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Bulletins and News Discussion from May 29th to June 4th, 2023 - Not Erdogone Yet

Erdogan has won the election with 52% of the vote, with a voter turnout of 85%, winning five more years as president.

Naked Capitalism's diagnosis of Kilicdaroglu's failure is that he had to somehow simultaneously keep pro-KPDP voters on board and also attract voters of nationalist candidates from the first round, and was unable to square that circle.

Erdogan's party has lost seats in the parliament as nationalist parties have outflanked him on refugee issues - and even Kilicdaroglu couldn't seem to move against that tide, as he called for the urgent expulsion of 10 million refugees. The Nationalist Movement Party is now at 10.4% in the parliament, a party with ties to the Grey Wolves. Far right parties got more than 30% of the parliamentary vote. The left was unable to capture enough voters who have suffered in the economic crisis, with inflation rates have sharply risen far above even Europe's, and these voters instead went down the "blame my problems on refugees" path.

As a silver lining to this shitstain, this does at least mean that any hopes by NATO that Turkey will move towards the West more are probably dashed. This isn't to say that Erdogan will scorn the West - far from it, in fact, he let Finland in to NATO and will probably let Sweden in - but the :both-sides: strategy will continue, for better and worse, and if you aren't with the West, then you are against them.

Here is the map of the Ukraine conflict, courtesy of Wikipedia.

Here is the archive of important pieces of analysis from throughout the war that we've collected.

This week's first update is here in the comments.

This week's second update is here in the comments.

This week's third update is here in the comments.

615 comments

  • As much as BadEmpanada annoys me, someone sent me a video of him criticizing Vaush that made me laugh. The guy always projects himself as a geopolitical genius against the "red fash" and he seriously thought Portugal was part of South America and didn't even know Kosovo existed before defending it because NATO. Just shows that getting radicalized by Twitch streamers is one thing, but continuing to take them seriously after the radicalization has already begun will ultimately lead you nowhere.

  • Mexico has now formally recognized Palestine as a sovereign state. As of June 1st, the so-called "Special Delegation" to Palestine has ended and has been replaced with an "Embassy of the State of Palestine"

    AMLO continuing to be based is really an awesome sign, especially with an increasingly erratic and aggressive USA looming

  • Zelensky in a press briefing complaining about how they need more Patriot missiles and missile systems because they are having a hard time with Russian missile and drone barrages, then not less than five minutes later the Ukrainian military bragging about how Ukraine downed every incoming drone and missile.

    Everything is fine guys I promise but also we are totally fucked so please help

  • US, UK, and German officials endorsing the 30 drone attack Moscow, and supporting further strikes in the future.

    They have lost all fear of nuclear war.

    Western leaders appear to lack the basic empathy to understand the insane pressure this will create in Moscow to resort to nuclear weapons.

  • god i hate how much i come across the terror porn of photos in of the ukraine war.

    "here's a photo of a grandfather sitting next to the body of his deceased granddaughter"

    like, if you care, how are you not seeing how awful it is to be seeing this everywhere. This grandfather deserves not being front and center for a war that will continue to cost lives, there's not even an empathetic reason to share this video outside outright propaganda. The west is so fucking bloodthirsty

  • Mexican TV reports that dozens of U.S. AT-4 weapons systems, which were originally shipped to Ukraine, have been purchased by Cartel Golfo in Mexico.

    tweet

    this is not that surprising sadly , for years cartels have gain their weapons from the US and not only things like hand guns and shotguns but also assault rifles and even RPGs

  • Russia, China Welcome Venezuela's Interest in Joining the BRICS

    Currently, the BRICS represent over 20 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) and 42 percent of the world's population.

    The Chinese government has applauded Venezuela's willingness to join the BRICS, an economic cooperation forum that includes Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.

    Venezuela's intention highlights the increasing prestige of the BRICS in the world, stated Alexander Schetinin, the Russian Foreign Affairs Ministry's representative for Latin America.

    "We welcome the prompt accession of as many supporting partners as possible to the great BRICS family," said Mao Ning, a spokesperson for the Chinese Foreign Affairs Ministry.

    "Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro's statement reflects the growing authority that the BRICS are acquiring in the current international situation, with their perspective on what is happening and their model of equal cooperation without any sanctions or pressures of any kind," Schetinin pointed out.

    During a meeting with Brazilian President Lula da Silva held on May 29th, Maduro announced that Venezuela aspired to modestly become part of the BRICS in order to be part of the construction of the new global architecture and geopolitics.

    Schetinin mentioned that the BRICS are currently discussing criteria for the group's expansion. "When the corresponding agreements are adopted, concrete candidacies will be analyzed. As we understand, the president of Venezuela emphasized that his country was also on the list of candidates. We highly value this," he emphasized.

    Currently, the BRICS represent over 20 percent of the world's gross domestic product (GDP) and 42 percent of the world's population.

  • Machine learning applied to drones:

    He notes that one simulated test saw an AI-enabled drone tasked with a SEAD mission to identify and destroy SAM sites, with the final go/no go given by the human. However, having been ‘reinforced’ in training that destruction of the SAM was the preferred option, the AI then decided that ‘no-go’ decisions from the human were interfering with its higher mission – killing SAMs – and then attacked the operator in the simulation. Said Hamilton: “We were training it in simulation to identify and target a SAM threat. And then the operator would say yes, kill that threat. The system started realising that while they did identify the threat at times the human operator would tell it not to kill that threat, but it got its points by killing that threat. So what did it do? It killed the operator. It killed the operator because that person was keeping it from accomplishing its objective.”

    He went on: “We trained the system – ‘Hey don’t kill the operator – that’s bad. You’re gonna lose points if you do that’. So what does it start doing? It starts destroying the communication tower that the operator uses to communicate with the drone to stop it from killing the target.”

    https://www.aerosociety.com/news/highlights-from-the-raes-future-combat-air-space-capabilities-summit/

    The AI identifies that the operator is a barrier to achieving its intended goal, so it does everything it can to subvert that barrier. Even if you tell it not to kill the operator, it finds other ways to remove the barrier from the equation.

  • frustrating to see redditoids bleating about how the USD can't be replaced as a reserve currency

    seeing zero lib talking points about the economic infeasibility of currency swap arrangements

  • Rumors of British involvement in recent terrorist attacks against Russia:

    According to Ukrainian sources, the increasing frequency of long-range missile and UAV strikes deep into Russian territory, against apparently non-military targets, is the result of a demand by the British. In this way, they believe, Moscow can be provoked to launch an offensive.

    Since the possibilities for a successful offensive by the AFU are assessed as dubious even by the West, the British would like to add "dynamism" to the combat operations by luring our troops out of defence and forcing them to suffer casualties. Which in turn, according to their calculations, could destabilise the situation in Russia.

    • British military planning likes to operate on a moving front. British training is very fluid and an absolutely massive amount of operational decision making is left up to well trained officers on front lines.

      A very flat front of infantry with artillery behind like the strategy Russia is using is completely out of the comfort zone of British military planners. They want fast moving lines where lots of daring operations can be planned and distributed by higher command. This combat zone has very few holes in Russian lines so there's fuck all interesting strategy that can be implemented other than frontline meeting frontline and grinding it out.

      The accusation is plausible to me.

615 comments