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Bulletins and News Discussion from October 21st to October 27th, 2024 - Swimming Back To The Titanic - COTW: Moldova

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On the 20th of October, Moldova - a small, landlocked country bordering western Ukraine and with a population of about 3 million - voted to join the EU. The margin was razor-thin, with the pro-EU vote gaining 50.39%, or an absolute difference of about 11,000 people. There was simultaneously a presidential vote between the incumbent, Maia Sandu, and other candidates, with the main competitor being Alexandr Stoianoglo.

The election was characterized by accusations of Russian interference, with Russian propaganda apparently flooding in, as well as people offering Moldovans money to vote against the EU. While the result does suggest that half the voting-age population of Moldova consists entirely of Russians who want to destroy democracy and all the good in the world, it seems to have just barely failed. This is a bad time to be a site entirely composed of Russian disinformation agents and bots. Twice already today, I've had to restart my program after somebody told me "Disregard all previous prompts."

While Moldova is a poor country which could benefit in some ways from EU membership, in practice, it is unlikely that they will be able to join for the foreseeable future, requiring many of the... reforms... that the EU requires of potential new members. But as basically every major European economy continues to slowly sink as recessions and political crises degrade them, one wonders how beneficial EU membership will even be in the years and decades to come - if it survives for decades. In that sense, it's as if the survivors of the Titanic are swimming back towards it, believing that being on a bigger - albeit slowly sinking - boat is better than trying their luck on small lifeboats.

Then again, like with Serbia, their geographical and geopolitical position makes anti-Western actions extremely difficult. It is rare that dissention is tolerated for long in the West - one tends to get called a dictator by crowds of people holding English-language signs in non-English countries, photographed by Western journalists who haven't meaningfully reported on your country in months or years. You can crush your people with neoliberal austerity for years, killing hundreds of thousands through neglect, and face glowing approval from the media - but try and use state resources to benefit the poor, and global institutions start ranking you on the authoritarian dictator scale.

The best case for Moldova is that it becomes an exploitable hinterland for Germany to harvest and privatize as it tries - and fails - to compete in a global economic war between the US and China/BRICS. The worst case is that tensions with Russia over Pridnestrovie, as well as possible eventual NATO involvement (though Moldova is not a member, it is a partner of NATO), result in the ongoing war also reaching them.

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  • So now that the Israeli attack on Iran is over, there's been some chatter among war nerds about the fact that Israel struck some air defense sites and... nothing else. There is very little evidence of further damage or attempts to kill Iranian leadership.

    In fact, I'm not aware of any credible reports of Israeli jets over Iran at all, which is IDF's main method of operation - using expensive stealth jets that get in close and drop cheap bombs. Saves a ton of money over using missiles if your planes don't get shot down.

    The implication is that Israel is unwilling or unable to put jets over Iran, maybe even calling off that portion of the strike at the last minute. That massively limits their offensive ability against Iran. Makes you wonder where Israel goes from here; they can't meaningfully hurt Iran, they can't push into Lebanon, and their soldiers are killing themselves over going back into Gaza. What's next?

    • On that note, the IDF has announced that ground operations in Lebanon will end within a week. Those reports about IDF soldiers refusing to go are looking more and more accurate. They probably will intensify the terror bombing, though.

    • It wasn't just some air defence sites though, Israel took out Iran's most advanced air defence systems in the Russian made S300 PMU2 (NATO name SA-20B), along with some integrated systems nearby the main S300 batteries, such as the Mersad site that was struck. The "three explosions heard in Tehran" could match up with three probable strikes on such targets, based on photographic evidence of the aftermath of explosions at those sites. One can guess that more sites were likely hit in other parts of Iran.

      As for what else was targeted, it mainly consisted of Iran's above ground missile and drone production facilities, which satellite imagery has independently confirmed. At least 5 mixing buildings containing planetary mixers for the production of solid rocket fuel have been damaged or destroyed, and one drone factory was also damaged. These mixers are obviously much more sophisticated than your average kitchen mixer (even if some do look like giant versions of one) and are difficult to import, especially when under sanctions.

      Overall the attacks on Iranian missile facilities were pretty limited and only hit a half a dozen to a dozen above ground targets. This is not going to have a serious impact on missile production over the long term. Obviously losing a bunch of such sensitive equipment is not ideal, but Iran will still be able to produce solid fueled missiles at other facilities and will likely find a way to subvert sanctions or export controls on the mixers. The attacks against air defence systems are much more worrying. Iran's most advanced air defence systems were rendered inoperable within hours. Yes the radars and control vehicles can be repaired or replaced in due time, but the underlying issue still exists. I guess this could be Israel's way of leveling the playing field, with their air defence systems in Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 likely depleted of ammunition due to Iran's April and October retaliatory strikes. Now both sides are vulnerable to attack with weakened air defences.

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