Thread image created by yours truly, depicting Iran and Pakistan very impolitely not asking whether America, on the other side of the planet, is okay with them transporting gas around.
The Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline has long been obstructed by American involvement in the region. Iran completed its section of the pipeline quite quickly, but Pakistan has been unable to finish its construction for a decade due to the fear of falling afoul of American sanctions on Iran. The United States has repeatedly tried to pressure Pakistan to give up the project and obtain gas from other countries instead. Recent articles on the state of the pipeline are contradictory, with some stating that Iran or Pakistan have given up on the pipeline while American sanctions persist. Pakistani officials reject this framing, saying that they are still working with Iran to try and get the project completed somehow. Nonetheless, Iran is becoming increasingly frustrated and is threatening a legal battle and a demand for reparations.
Meanwhile, back in Niger, the $13 billion under-construction pipeline connecting Nigeria and other West African countries to Spain and Italy will likely face delays due to the sanctions applied by the West and ECOWAS on Niger. Those following the European gas fiasco will be aware that while Spain and Italy have been impacted by the energy crisis, they have been very busy making deals with African countries to replace their Russian gas, and thus stand a better chance than Germany of making it through the crisis with their industries somewhat intact. The coup has thrown a wrench into their plans, though they can still obtain some gas from northern African countries.
And, last but not least, America tried for years to stop the construction of the Nord Stream pipelines between Germany and Russia, which culminated in them deciding to blow them up late last year.
All in all - the United States really does not like it when countries build up energy infrastructure and gain some independence from them.
Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.
This week's first update is here in the comments.
This week's second update is here in the comments.
Links and Stuff
The bulletins site is down.
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Add to the above list if you can.
Resources For Understanding The War
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.
Telegram Channels
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian
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
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.
Last week's discussion post.
Russian neoliberals got their sleeper codes from the West and have been tasked to destroy the country from the inside as the sanctions didn't work
jokes aside, these policies probably aren't going to collapse Russia, Western neoliberal countries (when they aren't cutting off their free energy sources and cutting off from China) aren't generally in risk of collapse and I think if shit hits the fan seriously then Putin will overcome his cowardice and be forced to act, but it's gonna condemn Russia to mediocrity and slow growth if the course isn't changed.
So basically we're seeing a hinge point, and in 50 or 100 years time the history books will either read "After the 2022 invasion of Ukraine triggered the beginning of the Second Cold War, and the sanctions regime forced the Russian government to support its economy or risk collapse, this began the transition from a neoliberal to a state-supported, worker-oriented economy which was continued by Putin's successor..." or "...or risk collapse, but aside from this blip, neoliberalism continued to be the economic ideology which governed Russia and led to slow growth in the decades after..."
You can be doomer or bloomer about it, none of us actually know what's going to happen unless we get a crystal ball.
It's going to be very funny if Russia wins the war but their country gets economically fucked because they didn't gulag the neo-libs.
Much to his dismay the conservative Putin realises that he has to do a form of minimal viable socialism if Russia is to survive and neoliberals begin falling out of windows.
This is mostly what I wonder about. Is it cowardice that is keeping Putin from whipping the central bankers into line, or is this somehow a political impossibility? I know we in the west are very good at pretending there is something inviolable about the independent central bank, but that doesn't line up as well with my (albeit limited) understanding of the Russian state.
Putin is a pretty big coward, MIA for eight years
True enough. Though I can understand being a little reticent about a full on war. Shitstorm it kicked off may have been a little tougher for them to weather 8 years ago (though the fighting itself certainly would have been easier). Not exactly the same situation as Stalin before the war, but sometimes there’s reasons to hold back or play for time.
The first attempt at a revolution was ~2004, and they had the war in Georgia in ~2008, so it shouldn't have been a surprise
This is the kind of landscape of context I was curious about. I don't buy even a serious currency devaluation as a collapse event and less so the more risk-protected the economy is from the dollar specifically and the US finacial order in general it is. But it's also no secret this has been a balancing act the last few years, that the central bank hasn't always worked in lockstep, and that Elvira (the worst Elvira) Nabiullina is (perhaps expectantly) a pretty big neolib.
Interested to know what specific actions you are referring to when you say that "Putin will overcome his cowardice and be forced to act". Do what?
Use whatever de jure and de facto powers he and his party may have over the Central Bank and the oligarchs to shift away from neoliberal economic policy and towards a state nationalist economy. These might not (and probably wouldn't be) leftist, pro-worker reforms, but he strikes me as somebody who only takes action when he has been backed into a corner with no other options remaining and otherwise doesn't wish to rock the boat. He also strikes me as somebody who is more of a nationalist than he is a liberal. The more drastic the crisis, the more dramatic the response would be, so in only a small crisis he might not do too much but if there was a risk of the 1990s happening again I think a lot of the kind of things that wouldn't ordinarily be on the table would be available.
Though, as I said, the recent history of neoliberal economics is mediocrity (so long as the financiers aren't allowed to get too jiggy with it and cause crises like 2008) so it doesn't seem likely that there would be a crisis like this.