Image is from this CNN article.
The DPRK’s history has been a rollercoaster, with admirable highs and heartbreaking lows, most notably the Korean War and the fall of the USSR. Its steadfast commitment to Juche, a variant of Marxism-Leninism that focuses on self-sufficiency, has both made the DPRK a target for imperialist genocidal powers, and allowed them to survive these attacks.
Lately, we seem to be seeing a transition from surviving to thriving. China and the DPRK have always had a much more complicated history than Western education and media allows its population to know, with periods of quite strong disagreement - it’s not the case that China is somehow the DPRK’s master. Russia is the DPRK’s other neighour that isn’t US-occupied, and while they obviously differ substantially in ideology since the USSR fell, the tsunami of sanctions on Russia has changed things. The stick has been removed from the equation, with Russia facing no possible punishment from the West because they were unable to enact sanctions effectively and used all their ammunition in the first few barrages rather than turning the screws over time (I don’t care if we’re on the 14th sanctions package, it’s all been meaningless for Russia since the end of 2022).
The carrot is also more visible, with an alliance making a lot of sense for both. Once again, Western education and media would have you believe a Parenti-esque reality in which Korea is a massive and unpredictable danger to the world, but is simultaneously so poor and destitute that their artillery pieces are made of wood and their missiles out of paper-mache. The truth is that Korea has innovated greatly in missile technology, with some of their weapons matching or even exceeding those of the Russians, hence the Russians’ use of them in Ukraine. Russia also finds it advantageous to invest in Korea to strengthen the anti-hegemonic alliance’s presence in the Pacific, countering the US-occupied lower half of the peninsula who has naturally sided with Ukraine. Additionally, Russia is investing deeply in the Arctic sea route. This will open up as climate change continues; is naturally quite defensible for Russia so long as Korea is there to provide further defense at its eastern edge; and is both a faster and safer route for Russia to access China - especially in a world where straits can be blockaded by even impoverished yet determined countries like Yemen. The situation in the Red Sea benefits Russia and China now, but in the coming years, the US may apply the same lesson for their own benefit elsewhere.
It is perhaps this new sense of self-confidence that has let Korea give up on reunification with its lower half via peaceful measures. A new Korean War would be devastating for both sides even if it remained non-nuclear, but with a rising DPRK and with the South falling yet further into hypercapitalist exploitation and misery, and a US that remains non-committal to its “allies” when times get difficult (as in Ukraine and Europe), a reality where Korea may finally hold the upper hand and have the ability to liberate its south may be approaching in the years and decades to come.
The COTW (Country of the Week) label is designed to spur discussion and debate about a specific country every week in order to help the community gain greater understanding of the domestic situation of often-understudied nations. If you’ve wanted to talk about the country or share your experiences, but have never found a relevant place to do so, now is your chance! However, don’t worry - this is still a general news megathread where you can post about ongoing events from any country.
The Country of the Week is *the DPRK! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
Please check out the HexAtlas!
The bulletins site is here!
The RSS feed is here.
Last week’s thread is here.
Israel-Palestine Conflict
Sources on the fighting in Palestine against Israel. In general, CW for footage of battles, explosions, dead people, and so on:
UNRWA daily-ish reports on Israel’s destruction and siege of Gaza and the West Bank.
English-language Palestinian Marxist-Leninist twitter account. Alt here.
English-language twitter account that collates news (and has automated posting when the person running it goes to sleep).
Arab-language twitter account with videos and images of fighting.
English-language (with some Arab retweets) Twitter account based in Lebanon. - Telegram is @IbnRiad.
English-language Palestinian Twitter account which reports on news from the Resistance Axis. - Telegram is @EyesOnSouth.
English-language Twitter account in the same group as the previous two. - Telegram here.
English-language PalestineResist telegram channel.
More telegram channels here for those interested.
Various sources that are covering the Ukraine conflict are also covering the one in Palestine, like Rybar.
Russia-Ukraine Conflict
Examples of Ukrainian Nazis and fascists
Examples of racism/euro-centrism during the Russia-Ukraine conflict
Sources:
Defense Politics Asia’s youtube channel and their map. Their youtube channel has substantially diminished in quality but the map is still useful.
Moon of Alabama, which tends to have interesting analysis. Avoid the comment section.
Understanding War and the Saker: reactionary sources that have occasional insights on the war.
Alexander Mercouris, who does daily videos on the conflict. While he is a reactionary and surrounds himself with likeminded people, his daily update videos are relatively brainworm-free and good if you don’t want to follow Russian telegram channels to get news. He also co-hosts The Duran, which is more explicitly conservative, racist, sexist, transphobic, anti-communist, etc when guests are invited on, but is just about tolerable when it’s just the two of them if you want a little more analysis.
On the ground: Patrick Lancaster, an independent and very good journalist reporting in the warzone on the separatists’ side.
Unedited videos of Russian/Ukrainian press conferences and speeches.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
https://t.me/aleksandr_skif ~ DPR’s former Defense Minister and Colonel in the DPR’s forces. Russian language.
https://t.me/Slavyangrad ~ A few different pro-Russian people gather frequent content for this channel (~100 posts per day), some socialist, but all socially reactionary. If you can only tolerate using one Russian telegram channel, I would recommend this one.
https://t.me/s/levigodman ~ Does daily update posts.
https://t.me/patricklancasternewstoday ~ Patrick Lancaster’s telegram channel.
https://t.me/gonzowarr ~ A big Russian commentator.
https://t.me/rybar ~ One of, if not the, biggest Russian telegram channels focussing on the war out there. Actually quite balanced, maybe even pessimistic about Russia. Produces interesting and useful maps.
https://t.me/epoddubny ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/boris_rozhin ~ Russian language.
https://t.me/mod_russia_en ~ Russian Ministry of Defense. Does daily, if rather bland updates on the number of Ukrainians killed, etc. The figures appear to be approximately accurate; if you want, reduce all numbers by 25% as a ‘propaganda tax’, if you don’t believe them. Does not cover everything, for obvious reasons, and virtually never details Russian losses.
https://t.me/UkraineHumanRightsAbuses ~ Pro-Russian, documents abuses that Ukraine commits.
Pro-Ukraine Telegram Channels:
Almost every Western media outlet.
https://discord.gg/projectowl ~ Pro-Ukrainian OSINT Discord.
https://t.me/ice_inii ~ Alleged Ukrainian account with a rather cynical take on the entire thing.
With dollar hegemony, the US is still king and there is nothing we can do about it. Pay attention to the BRICS summit this August and see what do they come up with the de-dollarization plan this time. I sincerely hope I will not be disappointed for the third time.
Yes it’s king, but it’s also poisoning the competitiveness of US industrial firms along with all the structural maladies in the US that we can afford not to address because of the surplus extracted by our financial hegemony. The fact that we’re at the point where fiscal expansion is causing inflation despite the strong global role of the dollar, points to a terminal phase of the particular kind of dutch disease the US suffers from. Attempts to fix US industrial competitiveness are just pissing into the wind in this environment. US industry won’t revive until after its financial and monetary hegemony has collapsed. A smart US leadership would use its existing power to rebuild the foundations for competitiveness on a more level playing field, but US state capacity has atrophied. All they can do is funnel money to politically-connected oligarchs and placate industrial capital with half-measures. The current state of affairs suits China, and therefore BRICS quite well. They will continue to develop under current circumstances until they’re ready to move decisively against US interests, or until the US preempts this by starting a war early. Either way the US will lose, the only question is how destructive the conflict will be.
There is always one way, and that way is war. If dollar hegemony is contingent on the existence of the dollar, and the dollar is contingent on the existence of the US, then to destroy dollar hegemony, the US must be destroyed. There are at least two countries with this capacity, albeit with political leadership that is completely unwilling to cross the Rubicon for good reason. But as the US’s industrial capacity gets weaker and weaker, more and more countries will close the gap in terms of military capability, and not all of those country’s political leadership will be as cautious and timid. Some of those countries will have political leadership who will do the calculus and come to the conclusion, whether accurately or not, that either the US is a military paper tiger and they can finally strike or they have absolutely nothing to lose due to US dollar hegemony and if they’re going down, they’re going to take the US with them.
This, I suspect, is what will ultimately trigger a potential WWIII.
Let me save you the disappointment: they’re not going to be coming up with any substantial plan for de-dollarization. Even if they did, it would take decades to negotiate the terms between their members.
Dollar inflation has me thinking we’re at the end of dollar supremacy. The instant the BRICS make a plan the value of a dollar might crater.
The dollar is not going to crash. There has been a strange convergence of certain Bitcoiners, goldbugs and anti-imperialists who seem to believe that either of these is going to subvert the dollar hegemony, but it’s mostly bunk.
As long as there is still a strong demand for dollar (which I remind you is not just trade, but as a investment and savings currency) the dollar will be king for a long time.
The only way to de-dollarize is to make sure you have an entirely different financial structure that is independent of the dollar system (think, like the USSR, but better) so that countries can default their dollar debt and won’t find themselves in deep trouble because they suddenly cannot import fuel and food.
I strongly recommend Michael Hudson’s Super-imperialism is you really want to understand the nitty gritty of how dollar supremacy works.
Inflation literally is demand for dollars falling. That’s actually happening. The strong demand for dollars has declined and that can continue.
If the BRICS strike while the iron is hot they could do serious damage. Don’t dismiss this.
it doesn’t matter with third currency or whatever they do, its structural problem of dollar circulation and high import imbalance - you cannot shovel 1 trillion worth of products for 1 trillion worth of treasuries on which you pay 5 (even with 2 percent math would break after 50 years) for longer than some definable period of time (it started in roughly 2000). Bleeding europe doesn’t seem to help with energy, its like 50 bil. Transfering production will float maybe 200 billion more, its still dogshit.
It doesn’t work without completely cutting off china from competition (and i mean completely, even fuller capitalist restoration won’t help here). Maybe doing india or africa as a replacement labor force, but here there are internal issues for both + climate change