Image is of General Abdourahamane Tiani, leader of Niger (left) and Ibrahim Traoré, leader of Burkina Faso (right).
The Alliance of Sahel States (ASS) formed on September 16th in the wake of the coup in Niger in late July, in which Niger, Mali, and Burkina Faso created a military and increasingly economic alliance in which attacking one would result in the other two joining. This was initially most relevant militarily, as ECOWAS was threatening an invasion of Niger if they did not restore civilian rule. Nonetheless, due to a mixture of a lack of real strength in ECOWAS due to Nigeria’s internal problems, and the influence of Algeria, a very strong regional military power who negotiated against a war which could further destabilise an already destabilised region, and the vague promises of future civilian rule, the external military threat seems to have mostly dissipated.
However, internal threats remain. Burkina Faso is fighting against ISIS and al-Qaeda, which commit regular massacres of civilians; the government controls only 60% of the country. In Mali, the government is fighting against similar groups as well as the Tuareg, which inhabit the more sparsely populated north of the country - the government is in the process of kicking out the UN mission to Mali, and in the process retaking rebel stronghold cities like Kidal, which is raising some eyebrows as to what exactly the UN was doing all this time; and Niger is fighting against similar Islamic groups too, and is kicking out the French for being exploitative motherfuckers. Combine this with the sanctions against Niger which are crippling the country, disease outbreaks in Burkina Faso, and just the general shitty state of the world economy, and the situation is not looking very good currently.
That all being said, economy and trade ministers from all three countries have met this past weekend in Bamako, the capital of Mali. There, they recommended that the countries: improve the free movement of people inside the ASS (don’t laugh!); construct and strengthen infrastructure like dams and roads; construct a food safety system; establish a stabilization fund and investment bank; and even create a common airline. This is all attracting foreign attention too - Russia has signed a deal to build Africa’s largest gold refinery in Mali, and China is the second largest investor into Niger after France, ploughing money into the gold and uranium industries there. And, of course, the Wagner group is in the region - though I’m unsure if they’re having a major or minor impact on events there.
The weekly update is here on the website.
Your Monday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Tuesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Wednesday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
Your Thursday Briefing is here in the comments and here on the website.
The Country of the Week is Burkina Faso! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail 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. Again, CW for anti-LGBT and racist, sexist, etc speech, as well as combat footage.
Pro-Russian Telegram Channels:
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.
Of course there is a history that explains why that is the case, but the fact that it is Russia and China bringing Pakistan into BRICS feels like more than a foreign policy failure on India’s part. It feels like a raison d’etre failure overall. It’s like if Brazil and Argentina still pretended to be rivals anywhere outside of a football stadium. That is not to say that Pakistan is an easy neighbor to have, but by God these indian nationalist channels online are so hysterical about muslims. It feels like a dead end for India, which is an ‘union of states’.
I wouldn’t be surprised if India just ups and leaves BRICS at some point in the 2020s, or is somehow pressured out. Modi and his party doesn’t seem like he’ll be out of office any time soon, barring any catastrophic fuckups. But I guess that’s kind of a problem with the concept - sure, Russia and China are “true believers” in the project and will remain so for the foreseeable future, but Brazil and South Africa are vulnerable to dramatically changing political swings.
Unless BRICS becomes a concrete economic project with major benefits to its members instead of essentially an annual Cool Kid’s Club with a small bank on the side, then it’s totally plausible for a Bolsonaro-esque figure to step in, in several of the countries that are already in, are joining next year, or plan on joining in the future, and going: “Nope, we aren’t actually interested in BRICS membership, it doesn’t do much for us ultimately when we could be friends with the US instead!” And then the US promptly betrays and/or vassalizes them, but the damage will be done already. I mean, this is literally what is happening right now with Argentina.
On the other hand, if BRICS does become a concrete economic project with major benefits, then that only increases the pressure by Western imperialists and intelligence services on member states to destabilise them such that they can’t create a consistent threat to US hegemony. China and Russia are probably pretty safe, but can, I don’t know, Ethiopia resist that kind of pressure when they join? Egypt?
Either way, the future of BRICS is fraught with danger. It’s a problem if they do nothing, and it’s a problem if they do a lot.
I think the point is that Brazil and South Africa are so intricately tied to China and Russia that it shouldn’t matter what kind of political swing happens? At this point, China is gradually increasing the usage of the RMB in global trade, likely with the intention of “boiling the frog” of the America-centric economic system. Switching from the USD to BRICS might be challenging, but from RMB? Much easier.
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If BRICS has no future plan to delink and de dollarise, I kinda do not see the point. To challenge US hegemony and truly create a multipolar world, those two conditions have to occur at some point. Otherwise, it’s back to square one and BRICS is stuck playing in the field of post-neoliberal capitalist ideology.
But these are long term things, there is no “de dollarise and delink now!” big red button to press. And China has been the most successful country in delinking and actually having a sovereign project in the 21st century. So there is still plenty of hope for multipolarity. I’ll finish with some humor from Samir Amin, since all I do lately is quote him lol:
as a Texan I believe this to be in serious doubt
Is the ending of becoming wandering bandits led by a Republican president into self immolation more accurate?
Absolutely, that part reads as a true prediction to me
Bringing in Pakistan is kind of bad. Right now it’s an American controlled military Junta with a failed economy. Unless Imran Khan comes back to power and the military is suppressed, Pakistan is over.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/indias-brics-quandary-deepens/