Russia / Iran / China - The New Axis Megathread (Page 2029 of 2030)
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Originally Posted By 15fanatic: Poland knows how to play the game. 
Yes. This is the way. |
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Originally Posted By WesJanson: It's worth pointing out (the linked article didn't include/consider this) that Narva sits about 5 miles east of a complex of power plants that supply 95% of Estonia's power. Estonia's grid is linked to the EU, so it wouldn't permanently black them out if Russia took the stations or destroyed them..but they're a damn juicy target. I'd expect Russian SF or drone operators to take out the plants almost immediately, forcing the rest of the EU grid to pick up the slack, causing Tallinn to scream even harder for support, and weakening Europe all at once. Interesting. I rest assured that the Russians would pick the juiciest targets. |
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Originally Posted By Prime:
Francesca Albanese accuses NATO – not Russia – of keeping the war in Ukraine open, calls for disarming Kyiv, and, when it comes time to explain how to stop the war, admits: "I don't have the solution." So the aggressor remains armed, the victim does not, and the blame if the war continues falls on NATO. A colonialist, conspiratorial narrative that perfectly overlaps with Russian propaganda. From a UN Special Rapporteur, it's truly chilling.
Another great example of the typical female instinct against resisting violence and blaming anyone who resists violence as prolonging it. Also need less caffeine or less cocaine or whatever has her so wound up. |
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Originally Posted By Prime: "Elections" in Russia: the first data arrives from the Bogorodskoye polling stations. Section No. 857 — the polling station was under the control of observers ✅ United Russia's candidate Gusev lost, he's even in third place: Vladislav Gusev (United Russia) — 90 Yuliya Kuznetsova (Greens) — 102 Georgij Fedorov (KPRF) — 125 Section No. 871 — the observer was not admitted to the polling station 😡 Vladislav Gusev (United Russia) — 675 Yuliya Kuznetsova (Greens) — 8 Georgij Fedorov (KPRF) — 24 These are two adjacent sections. They are located in the same school. It seems further comments are superfluous 🤡 https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSsJcoDWYAA7ur_?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSsJcoNXcAASlww?format=jpg&name=medium
The observer from «Yabloko» has shown how the election results were falsified in Moscow. During the vote count at polling station 440 in the capital, the observer for the «Yabloko» candidate Viktor Kogan-Yasny noticed that the ballots with preferences for
other politicians were being placed into the pile of the "United Russia" candidate Aleksandr Asafov. In response to the request to show the contents of the pile, the heads of the commission turned to an armed policeman carrying a submachine gun, who stated that the observer could subsequently file a complaint, but for the moment, he had to step away from the table. The commission also argued that the footage of the ballot counting was prohibited, as the ballots allegedly contained personal data. 😆 In the end, the observer was not shown not even a single card from Asafov's stack, although the video still documented that cards for other candidates were being inserted into Asafov's stack. We recall that previously "Sota" reported the testimony of another Moscow observer, according to whom The data on the voting results were simply transmitted from the territorial district without any counting of the votes. The commission announces Asafov's surname again and again, stacking the ballots into his pile. The observer noticed that the ballots were NOT Asafov's, and asked to lift the last sheets. At first, they refused under the pretext of personal data: there are no personal data in the ballots.
They started threatening with the police and brought in a police officer. The chairwoman demanded to "seize" the recorded materials because they were filmed from the "wrong place," and the police officer tried to do that. Here, from us, personal respect to the observer who stood his ground until the end and said everything very correctly.
The police officer decided that the observer was "disrupting the process" (which wasn't the case; it's the commission's direct duty to conduct the count in such a way that everyone can see the marks). Buoyed by this, the commission at that moment started yelling about the lawlessness, which we couldn't help but agree with.
After dropping off the observer in Kamchatka, they deliberately blocked his view and continued the psychological attack: to all the observer's requests to show him the ballots, howls came from the swamps about how he was somehow interfering with the work of the commission. That's the kind of work people do—falsifying elections.
And finally, an excerpt from a video where you can see that in the ballots being placed into Asafov's stack, there are no marks for him.
Polling Station 440, Moscow They were stuffing ballots for Asafov, announcing his last name on the ballots where the marks were placed for other candidates. They were caught red-handed by an observer from our chat. Take a look at the photo: Asafov - №2 on the list, but there are no marks next to his name on the ballots. We're telling all! https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSwb7vAWgAA_cBa?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSwb7vLXUAAPozy?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSwb7vJWcAAevK1?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HSwb7vTXAAA3gxy?format=jpg&name=large
In Yaroslavl, a fictitious polling station was created to dump votes for United Russia. In the Krasnoperekopsky district of Yaroslavl, a temporary polling station No. 2098 appeared during the elections, although there was no decision to form it: consequently, real voters could not vote there, the channel "Elections State Duma Roast" noted: "We look at the result in the district at this polling station — the United Russia candidate and Yaroslavl Mayor Artem Molchanov receive 87% or 2232 out of 2564 votes. Within the entire district, Molchanov receives 40% at the phantom polling station. Would Molchanov have won without this — yes. But his victory would not have been so convincing — the closest rival, Anatoly Greshnevikov, garnered 2378 votes in the district, while Molchanov, excluding votes from polling station No. 2098, has 3544." https://pbs.twimg.com/media/HS4dX3CXQAAx7ve?format=jpg&name=large
Reminds me of the 2020 election here!! Does Russia allow mail in ballots? |
USA
Attached File
The numbers have doubled in less than a month. The total crude oil egress via the USN-BL is now 13 Mbpd, with estimated SoH transits at 10.35 Mbpd given that Fujairah and Mina al-Fahal together account for around 2.65 Mbpd on average. This is partly attributed to Saudi Arabia having to swing back its exports eastwards due to pipeline disruption, but also due to daytime transits via the SoH under additional CENTCOM protection.
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Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
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Originally Posted By ITCHY-FINGER: Yes. This is the way. Originally Posted By ITCHY-FINGER: Originally Posted By 15fanatic: Poland knows how to play the game.
Yes. This is the way. don't hate the player. hate the game. |
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Originally Posted By MFP_4073: don't hate the player. hate the game. The problem with that is that it will further encourage the rest of NATO to ignore their militaries since Russia coming through Poland would cause the US to fight, so why spend the money on their military when they can spend it on immigrants... |
USA
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Originally Posted By muzzleloader: The problem with that is that it will further encourage the rest of NATO to ignore their militaries since Russia coming through Poland would cause the US to fight, so why spend the money on their military when they can spend it on immigrants... Originally Posted By muzzleloader: Originally Posted By MFP_4073: don't hate the player. hate the game. The problem with that is that it will further encourage the rest of NATO to ignore their militaries since Russia coming through Poland would cause the US to fight, so why spend the money on their military when they can spend it on immigrants... Poland needs to build a highway with no off-ramps from its eastern border all the way to Germany with a huge sign saying 'delinquent NATO members this way'. |
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Originally Posted By muzzleloader: The problem with that is that it will further encourage the rest of NATO to ignore their militaries since Russia coming through Poland would cause the US to fight, so why spend the money on their military when they can spend it on immigrants... Originally Posted By muzzleloader: Originally Posted By MFP_4073: don't hate the player. hate the game. The problem with that is that it will further encourage the rest of NATO to ignore their militaries since Russia coming through Poland would cause the US to fight, so why spend the money on their military when they can spend it on immigrants... Those countries are going to cling to any possible excuse to avoid spending more money on defense instead of spending it on their welfare state for themselves and their new migrants. They won't change their tune until Russian tanks are rolling over their border. |
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Originally Posted By Prime:
Francesca Albanese accuses NATO – not Russia – of keeping the war in Ukraine open, calls for disarming Kyiv, and, when it comes time to explain how to stop the war, admits: "I don't have the solution." So the aggressor remains armed, the victim does not, and the blame if the war continues falls on NATO. A colonialist, conspiratorial narrative that perfectly overlaps with Russian propaganda. From a UN Special Rapporteur, it's truly chilling.
It's Kihn! Has to be, it's the exact same words. |
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Zelensky at the UN: " Zelensky: I don't know anyone who is openly for this war except for one man. Just this year, from January through August, the Russian army lost 248,964 people on the battlefield in Ukraine. 21 countries in the world have smaller populations than the number of Russian troops lost in the last eight months. We have video confirmation for every one of Russian losses, and these are not just statistics — it's about people. We have an archive of drone videos showing thousands and thousands of Russians losing their lives in kill zones. It's madness. But they still keep going there to die, because that is what Putin wants." "Zelensky: Putin’s comrade, the leader of North Korea, sent his troops to Russia to support the weak points of the Russian army. The North Koreans also suffered losses. You probably saw the broadcast from Pyongyang when they honored those who were killed, and this is madness. Why should Koreans give their lives in a war against Ukraine? Kim Jong-un uses them like currency, and he gets something in return. And North Korea's neighbors and countries across Asia have probably already noticed — its improved ballistic missiles and Pyongyang's much greater drone capabilities" |
(Was that before or after putin signed decrees illegally declaring the "LPR" and "DPR" As part of russian territory?)
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Night shots are cool af
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MN, USA
Ok, we now have the actual text of the Greenland deal (whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat…), so we can say how it compares to the existing 1951 arrangement and who, between Trump and Denmark, lied the most in their framing of it. Long story short - which may surprise some - the Danes lied the most: Trump is pretty much correct in saying that this new deal grants the US control of Greenland. Let's look into what changed compared to the 1951 deal. 1) This is now a permanent arrangement: whereas the existing 1951 deal only lasted as long as NATO existed, this one "does not have an end date and may only be amended by mutual consent." It even survives a hypothetical future independence of Greenland: in that event, Denmark and Greenland must ensure that the independent Greenlandic state "affirmatively assume[s] all of the rights and obligations of the Kingdom of Denmark specified in this Agreement." 2) In the 1951 agreement, the US could set up bases only where both governments agreed, and only on the basis of NATO planning. The new deal locks in three bases: the US can "modernize and expand its activities" at Pituffik, its only base in Greenland until now, and "shall be allowed to establish an additional Defense Area at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig." Further bases beyond these 3 can be justified by the defense of "the American continent," a US interest rather than a NATO one. Also, quite subtle but this is interesting: Article IV(iii) says that "the United States may establish additional defense areas in Greenland" and that consultations are then held "to decide implementation details based on mutual agreement." What this means is that the principle of a new base is automatically granted and only the implementation details require agreement. Article VII also gives the US "the right to raise concerns regarding construction, or change of use" of any building near a US base, after which the parties decide together what to do. Which means that the US has a say over civilian planning around its bases. 3) On US military movement across Greenland, the wording change between the 1951 agreement and this new one is quite funny. The 1951 text said (Art. V(3)): the US "may enjoy... the right of free access to and movement between the defense areas through Greenland, including territorial waters, by land, air and sea," but only "in accordance with general rules mutually agreed upon and issued by the appropriate Danish authority in Greenland." The new one says: "the United States of America shall enjoy... the right of free access to and movement between the Defense Areas through Greenland, including the Territorial Waters, by land, air and sea." That's it: "May" becomes "shall," and the US military movement no longer has to follow rules "issued by the appropriate Danish authority in Greenland." The US also gets something new on top: "undersea access to and movement within the Territorial Waters," i.e. submarines. 4) Non-NATO exclusion: non-NATO states are barred from military installations or a persistent presence in Greenland unless all three parties approve, giving the US an effective permanent veto. The 1951 deal had no equivalent clause. 5) Investment screening: this is entirely new. "States or investors from a state that is not a member of NATO, a NATO partner, or an EU member state" (i.e. Russia, China, India, the Gulf States, etc.), "shall not be allowed to have (i) control, (ii) significant influence, or (iii) access to non-public information...within Particularly Sensitive Sectors or Activities in the territory of Greenland (including the Territorial Waters), unless agreed between the Parties." Again, it basically means that the US has a permanent veto over who can invest in strategic sectors in Greenland, as far as non-NATO or EU states are concerned. 6) Lastly, in stark contrast with the 1951 deal, the framing of the deal changes significantly: this new deal is largely framed around the US. The 1951 agreement existed only "for the benefit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization." The new one lists the defense of "the American continent" as an objective, celebrates "the irreplaceable role" of the United States military as well as "the United States' indispensable historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defense of Greenland," and names the establishment of Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense system as a key goal. So, to sum up: - The US secured a permanent military foothold that even an independent Greenland would inherit whether it likes it or not - The US now has veto power over any non-NATO military presence in Greenland, and over who can invest in its strategic infrastructure and resources (beyond NATO and the EU) - Denmark signed away its say over the principle of new US bases, with only the right to discuss the "implementation details" - Danish authorities no longer set the rules for US military movement across the island - And all of it is now justified by the defense of "the American continent" I don't know in which universe this even remotely "recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people's right to self-determination," as Danish PM Mette Frederiksen put it (stm.dk/en/press/press…). Yes, the preamble of the text cynically "reaffirms" Danish sovereignty but, in my book, when you let a foreign country put bases on your soil, move its troops without following your rules and veto who else can come in, in perpetuity, after it spent two years threatening to take you by force, the word for that is anything but "recognized sovereignty" 🤷 |
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Originally Posted By Haub:
(Was that before or after putin signed decrees illegally declaring the "LPR" and "DPR" As part of russian territory?)
I wish Lavrov or any other Russian would expand on this claim of "European shenanigans". I assume they (Russian imperialists) believe that the EU offering Ukraine an alternative to the old Russia-world of subjugation and corruption was casus belli. But they never spell it out. |
UKR
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Originally Posted By Prime:
General motors doing GM stuff since 1939
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Thank you to the unknown person who bought me a membership.
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Originally Posted By voyager3: They even allow e-voting via the Gosuslugi (State Services) mobile phone app. Actually, the e-votes were less skewed. It was apparently easier to falsify the paper ballots. To the extent e-voting gets managed, is by forcing people to vote at their workplace. Nominally it's done privately....but nobody thinks it really is. |
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Originally Posted By Haub:
Russia shouldn't be at G20 unless it's for all their delegates to be beaten. 
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Originally Posted By ITCHY-FINGER: I wish Lavrov or any other Russian would expand on this claim of "European shenanigans". I assume they (Russian imperialists) believe that the EU offering Ukraine an alternative to the old Russia-world of subjugation and corruption was casus belli. But they never spell it out. The 'root causes' they keep talking about are never actually spelled out in detail. The core issue is that Ukraine cannot be allowed to have sovereignty to choose its own partners, Ukraine must be an affiliate of and subordinate to Russia. Like Belarus is. Kicking out a corrupt Moscow puppet from the presidency was not allowed. That is exactly what prompted the invasions in 2014: Ukraine having leadership that was not going to take orders from Moscow. |
USA
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USA
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Originally Posted By ITCHY-FINGER: I wish Lavrov or any other Russian would expand on this claim of "European shenanigans". I assume they (Russian imperialists) believe that the EU offering Ukraine an alternative to the old Russia-world of subjugation and corruption was casus belli. But they never spell it out. Even before the USSR it was 'the English lady making mischief' in reference to Queen Victoria. The fact that her minister was one Benjamin Disraely further elevated the tsarists' blood pressure. |
The IDF soldier seriously wounded in today’s terrorist car-ramming attack on Highway 443 has been identified in reports as Neria Laiter, son of Israel’s Ambassador to the United States, Yechiel Leiter. This is not the first tragedy to strike the Leiter family: Ambassador Leiter’s eldest son, Maj. Moshe Yedidya Leiter, was killed in combat in Gaza on November 10, 2023, while leading IDF forces. The terrorist rammed Neria near the Maccabim checkpoint before being shot dead by security forces. Neria was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in serious condition. |
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
UKR
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Originally Posted By Lieh-tzu: It's Kihn! Has to be, it's the exact same words. Originally Posted By Lieh-tzu: Originally Posted By Prime:
Francesca Albanese accuses NATO – not Russia – of keeping the war in Ukraine open, calls for disarming Kyiv, and, when it comes time to explain how to stop the war, admits: "I don't have the solution." So the aggressor remains armed, the victim does not, and the blame if the war continues falls on NATO. A colonialist, conspiratorial narrative that perfectly overlaps with Russian propaganda. From a UN Special Rapporteur, it's truly chilling.
It's Kihn! Has to be, it's the exact same words. 
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Thank you to the unknown person who bought me a membership.
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Pentagon Investigating How F-35 Fighter Jet Parts Bound for US Were Diverted to Hong Kong The shipment reportedly included one of the jet’s cockpit canopies, which contains stealth technology that only the U.S. and its allies can access. It's an acrylic bubble that tops the cockpit and is coated with a thin layer of transparent radar absorbent material that helps hide the plane from enemy radar. Sounds like a major screw up.  
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MN, USA
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Originally Posted By Flogger23m: Pentagon Investigating How F-35 Fighter Jet Parts Bound for US Were Diverted to Hong Kong Sounds like a major screw up. https://static0.mltimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/9955401.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2 From what I’m hearing when it landed in South Korea from Australia, it then got sent onward to Hong Kong. Looks like someone at UPS’s defense division is compromised. |
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Originally Posted By Flogger23m: Pentagon Investigating How F-35 Fighter Jet Parts Bound for US Were Diverted to Hong Kong Sounds like a major screw up. https://static0.mltimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/9955401.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2 Sounds like active espionage. That's no accident. |
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Originally Posted By Longshore87: From what I’m hearing when it landed in South Korea from Australia, it then got sent onward to Hong Kong. Looks like someone at UPS’s defense division is compromised. Originally Posted By Longshore87: Originally Posted By Flogger23m: Pentagon Investigating How F-35 Fighter Jet Parts Bound for US Were Diverted to Hong Kong Sounds like a major screw up. https://static0.mltimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/9955401.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2 From what I’m hearing when it landed in South Korea from Australia, it then got sent onward to Hong Kong. Looks like someone at UPS’s defense division is compromised. A month from now we can buy one on TEMU. |
Link to Bloomberg article from X post Inside a warehouse in the southern Yemeni port of Aden, weapons experts worked their way through the contents of a shipping container from a commercial vessel that had been en-route to Hodeida, a Red Sea city controlled by the Houthis. It was July, and the cargo had been sitting under guard for months. Spread before the authorities were industrial machines, chemicals and components shipped from China and bound for the Iran-backed militant group. Some looked innocuous. Others did not. Among them were rear fins and other parts resembling components used to assemble an Iranian ballistic missile. There was phenolic resin – a heat resistant material used in missile production – and other parts the investigators suspected could be used to manufacture drones and missiles. “When I first saw the contents, it was clear that this shipment was different from the others we had seen,” said Fawaz Al Bsesi, Director General of Aden’s Land, Sea and Air Ports Department, a branch of the city’s Counter Terrorism Unit and part of the security apparatus set up by Yemen’s internationally-recognized government fighting the Houthis. Once heavily reliant on Iran for finished weapons, the Houthis are now able to manufacture weapons inside Yemen, giving the group the kind of autonomy military power it’s never previously enjoyed. Together with other seizures in the past two years, the cargo provides new evidence of how the Houthis’ military industrial complex has expanded thanks to equipment and parts from China, according to interviews with Yemeni officials, intelligence sources, shipping experts, UN reports and customs data. The discovery in July came at a pivotal moment. As the inspection unfolded, the Houthis were being drawn deeper into the US-Iran conflict, preparing missiles and drones that would by September strike Saudi Arabia’s oil infrastructure and readying troops to advance toward coastal areas bordering and within the strategic Bab el-Mandeb Strait. By mid-September, the Houthis had captured all of Yemen’s Red Sea coastline including islands in the middle of the Bab el-Mandeb, and Saudi Arabia had called upon the US for support. Earlier this month, the group also claimed to have shot down a Saudi fighter jet with missiles at altitudes not previously reached by other members of Iran’s Axis of Resistance. A Saudi government spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment on the claim. With Iran and the US blocking shipments through the Strait of Hormuz, a potential Houthi blockade of the Bab el-Mandeb could further slow traffic in the Red Sea, through which roughly 12% of the world’s seaborne goods pass The July inspection, carried out at the request of the United Nations Panel of Experts, was the culmination of an investigation that had begun nine months earlier with an unusually specific tip from US intelligence. The Americans had told Yemeni authorities to watch for a shipping container linked to Yemeni businessman Fares al-Muayyad, and look inside for phenolic resin, according to the Aden authorities. A Saudi-led coalition has restricted goods entering Houthi-held ports since intervening in Yemen in 2015, part of an effort to prevent weapons from reaching the group. While there is a UN arms embargo on territory controlled by the Houthis, commercial goods are still allowed to enter ports controlled by the rebel group. Al-Muayyad didn’t respond to a request for comment. By late October last year, Yemeni counterterrorism officers knew where to find the container. It was aboard the Zhu Cheng Xin Zhou, a commercial vessel heading toward Hodeida, according to the container’s bill of lading and interdiction data provided to Bloomberg by the Aden Counter Terrorism Unit. But when the ship called at Aden on Oct. 28, Yemeni authorities, acting on the US tip, seized the container. The US Office of the Director of National Intelligence didn’t respond to a request for comment. Because most of the components are dual use — meaning they have both military and civilian uses — they wouldn’t violate the UN arms embargo on the Houthis. There’s no evidence that the Chinese companies involved knew the ultimate destination of their products. “What we don't know is whether the engineering workshops in China are aware that they are producing missile components,” said Henry Thompson, an arms expert and former member of the UN Panel of Experts on Yemens. The US has increasingly sanctioned China-based companies and individuals it accuses of supplying Iran’s military with sensitive dual-use goods, including last September when it targeted Chinese and other suppliers of the Houthis. At a UN Security Council meeting on July 14, the US, citing a UN agency that monitors shipments into Yemen, said that “more than 70% of the prohibited or restricted dual-use items seized between January 2025 and April 2026 originated in China,” according to the transcript. China’s representative said “China rejects the baseless accusations leveled by the US.” In response to August sanctions against an East Asian procurement network the US said helped Iranian military institutions obtain missile-related technology, China said its cooperation with Iran was lawful under international law and should not be targeted by US sanctions. Beijing has long cultivated Saudi Arabia as a key strategic partner in the region, and recently privately asked Iran to rein in the Houthis, Reuters reported last week. A spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Ministry didn’t directly respond to questions on commercial and dual use items being used by the Houthis for weapons. "As a permanent member of the UN Security Council and a responsible major country, China has always earnestly implemented Security Council resolutions and shouldered its due international obligations," the spokesperson said. The intervention in Aden ended a journey that had begun more than six months earlier in southern China. Shipping records show the container was loaded aboard the CMA CGM Puccini in Nansha on April 11 and 15 days later reached Djibouti, where cargo bound for Hodeida undergoes UN weapons verification. It remained there for months before being loaded onto the Zhu Cheng on Oct. 21. The discovery led investigators to three other containers linked to al-Muayyad that had arrived in Aden months earlier aboard the CMA CGM Verdi, which left Guangzhou in March 2025. Originally bound for Hodeida, those containers had been re-routed after Israeli strikes caused severe damage to the port. The Yemeni forces told the US about the other containers belonging to Al-Muayyad sitting in Aden and inspected them this July. The owner and manager of the Zhu Cheng didn’t respond to a request for comment. CMA CGM didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. “The components were deliberately split across four containers to make the shipment harder to detect,” said Al Bsesi, who has spent 15 years inspecting cargo at Yemeni ports. Inside were suspected missile components, control systems and launch equipment that Al Bsesi said complemented what had been found in the first container. The cargo also included computer-controlled machine tools capable of producing precision components used in drones, missiles and other weapons; two-cylinder engines of the type used in drones; and digging and ventilation equipment the Houthis could use when building underground tunnels. “Since the vast majority of these components are intended for military purposes and manufacturing, with only a small number being dual-use — civilian and military — their trade constitutes a clear violation of the UN arms embargo imposed on the Houthis,” the Aden Counter Terrorism Unit said in a statement. Al Bsesi wrote to his superiors that his agents had uncovered “a complete missile structure distributed among the three containers.” A representative for the Houthis didn’t respond to a request for comment. Given there is very little industrial capacity in Houthi territory, it was unlikely such material was being used for civilian purposes, to build factories or plants, according to experts. “Some items are almost certainly components of missiles, others are much more ambiguous,” said Thompson, pointing to their shape, materials and what appears to be a fin for a large missile. “However, taken as a whole, and given the sporadic series of similar shipments that included machined parts, machine tools, and what are very clearly weapons components, it is almost certain that this shipment is intended for the Houthi military industrial complex.” Wolf-Christian Paes, Associate Fellow for Armed Conflict at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) and another former member of the UN's Panel of Experts, added: “Had you found the exact same pieces at Hamburg port going to a legitimate address, you would have come to a different assessment.” While most of the equipment is classified as dual-use, weapons experts and Aden’s Counter Terrorism Unit say the concentration of so many suspect items in a single shipment points to an increasingly diversified Houthi procurement network. “Ten or fifteen years ago, good quality components for drones basically had to come from American or European manufacturers. But now, Chinese manufacturers make parts that are just as good or better than Western ones at lower cost,” said Peter Salisbury, a Columbia University adjunct professor who led a recent report on Houthi weapons manufacturing for the Century Foundation, a policy think tank. Early in their long fight for control of Yemen, the Houthis were dismissed as a ragtag militia fighting in sandals and pickup trucks, until they took control of the Yemeni capital in 2014. Since then, they’ve fought off a Saudi-led coalition campaign to oust them, and developed into a sophisticated military and political force with hundreds of thousands of fighters and an arsenal capable of destroying US-made MQ-9 Reaper drones. In the past week, the Houthis have fired a barrage of missiles and drones at Saudi Arabia, targeting the capital Riyadh. The Houthis finance their military by taxing businesses and oil imports and by smuggling. They also get telecommunications revenue and benefit from external financial networks, according to UN experts and the US Treasury, which estimates they generate hundreds of millions of dollars a year by “working with Yemeni businessmen to tax petroleum imports.” They have received funding from Iran, too. For the past two years, the US and Israel have operated on the assumption that weakening Iran will inevitably weaken the Houthis. But the group could strike far beyond Yemen well before the latest regional wars, firing ballistic and cruise missiles and long-range drones at Saudi Arabia and the UAE. Since 2024, it has turned many of those same weapons on Israel. That growing independence is the product of years of Iranian support. “The Houthis have their own ideology and ambitions, but without Iranian backing, they would never have become the threat to Yemen, let alone the region that they are today,” said Nadwa al Dawsari, non-resident fellow at the Middle East Institute. “Hundreds of IRGC commanders have operated inside Yemen since 2014, some even earlier, guiding, mentoring, and supporting Houthi military operations and helping the group develop its own weapons production and manufacturing capabilities,” she added. Today though, the Houthis are capable of carrying out their project with much more autonomy. For decades, Yemeni merchants have traveled to Guangzhou and other Chinese trading centers in search of cheap goods to sell back home. But ties really began to increase twelve years ago when civil war broke out in Yemen. After the Houthis seized Sana’a in 2014, China started to become more economically important to the Red Sea state. The war devastated Yemen’s universities and thousands of Yemeni students also began studying at Chinese universities and institutes. It was then that a generation of Yemeni traders in China emerged who knew the factories and brokers needed to move goods from China through Djibouti and into Yemen. Those networks offered the Houthis a ready-made way to source what they needed. An engine could be bought from one Chinese supplier, electronics from another and before too long entire weapons systems were being packed alongside ordinary goods as a way to avoid sanctions. Shipping and interdiction records provided by the Aden Counter Terrorism Unit from this year identify dozens of containers travelling under 41 bills of lading from Chinese exporters, many based in Guangzhou, that the Yemeni authorities say were part of the same network. In 25 of the records, the Yemeni importer named on the shipping documents was changed while the cargo was in transit – a pattern the Aden Counter Terrorism Unit says was intended to obscure the Houthi-linked companies behind the cargo as shipping routes into Yemen were changing. “This is just further evidence that the Houthis are trying every trick in the book to get around efforts to monitor and stop what they are doing,” said Salisbury. Goods bound for Houthi-controlled Red Sea ports typically pass through Djibouti, where the UN Verification and Inspection Mechanism for Yemen screens commercial shipping. Established in 2016 at the request of Yemen’s internationally-recognized government, UNVIM was designed to facilitate commercial imports into Houthi-controlled areas amid restrictions imposed by the Saudi-led coalition, while ensuring compliance with the UN arms embargo. But the mechanism’s powers are limited. It can inspect cargos and report violations, but it cannot seize goods. Asked about Chinese dual-use goods reaching the Houthis, a UN spokesperson said the issue was “outside of the UNVIM mandate.” Two well-publicized seizures in August 2025 and July 2026 marked the first time conclusive evidence pointed to the Houthis acquiring Chinese-sourced components to make drones and missiles at home. The August 2025 shipment included engines, machinery components and raw materials used in making and repairing drones and missiles, as well as tunneling equipment and ventilation machines, according to arms experts. The Houthis buy in bulk via a Yemeni network, but much of what’s needed to build a Houthi Qasef 2-K drone, the Houthis’ version of Iran’s Ababil-T, can also be bought via the Chinese e-commerce conglomerate, Alibaba, in just a few clicks. The shopping list includes engines, GPS units, antennas, flight controllers and batteries, as well as fiberglass resin and other materials used to construct the airframe — various versions of which were found in the recently seized shipments. Type “flight controller” into Alibaba or AliExpress and the site’s algorithm suggests the many other parts used in a drone, including servos, batteries, wiring and avionics. “As a global marketplace, Alibaba.com strictly prohibits sellers from selling military drones and dual-use items on our platform, and we actively enforce policies to prevent the misuse of civilian products for unauthorized purposes,” Alibaba.com, the B2B arm of Alibaba Group, said in a statement. All these items have legitimate civilian uses. But their ready availability means much of the hardware needed to build an attack drone can be sourced through the same commercial marketplaces that sell ordinary industrial and electronic equipment. This highlights both how hard it is for inspectors in Yemen to clamp down on components entering their territory that could be used for military purposes and how easy it is for importers doing business with the Houthis to help the group circumnavigate sanctions and the UN arms embargo. “It’s just like shopping on Amazon,” said Thompson. — With assistance from Hayley Warren |
Robert A. Heinlein, Friday
USA
The CIA has warned Spain, France, and Italy that Russia may be preparing drone attacks against them, sharing intelligence with European governments after CIA Director John Ratcliffe's Moscow trip in August, according to El Mundo. Lithuania reportedly knows the drone type involved: a Gerbera with a 600 km range, to be launched from a merchant ship container at sea. |
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2-3hr ago video
OSINTtechnical (@Osinttechnical) September 23, 2026
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Originally Posted By Lieh-tzu: The 'root causes' they keep talking about are never actually spelled out in detail. The core issue is that Ukraine cannot be allowed to have sovereignty to choose its own partners, Ukraine must be an affiliate of and subordinate to Russia. Like Belarus is. Kicking out a corrupt Moscow puppet from the presidency was not allowed. That is exactly what prompted the invasions in 2014: Ukraine having leadership that was not going to take orders from Moscow. 100% this. It is VERY ironic to call people fighting for sovereignty "nazis"
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Originally Posted By Longshore87: From what I’m hearing when it landed in South Korea from Australia, it then got sent onward to Hong Kong. Looks like someone at UPS’s defense division is compromised. Well, if we are stupid enough to ship highly sensitive tech via Lao Che Air Freight (Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom) then we deserve to be punched. Hard. |
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Originally Posted By Longshore87:
Ok, we now have the actual text of the Greenland deal (whitehouse.gov/briefings-stat ), so we can say how it compares to the existing 1951 arrangement and who, between Trump and Denmark, lied the most in their framing of it. Long story short - which may surprise some - the Danes lied the most: Trump is pretty much correct in saying that this new deal grants the US control of Greenland. Let's look into what changed compared to the 1951 deal. 1) This is now a permanent arrangement: whereas the existing 1951 deal only lasted as long as NATO existed, this one "does not have an end date and may only be amended by mutual consent." It even survives a hypothetical future independence of Greenland: in that event, Denmark and Greenland must ensure that the independent Greenlandic state "affirmatively assume[s] all of the rights and obligations of the Kingdom of Denmark specified in this Agreement." 2) In the 1951 agreement, the US could set up bases only where both governments agreed, and only on the basis of NATO planning. The new deal locks in three bases: the US can "modernize and expand its activities" at Pituffik, its only base in Greenland until now, and "shall be allowed to establish an additional Defense Area at Narsarsuaq and Mestersvig." Further bases beyond these 3 can be justified by the defense of "the American continent," a US interest rather than a NATO one. Also, quite subtle but this is interesting: Article IV(iii) says that "the United States may establish additional defense areas in Greenland" and that consultations are then held "to decide implementation details based on mutual agreement." What this means is that the principle of a new base is automatically granted and only the implementation details require agreement. Article VII also gives the US "the right to raise concerns regarding construction, or change of use" of any building near a US base, after which the parties decide together what to do. Which means that the US has a say over civilian planning around its bases. 3) On US military movement across Greenland, the wording change between the 1951 agreement and this new one is quite funny. The 1951 text said (Art. V(3)): the US "may enjoy... the right of free access to and movement between the defense areas through Greenland, including territorial waters, by land, air and sea," but only "in accordance with general rules mutually agreed upon and issued by the appropriate Danish authority in Greenland." The new one says: "the United States of America shall enjoy... the right of free access to and movement between the Defense Areas through Greenland, including the Territorial Waters, by land, air and sea." That's it: "May" becomes "shall," and the US military movement no longer has to follow rules "issued by the appropriate Danish authority in Greenland." The US also gets something new on top: "undersea access to and movement within the Territorial Waters," i.e. submarines. 4) Non-NATO exclusion: non-NATO states are barred from military installations or a persistent presence in Greenland unless all three parties approve, giving the US an effective permanent veto. The 1951 deal had no equivalent clause. 5) Investment screening: this is entirely new. "States or investors from a state that is not a member of NATO, a NATO partner, or an EU member state" (i.e. Russia, China, India, the Gulf States, etc.), "shall not be allowed to have (i) control, (ii) significant influence, or (iii) access to non-public information...within Particularly Sensitive Sectors or Activities in the territory of Greenland (including the Territorial Waters), unless agreed between the Parties." Again, it basically means that the US has a permanent veto over who can invest in strategic sectors in Greenland, as far as non-NATO or EU states are concerned. 6) Lastly, in stark contrast with the 1951 deal, the framing of the deal changes significantly: this new deal is largely framed around the US. The 1951 agreement existed only "for the benefit of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization." The new one lists the defense of "the American continent" as an objective, celebrates "the irreplaceable role" of the United States military as well as "the United States' indispensable historical and ongoing contributions to the security and defense of Greenland," and names the establishment of Trump's "Golden Dome" missile defense system as a key goal. So, to sum up: - The US secured a permanent military foothold that even an independent Greenland would inherit whether it likes it or not - The US now has veto power over any non-NATO military presence in Greenland, and over who can invest in its strategic infrastructure and resources (beyond NATO and the EU) - Denmark signed away its say over the principle of new US bases, with only the right to discuss the "implementation details" - Danish authorities no longer set the rules for US military movement across the island - And all of it is now justified by the defense of "the American continent" I don't know in which universe this even remotely "recognizes the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Kingdom and the Greenlandic people's right to self-determination," as Danish PM Mette Frederiksen put it (stm.dk/en/press/press ). Yes, the preamble of the text cynically "reaffirms" Danish sovereignty but, in my book, when you let a foreign country put bases on your soil, move its troops without following your rules and veto who else can come in, in perpetuity, after it spent two years threatening to take you by force, the word for that is anything but "recognized sovereignty" |
MN, USA
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Originally Posted By ITCHY-FINGER: Well, if we are stupid enough to ship highly sensitive tech via Lao Che Air Freight (Indiana Jones, Temple of Doom) then we deserve to be punched. Hard. That’s not how it works. We ship sensitive, classified, ammunition, explosives etc… With UPS and FedEx. In my post I said someone at UPS defense division was probably compromised, I really should of said someone at UPS Federal Government Shipping instead, but that’s not as fun. Anyways UPS and FedEx are authorized shippers under Next Generation Delivery Service-2 which runs through USTRANSCOM. Both have to adhere to NISP, which clearly didn’t happen here. |
On the Kremlin towers on Red Square, posts with fighters armed with binoculars and machine guns have appeared again. Witnesses say that such posts are also set up at the Mausoleum, but after 23:00.
How interesting. By this evening, all the armored vehicles and MOE (Ministry of Emergency Situations) vehicles had disappeared from the bridges in the Kremlin area, and the patrols that were still there during the day had been removed from the towers. Two versions are circulating. Either Putin has gone on vacation after the elections. Or some important events are taking place that we don't know about yet.
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Originally Posted By stone-age: A month from now we can buy one on TEMU. Originally Posted By stone-age: Originally Posted By Longshore87: Originally Posted By Flogger23m: Pentagon Investigating How F-35 Fighter Jet Parts Bound for US Were Diverted to Hong Kong Sounds like a major screw up. https://static0.mltimages.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2026/09/9955401.jpg?q=49&fit=crop&w=825&dpr=2 From what I’m hearing when it landed in South Korea from Australia, it then got sent onward to Hong Kong. Looks like someone at UPS’s defense division is compromised. A month from now we can buy one on TEMU. 
For decades, China’s state security and intelligence services have sought info about sensitive U.S. military technologies associated with the low-observable characteristics of windshield and canopy of 5th Generation fighter jets. Now, Australia has potentially handed China this valuable technology through an extraordinary mistake: an F-35A canopy was shipped to Hong Kong. This represents a serious security failure that requires a thorough investigation and accountability. The Royal Australian Air Force and those responsible for the shipment must explain how such a sensitive component was allowed to be sent to Hong Kong and whether it was exposed to unauthorized access. If U.S.-controlled technology was compromised as a result, there should be serious consequences and appropriate compensation for any resulting damage. 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Large-scale Russian ballistic missile attack on Kyiv. At least 20 missiles of various types (Iskander-M, RM-48U S-400, Kn-23, Oniks-M, Zircon) were launched, all of which targeted Kyiv. Strikes were carried out on various different parts of the city, including the southeastern, eastern, western, and northwestern suburbs, resulting in fires breaking out.
Today, the Russians launched a ballistic missile strike on Kyiv just as we were meeting with members of Congress and discussing the Lindsey Graham law and the need to strengthen sanctions. Russia will not end this war without pressure. As people were sleeping, flashes from explosions lit up the sky. Once again, the main targets of their strike were Kyiv and civilian infrastructure, residential buildings, a maternity hospital, energy infrastructure, and logistics. Two people have already been reported killed. My condolences to the family and loved ones. There are also people who have been injured. Emergency services are working – people are trapped in one of the buildings. The air raid threat persists in some regions of the country. We discussed exactly how to protect against these threats with @RepBrianFitz, @RepMikeQuigley, @RepMarcyKaptur, @RepGolden, @RepJoeWilson, and @RepGregoryMeeks. Every such attack happens because the pressure on the aggressor has never become total, and Russia believes it can continue to bet on ballistic terror. Right now, the United States has an opportunity to respond strongly. We need ballistic missile interceptors to protect lives. Sanctions against Russia and those helping it make money must be implemented. I thank both parties for their readiness to help protect lives.    
Approximate flight routes of the missiles launched in tonight's combined missile attack on Kyiv. The following was launched: ~6 Iskander-M ballistic missiles launched from near Klintsy, Bryansk Oblast. ~4 RM-48U modified S-400 ballistic missiles launched from near Klintsy, Bryansk Oblast. ~4 Kn-23 ballistic missiles launched from near Liski, Voronezh Oblast, and near Fatezh, Kursk Oblast. ~4 Oniks-M supersonic cruise missiles launched from near Zheleznogorsk, Kursk Oblast. ~2 Zircon hypersonic cruise missiles launched from near Millerovo, Rostov Oblast. As of the time of writing, a *minimum* of 2 Oniks-Ms, 1 Iskander-M, and 2 RM-48U S-400s were shot down by Ukrainian air defence. Note: these numbers may be adjusted in the coming hours as new information comes in. They are only early estimations. 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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🚨 BREAKING: Initial information indicates the Pakistani Air Force carried out three strikes in Kandahar, Afghanistan at approximately 0330 AM local. Initial reporting indicates strikes on: (1) Camp Gecko, located between Kandahar’s 13th District and Arghandab. (2) A known terrorist camp housing both BLA and al-Qaeda terrorists in Mian Koh, Kandahar’s 11th District, along with nearby weapons depots. This is developing. More information as details are confirmed. 
After a long hiatus, Pakistan targeted not only banned groups but also the military centers and depots of the Afghan Taliban in direct strikes on Kandahar, Khost, and Paktia. According to some circles, the Kandahar residence of Defense Minister Mullah Yaqoob was also hit. The attacks were carried out at 4 o'clock. 
Taliban officials in Kandahar have confirmed that Pakistani military jet aircraft carried out an airstrike in a mountainous area of Kandahar city. They say that although the heavy sounds of these airstrikes and bombings were heard across the entire city of Kandahar in an unprecedented manner, they have not caused any human casualties or significant material damage. Meanwhile, reports from Khost and Paktia provinces also indicate that Pakistan has carried out airstrikes in those provinces as well.
https:// ria.ru/20260924/voennye-2119897530.html Afghan media #BREAKING Forces of Pakistan’s military regime targeted a desert area in the ninth district of Kandahar city at around 3 a.m. today (Thursday). Zabihullah Mujahid, spokesperson for the Islamic Emirate, told TOLOnews that the Pakistani military attack caused no casualties or damage. Although the sound of the explosion was loud and could be heard across Kandahar city, security officials assured residents that there was no cause for concern. #TOLOnews_English
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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A close review of @vantortech satellite imagery from September 11 and 19, 2026, has revealed cables strung between defensive towers constructed at the Alabuga Special Economic Zone surrounding the Shahed/Geran production facilities. The cables strung between towers serve as a passive defense against incoming cruise missiles or long-range strike drones seeking to target the drone production facilities. Drones or cruise missiles will strike the cables, causing them to detonate in the air instead of striking the production facilities directly or force aircraft to come in high and make them more vulnerable to anti aircraft defenses. More towers are still being constructed. The Iraqis used this same tactic to protect Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Research Center during the Iran/Iraq war up until the 1981 bombing of the Osirak reactor by Israel. The Institute first identified these passive defensive towers in our last update, which can be read here: https://isis-online.org/isis-reports/new-passive-defensive-construction-identified-at-the-alabuga-sez Alabuga is also working hard to construct new facilities just south of the main production complex, identified by Dnipro Osint (https://t.me/DniproOfficial/8178). The facilities cover a large area, consisting of half a dozen or more buildings, with more actively under construction. This would constitute a large expansion of the Alabuga Special Economic Zone. Some of the buildings are in the process of being buried under multiple layers of dirt and reinforced concrete in order to harden them from potential attacks.  
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
U.S. Diesel Export Ban The elimination of 1.67 million barrels per day of diesel exports will create a short-term domestic surplus which will have to then be sold at a discount thus providing short-term pricing relief for U.S. households and talking points for policy actors to claim that they are addressing a growing affordability crisis. However, once one examines such a policy approach the ill-logic of a diesel export ban is all too easy to spot: a temporary increase in supply following such an export ban will quickly turn into a supply shortage and rising prices. Because the U.S. exports it surplus production-total production is roughly 5.3 million barrels per day which is above the approximately 3.6 million barrels per day of domestic demand-once that inventory is absorbed by the domestic energy firms would then pull back on production until it reaches the new and lower equilibrium level which of course would result in lost revenues and a probable increase in industry unemployment on the back of that intervention into the marketplace. An export ban intending to increase supply results in a shortage of not just diesel but also likely gasoline as the crude that was previously dedicated to the production of diesel then needs to be sold resulting in increased exports of raw crude at higher prices. As a result a bifurcated price structure domestically that would ensue-there are multiple markets within the U.S. with the Gulf Coast seeing a lower price versus higher prices on the West Coast and prices remaining closer to the internationally set price on the East Coast-creating further uncertainty across the economy. Even with the logistics constraint-the Jones Act-which required all goods transported by water between U.S. ports to be on American owned and staffed ships-being temporarily lifted this will not eliminate the bifurcated price structure that would ensure in the aftermath of such an energy export ban. Increasing complexity within an antiquated energy infrastructure is in no one’s economic or policy interest. Second, such a ban would result in the elimination of that 1.67 million in U.S. diesel exports reducing the total global supply by just over 18%. That will send global prices higher creating conditions in which those costs will be passed along to the production of other goods which the U.S. imports. Given global supply and inflation dynamics this would result in a negative feedback loop that would result in an already deteriorating international pricing environment that would likely cause global central banks to send policy rates higher than they already are prepared to do.  
First off the nerds aren’t thinking creatively enough. Second the primary objective is to fuck the rest of the world. Price at the pump is secondary. There are clear objectives for anyone actually paying attention. Escalate Iran. Regime change. Let them destroy whatever gulf infrastructure they can get their hands on. Kill every single person in the IRGC. From the sky. Indiscriminately. Just bomb and bomb some more. Use AI and drones to target. Europe panics. Asia panics. Beg for LNG exports. Meanwhile Ukraine keeps hitting Russian energy infra. Oopsie. Incredibly confusing times for the flag in bio crowd. Hit Canada with 100% tariffs. Excludes albertan energy from said tariffs. Emergency measures to ramp VZ supply. Takes time? Who cares, good enough to justify draining SPR to zero. Mail some checks. Tax some energy companies. Mail some more checks. Win midterms. Decouple from China. This isn’t rocket science folks.
It’s been three weeks since I first published Economic Blitzkrieg so I figured it’s worth doing a quick overview of where we are and where I think we are headed: First to summarize: The thesis was Trump didn’t really care that much about tariffs. He cares about fortifying US hegemony by cutting out China. But to be more precise I’m going to fully outline what he cares about and then what he’s trying to do about each. Top of the list are his primary issues that needed to be addressed quickly & forcefully: A) Chinas growing industrial, technological and militaristic strength relative to the US B) A dependence on China at the base layer of U.S. industrial and military supply chains C) An unsustainable fiscal debt load and budget deficit that couldn’t be easily addressed without either irreparably impacting reserve status or forcing significant voter pain via austerity Less pressing but still relevant downstream issues that were also considered, in no particular order: D) Fentanyl crisis E) A free riding Europe that benefited from the U.S. security umbrella without commensurate compensation F) Growing economic entanglement between China and supposed military allies to the U.S. G) Growing unwillingness by voters around the world to take economic pain as the price of being a “good ally” as demonstrated by continued flow of Russian gas into Germany H) A concerted and accelerated shift of the Chinese economic model up the value-add ladder following the bust of their real estate bubble into areas that have traditionally been staples of higher-income economies including autos, semis and robotics I) Increased concern around the value of IP and the US’s assumed ability to control access to AI following Deepseek and the subsequent torrent of similar models out of China despite two years of GPU import restrictions J) A near term fiscal setup that seemed incredibly bleak given Yellen’s decision to short-date the govts debt in the form of $10T of maturities in 2025 while at the same time juiced fiscal spending to a degree that practically gaurentee economic malaise of the deficit were to be closed cold-turkey. So my thesis is that Trump turned to a number of high-IQ and mid-IQ advisors and asked for a plan. People such as Miran, Thiel, Pottinger, Colby, maybe Bessent… and yes maybe even obsessive single-issue types like Kyle Bass and Navarro. Who came up with the plan only mildly matters at this point… And these individuals constructed the following sweeping plan that attempts to solve everything all at once within the constraints he has. Constraints that include: midterm elections, the existing rule of law in the U.S. (loosely), high debt loads throughout the developed world and general unwillingness to “rock the boat”, an adversary who can exert far more economic pain on most countries vs the US. And most importantly, and adversary who has a defacto emperor for life while Trump has to wake up every morning and check the polls. Said another way, an adversary with a much higher pain tolerance vs either US politicians or voters. So what was the plan: Isolate China. Force countries to choose between two spheres of trade. Two spheres of military security. Two spheres of financial rails. But because of the aforementioned constraints you couldn’t just go to countries and ask them nicely to walk into an economic woodchipper… and while they were at it please run don’t walk since you have midterms coming up. So the strategy had to introduce game theory. It had to magnify the economic leverage. It had to introduce time constraints. It had to be binary. In or out. No room for ambiguity that can be undone by a subsequent government administration.
2/x So roughly it looks something like this: No country who opts into the new sphere is allowed to trade with any country that has yet to make up its mind. Until you fully renounce your trade relationship with China and also renounce trade with all countries still trading with China you couldn’t join the new sphere. Membership in the new sphere isn’t without its benefits: A) Explicit access to the U.S. security umbrella. An umbrella that might shrink meaningfully if this plan fails and the U.S. turns isolationist. B) Continued access to USD swap lines provided by the Fed but which can (under an “emergency”) be withheld by Bessent. And is likely to be weaponized going forward. This is often an under-appreciated perk by most non-finance types which most governments have also come to take for granted even as crushing dollar-denominated debt loads make this a make-or-break channel of liquidity. Remember Liz Truss? C) Access to American technology & pharmaceuticals D) But for most countries non of the above matters, all they really care about is if they have to choose between two distinct economic blocks… which is bigger and is growing faster And the answer if it is just between the U.S. vs China is almost always going to be China. So you cheat. This is where the game theory comes into play. First you use your non-economic leverage to coerce countries that really have no choice in the matter to join your block. Israel, Japan, South Korea, Philippines, Saudi, UAE, Argentina, Poland Then you incentivize the countries that you have economic leverage with who also have proximity to you or are scared of China. India, Brazil, Panama, Mexico, Indonesia, Thailand… maybe Vietnam Now you’ve formed a cohesive block economically. It’s big but a bunch of countries are still holding out. They’re still pissed. They still think this is all a fever dream. They are telling them stories about how they can just wait till midterms and it’ll all go back to normal. Wrong. This is the point where you exert leverage. Hard. All at once. Defund NATO. Abandon Ukraine. Withdraw swap lines. Cut all trade between not just the U.S. but also all the early signs ups. You embargo access to the latest AI models. You embargo access to GPUs. You withdraw or defund from the IMF, WTO, World Bank. Burn it down all at once. And you say… “choose, you have 120 days”. And we are only going to accept 7 of you 10 European holdouts. Last three are with China. And you wink at Belgium, France and Spain for good measure 😉 3/x Meanwhile as a case study you have crushed Canadas economy as a low-risk example to speed things along. Europeans saw how bad the first nine months of the newly elected Carney admin was and they didn’t like what they saw. It’s one thing to tell your voters that you did what was in their best interest economically. It’s another to also tell them that they should get used to being on the same side as Russia, North Korea and Iran. Some countries wont care. And that’s fine. The goal was never to fully isolate China. The goal was to ensure its relative economic rise slowed meaningfully. The goal was to force allies to take the pain of ripping their supply chains away from China suddenly and violently. Now as part of this process you have the opportunity to extract varying degrees of commitments as the price of admission. Some countries like Japan and Saudi are highly motivated to remain under the U.S. security umbrella. They also stand to gain economically as core suppliers of the re-industrialization of the West via shipbuilding/manufacturing equipment and energy respectively. For these allies there will be an extra ask. Commit to purchasing U.S. treasuries with a 30+ duration and also provide a persistent bid to the existing treasury markets at a sub 3% yield. Outsourced yield curve control. Doesn’t have to be overwhelming. Because changes to the SLR and changes to who’s Fed chair are coming….just enough to cap rates and provide the air cover needed to convince congress it can massively stimulate to ease the pain of breaking up with China. That they’ll bribe voters into midterms by abolishing income taxes ensuring repubs stay in power for a couple cycles is all the explanation you need for most of congress. Notice I haven’t mentioned trade deficits. Because they don’t matter. No one who is economically literate things trade deficits for the global reserve currency with a highly service oriented economy was ever going to take deficits to zero. Lower sure. Not zero. And that’s fine. 4/n Ok so what are some of the benefits to this plan. First off you are giving China the benefit of the doubt and assuming they can tolerate far more pain than you can. Which is why the entire premise is to ignore China and hope they remain cool calm and collected. Because every day that they don’t panic and are focused on making fun of Trump is another day that they are not scrambling to organize counter-blocks. This is why Trump couldn’t communicate publicly ahead of time or even within his own cabinet. There’s a good chance Musk was completely left in the dark. Remember he spent years of his life ramping Tesla and he’s about to lose one of its biggest market and manufacturing facility. There is also a reason why every report about what the initial trade negotiations are like is so vague. You can’t tell Europe what you’re going to ask them to so early. The longer you wait the less time they have to organize multilaterally. But let’s take a step back for a second. Because obviously this is an incredibly risky plan. At the very least you are torching massive amounts of US soft power and goodwill and very possibly going to cause Xi to do some desperate shit if the plan works - including potentially invading Taiwan or causing rolling blackouts and general mayhem via cyberattacks. But you have to remember from the perspective of MAGA this is all much lower risk. Because if this completely fails where are we? The US is the least trade dependent developed country on earth. We could pretty much lock in Canada and Mexico and rebuild a bunch of semiconductor fabs and be Gucci. We’d give up all the military bases and tell NATO/ASEAN to fuck off. We’d erect massive tariff walls against everyone and default on our external debt or do some shady version of YCC that forces future governments to have to keep balanced budgets. We would be cut off from China because regardless of how this goes everyone on both sides of Washington is still a China hawk. Except instead of relying on a sphere with allies like Japan and Korea building our ships we’d be forced to do it ourselves. And the rest of the world? Global depression. China has a massive amount of supply capacity and nowhere for it to go. Meanwhile Europe has to replicate the American security umbrella and probably has to go crawling to China to get any sort of meaningfully mass of fighters within a five year time frame… except China is Russias partner so that’s a no go. And the U.S. would take forever. So what do they do? Go to Moscow and kiss the ring? Spend trillions on defense a year? Thats not nearly enough to replicate US ISR or air dominance vs Russia. Rheinmetall couldn’t pull it off with ten years and ten trillion. Meanwhile JP/SK are counting the days before China/DPRK get their revenge. Everyone is scared. Everyone is depressed. Meanwhile the U.S. has 10% inflation for a year or two followed by 5% or so after but whatever. We stealth default on debt and move on. Worse things have happened. Focus on robotics and AI. |
Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Daily Ukraine map thread for Wednesday 23rd September 2026 A year of war, tens of thousands of Russian casualties, and a town Russia has already claimed to have conquered, and yet Kostyantynivka still stands. Today, more than 150 new geolocations courtesy of @AudaxonX help illuminate the ongoing fight. Russian forces continue to infiltrate their way beyond the town, probing into Oleksijevo-Druzhkivka, Izhevka, Virolyubivka and elsewhere. Yet Kostyantynivka itself remains contested. It is now roughly a year since the battle for this pre-war town of some 67,000 people began. Russia has managed to spend more lives than the town had inhabitants in its attempt to take it. This, naturally, did not prevent the Russian military from informing Putin in early July that the town had already been captured, and here we are, going into October now. Key geolocations follow: 
 
 
   
 
 
 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Today, Parliament has definitively approved the nuclear energy law. After nearly forty years, Italy returns to having a regulatory framework for producing nuclear energy. A courageous and sensible choice. Today we import electricity produced by nuclear power plants in neighboring countries, but we cannot produce it ourselves. This law serves to change things. What it means for families and businesses: • Greater energy security: less dependence on abroad and less exposure to international crises that we've paid for in our bills. • Stable and low-emission energy, which works alongside all the others, starting with renewables. • A concrete response to the growing demand for electricity from data centers and artificial intelligence. We're talking about next-generation technologies, not old power plants. Now the Government will write the implementing regulations on safety, authorizations, waste management, and relations with local communities. It was a commitment made to Italians. Another commitment we've kept 🇮🇹 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Rodion Kudryashov, a Ukrainian colonel and deputy commander of the Third Army Corps, has written what I consider an extremely important column examining some of the lessons of the Vivaldi offensive operation. I put together a summary of the key points: • In war, it is assault troops — infantry — who actually retake territory, but the conditions that make this possible are created long before they take their first step forward. • An offensive does not begin when the infantry receives the order to advance. It begins much earlier: with headquarters, commanders, personnel training, logistics, intelligence, unmanned systems, sustainment, and dozens of decisions, most of which never make the news. • The Third Army Corps spent more than six months preparing for Operation Vivaldi. When the corps assumed responsibility for the sector, its first task was to stop the deterioration of the situation and stabilize the forward line. • You cannot plan a complex operation if you do not know where your front line will be tomorrow. In such a situation, logistics remain under constant threat, while assembling a strike force becomes extremely difficult. • A commander must be responsible for the entire cycle — from preparing the individual soldier to achieving results on the battlefield. • A modern commander must process an enormous flow of information, make decisions quickly, understand the capabilities of systems, logistics, intelligence, and adjacent units, while at the same time avoiding the suppression of initiative at lower levels. • An army in which every decision spends hours moving up and down the chain of command will lose to an army that can complete the same process in minutes. • Russia has more manpower, more resources, and a significantly larger industrial base. That means a “unit versus unit” model cannot serve as a long-term strategy for Ukraine. Every unit of Ukrainian resources must produce a greater effect. • Everything cannot be reduced to technology: even ten thousand drones will not create an advantage by themselves if there is no effective command-and-control system behind them. • If a junior commander sees the situation changing but has to go through five levels of approval before reacting, the enemy may simply be faster. Sometimes a few minutes matter far more than one additional piece of equipment. • Flexible command is not just a nice phrase from a military textbook. It can be measured very simply: how much time passes between the emergence of a problem and its solution. • The corps invested not only in equipment, but also in NCOs, officers, staff training, lessons learned, intelligence organization, and planning. • The corps began retaking territory and conducting offensive operations after it learned how to win time — the time between identifying a problem and deciding on a solution, between the decision and the action, and between detecting a target and striking it. • What matters is the system and the command culture: competence must matter more than formal seniority; a strong NCO corps is essential; headquarters must be capable of planning rather than merely transmitting orders; technology must be integrated into a unified system; and logistics must be planned as part of the battle rather than treated as a supporting function. • Most importantly, the goal is to create an environment in which, after every successful or unsuccessful action, one simple question is asked: what can we learn from this today that will make the entire system stronger tomorrow? • Winning one battle is not the same as winning the war. The enemy is also learning, changing its tactics, looking for weaknesses, and trying to scale whatever works. • The colonel ends with a reminder that “Vivaldi” has four seasons. So far, only part of this composition has been heard publicly. The task is to make sure that after Ukraine’s “Vivaldi,” the Russian army increasingly hears Mozart’s “Requiem.” https://pravda.com.ua/columns/2026/09/23/8054746/ 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros
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Sculpture of a Ukrainian boy crying at the border wins carving championship in London The sculpture's author is Transcarpathian Mykola Hlyba The man donated the cash prize to purchase bulletproof vests, phones, solar power stations, first-aid kits, and dry rations for Ukrainian warriors 
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Baldassare Castiglione
https://t.me/arfcom_ukebros