
Fr, Bush is the only president I’ve lived through who is more genocidal than Biden and I bet he could top bush if he still had mental faculties.
- Show
yawn
It really feels like they’ve been saying this bullshit every week for like 6 months now
- Show
US federal interest payments have now exceeded its defense spending
Neoclassical model debunked in a single chart.
Raising interest rates because the government has “printed too much money” led to more money being printed as a result of interest payout, simply by virtue of the gigantic volume of the US treasuries, something that I have been saying for more than a year now.
Joe Biden has succeeded in creating more wealth for the rich than any of his predecessors has ever managed, and this is why he, not Trump, will have the full backing of the bourgeois class.
In Danish media, so-called security experts are currently inventing a guy and getting scared of him.
In statements to media the experts speculate that Russia could use it's "shadow fleet" of oil tankers as "a weapon against the maritime environment" and deliberately cause an oil spill in Danish waters as part of hybrid warfare.
It goes without saying that no evidence is presented but as one expert is quoted for saying: "in a time with increasing Russian hybrid warfare, only imagination sets the limit".
Las time an environmental disaster was deliberately caused in Danish waters was when Nordstream 2 was blown up, most likely by the yanks.
I love how stupid the Western elites are. The "Shadow Fleet" is a silly descriptor for ships bought outside of the Swift banking system, done so purely because the West have banned Russia from using it. They're not secret, the West just voluntarily blocked Russia from using the banking system set up to make tracking shit easier.
Fuck we're so stupid.
Actually the shadow fleet was constructed by Darth Putin using lenin's star forge, which is currently in orbit in the tunguska system
the Rakata are the most American of all Star Wars aliens. Lenin would have the Incom factory or something (guy who made the Xwing used it to fuck over the empire).
Mean, you’re the one who said Lenin would have torture factory
The perfidious Russians are hiding from me on the other side of my closed eyelids
this is like an institutional version of when the general public start becoming conspiracy theorists about vaccines and shit as a deranged response to distrust in state institutions. instead of your 55 year old aunt talking about how "they just have honest questions about vaccine and lockdown efficacy!" it's now media and thinktank experts putting out reports that Russia may plan to block out the sun using a giant satellite as a response to the failure of their disastrous authoritarian deluded ill-advised tragic brutal totalitarian communist fascist violent devastating terrible ruinous incompetent orwellian amateurish oppressive awful inept attempted illegal unprovoked imperialist colonialist invasion of Ukraine
In statements to media the experts speculate that Russia could use it's "shadow fleet" of oil tankers as "a weapon against the maritime environment" and deliberately cause an oil spill in Danish waters as part of hybrid warfare.
Too many pastries have rotted their brains. They should start speculating why a business partner would blow up a profitable pipeline, destroying both revenue and leverage with the Europeans.
Of course they blew up their own pipeline that they invested billions of dollars into. What, you think their biggest competitor in natural gas supply would have some kind of motivation to do it? That's absurd, be realistic.
like neal stephenson writing termination shock imagining
spoiler
the dastardly chinese causing a tsunami using underwater explosives to torment the wholesome dutch
Despite his incoherent ideology these days, I'm still a fan of Snow Crash and The Diamond Age. The latter because there's some genuinely insightful class consciousness / class warfare stuff in it (despite the insane ending). And the former because it's batshit crazy fun that reads like an action movie, but also has the occasional nugget of insight like the line "It was, of course, nothing more than sexism, the especially virulent type espoused by male techies who sincerely believe that they are too smart to be sexists."
Snow Crash is a fun read, but I enjoyed it a lot less on a recent reread of it and Reamde because of how fond he is of SA scenes to show off how actiony his female leads are.
I read somewhere that over the course of the last two decades he's become good friends with Jeff Bezos, which lines up on the timeline with me giving up partway into The Baroque Cycle and not picking up any of his stuff since
Putin's visit to North Korea deepens concerns about growing military cooperation between the two states - The Washington Post
The trip is scheduled for July 18-19, and this will be the first visit in 24 years. The publication writes that the Russian Federation is interested in a large supply of artillery shells and missiles in the DPRK, which will be compatible with Soviet and Russian weapons systems.
The article also suggests that the question of the labor force that Pyongyang will be able to provide will be raised. It is noted that in return Moscow can offer technological assistance to the DPRK, in particular, to accelerate the build-up of nuclear weapons production capacity.
But I thought the west was really principled in their belief that every country has the inalienable right to freely choose their own military partnerships?
I bet Putin and Kim just like to see how the western press seethes when they get together. "Yo, Un! you up?" "I am now. What is it Vlad?" "Wanna be in the New York Times again and make folks in the pentigon loose some sleep?" "I'm kinda busy" "Thats fine, I'll come to you." "Yeah ok, see you on thursday?"
Literal copypasted reaction from Kim's visit to Russia last time.
War must be going so well for Russia that Putin has to run to North Korea and beg Kim for ammunitions lol. Russia has really been relegated to a pariah state now.
Russia: deepens ties with a neighboring country
Wow Russia has been relegated to a pariah state now!
It was unthinkable even 2-3 years ago that Putin would bring half of his government to visit North Korea lol!
They’re only doing this because they have been forced to do that, not because they have any natural affinity or ideological compatibility with the DPRK.
The pariah state was a joke though. Russia should take that as a compliment now that it has joined the ranks of Axis of Evil pariah states.
They’re only doing this because they have been forced to do that, not because they have any natural affinity or ideological compatibility with the DPRK.
This seems a bit odd to say considering that dprk will be one of the major players in any war in the South China sea. It'll be US, Japan, RoK, Taiwan, Philippines vs China, DPRK. The natural affinity is being enemies with the US, setting aside any other economic ties, potential or otherwise.
Sorry, the war conditions have caused this visit/rapproachment? I thought Russia's whole advantage besides manpower was munitions production
RF does have a significant advantage over the west in terms of munitions production, but nevertheless large scale Russian style advances take an absolutely tremendous amount of munitions. Firing 50-60,000 shells per day during an offensive outstrips even Russia's production rate of 10-12000 per day. The west collectively makes a third of that give or take.
So what’s the DPRK’s est. daily output? Significant enough to offset or is Russia making similar overtures to other states for shells?
I'm not sure, I'd doubt anyone being too confident in a number like that. I think it's generally accepted though that russia bought some single digit number of millions of shells from dprk previously.
Hmm, is there any info about Putin traveling to other nations? I’m just trying to make sense of droplet’s analysis
I'm sure you could find information on his foreign visits if that's what you mean. He visited China in May of this year and Iran sometime in 2022
Don't worry, folks. Chiran is next.
thank you for your service
thank you comrade
Red Star Forge.
