Global War Update

Phew, there's a lot happening. Let us touch base.

Dec 23, 2023

Red Sea Crisis Heats Up

US Navy launches Operation Prosperity Guardian in response to Houthi attacks on ships in the Red Sea. The Houthis, officially known as Ansar Allah, launched it in response to Israel attacks on Gaza.

Operation Prosperity Guardian

The Operation, aiming to supposedly escort ships under attack, consists of 10 nations’ ships: United States, United Kingdom, Bahrain, Canada, France, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Seychelles and Spain. Technically, it also includes Australia, however they’ve only sent personnel, not ships.

It is mildly curious why Israel aren’t protecting their own backwaters with their own navy, this is despite the fact port Eliat has seen an 80% drop in revenue. Apparently Houthi attacks on Israeli shipping don’t bother them and it’s for other nations to worry about.

Well, Seychelles could defeat Preston. Maybe.

Seychelles is a particularly laughable edition, being a French Republic based on an island; the island only boasts a population of about 100,600. It is smaller than 84 UK cities taken individually.

Seychelles boasts at least 4 patrol boats, and at least one ship with a gun on it. They even have a rubber dinghy!

Bahrain is also unimpressive, having roughly 38 naval ships (not counting the 10 landing vessels for 48). 38 might sound impressive, until you find out the majority of these vessels are patrol ships with no real anti-aircraft firepower.

The only ships of note from Bahrain’s fleet are the Al Manama-class corvette (of which they own two) and the Oliver Hazard Perry-class guided missile frigate (above) from the 1980s (of which they also own two).

Essentially, Bahrain and Seychelles are only there to give this the thin veneer this isn’t yet another globalist excursion into Middle Eastern waters (despite how blatantly globalist Seychelles are). Maybe the Somalian pirates can help out? They’ve got some dinghies too.

The UK navy vessels have their own issues as well. The Telegraph reported that the type 45 destroyers have unreliable engines that could ‘trip out’ at inconvenient times. Only the Dauntless has seen the fix, not the Diamond (presently in the Red Sea).

The Washington Examiner in an opinion piece believes the US and UK are planning to strike the Houthis:

Red Sea Traffic Is Diverted

Houthis have managed to hit at least 2 oil tankers causing shipping firms Maersk and BP to divert. Another ship was temporarily seized in the Gulf of Aden, near Yemen and the Red Sea.

Most shipping vessels are avoiding the Red Sea, and have demanded ‘war risk’ insurance coverage before they dare go anywhere near, resulting in the reduction of shipping, turning into ‘round the African Cape detours much like the Seuz canal crisis previously. They’re even considering the use of air freight.

$80 billion in shipping has already been diverted away from the Red Sea.

Axios has mapped the attacks between Nov 19th to 18th Dec:

Despite all the impressive backup dinghies, Iran also claims to have chased at least one US warship out of Iranian (‘Persian’) waters.

Pentagon Can’t Afford To Go To War With Houthis

The Pentagon’s super-duper missiles are too expensive to fire at cheaply manufactured drones.

This was predicted humourously in the comic “freefall” by Mark Stanley back in 2000, where the computer refuses to launch missiles because they’re more expensive than the ship they’re targeting.

Author: Mark Stanley of freefall comics.

Even knowing this, the US and UK claim to have shot down 14 Houthi drones, one of which was reportedly destroyed by a Sea Viper. The Telegraph reported the Sea Viper missiles can’t shoot down ballistic missiles, so there’s that flaw as well.

One Royal Navy news analysis estimates the Sea Viper missile (‘Aster missile’) costs between £1-2 million per launch.

Missile Defense Advocacy has a complete breakdown of missile costs for various missile defence systems, and earmarks the ‘Aster 30 (SAMP-T)’ as costing $2 million (~£1.5 million):

It isn’t clear if this specific missile was used, but it does show it is cost prohibitive, with taxpayers footing the bill.

In contrast, Russian drones are built in the cheapest ways imaginable. In one instance, a reverse-engineered Orlan-10 (a type of spotter drone) was found to literally contain a Canon camera and a plastic bottle as a fuel container. The Orlan-30 also contains a plastic bottle and is rumoured to have essentially a lawnmower engine.

In response to these drones, Ukraine is desperately trying to engineer cheap ways of detecting them, usually via radio frequency detection of the drone’s wireless communications. Raytheon are working on antennas for directed microwave energy weapons targeted at drones, with an estimated deployment date 2024-2025.

Talking of Russia…

Russia Drafts 1.5 Million Russians

Reported by Intel Slava Z, military officer Sergei Shoigu has declared they will increase the Russian Armed Forces by 1.5 million military personnel.

This is likely due to the fact…

Ukraine Is Doing Badly

Russia believes there have been over 383,000 Ukrainian casualties, so it seems like they sense an opportunity to push back. The Washington Post has gone so far to conveniently scrub their Ukraine war section, likely so they don’t have to report the losses of Ukraine.

In response, Ukraine has opted to legalise drugs so the soldiers can cope. We’re not even kidding, that’s literally the headline.

Ukraine has admitted it is dealing with a manpower shortage and is looking to mobilise between 450,000 to 500,000. To facilitate this, Ukraine are recruiting men under the age of 27.

It was reported Congress left Ukraine hanging financially, with Ukraine recently signing debt suspension agreements.

In response, the EU plans to give Ukraine 300 billion Euro in seized Russian assets, which might explain why Russia has seized billion dollar German stakes in Russian natural gas ventures.

Zelensky has insisted Ukraine is not losing, however, an ammo shortage plagues the ranks forcing them to cut back missions. The Germans asked the French(!) to produce 155mm ammo for Ukraine, a meagre 68,000 rounds. Estonia similarly committed to supply ‘long-term’ military aid to Ukraine, but they spent even less than Germany, $87.5 million dollars.

Slovakia have purportedly said they will block Ukraine’s entry into NATO to avoid WW3.

Despite all this, Rolls Royce thinks now is the time to build mini-nuclear plants in Ukraine, for some reason. Russia are mulling a uranium export ban.

Israel-Gaza War

Saudis Reject Ties With Israel

The classically pro-Israel New York Times reported that the Saudis overwhelmingly opposed ties with Israel (96%), a poll conducted by Washington Institute for Near Eastern Affairs.

Strangely, despite the sheer number of civilian casualties — an estimated 570,000 are starving in Gaza, with children experiencing a drinking water shortage, 43,000 buildings destroyed and one Israeli commander saying he would flatten the Gaza strip — 91% of the Saudis seem to think the war is a win for Gaza. We hate to imagine what constitutes a loss.

Reported Withdrawals

This may be what’s making the Saudis consider it a win.

Intel Slava Z have claimed the Golani Brigade have withdrawn from the Gaza strip due to heavy casualties, however it is difficult to verify these reports.

Purportedly Hamas claims to have captured a formerly Israeli position:

Hamas have, unsurprisingly, rejected a truce deal in exchange for hostages.

Israel Is losing International Support

Even American articles are asking the question if it is time to rethink support for Israel, as a chasm in support correlated with age starts to form. Questions have been asked of US Congressmen, who can’t seem to answer the question of why Israel would finance Hamas.

It doesn’t help rabid American news outlets try to paint even doctors as secret terrorist sympathisers. Doctors aren’t meant to air political views; they’re supposed to save lives, especially international organisations who have to navigate the landmines of political hostility.

Then there’s the issue the IDF keep oddly killing their own civilians, which is even causing Arabic news outlets concern. The IDF had to remind their own troops not to shoot Hebrew speaking shirtless people waving surrender flags, which is a bizarre thing to have to report in a sentence. The IDF commander’s suggestion? Take two seconds before firing.

Footage was recently confirmed Israel fired (explosive?) tank shells for some reason into a hostage situation (also independently admitted by an IDF tank gunner), a practice oddly defended by supporters who accuse those raising the spectre of the murder of Israeli citizens by such reckless actions as being bizarrely ‘antisemitic’ and full of ‘Jew hatred’. Que?

Personal insults apparently justify the killing of Israeli citizens.

When asked for comment as to why he engaged in such unusual amounts of vitrol, Josh Guetzkow weirdly mirrored and said: “I will be featuring your unusual amounts of stupidity in an an upcoming article”, asking for comment.

The Daily Beagle’s response:

Yes: do you have a response that isn't a personal attack, and do you consider personal attacks to be a show of journalistic integrity?

The Daily Beagle also added we’d call out the omission of our comment if that were to occur. Apparently being opposed to the deaths of Israeli citizens is ‘antisemtic’. Somehow.

Even criticisms of Palestinian citizens being killed are experiencing online attacks; one Twitter self-reported non-partisan account is dedicated to opposing such verbal attacks online.

This is the same Israeli government after all that forced the harmful COVID-19 shots on the Israeli public, including shots known to contain harmful DNA and transfection agents, so Israeli wellbeing does not appear to be on the forefront of their minds.

For contrast on the tank-shell situation, when gunmen took hostages at the Iranian embassy in Britain, the British government sent in the SAS (‘Special Air Service’) using precision tactics to successfully rescue hostages with no civilian casualties.

So criticisms of using explosive tank shells in a hostage situation is warranted (the buildings were also owned by the Israeli citizens inside, so even if they somehow survived, they’d be homeless facing huge financial costs).

Why would someone criticising the Israeli government for killing Israeli citizens be a ‘Jew hater’? Apparently the State and/or nation takes greater precedence than the lives of Israeli citizens, leading to criticism and loss of support of Israel even amongst Jewish people. Quelle surprise, Jewish people object to being killed even if it’s by their own government!

Warzone Beachfront Properties

The public also took offence to an Israel firm tastelessly superimposing beachfront properties next to blown out buildings where no doubt war dead reside:

"War Is A Racket"
— Smedley D. Butler, Former United States Marine Corps Major General

The China Situation

The US and China held ‘high level military talks’, although these don’t ever seem to achieve anything. Separately, warhawk Graham Lindsay (not that other US politicians aren’t warhawks) lost his rag over the idea China were planning to reunify with Taiwan soon.

China has banned the export of processing technology for rare earth materials, likely in retaliation to the US own trade bans. They also intend to maintain military pressure on the Phillippines.

One Chinese LNG (Liquid Natural Gas) company has asked to be exempted from US sanctions.

China are also weirdly trying to disguise missiles as civilian planes as part of military research, having missiles look like Boeing 737s on radar screens.

Venezuela

Venezuela has ordered an immediate oil drilling in the disputed territory of the Essequibo region, an area belonging reportedly to Guyana.

Oh and for some reason two “former” US green berets were in Venezuela, and have been freed as part of a deal between the US and Venezuela.

Other Things Of Note

These don’t fit neatly but are worth considering in the wider context.

Haiti’s Assassination

A former Columbian soldier Mario Antonio Palacios Palacios has plead guilty to assassinating the Haiti president Jovenel Moïse back in 2021. He was one of five out of eleven defendants to plead guilty.

Department of Defense Retroactively Assess COVID-19 Shots

Safety studies, what safety studies? The DOD wants to determine retroactively if the COVID-19 shots hurt or helped US troops. This might have something to do with the claim…