SeventyTwoTrillion [he/him] @ SeventyTwoTrillion @hexbear.net

"Crises teasingly hold out the possibility of dramatic reversals only to be

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Imperialism Reading Group ping!

After a month's break, I propose we start the next book next week! There's been a number of good suggestions over the course of reading Superimperialism, and we will likely get to them in time, but for the next book - unless anybody strongly objects (I would do a poll if we had the technology) - I propose we start on How Europe Underdeveloped Africa by Walter Rodney.

The chapters in this book are fairly long and going one-by-one won't really work for a general pace of 20-30 pages per week, so we'll have to subdivide them. Luckily, Chapter 1 is of the right length for us without needing to be subdivided, so next week will be Chapter 1. With a total book length of about 280 pages (minus the introductions, postscript, and index) I expect it'll take us 9-10 weeks to read.

As always, if you no longer wish to be a part of the ping list (perhaps you've already read the book recently, or you don't have the time) then let me know and I can take you off.

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Next thread here

I agree to an extent and it's why even I don't spend as much time here any more as I used to. I think there's a decreasing sense of curiosity and an increasing sense of people fitting data-points into their personal theories along the lines of "Here's why China doing X actually confirms my theory about why it's going to collapse soon" or "Here's why Putin is doing Y, this clearly shows he's abandoned Iran and China, just as I thought."

But at the end of the day, it's not as if those who oppose those people are totally blameless either. To challenge an opposing viewpoint, you can't merely go "This person is wrong and sucks" because that only creates a void of uncertainty which will inevitably just get filled up again; you have to forcefully assert an equally-if-not-more persuasive theory of reality, with the expertise that requires.

Do you think MarmiteLover is wrong about Iranian and Israeli military capabilities? You have to become knowledgeable in and post about those things - not just in an argumentative reply-guy sense, but actual top-level comments and analysis about it.

Do you think xiaohongshu is wrong in regards to multipolarity and dedollarization? You have to assert an alternative economic model of reality that fits the facts better and uses materialist analysis, as well as just generally having a decent degree of knowledge of macroeconomics.

and so on.

There's been quite a few people who have been annoyed by users here and expressed that, but there's been much less in terms of concerted efforts to be like "No, you're wrong, and here's why: insert eight paragraphs here" It can't merely be looking at somebody saying "Here's all the reasons China is bad and sucks" and going "Okay, here's all the reasons China is good!", you have to also engage with the reasons why China sucks and give satisfying materialist explanations for those things.

Next thread is up!

where Pezeshkian and other top officials were attending a meeting of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council.

The fact that they're still gathering multiple highly important officials in one place is insane. Every high-ranking official in the Resistance should be thinking: no matter how utterly top-secret a facility I think this is, if a dozen bunker busters were to drop on my head at this instant, what actions should I take and how should I organize people and my communication lines to absolutely minimize the damage to the overall organization? If there's ever A Time Where A Bunch Of Important People Get In A Room And Decide Things, they should do absolutely everything possible to minimize the number of people inside that room and ideally instead have some sort of secure line between isolated officials and protocols that instantly transfer authority in the case of an official not being present (either due to being cut off or being dead)

I agree; I think the understated strength of the US and its proxies is their ability to win peaces even after they lose wars, because their true strength isn't really military, it's economy and diplomacy and espionage. The US lost the Korean War, and what happened after? The US lost the Vietnam War, and what happened after? The US lost in Iraq, and what happened after? The US lost in Afghanistan, and what is happening after? Their victories take decades to undo, but their defeats eventually lead to victories by suffocating the victor until they accede to a neoliberal world order. You can fire guns at American soldiers, you can dig tunnels to ambush American squads, you might even shoot down American planes, but shooting the world reserve currency is much, much, much harder.

In essence: to go to war with America is dangerous, but to make peace with America is catastrophic. I think the decision for the USSR to not go to war against the US was good (as it averted a nuclear war), but I also think the Soviets were just a little too willing to go along with what the Americans clearly wanted to happen; a resource-intensive contest of proxy wars and espionage and counter-espionage and nuke-building that drained the USSR of resources and gradually isolated them. Abandoning Stalin was a critical error in that regard. It's my main worry in regards to China, too. Binding yourself to rules of engagement will make you weaker if the person you're fighting is willing to break those rules at a moment's notice for even the slightest gain, and the US (and its proxies, especially Israel) is absolutely willing to do that, including among the largest terrorist attacks in human history (e.g. the Lebanon pager terrorist attack). I worry that one day, the US will pull out some economic or diplomatic superweapon or new mechanism and all China will do is go "Hey! That's not fair!" and then proceed to not do anything in retaliation because doing so would break the rules, and if they go low then we go high!

I'm envisioning something like what the UK went through after their empire fell post-WW2, but it'll be much worse because the UK could still rely to an extent on the new American system of neocolonialism enforced by the IMF and World Bank etc, whereas a shift to Chinese hegemony would, unless the Communist Party is liberalized, meaningfully reduce and eventually end imperialist structures.

Unfortunately, the ruling classes of the imperial core will use the working class as human shields and pass on as much misery to them as possible (like Thatcher and Reagan but much worse), so I agree with others who conclude that our job is to try and construct community structures to survive this process, even if we fail to create socialist revolutions (and we might not fail!)

Apologies for the late thread. Mondays, am I right?

dear god we live in unending hell and only a century of humiliation on the imperial core will begin the process of reparations

Next thread here.

Sorry for the lateness!

Next thread here!

Etsy Archipelago

And I'd really like to hear how the Israelis successfully bombed knowledge.

The Israeli special operation to use the Men In Black memory-wiping device to make every nuclear scientist in Iran forget how nuclear physics works

Yeah, without any tangible evidence of said "commando operations" this just feels like cope. We all saw how commandos worked out in Gaza and they got their shit kicked in. I have a hard time believing that they did some James Bond-esque infiltration of Iranian nuclear sites and primed every centrifuge to self-destruct or whatever they could possibly be talking about.

Against surface facilities there were some successful covert operations in the past I believe, but now that everything important is underground, I can't imagine there's much you could even do. That's why Israel and the US had to attempt this in the first place: the era of doing stuxnet shit and slamming drones into surface facilities was over, and a more dangerous military campaign was required with gigantic bombs to even try and breach them. If Israel could have achieved lasting damage to Iran with just covert commando operations then they would have just done that, no need to start a war and attempt forceful strikes on nuclear facilities.

‘No survivors’: Israeli media reveals details on latest Hamas ambush in Gaza

Hebrew media has released new details on the resistance ambush against Israeli forces in south Gaza’s Khan Yunis, in which seven soldiers were burned alive in their troop carrier following an explosive attack claimed by Hamas’s armed wing.

“At exactly 5:30 pm yesterday, the first report came in about a fire breaking out in an armored personnel carrier (APC) of the POM type, belonging to the engineering forces. Initial investigations suggest that a militant approached the APC and attached an explosive device to it. The device detonated, causing the entire vehicle to catch fire,” Israeli journalist and army radio correspondent Doron Kadosh reported on 25 June.

“Military firefighting teams rushed to the scene to extinguish the fire in the APC. A D-9 bulldozer was brought in and dumped sand onto the vehicle in an attempt to smother the flames, but all firefighting efforts failed,” Kadosh added.

After failing to extinguish the flames, rescue forces towed the military vehicle to Israeli territory as it was still on fire with the soldiers inside.

“The fire was only extinguished once the vehicle had reached Israeli territory. Rescue teams and helicopters were dispatched to the scene, but none of the fighters survived. No one remained to be rescued from the wreckage. All seven soldiers were killed.”

Kadosh went on to say that it took several hours to identify the bodies of the seven Israeli soldiers.

Couldn't have happened to nicer people.

I have added a point of clarification there, thank you.

Overall I think Simplicius has been considerably worse on this conflict compared to Russia-Ukraine, it seems out of his area of expertise, but still more worth listening to than like 95% of twitter western military analysts or random OSINT guys. Or, god help you, the media dipshits on TV.

I don't think it's entirely his fault as this really is just a very different war to the Ukraine one, and I think you need a more comprehensive analysis of the political situations of each actor in the conflict (and politics is where Simplicius nosedives into downright incompetency) whereas for Russia/Ukraine you really can just sit on your armchair and move toy soldiers around on a map on your big table and treat it as a mathematical and logistical exercise and still be mostly correct in your conclusions.

more like the Israeli Atomic Espionage Agency, am I right

The latest Simplicius: Humiliation: Israel Tucks Tail After Failing All Objectives in War against Victorious Iran

I think the title's blatant triumphalism betrays how there's a battle in the media over the portrayal of the conflict, with both sides basically doing their own victory dances. I will say that the Israeli side does look a little depressed as the fragility of their society and economy and military has been laid bare, and there does appear to be a psychological blow to Zionists that may or may not translate into lasting change (e.g. mass evacuations). But like, you shouldn't have to constantly insist that you've won a conflict; the results should speak for themselves beyond all doubt. So I'm personally comfortable calling this a draw, but let's see what Simplicius has to say about it.

• Simplicius's previous argument that the strike on Fordow [using 14 bunker busters and not 6 like I thought? I'm not sure if I'm just losing my mind but I thought the US said 30 missiles and 6 bunker busters?] was an allowed strike seems strengthened by the fact that Iran responded with what was basically certain to be an allowed strike on Al Udeid.
• All parties involved got an off-ramp from a conflict that, even if it wasn't going particularly great for Iran, was going very badly for Israel - you don't want to get involved in an attrition war if you are a tiny state with infrastructure that can be easily disabled and you are opposing a country with ten times as many people and thousands of ballistic missiles.
• Iran had already taken out a significant number of Israeli heavy drones (combat-capable, rather than merely surveillance), such as Hermes drones. It's not clear how many Israel has, but we're talking a couple dozen of each type, not hundreds.
• These Israeli drones and missiles were the primary method of destruction on sensitive military targets. As more were shot down, Israeli jets would have needed to move further into Iran and risk being shot down.
• There is still little evidence that Israel was capable of flying over Iranian territory for any meaningful distance. The only evidence we have is that of Israeli jets over a coastal city. All Israeli combat footage over Iran was taken from drones. Now, we have seen Israeli fuel tanks wash up on the Caspian Sea coast, showing that Israel flew in from the north to bombard Tehran, rather than flying all the way through Iran to hit it. This isn't to be like "See! Israel has been fricking owned!!" because like, they can still bombard Tehran and do heavy damage - it's just important to clarify how that was done so that people don't learn the wrong lessons.
• Despite Trump's insistence, it's increasingly clear that if Iran's nuclear program has been set back at all (which it might not have) then it is only briefly. It is well-known that Iran's enriched uranium was shifted out of Fordow, and its location is not publically known. Some (in American media, even!) go further to say that Fordow was basically untouched and that the centrifuges are fine, according to leaks from White House intelligence.
• Simplicius says that the US only has - well, had - 20 GBU-57s, and if that's true, then their production rate must be truly glacial. With 14 dropped, there are now 6 remaining, which is insufficient for any kind of broad campaign against Iranian underground capabilities, especially if 14 of them were dropped on Fordow and it was fine, or at least not obliterated. [This point by Simplicius seems flatly incorrect, US production of these sorts of bombs is more along the lines of 6-8 per month, and they only have 20 of a very specific model.]
• Iran's airforce was basically a no-show during this conflict. It's not clear what happened with that; some are suggesting they were moved to the far east to be out of harm's way, and perhaps if the conflict intensified and became extended then they would step in. It's probably also not a bad idea to conserve as many planes as possible, especially as some of their pilots train on the Russian jets they received.
• The Israeli modus operandi against other regional actors was applied to Iran and met similar failure - they attempted a military victory and lost, and lost quite badly at that. Now, again, this isn't to say that Israel is therefore owned and mad, because where Israel seems to actually do quite well is in winning the peace - they are great at infiltrating and undermining nations that have been weakened by war even if technically victorious. We saw this happen in Lebanon and Syria, for instance.
• Simplicius says that it's not clear when the conflict will erupt again - maybe in hours, maybe in days, maybe even months or years. But Iran has created a degree of deterrence. Importantly, it has dealt a heavy blow to Israel's IMEC plan to create a new transport corridor to the Mediterranean that bypasses unfriendly states, with Haifa's port damaged and clearly much more vulnerable than the alternatives (such as the existing Suez Canal route, and China's BRI), which is important on a geopolitical level. China just can't stop winning, folks. They're getting tired of winning.

Ideally there would be a synthesis of the hardliner approach to Israel and the West but the reformist approach to social issues, plus a willingness for, if not outright socialism (given Iran's anti-communist history that seems totally implausible in the short-term) then at least a strengthened capitalist-based command economy. The reformists will destroy Iran by not sufficiently opposing Israel, while the hardliners will destroy Iran by being too repressive internally on issues that simply don't need to be repressed even under an Israeli siege and propaganda warfare situation. But of course, it's not as if the government merely dictates these opinions from on high, there must be many factions based on social and economic classes pulling one way or another, so even a hypothetical coup by a hypothetical "synthesis party" wouldn't ameliorate the contradictions in the short term.

If the war continues then Iran might - might - manage to win anyway, but I'm really getting the impression that in Iran, the left arm doesn't know what the right arm is doing. This goes beyond the standard messaging issues where you promise some overwhelming once-in-a-century response and then little happens; even Pezeshkian himself admitted a while ago that he doesn't always know what's going on.

"the Chinese Communist Party are traitors, only Shia theocracy has the will to do what is necessary"

The argument was that Iran was the only country with the ability to defeat Israel, and such a defeat would be very beneficial not only in a humanitarian sense but also in the geopolitical strategic sense of reducing American influence in the Middle East, and so China should do anything they possibly could to help Iran achieve it. But now I know that it wasn't China's fault for not trying to help, but Iran's fault for not accepting any. On October 8th 2023 at the absolute latest they should have knocked on the doors of Russia and China and gone "We think it's possible that Israel will go berserk and start a regional war and that will include us, we want to sign economic deals, we want to sign military deals. If you can't do much officially due to the sanctions regime then we'll accept covert help, plus we'll be gearing up our nation for this eventuality and doing intelligence sweeps and dragnets that we should have done earlier and at a greater intensity when Soleimani was assassinated, plus getting reforms ready" but because of the internal contradictions of the Iranian political class, I suppose that just wasn't possible. They just didn't have the existential sense of urgency required until it was too late and Hezbollah was pacified. I remember Iran going around talking to the leaders of Gulf states trying to get an embargo on Israel early on but that was pointless, they would have never broke off trade with Israel.

Ironically now, the Middle East might be the strongest holdout of the US going forward. I expected that the approximate series of American imperial collapse would be Middle East -> Africa -> Asia -> Europe -> South America but maybe Israel will still be putting people in concentration camps well past the mid-century. With the benefit of hindsight, that the US would spend inordinate effort to protect the world's oil supply was predictable, but the Resistance was just much stronger back in late 2023 and we weren't aware that their efforts would be squandered due to an ineffective and infiltrated Iranian leadership, so Israel's defeat in the short term seemed plausible even if a little unlikely.

This conflict has taught me: do not "trust the plans" of countries/territories that aren't controlled by Marxists (Ansarallah and Hamas get an exception, you don't survive that long under those conditions without your government having great competence). Every time I've been like "Well, they wouldn't be stupid enough to do THAT" it turns out they are, indeed, stupid enough to do that

100%. Iran hasn't yet lost, but Israel will try and achieve through "peace" what it cannot achieve through war. It will work to destabilize Iran, smuggle weapons in, and probably continue terror attacks regardless of any ceasefire. Now we might be in the most dangerous phase yet.