A new week, a new news thread to see how much engagement it gets. We plan on continuing these threads for a little while to see how much engagement we get from them.
Rules: include sources in (at least) every top-level comment (unless it’s a comment asking for sources), and don’t post clearly fake stories
The US put a Nuclear Armed Sub at the Illegally occupied base and torture centure that both Cuba and the UN keep asking it to leave
China, ASEAN reaffirm commitment to advance comprehensive strategic partnership
The ASEAN parties thanked China for supporting ASEAN centrality and community building. They appreciated China for taking the lead in expressing willingness to sign the Protocol to the Treaty on the Southeast Asia Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone.
In addition, they looked forward to seeing the ASEAN-China comprehensive strategic partnership advance to a new level and make new achievements.
The meeting adopted a joint statement on the 20th anniversary of China’s accession to the TAC and a guideline document for expediting the conclusion of the Code of Conduct in the South China Sea.
I wonder if any North Atlantic commentators even knows anything about ASEAN centrality, ZOPFAN, or tanah air diplomacy that guides Nusantara sea policies.
Biden admits ukraine is running out of ammo in order to defend sending cluster munitions.
I find this important because, if we accept this as true, it implies that nato can’t for whatever reason send non-cluster ammunition.
The hollowing out of industry and the rampant corruption within the MIC rendering the west unable to ramp up production means that it’s very possible that Soviet stockpiles could be the deciding factor in the war.
Source: https://www.businessinsider.com/biden-sending-ukraine-cluster-bombs-running-out-ammo-2023-7
Edit: here is a comment stolen from the MoA Ukraine thread that poses a convincing alternative take:
wall of text
My take on the cluster munitions:
The Obama Admin stopped ALL testing of the many variants early in his first term. Due to international treaties was the claim.
No test range was allowed to authorize their use, and no one in charge of munitions storage was allowed to ship them anywhere.
Even the training rounds (flash-bang, not real explosives with shrapnel) were restricted for a time, then handed out in very small supplies.
The upshot of all this?
No one knows how reliable the stockpile really is.
Stockpile reliability requires using a small percentage each year from various production lots to validate that aging munitions still work. And that is done with items stored in munitions bunkers, not ones that have been lugged around in the real world.
Missing 8 years or more of testing means the required functionality can’t be guaranteed. Not just of the submunition, but of the fuze and the main charge itself.
In essence, the Ukraine will be using a very questionable stock of risky munitions. The worst case scenario for a fuze failure is an immediate function, meaning while inside the launch tube. A very traumatic experience for the user. The other non-function case means the projectile simply splatters against the ground without the air burst. More likely would be an incorrect altitude, too high or too low. Too high means a very large spread, too low means a small spread, and very low would cause most submunitions to not have enough airflow to active their rip cord and hence fuze set.
With the past supplying of outdated Stingers and Javelins, my guess is that “passing the trash” for avoiding more de-milling problems is as much a reason for the supply as them really making an difference in the Ukraine.
On a side note, the headlines this week are that the last of the US chemical weapons stockpiles destruction is nearing the end. I don’t think any have been made since the 50’s.
The US is saving money by getting rid of all their old shit, and they’re using it to establish a war debt that allows them to own Ukraine. They’re also getting a massive die off of MAMs in Ukraine, so the country is effectively a vassal at this point. They’ll keep doing this to weaken Russia and to gather more and more intelligence on Russian capabilities. The assumption being that the US needs to know what Russian capabilities are in order to beat them in a larger-scale conflict.
We should expect the US to extend the current conflicts for long after they have gathered sufficient intelligence because they need to get inside the Russian OODA loop using the Intel they’re gathering. Once they have enough points of attack, they’ll establish a new vector that Russia will have to react to on a cadence that will stretch the known Russian capabilities, plus an estimated margin, to the breaking point.
This may have already been attempted with some of the agitation we saw in countries neighboring Russia, in Iran, and with the Wagner event. Hopefully the US made their attempt already and failed. But it’s still possible that they have not yet even begun to fight.
