Geopolitics Lounge
- Thread starter Ember
- Start date
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There's always something fishy going on. Remember to take a step back and look at what the causes and provocateurs of such events may be interested in causing after-the-fact.
There's always something fishy going on. Remember to take a step back and look at what the causes and provocateurs of such events may be interested in causing after-the-fact.
Sudan being back in the news is solely due to the Ukrainian GRU pushing the narrative that their SF are now in Sudan countering 'Wagnerites'.
Did this massacre happen? Possibly, but it's been almost certainly embellished in terms of numbers. I've seen the pictures and it looked closer to 70-80 killed.
Either way, Visegrad (funded by the Polish government) has been going full on Israel. Maybe the Visegrad admin is not up to date with the spaghetti tier alliances in Africa, but Israel supports the RSF/Janjaweed. Not on the level the UAE/Haftar/Saudi Arabia does, but still.
And the RSF/Janjaweed originate in Darfur (heavily Africanized Arab clans) and have been on and off committing ethnic cleansing of the Black tribes in Darfur (Zaghawa, Massalit and others).
The RSF in April immediately communicated they would respect the Sudanese-Israeli normalization accords. They have also condemned Hamas as a terrorist organization and have routinely called the SAF (junta under Burhani) composed of Islamists.
So that's Sudan. Strange thing: Ukraine got involved in order to 'take the fight to Russia' yet Russia keeps still maintains with Sudan. The naval base in Port Sudan is still on the cards. There were Sudanese representatives during the July Africa-Russia summit in Saint Petersburg and Sudan+ Russia maintain diplomatic relations. There also hasnt been a single piece of evidence scaffolding the claim that Wagner/Russia is supporting the RSF
Wagner on the other hand pre-April 2023 ran gold mines in Northern Darfur together with the RSF. They used their bases in Libya for further transportation.
Funniest thing: over the last month the RSF has been making serious ground in Kordofan and Darfur, overrunning SAF base after SAF base. So Ukraine is losing that war as well.
They're trying anything possible to get any money at all or change things. That country is poorer than Romania, and I think significantly.
The Venezuelan Supreme Court of Justice has ordered a plebiscite to be held on the future of the Essequibo region. This referendum will be held on December 3.
Essequibo is the subject of a territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. The dispute stems from the days of the British Empire and currently it is administered by Guyana. Essequibo comprises of about 2/3s of Guyana's territory.
Venezuela says it wants to win Essequibo over by Peace Diplomacy. Guyana something worse. Venezuela also alleges the USA is militarizing the area. There are many newly discovered oil fields in Essequibo, as a result Guyana's GDP will grow by 38 percent this year.
Essequibo is the subject of a territorial dispute between Venezuela and Guyana. The dispute stems from the days of the British Empire and currently it is administered by Guyana. Essequibo comprises of about 2/3s of Guyana's territory.
Venezuela says it wants to win Essequibo over by Peace Diplomacy. Guyana something worse. Venezuela also alleges the USA is militarizing the area. There are many newly discovered oil fields in Essequibo, as a result Guyana's GDP will grow by 38 percent this year.
There hasn't been a genuine plebiscite like this since 1938. I pray it gets resolved peacefully, but if there are expendable resources involved that can keep one population starving under socialism and one profiting off of the extraction, there will be some glowing interventions. Hopefully these people can see past it.
Very interesting Twitter thread on the current situation in Myanmar's Shan province. Myanmar's borderregions are quite lawless, and local warlords make a lot of money smuggling drugs into China (neighboring Yunnan province has that same association in China).
The Myanmar junta has been considered friendly to China but it seems this is slowly changing. The junta has lost control over the borderregion with China and it seems China is not too concerned about the fate of the junta.
Most of the borderregions in Shan state are populated by Han Chinese that were drawn outside China's border during Qing era border agreements. Most of the warlords are Maoists and some have modeled their territory and structure on CCP/China (Wa State for instance).
Wa State in Myanmar. Even the traffic officers uniform is modeled after China.
The Myanmar junta has been considered friendly to China but it seems this is slowly changing. The junta has lost control over the borderregion with China and it seems China is not too concerned about the fate of the junta.
Most of the borderregions in Shan state are populated by Han Chinese that were drawn outside China's border during Qing era border agreements. Most of the warlords are Maoists and some have modeled their territory and structure on CCP/China (Wa State for instance).
Wa State in Myanmar. Even the traffic officers uniform is modeled after China.
The sudden emphasize is very strange. It's been a dispute for 100 years. Maduro is a bit weird but I cannot imagine he would actually use this plebiscite as some sort of popular legitimatization to invade another country.
Venezuela is a basket case state already.
Xi JinPing has arrived in San Francisco for the APEC meeting. He'll be meeting with Biden and all the others bigwigs in tow.
Many of the pro Russia and even pro Russia channels are a bit worried about the purpose and content of these meetings. Basically they fear China and the US will strike a deal centered around reversing the recent deterioration in ties.
Chinese government mouthpiece The Global Times:
Many of the pro Russia and even pro Russia channels are a bit worried about the purpose and content of these meetings. Basically they fear China and the US will strike a deal centered around reversing the recent deterioration in ties.
Chinese government mouthpiece The Global Times:
China's having their own internal struggles also... And they still need us to buy things from them.
Had the chief security officer and spokesman (a former US prosecutor) for Huawei in one of my classes last semester...He's a skill for the CCP, but it was interesting that he was fairly open that both the Biden admin doubled down on Trump's anti China trade policy.
Any stop or reverse of deterioration will be temporary. China remains its mercantilist character and doesn't learn from others' (Russia) lessons. The Chinese truly believe that 'mutual benefits', 'cooperation' and of course 'deepening trade links' trump foreign meddling, soft power, culture wars and holding hardly any power in the infosphere.
The security situation in the Indo Pacific is deteriorating quite rapidly. I have yet to figure out China's grand strategy beyond aforementioned mercantilist slogans. We know about the 9 dash line, the BRI, lowering dependency on the USD, the naval build up but beyond that? They seem terribly slow in anticipating changing circumstances - which is a characteristic of authoritarian highly centralized political structures. Now they might patch up with the USA. Does China even do diplomacy?
Brian Berletic is the point in case. He understands that the USA is simply buying time. They are absolutely going to take a shot at China. But he feels frustrated by China's slow and at times absent response. So he keeps on yapping about muh tradelinks and muh railway lines whilst he damned well understand the US will simply pick, break and flip South East Asian countries one after the other whilst militarizing the region + the Indian subcontinent + Japan. Does Beijing really believe they can go back to the pre 2015 days?
Anyway the meeting is yet to be done but the reporting of the Global Times kind of already spilled the beans.
There are times I wish we have the same approach as Mexico and outlawed other countries flags on display ...
It'd sure quell somebody the side taking over the last couple years/weeks/ months regarding foreign wars.
Talk about buyer's remorse! China helped rig an election to get Joe in and the chews didn't even give them a single penny back. In fact they increased tariffs :laugh:
The ability of modern China to engage successfully in any meaningful theatre of operations militarily is questionable at best. The track record isn't strong, from the days of WWII and Korea to Viet Nam, Indochina, and more recent border skirmishes with India and UN banner operations in Africa.
One can lambaste aspects of the US military all one wishes to, but to carry out sustained, high-temp carrier ops, logistics, and force projection is something the US and only the US does alone. And it takes more than floating out a 75% Xerox of a Kuznetsov and driving it around a 500-mile radius of the mainland to harass Filipino fishing trawlers.
Never in my life did I think the jewish question would go mainstream. Maybe I'm wrong, but I don't think they can close the door on #thenoticing at this point. I guess Candace can go work for Tucker Carlson now.
Fact. I've made this point many times also, but it's lost on many who've not served or just don't understand how force projection works.
Our sustained logistics caps are ahead of all peers in all aspects.
This man is literally a walking train wreck.
Would be even a bigger loss of face if Xi still goes ahead with the reconciliation efforts.
Would be even a bigger loss of face if Xi still goes ahead with the reconciliation efforts.
Wagner/Malinese Army have taken over Kidal.
Argentina's new president will be Milei.
Not sure what to make of it.. He's got some good ideas on weapon ownership, small government, central banking and communism.
But he's a raging Zionist and Jewish convert that worships the US Dollar to the point that he wants to dollarize the Argentinian economy (byebye sovereignty?)
Obviously this will also kill Argentina's BRICS acsesion.
Not sure what to make of it.. He's got some good ideas on weapon ownership, small government, central banking and communism.
But he's a raging Zionist and Jewish convert that worships the US Dollar to the point that he wants to dollarize the Argentinian economy (byebye sovereignty?)
Obviously this will also kill Argentina's BRICS acsesion.