Image is of Trump's initial set of reciprocal tariffs. Source is CNN and Reuters.
It's difficult to keep up with the news around the tariffs; they get instated, then dropped, then reinstated... for example, on Friday, Trump said that certain electronics like smartphones would be exempt, causing markets to rally a great deal, but now the Commerce Secretary has said that they might not be exempt? The state of play right now, if you haven't been keeping up this week, is that the US recently announced a 90-day global pause on implementing the tariffs he had planned (that is, 25% on certain Canadian and Mexican goods, and at least 10% on every other nation) but nonetheless increased tariffs on China to 145%.
Meanwhile, China has been - quite remarkably - standing their ground, increasing tariffs on the US to 125%, and putting restrictions on rare earths. Xi Jinping has been in Vietnam and has made statements against a tariff war there, saying that it would have no winners. Meanwhile, a Chinese spokesperson has essentially said that China can endure the tariff war due to the increasing demand from its domestic market in combination with its growing economic ties with other countries.
Last week's thread is here.
The Imperialism Reading Group is here.
Please check out the RedAtlas!
The bulletins site is here. Currently not used.
The RSS feed is here. Also currently not used.
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 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.
im not saying they're going to do it, i was answering "why would dprk want to do this"
as to occupied korea's military being larger, how would we even know that? not to say you're wrong but the DPRK always seems to play its cards relatively close to its chest to me so i dont really understand where these military comparisons come from.
I dont even think its the popluation (who by and large already hate their lives in occupied korea anyways lol), moreso its whether they could bribe enough SK officers (especially) generals. imo that's the condition they would probably be looking for to pull the trigger on any sort of restarting of the hostilities
also the stasis was really bad for the dprk when the USSR collapsed, if china ever collapsed they would be done for so there's very real incentive there especially with their ideology that emphasizes self reliance to be able to shore up that weakness (relying on china) if the opportunity ever came up
Ah sure I see what you're saying, yeah I agree that those are potential benefits they would consider.
I originally just googled the numbers but looked into the source and everyone seems to be quoting The International Institute for Strategic Studies(IISS) from their annual global military capability assessments called The Military Balance
The extra time looking around has lead me to learn some new data which changes what I originally said: DPRK is estimated at 1.28 million standing army, 600k army reservists and 5.7 million paramilitary reservists 7.58mil RoK has 555k standing and 3.1mil reservists, plus 3 mil paramilitary reservists.
So DPRK technically has a bit more people according to these estimates. I don't see anything about where IISS sources their info.
Yeah having Generals on board would be ideal, but when you have a large population of people who see themselves as westernized and also did mandatory military service, even when they hate how their government is going it doesn't mean they are going to be happy about their entire society changing drastically under the rule of the people you have been raised to believe are your worst enemies.
I wish for a unified DPRK but seems like pretty much everyone except maybe Yemen works under the premise that a tense stasis is a better position to be in than an active war with a neighbor. Of course it isn't easy to be in that position, and the DPRK has had to struggle immensely due to it, but unless they know they are absolutely going to sweep the floor with minimal losses or that the enemy is going to strike first and they need to preempt that, keeping your people alive and your society developing is often thought to be better than initiating a hot conflict.