Image is of one of the six salvos of the Oreshnik missile striking Ukraine.


The Oreshnik is an intermediate-range ballistic missile that appears to split into six groups of six submunitions as it strikes its target, giving it the appearance of a hazel flower. It can travel at ten times the speed of sound, and cannot be intercepted by any known Western air defense system, and thus Russia can strike and conventionally destroy any target anywhere in Europe within 20 minutes. Two weeks ago, Russia used the Oreshnik to strike the Yuzhmash factory in Ukraine, particularly its underground facilities, in which ballistic missiles are produced.

Despite the destruction caused by the missile, and its demonstration of Russian missile supremacy over the imperial core, various warmongering Western countries have advocated for further reprisals against Russia, with Ukraine authorized by the US to continue strikes. Additionally, the recent upsurge of the fighting in Syria is no doubt connected to trying to stretch Russia thin, as well as attempting to isolate Hezbollah and Palestine from Iran; how successful this will have ended up being will depend on the outcome of the Russia and Syrian counteroffensive. Looking at recent military history, it will take many months for the Russians and Syrians to retake a city that was lost in about 48 hours.

Even in the worst case scenario for Hezbollah, it’s notable that Ansarallah has had major success despite being physically cut off from the rest of the Resistance and under a blockade, and it has defeated the US Navy in its attempts to open up the strait. Israel has confirmed now that their army cannot even make significant territorial gains versus a post-Nasrallah, post-pager terrorist attack Hezbollah holding back its missile strike capabilities. In 2006, it also could not defeat a much less well-armed Hezbollah and was forced to retreat from Lebanon.


Please check out the HexAtlas!

The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.

Israel-Palestine Conflict

If you have evidence of Israeli crimes and atrocities that you wish to preserve, there is a thread here in which to do so.

Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. 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.

English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.

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.


  • Nyarlathotep7 [they/them,comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    13 days ago

    This is going to be real armchair leftist but I’ve been thinking about this for a while. Everything we’ve been seeing these past few years has really led me to believe that we’ve entered a period where all of the big let’s say anti-west if not anti-imperialists will wither away due to passivity. Russia, China, Iran, they will passively watch their allies blink out one by one, I’m pretty sure if the DPRK ever does invade SK or vice-versa, we will see China do the same thing Iran is doing now. The US will push every red line, the entity has gotten so bold, the dead-motherfucker of the world know this. I think we’ve reached a point where the Jakarta method has been perfected, the US will butcher anyone and they know that others will not retaliate.

    It won’t happen but I think the only way out of this horrible mess is for the left to let go of compassion in a sense. Iran should have glassed Israel, and targeted hospitals and schools. Israel could win such a conflict yes but the fucking nazis would have left in droves, they don’t have the spine to live through even an inch of the hardship that our brothers and sisters in Palestine have been through. In a grander sense, and yeah yeah this is fedposting but who gives af, there needs to be mass retaliation. Like Algeria did against the French, or a reverse of what we’re seeing happening in Syria. If this is the Cold War 2.0, we are seeing a USSR that watched Vietnam fall without care. This a one-sided conflict, our “socialist” bloc is comprised of China, Vietnam (lol, they WILL side with the US), DPRK, and Cuba, idk nothing about Laos. There is no plan.

    This isn’t meant to be doomerism, I just don’t know how these countries can just…watch. China is especially, hot take I guess, but I have no faith in their current strategy.

    • hotcouchguy [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      This isn’t really Cold War 2, and isn’t really WW3, but it’s a combination of both. The US is getting weaker and China getting stronger, and both know it. US can’t win a direct war now, but the longer they wait the worse off they would be if they started one. They’re compelled to act now because acting later is worse. And they’ve seen that their proxy wars against Russia and Iran are also not going well. These “direct” proxy wars are also unfavorable to the US, because their military industry is too expensive and slow and inefficient.

      But the US does still have a strategic reserve of new proxy wars available. They have simmering conflicts on standby all over the globe, using local reactionaries and compradors and NGOs that they’ve nurtured for decades. China and it’s allies have their own networks of local allies, but nowhere near the scope or depth. And these networks take decades to build, the US is way ahead here.

      The US can’t win a direct war, they can’t even win a large proxy war, but they have a good chance in 20 or 30 simultaneous proxy wars. So expect this to continue escalating in new locations for many years. And just like Biden continued Trump’s trade wars, Trump will continue Biden’s global proxy war. Because it’s not a normal policy decision, it’s their best strategy for continuing their empire.

      There is some good news here, domestically and globally. Globally: they’re spending extremely valuable reserves now, and they can’t rebuild these quickly. Even if they win 2/3 of these conflicts they’ll likely still emerge in a weaker position than when they started. And if any one of these results in a genuine popular revolution, that could easily spread in this environment and upset their entire strategy. And domestically, this will be incredibly destabilizing: disrupted supply chains, massive military spending, inflation, and rolling military deployments of various scales. All the things associated with Biden (and Bush, and Obama) that people hated, that people tried to vote against at every opportunity, and they’re going to keep getting worse regardless of who holds which office. How long will people put up with openly meaningless elections in this supposedly “greatest” democracy? how much will they sacrifice for a system they hate, that regards them with contempt?

    • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      China is especially, hot take I guess, but I have no faith in their current strategy.

      China wins global hegemony by just waiting. The only possible way China doesn’t is if Russia falls, and that is never going to be allowed to happen.

        • geikei [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          Not surrounded. Like 3-4 of them. Japan, Taiwan, SK, Phillipines. Whose economies are so entangled and dependent of China that them partaking in any open economic or actual warfare against China would collapse them considerably faster than it would hurt China. Its not a Europe hurting itself by its economic warfare against Russia. Its an order of magnitude worse. Other than maybe Phillipines, any other SEA nation wouldnt take a stand against China in any materialy impactful way since they would barely be able to function if they attempted it

          • Two things. First, could we not see the US do the same thing they did with SK? They can fund and essentially Marshall Plan certain countries who would be hurt by the impact. Second, this is the US, it’s allies are very specifically military bases. Each one of those countries would be flooded with troops as soon as they wanted to.

        • Boise_Idaho [null/void, any]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          This is not remotely true. Let’s go over all the countries China shares a border with:

          1. DPRK: Not remotely a US ally. Probably the only country in the world where the ruling party has the proper understanding of the US as a rabid dog that must be put down.

          2. Russia: lol

          3. Mongolia: Not really a US ally. They basically exist as a buffer state between China and Russia, so they can’t do much when the two countries are close.

          4. Kazakhstan: Not a US ally. They had a recent attempted color revolution which could have led to a pro-US government, but that failed.

          5. Kyrgyzstan: Part of CIS, which puts them under Russian sphere of influence.

          6. Tajikistan: Part of CIS, which puts them under Russian sphere of influence.

          7. Afghanistan: The Taliban kicked the Burgerlanders out.

          8. Pakistan: Probably the first sorta US ally, but they’re also pretty close to China. Both the US and China prop up Pakistan as a check to India, so in the end, Pakistan might be sorta pro-US, but they’re not going to be anti-China anytime soon.

          9. India: Another sorta US ally and the first anti-China country on the list. However, the real answer is that India only looks after India and is a fair weather US ally at best. There’s also the factor that India is super close to Russia. If you want to characterize India as anything, it’s pro-Russia. India will talk a big game about containing Chinese expansionism, but when push comes to shove, they’ll settle with China behind closed doors and ditch the West.

          10. Nepal: Not familiar with its stance with China.

          11. Bhutan: Not familiar with its stance with China.

          12. Myanmar: The country is undergoing a civil war, and can’t be meaningfully summoned in some potential Western war against China. There has been some speculation that various insurgents originating from Myanmar can make their way to China via Yunnan. Part of ASEAN, which is economically tied to China.

          13. Laos: Not remotely antagonistic towards China. Too many developmental projects with China. Part of ASEAN, which is economically tied to China.

          14. Vietnam: Not remotely antagonistic towards China no matter how much copium from Burgerlanders coping about Vietnam liking the US more than China. Too many developmental projects with China. Part of ASEAN, which is economically tied to China. SCS border dispute is vastly overrated by Western press and ignores how Vietnam shares disputes with other SEA countries that China can maneuver around.

          What you’re eluding to is the ROK and the first island chain, which covers Japan, the Philippines, Borneo, and the ROC. This is why the BRI is a thing. Among other things, it’s to completely render ineffective the island chains.

        • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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          12 days ago

          This is not true.

          I’m sorry but in the worst case scenario of Syria and Palestine falling it isn’t a huge blow to China. It doesn’t affect their plans much at all.

          Their plans are to get europe, africa and south america, through a combination of brics and belt and road.

          The situation must be looked at from the proper perspective of the communist position. It’s not good for the middle east if that worst case happens but these gains still look like they will happen to me.

          • proper perspective of the communist position

            “At the risk of seeming ridiculous, let me say that the true revolutionary is guided by a great feeling of love.”

            I think China has been made toothless by the powerful liberal faction within its government.

            I love your posts and I think you one of the posters I most ideologically agree with, so let me try to clarify my position a bit. My initial post was a rant entirely fueled by the increasingly dire state of the world, a world that doesn’t have a US counterweight. No country is currently attempting to bring about any form of revolution except maybe our Burkino Faso/Mali/Niger alliance. In the past, admittedly one that we lost, the movement was carried by a strong international sense of love and anger. When barbarity like what we are seeing came about, some countries (Cuba in Angola) actively gave lives fighting wars they had no part in. There WAS an era of real revolutionary retribution, it feels like it died along with the USSR. Seeing how passive current countries are in comparison to their history has me viewing them in a not-so-positive light.

            Yeah, it’s an emotional rant and analysis, I know that.

            • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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              12 days ago

              There was a point in time where China, right after a devastating civil war and imperialist invasion, moved hundreds of thousands of troops into Korea to defend them from imperialist takeover. They fought with comrades to the death.

              Nowadays, elsewhere in this thread correctly pointed out that expecting China to help DPRK in some type of modern conflict is a fairytale, and I agree - China would almost certainly be chickenshit and do nothing.

              Something has fundamentally changed in the nature of the Chinese state, they have become complacent and insular and loss their capability and willingness to help others and combat imperialism. They just don’t seem to give a fuck anymore because they got rich.

              • Boise_Idaho [null/void, any]@hexbear.net
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                12 days ago

                The PRC first and foremost prioritizes the stability of the state. Its stability was most seriously challenged in 1989, and since then, the PRC has done everything in its power to slowly consolidate. And you could see that consolidation has happened since 1989. One big part of this was removing separatism from the picture. Both Hong Kong and Macau have returned to the PRC. Tibetan separatism has mostly been neutralized. Uyghur separatism has also mostly been neutralized. Those Hong Kong protestors are basically history at this point, and Hong Kong has been humbled, largely due to development in Guangzhou and Shenzhen. In terms of domestic disturbances, Bo Xilai was a serious challenge to the stability of the state, and part of Xi Jinping’s tenure, from his anti-corruption campaign to a more openly socialist orientation for lack of a better word, was to clip the wings of any potential Bo Xilais. This was also the reason why they got rid of Zero Covid. They got rid of Zero Covid because people were starting to protest, and I’m not talking about those cringey losers holding up blank sheets of paper or planted actors trying to agitate a Cantonese crowd with Taiwanese Mandarin. People were straight up flipping over police cars and destroying Covid test sites. Once the protests were happening countrywide, the CPC pulled the plug on Zero Covid because it could escalate into something serious that jeopardizes the stability of the state.

                The only loose ends now is Taiwan. And until Taiwan has been been reunified with the Mainland, I don’t see any serious moves by the PRC that will jeopardize reunification, which in practical terms mean the PRC doing the same it has been doing right now. You mention the Korean War. The thing is that the PLA was actually prepared to liberate Taiwan from the KMT, but because they send troops into Korea, the US and the KMT were able to consolidate their hold in Taiwan, thus preventing reunification. It’s a huge ask for a country to set aside its own process of decolonization (ultimately, Taiwan only exists as a separate entity because of an unequal treaty during the Century of Humiliation) for the sake of anti-imperialism. China should be praised for doing this once, not condemned for not doing it again.

                • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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                  12 days ago

                  China making a move on Taiwan would qualify as “the PRC getting off its ass” and would surely pull American assets and ammo away from the Middle East and towards the Pacific. Maybe now is the time to finally reunify, two birds with one stone.

                  I am afraid they will bide their time until it’s too late. 35 years ago they had protests and instability so they can no longer have a foreign policy? China might as well not exist when you talk about geopolitics, they do nothing.

            • Awoo [she/her]@hexbear.net
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              12 days ago

              China’s non-intervention isn’t about the liberals being toothless it’s a carefully chosen position based on several factors. The first being that they looked at how the soviet union fell apart very closely and understand how the western empire over-extends its enemies very effectively. Secondly, China understands that for countries to BELIEVE that China means it when it says it wants a world built on cooperation and sovereignty it must do so in action as well as words. This is a huge part of what has gained China so much credibility with the global south and trust that has allowed them to do so much with belt and road initiatives. Without this, they would not be where they are or where they’re going.

              It’s not because of the liberals. It’s an adopted ML position based on the conditions. We want them to help yes, but doing so from China’s perspective would damage their other initiatives and also draw them in to a quagmire that they won’t easily get out of.

          • Z_Poster365 [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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            12 days ago

            Belt and Road cannot exist in unstable countries with active US terrorist proxies who will target the infrastructure. The list of such countries will continue to grow if the US gets its way, including many nations bordering China

      • Boise_Idaho [null/void, any]@hexbear.net
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        12 days ago

        People here are catastrophizing. Like, If you want to be a cynic about China, you would say that China is trying to do what the US did in the two world wars: sit back while everyone else killed each other and claim the undeserved W when everyone is done killing each other. The CPC has probably blundered the least out of ever single relevant party currently in power. Even the Sino-Soviet split was more about the CPC betraying the international proletariat than the CPC blundering (outside of the invasion of Vietnam where the PLA got owned by Vietnamese border militia). By all accounts, the PRC overall benefited from the Sino-Soviet split even at the cost of the international proletariat.

        I think a lot of people here fundamentally do not understand the pros and cons of the CPC and are trying to predict how the CPC will act based on the actions of parties and actors much more incompetent than them.

    • companero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      Each of Russia, Iran, and China have logical excuses for their inaction.

      Russia obviously has their hands full fighting what is basically the second Great Patriotic War for them. (Though Putin and his lackies would happily reintegrate into bourgeois-imperialist Europe, if given a chance)

      Iran has to deal with internal instability, a weak economy, and the persistent threat that the US and proxies could suddenly decide to turn the country into glass on a whim.

      China is building productive and military forces for a final enduring confrontation to dethrone the US as global hegemon.

      The US obviously created most of these conditions, but none of those countries can afford to simply ignore them. Realistically, China is still our only hope for anything to change in the long term. We just have to pray that they will actually start doing socialist stuff once the US is out of the way.

    • Lemister [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      Look they arent going to do nothing and let the US will miraculously win and overcome all opponents, its own decling conditions - that is anti-marxist thinking. The revisionists free world states have much to lose (like being bombed with chemical & nuclear weapons for example) if they turn too hostile towards the west. HOWEVER Ultimately the US empire will only fall if americans stop upholding it - this passive behaviour that essentially expects the third world to clean up the mess of that the white people made must cease. It will only end at great personal cost to the anti-imperialists elements in the west.

      • Nyarlathotep7 [they/them,comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        13 days ago

        It’s not about letting the US “win”. It’s witnessing a genocide and doing nothing to help. I don’t care about aid or diplomacy, I’m talking about lives. We are measuring these conditions with the death of a people. These revisionist states can very easily just…submit. The west has consistently shown that they will hollow out the core of all existing socialist projects because we all work within their framework.

        I’m not American so yeah I agree. I don’t expect white people as a whole to do anything for decades at least. At least to the scale that is needed.

    • Halloweenbean [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      China is dengist, there is no reason for them to care about the ideological abortion that is baathism. It is more than possible that each faction just sinks into its preferred version of fascism and cuts off proxies in favor of new spheres of influence. Iran killed its leftists long ago, they don’t really care about baathism either.

      • Nyarlathotep7 [they/them,comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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        China being dengist is the issue, I understand the whole “we need to build our productive forces” but honestly, I’ve come to view capital as almost a biblical evil. It is a corrupting force.

        Anyway, yeah they don’t care about Baathism, but my concern was more with the allowance of the Palestinian genocide. The USSR would’ve put troops on the ground.

          • I’m religious so I do believe in biblical evils, I might view capital that way and that might be (I don’t really care) “anti-dialectical”. There are plenty of Marxists, usually Maoists, who opposed Dengism for the same reasons. If me calling Deng a capitalist roader is more digestible then there you go.

        • heartheartbreak [fae/faer]@hexbear.net
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          Good thing we dont think of anything as biblical evils as dialectical materialists. If china put troops in palestine they would have given the US the greenlight for the whole west to begin war with china

          • So I’ve always believed I was a dialectical materialist but I DO believe in biblical evils. I didn’t realize that my belief in God suddenly disavowed me as a materialist.

            We would have more likely seen the genocide escalate into a proxy war, something that would have more than likely saved lives. Let’s remove troops from the equations, how about some fucking navy support hm? Anything to help even the odds for Hamas. Russia is controlled by Putin, someone who so badly wants to be part of the western club, and they STILL do more than China.

      • xiaohongshu [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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        Dengism ended in 1996 with China’s first economic crisis with an unemployment rate never seen before under Mao, and when it joined the WTO in 2001. 2001-2013 was just neoliberalism. That’s when China got rid of the last vestiges of its labor protection (an even worse deal than India’s WTO terms). The number of Chinese students who went to study in the US and other countries exploded after 2001.

        Xi came to power in 2013 and has been trying to steer the country back to Marxism since. You can consider the 13th FYP (2016-2020) as Xi’s first actual term of enacting his preferred version of economic policies. If you’ve been following the news from China from the past 3 years, there has been a concerted push to get rid of the libs, especially during the 20th Congress in 2022. That effort appeared to have failed (I don’t know, just speculating from the recent turn of events). If anything, I consider the end of Zero Covid in December 2022 the first victory for the liberals and they have been turning the tide toward their favor since.

        And if you ask me why China chose to join the WTO in 2001, remember the bombing of Chinese embassy in Belgrade in 1999 and the Hainan Island incident in early 2001. China was far weaker at the time (and the Tiananmen Square incident in 1989 taught them how stability must prevail at all cost), it was a strategic decision to hug the US economy as tightly as possible under the illusion that the US would not turn hostile toward China if both countries have already been so deeply intertwined (你中有我,我中有你 - you are inside me, and I am inside you). A decision that would have lasting consequences in the decades to come.

    • Lando [any]@hexbear.net
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      13 days ago

      I think expecting China to back the DPRK if they attacked South Korea is some real fantasy land stuff.

      • I said vice-versa, specifically because my whole point is that China would let a close ally be wiped with their passivity. Doesn’t matter who attacks who, just saying the way Mao helped the DPRK during the Civil War would not happen again.

    • TheLastHero [he/him]@hexbear.net
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      For better or for worse, it seems China’s international strategy is centered around respect for state sovereignty. That strategy excludes the support and arming of non-state actors and would-be revolutionary movements, but does allow them to legitimately draw a clear distinction between their foreign policy and the American Empire’s and has made many countries, even ideologically opposed ones, more willing to negotiate and deal with China because of it. Recent examples being Peru’s big new Chinese port and Argentina’s Milei crawling back to Xi, both countries the US considers its “backyard”. The deals China has been offering are literally too good to pass up for many countries when the alternative is imperialist subjugation and butchery. China gets to present itself as a reliable economic partner who won’t try to undermine you politically, but you have to acquire state power first to deal with them.

      I know everyone considers the UN a meme at this point but most nations in there who aren’t the rabid attack dogs of American imperialism actually desire diplomacy to be conducted according to original UN principals since they are chafing under US hegemony. But those nations also don’t want to be used to wage dozens of proxy wars between bipolar great powers again, “letting go of compassion” means these nations and the billions of humans they represent are going to get wrecked for decades. That isn’t an appealing or hopeful future. Those people do not deserve that fate and you cannot fault both China and the non-imperial world for trying to avoid that.

      So as the US, EU, and Russia have been make fools of themselves in the UNSC and destablizing the world for years, China is increasingly seen by the global south as a natural leader to represent their interests. Hell just on December 1 China took the the unprecedented step of eliminating all tariffs for goods imported from all of the countries that the United Nations categorizes as least developed and with which China has diplomatic relations, which is about 12% of humanity. I think that many of those people are going to appreciate China for that, same with their massive strides in combating climate change while the west is still trying to desperatly snort lines of cheap oil and extract imperial superprofits to buffer their faltering economies.

      Yet “international prestige” alone isn’t going defeat imperialism, and you are right China has been really weak when it comes to militarily challenging the US so far. But I think we will see more things like what happened in the Soloman Islands, where in response to western imperial pressure China is literally invited to military intervene if necessary- letting the PRC have their cake and eat it too so to say. They can challenge American hegemony while not being considered hegemonic themselves. In this way, they could very possibly create new allies for themselves without a violent overthrowing of the state apparatus being required to do so, just by aligning all the economic and political incentives in their direction. That means those allies are going to be more stable and have more local support for that relationship. Then it will be the west who has to keep putting in the effort of trying to violently topple those nations, thus further isolating themselves diplomatically with their naked barbarism. And maybe these new “non-ideologically aligned” allies will find themselves trying to emulate China domestically to intentionally draw themselves closer to China’s orbit to further shield themselves from imperialist counter-attacks, which are guaranteed to happen while capitalists breathe. But as those imperial superprofits start getting choked its going to get harder and harder for imperial states to draw breaths. I could very well see China’s policy evolving to incentivize, but not force, such a transition for their new partners in a few decades.

      It could be me just huffing hopium, but I do see a possible future where Chinese foreign policy puts the majority of humanity in position to all push the big communism button together one day and avoid WW3 in the process, and by Marx wouldn’t that be beautiful? xi-button

      (Though lowkey China needs a few virulent attack dogs of their own to do based revolutionary shit while China gets to keep looking mostly clean themselves, that’s the killer combo right there.)

    • zephyreks [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      12 days ago

      The most important form of capital is educated human capital - it formed the foundation of the Cold War (~300 million highly-educated Soviets and ~300 million highly educated Americans).

      China believes this to be true, and thus believes that their demographic advantage is insurmountable by anyone except India.

      The most important factor in every country’s foreign policy consideration is not safety but stability/economic growth.

      China believes this to be true, and thus believes that their overwhelming advantages in industrial capability will outshine US promises of protection through strength.