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.
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.