Image is of military and civilian sites across Caracas which were bombed by the United States as of last weekend.
As everybody has already known for a couple days, the US has abducted Maduro and his wife in a massive operation (of which the exact details are not currently known, but involved hundreds of aircraft and at least some bombing of military and civilian targets), and has threatened Venezuela and the socialist party with further abductions and widespread murder if they do not hand over control of the country directly to the United States. In a statement that really says it all, Trump said that Machado is not being considered for the colonial viceroy position due to her sheer unpopularity. Various parties and countries around the world - and inside the US - have expressed their disapproval, which, as we all know, will not shift US foreign policy a single iota.
A few months ago, when the pressure campaign on Venezuela began, I speculated that Maduro was going to be killed or captured eventually. Flagrantly illegal and violent American military campaigns in Latin America are not new. The US has been invading land, looting banks, assassinating democratically elected leaders, and otherwise overthrowing countries in the region for their own economic benefit for the better part of two centuries, under both Democratic and Republican parties. Unfortunately, we all know that Russia and China are unlikely to do anything meaningful to contest the US in their attempt to more violently assert hegemony in Latin America. I doubt very much that the China of today will come out to bat for Venezuela and start meaningfully pressuring the US economically. For better and worse, we are far from the days of the USSR.
However, Latin America has, historically, met the US in its radicalism, committed to wars of anti-colonial nationalism, and carried out successful revolutions against the dictators placed in control from the US. As history continues ever onwards and conditions develop, I can only assume that we shall once again enter that radicalizing cycle. In that vein, the big question on my mind, and everybody else’s, is: what comes next? Does the Venezuelan socialist party have the social and military cohesion to wage a years-long guerilla war against occupying troops? Can they quickly transition from a conventional to guerilla force as their military facilities are bombed, or will it take several years? Can they prevent the theft of their oil resources and make the attempt at foreign occupation more costly in both the manpower and economic costs than what that war will generate? Can Venezuela manufacture weapons for this guerilla war in a state of blockade? Will this military campaign begin immediately upon soldiers landing, or will it take a period of relatively unopposed occupation of months or even years? Will Cuba, Colombia, and even Mexico be in the same situation by the end of the year, with abducted leaders?
Yemen is the very recent proof that seemingly weak countries can force the American military to retreat in defeat. Can Venezuela follow? We shall see what Maduro has done to prepare the country for this war very soon. The only certain thing is that the murderous violence propagated by a trembling and dying empire shall be defeated eventually, whether it takes months, years, or decades, and the end result will be a socialist victory.
Last week’s thread is here. The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
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The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 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.
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.
Yeah, because its military is not strong enough and its propaganda game is pretty weak so it can’t cover up the lack of strength like countries with a stronger propaganda game (ie the US). The PRC cannot guarantee security to its partners because it lacks any real capacity to do so outside of countries it borders like Pakistan. Chinese diplomacy errs on the side of not helping over trying but failing to help. People aren’t stupid. They can sense lack of strength and weakness. There’s a reason why African protestors always wave Russian flags and never Chinese flags.
Seriously, when was the last time the PLA got a W? The fact that the PLA hypes up the Korean War, a conflict that happened more than 7 decades ago, is covering up the lack of more recent Ws. It’s virtually indistinguishable from some USian boomer going “we were cranking out B-17s and Shermans during WWII.”
People are respectful towards strength and contemptuous towards weakness. The PRC has a strong economic game. Consequently, people (well people who aren’t Sinophobes) respect the PRC with from a strictly economic and developmental lens. But its military game? Most people aren’t particularly impressed by military parades no matter how cool the toys look. They want to see the military in action before investing their trust in that military.
Russia earned that trust. Besides the very obvious with the invasion of Ukraine, Russia was also militarily involved during the Syrian civil war. You could even point to earlier conflicts like what happened in Chechnya. People saw what the Russian military was capable of and saw what the Russian leadership was willing or unwilling to do. At best, China’s military is a giant question mark, and like an online seller on eBay with no reviews, people are going to be cautious about putting trust into its military.
But that’s a problem with the PRC that they can solve. They are the world economic power, they own all the elements of their own arms industry, and if the PRC wanted they could develop the real capacity to protect allies. They just don’t want to. They are committed to their stance of non-intervention, for all the “good” that does them.
The PRC has been quietly building its military capabilities. You could tell based on how its estimated nuclear stockpile always seem to increase. But at the end of the day, it has to be put to the test. There’s more to the military than how fast you can build things. There’s troop readiness, military doctrine, military leadership, etc.
Sure, and they’re doing good work with purging and things like that in the PLA, but they are distinctly not building any power projection outside of the South China Sea. It wouldn’t be very difficult to get a few African states to agree to host Chinese air force bases; that’s a diplomacy and will issue, not a “my military isn’t strong enough” issue. They’ve got virtually no foreign naval bases, so despite all their blue water naval building capability there’s nowhere for them to resupply outside the immediate area near China. That, again, can be solved easily with will rather than any inherent capabilities they don’t have. If China wants to put their military to the test, there are plenty of opportunities to do so. Deploy peacekeepers to the DRC; they’d be more than happy to have them. Intervene in the civil war in Myanmar directly on the border with China. Logistically it’s easy, since they border it, and they have by far the most pull on either side in that conflict. China can and should start throwing its weight around to build out its military capabilities, and they can absolutely do so in a way that the United States won’t lose its mind and nuke them. They just don’t want to.
Most of those African countries would rather have Russia as a military partner than China. The AES has Russian troops in their country. And who can blame them? The PLA’s resume is a lot lighter than the Russian Armed Forces. It’s a chicken and egg problem. The PRC has no overseas military bases because other countries question the value of the PLA (or would rather pick Russia) which leads to a lack of real-life experience which leads to further doubts about the PLA’s actual strength.
But other than a few details, I don’t really disagree with you. The PRC focusing on its economy over its military was the right call up until this point. But we have reached the limitations of an economy-first strategy. Silk Road 2.0 means nothing if marauders and pirates waylay merchants. I also think Al-Aqsa Flood has accelerated things. Al-Aqsa Flood shredded the US’s propaganda apparatus and political credibility but also exposed how little soft power matters compared with hard power. The US is going to leverage its military strength more and more in an increasingly unhinged manner, which means the PRC has to build its military. I think military cooperation between the PRC and other countries will naturally surface because as the US becomes more and more unhinged, more countries will want military guarantees. Building a bridge is one thing, but can we also get AA so the US doesn’t blow up that bridge? Every economic deal has to come with some sort of military guarantee or the PRC can simply fuck off.
I agree with you on this part: I think the PRC has to intervene in Myanmar, if nothing else but to expose the PLA to real-life combat experience.
That and they don’t want overseas military bases
They have one in Djibouti, Cambodia and allegedly in Sri Lanka. But even there the host countries kinda disrespect them by inviting other foreign bases.
I broadly agree, I think yeah we agree on most things, but if China wanted foreign bases it could have foreign bases. They have essentially infinite money (in the form of dollars that they could use to bribe countries to accept bases), and have significant loans to many African states. If they went up to say Kenya, who has $10 billion in loans, and massive commercial Chinese ports, and offered some loan forgiveness in exchange for hosting a Chinese naval base to project power in the Indian Ocean (and thereby protecting Chinese oil shipping routes), do you think Kenya would reject that deal?
Kenya is a bad example because they’re basically a US vassal state like Rwanda and Nigeria, but I agree with your broader point. The US uses coups to place compradors that are more than happy to host US military bases. The PRC could leverage its economic strength (ie bribing governments) to host Chinese military bases.
And China cannot wield its economic power? China literally just forced the US to retreat by threatening to pull their rare earth exports.
The global trade literally cannot run without China. This is a fact. You are really underestimating what China can do if it really wants to. You’re not telling me that the world’s largest economy (or second, however you see it) with 31% global manufacturing share has no real cards to play?
If that’s the case, then it’s a superpower without power. A contradiction in terms.
Furthermore, what you’re saying actually agrees what I’ve been saying all along: that China is afraid of losing. So what if China lost in a war to fight against injustice? Is it bad because it’s not profitable enough for its business? Smaller and weaker countries have fought more valiantly and defiantly against much greater opponents in the face of injustice. Is it bad to fight against Nazi Germany because you don’t think you have a chance of winning?
If the world continues to behave like that, then we deserve what we deserve.
Like I said in an earlier comment, it’s an economic superpower but a military regional power. Not everything can be solved by wielding economic might. Just ask the Song dynasty. My greatest fears of the PRC is that it’s going to be a replay of the Song dynasty where they had one of the most sophisticated economies and government administration in the world but a lackluster military. And the CPC hyping up Zhu Xi is extraordinarily discouraging in this regard. The US isn’t going to release Maduro no matter what economic tricks the PRC uses. Now if the PLA send a crack team to kidnap the Japanese PM and essentially turn this into a hostage exchange where Maduro gets exchanged for the Japanese PM, maybe. The PRC did this with Meng Wanzhou. They kidnapped a couple of loser Canadian spies and held a hostage exchange.
Ultimately, you strategize and make moves based on probability of winning. There’s a reason why the SU signed that non-aggression pact with Nazi Germany and it’s not because “it’s afraid of losing.” China’s optimal play is to begin building up its military and transitioning it from a purely defensive military to an interventionist one. Once the interventionist military has been build up, the next step would be cleaning up its backyard, the main targets being the Philippines and Japan (making a move on the ROK would require the cooperation of the DPRK) with the goal of regime change to knock them out of the chessboard and break the island chains set up by the US. Once that is accomplished, the PRC can further expand its reach. This is where the military alliances start to make sense because the PLA finally has Ws and has the power projection required to have global military presence instead of just its backyard (we are still operating under the hypothetical of the PLA successfully overthrowing the Philippines and Japan).
A lot of words just to say that you want China to behave exactly as the US does, and do exactly the things that China always criticizes the US for. You are asking China to be a complete hypocrite, to start wars, use threats of force to coerce countries, build bases around the world, and do regime changes, exactly the things they said they would never do.
This is precisely the kind of behavior that has caused countries all across the world to be fed up with the US and to come more and more over to China’s side, precisely because China behaves in a completely different way. Because China does none of those things and offers the world a radically different model that is not based on interventionism, hegemony and “power projection”, but on sovereignty, non-interference and win-win co-operation.
You can of course disagree with that model and think that the US model is the correct one, but it is pretty clear that China is not going to go in that direction, and you will continue to be very disappointed if you keep holding out hope that they do. China has chosen its path, and it is one that does not include China becoming an aggressive global imperialist power.
China is betting that its approach will prove to be the correct one in the long term.
If I wanted the PRC to do exactly what the US does, I would say that they should support Hawaiian and Puerto Rican separatism and build giant naval bases with missiles pointed at the continental US once a Republic of Hawaii/Puerto Rico has been established or try to assassinate US diplomats like how the CIA tried to assassinate Zhou Enlai by blowing up the plane they thought he was on. Not even getting to the part of history where the US got rich off of selling opium during the Qing dynasty. Overthrowing a bunch of US vassals is not even close to what the US has done to China.
Yes. Yes it is bad to fight nazi germany without planning to win. China sees hegemonism as the primary contradiction holding back progress on the world stage and is not engaging in global wars against the existing hegemon because those wars will not create global governance institutions in and of themselves.
Youre asking for sanctions and military interventions both of which are acts of war and hegemonism that turned the third world away from the soviet union. You keep asking open ended questions when there are answers to these questions, because youre not the only one whos thought about them. Its not about what is profitable, its about the competition of the uneven development of the productive forces, where for historical reasons the most advanced capitalist countries have the highest level of productive forces and use that imbalance to forcibly deny the development of other countries. Its primary to develop your productive forces, and to fight the global uneven development of productive forces that is the base reason for national oppression to put an end to imperialism and allow humanity to progress to the next stage. This development is inevitable (although i know you dont think it is) and the rate at which it can progress is in the last instance based on the objective development of the contradictions of capitalism around the world. Whether latin america has a red wave or blue wave is based entirely on the current stage of the development of its own contradictions, but capitalism and the age of hegemonic imperialism is on the decline regardless.
Saying the third world turned against the USSR is a very odd statement to be honest. I don’t really know what you’re meaning. The USSR had a long history of supporting all kinds of ideological movements abroad, with local participation and consent.
its mainly the national bourgeoisie which turned its anger and frustration towards the soviet union and many countries like iran and afghanistan have a deep-seated dislike for russia to this day as a result. obviously military support was greatly appreciated in may countries, but it also led to a lot of belief that their countries and people were being used as proxies for the ambitions of larger superpowers
Isn’t that literally the basis for the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact?
they tried to get the other capitalists to join up against the nazis sooner and molotov-ribbentrop was a sort of last resort when that didn’t work.
i suppose if history is repeating itself this GGI is like that first part.
they haven’t had a war since the 1970s. kinda weird to jump on a peaceful country for not having military adventures.