I'm not gonna lie to you - I thought Israel would have started shit with Hezbollah by now which would have derailed whatever megathread theme I had planned, so I didn't bother planning one.
If you want a decent couple pieces going over what Hezbollah has done to Israel, then have a look at How 'Israel' Has Lost The North and Hezbollah's Quarterly Report. It's not exactly the most professional analysis, as you'll see if you read it, but it gets the point across and relies on evidence. In essence, Hezbollah has pushed the Israelis back tens of kilometers and decimated their border infrastructure, all while unveiling anti-aircraft missiles that have forced Israel to reconsider bombing runs. They still probably have the ability to turn various towns and cities in Lebanon to rubble, but Hezbollah can do massive damage back to Israel in turn. This has gone on so long with so little meaningful opposition by Israel that border settlements are going a little haywire and tentatively declaring independence from Israel and saying they don't want IDF troops there anymore. I don't take these terribly seriously from a military standpoint but it is indicative of the Zionist settler mindset crumbling over the last 9 months.
We're now at the point where Israel kinda has to go to war against Hezbollah or the entire Zionist ideology of military deterrence and expansion via illegal settlements simply no longer functions, but that war will also lead to massive destruction for military and civilian facilities (ports, power stations, war factories, etc) which is a massive problem for Israel's continued existence. Hamas continues to function inside Gaza despite the surface occupation of significant areas, including the Gaza-Egypt border, and attrition there is leading to big materiel and psychological losses for Israel too. And Yemen has, for all intents and purposes, prevailed against America's failed attempt to thwart their blockade - with some in the army claiming it's the most intense naval battle America has faced since WW2 - and missile strikes are tentatively beginning to hit or at least threaten ships in the Mediterranean Sea.
Nukes are still lurking quietly in the background, of course, but the Resistance is perfectly aware of that and still seems confident to go ahead with operations, so I can't really do anything but shrug and say that I trust them to do what's right.
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 Lebanon! 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.
Apparently WARNO has its "army general" mode (map painter campaign) now. One of the assumptions about a lot of war nerdery of the Cold War era was that the Soviets were primed for attack and would come rushing through the Falder gap. This justifies NATO, Western Doctrine, tank design etc etc. For instance, the chunky western tanks against the light long-ranged Soviet tanks clearly indicated the aggressive intent of the Soviets.
One thing that was never really questioned in all these fictional narratives (be they video games, Tom Clancy novels, or honest NATO wargames) was that it would be the Soviets attacking. Was this really the case though?
During Stalin's era, where this narrative begun even before post-war (and a pre-end-of-WW2 version shows up in the video game RUSE), we know that Stalin honoured the end of war peace agreements to the chagrin of, say, communist partisans in Greece. That, and Soviet society was exhausted. The Soviets had to be dragged into Korea.
(I fell asleep writing this and offer no new information)
The Red Army was literally demobilizing during their movement from just-occupied Nazi Germany to the borders of Manchuria, the Soviet people suffered enough and Stalin knew it was time to change out the rifles for hammers and ploughs the moment victory was declared.
Every iota of western imperialist words that the Soviets were wanting in world conquest is objectively lies designed to smear the Communists and their decisive roll in saving the world from wretched fascism in order to contain them and stop the inevitable overthrow of the imperialist swine that fed the fascist mongrels
@Frank@hexbear.net
A-firmative
As a map nerd, If I’m attacking NATO as the USSR in the late 70s I think I’d go for the strip of land between Thessaloniki and Alexanderopoli in northern Greece. Then pushing east towards Istanbul and digging in on the western front, sacrificing E Germany as a buffer zone.
If I had to guess the NATO attack plans probably involved going on an offensive towards Krakow through “Neutral” Austria. So you know the classic German war plan
The most plausible explanation I can imagine for Falder is a threat if NATO tries anything anywhere else there is a sword hanging over their head (in that they effectively lose Western Europe). Pushing South to control access to oil (and the middle east has traditionally been less aligned than Europe), but it wouldn't be like Nazi Germany. USA has its own supplies of oil, as well as various other oil producing economies.
I used to like wargame and was considering warno in the steam sale. Ill avoid eugen games now though thanks for the info
The tank thing blithely ignores that Soviet tanks were specifically designed to be able to operate in Eastern Europe - they worked around the weight limits of regional bridges. Hard to defend yourself against a NATO attack if you can't cross your own bridges. And NATO tank design is just, well... Abrams can't cross most bridges.
Yeah, that's a much more plausible explanation. I think there was also the vibe that nukes would be flung pretty quickly after any major losses on either side.
WARNO got the campaign mode? Nice, time to pirate
Yeah, it kinda passed me by. Co-op?