This week marks the one year anniversary of Honduras ceasing to recognize Taiwan and instead only recognizing China. Over that time period, China and Honduras have gone through several rounds of negotiating a free trade agreement, with trade expanding. Additionally, they have just signed a $275 million cooperation agreement, providing education infrastructure for Honduras.
The other major news piece relevant to Honduras is the battle against Prospera, a US-based crypto libertarian firm that sought to buy a private island in order to create an ancap paradise, in which Bitcoin would be legal tender. In 2022, Honduras killed the island's special status that made the deal possible, and so Prospera is seeking $11 billion in compensation.
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 Honduras! Feel free to chime in with books, essays, longform articles, even stories and anecdotes or rants. More detail here.
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.
If American intelligence finds out that Chinese nuclear commanders would not actually launch a second strike, you can bet your ass we begin bombing in five minutes.
They'll never know for sure though, so MAD still works. Honestly a country could explicitly state "we will not fire back" (as Jeremy Corbyn kinda did) and MAD still functions. You can't roll the dice on existential issues like that.
They'll never know for sure though, so MAD still works. Honestly a country could explicitly state "we will not fire back" (as Jeremy Corbyn kinda did) and MAD still functions.
I think it's pretty clear that if your country is going through a pacifist movement of self-disarmament, you will not be able to return a second strike.
Political leaders can say whatever they want in times of peace. Once the nuclear powers are at each other's throats, nuclear pacifist rhetoric becomes dangerous. Imagine if there was a nuclear pacifist movement in the USSR that was succeeding during a time of high tensions. Khrushchev says that the USSR would not return a second strike if the USA nukes them first. Bombing would've begun in five minutes.
You can't roll the dice on existential issues like that.
If they're verifiably getting rid of their warheads, sure, but otherwise? What if leaders have a change of heart in the moment? What if military leaders have hidden access to weaponry even if civilian leadership disagrees? What if a display of pacifism is actually just a weird ruse?
What if a display of pacifism is actually just a weird ruse?
What on earth are you supposed to gain from this? There is literally nothing to be gained from doing this. This is like trying to convince the (imperfect) predictor in Newcomb's paradox that you will pick both boxes, and then only picking box B. Box B is empty, and you have played yourself.
At what odds are you rolling the dice?
Do not underestimate the bloodthirstiness of American leaders. Douglas MacArthur infamously wanted to nuke China during the Korean war.
There's nothing to be gained, I'm just saying that MAD still functions.
As I said elsewhere, Corbyn during a debate basically said he wouldn't retaliate to a nuclear strike; people were really mad and called him a threat to national security but I really don't think his stated intentions ever really mattered because you can never judge how legitimately he'll stick to those statements once shit hits the fan.
China didn't have their own nukes during the Korean war. Obviously there were external factors in play that will have influenced things () but there wasn't one-on-one MAD between the US and China/Korea.