Sgt. Joshua Smith, a paratrooper with the 82nd Airborne Division’s 1st Brigade Combat Team, chats with an Afghan boy during an Afghan-led clearing operation April 28, 2012, Ghazni province, Afghanistan. The soldier studied the Pashtun language prior to his deployment to southern Ghazni. (U.S. Army photo by Sgt. Michael J. MacLeod)
October 3, 2021.
China v. Taiwan
The People's Republic of China made a major incursion into Taiwanese airspace over a two-day period, sending some 38 combat aircraft into Taiwan, aka Nationalist China's airspace.
China doesn't recognize Taiwan's status as being independent from China, and for that matter Taiwan has never officially declared it. However, with there now being over 70 years of separation between the two, and not only de facto separation but a major Taiwanese political party with that as part of its platform, its status as an independent nation is relatively clear. So is the Chinese desire to reject that, and the growing threat that it will attempt to force a reunion.
Yemeni Civil War
A group of Southern Transitional Council troops were killed in an explosion at a khat market yesterday.
The Southern Transitional Council is an umbrella group that wishes to restore Southern Yemen's independence, although they are oddly allied to the government of Yemen. Yemen united in 1990 and has been embroiled in a civil war since 2014 in which Houthi separatist have sought to separate the southern part of the country. The war has seen intervention by Saudi Arabia and Egypt. on the side of the government.
October 4, 2021
Afghan Civil War
Fighting occurred yesterday between the Taliban and ISIL in Kabul. A mosque was targeted for a bombing, but who is responsible for that is not yet known.
Korean Conflict
North and South Korea have restored their border hotline phone.
October 9, 2021
Afghan Civil War
A second mosque bombing, this time in norther Afghanistan, occurred yesterday, this one targeting Shiia Muslims and the Taliban by an Islamic State bomber. The action was purportedly due to the Taliban's willingness to deport Uygher's to China.
November 3, 2021
Ethiopian Civil War.
Ethiopian rebels are advancing on the capital and the government is asking civilians to arm themselves.
This grew out of the government's assault on Tigray, which has now gone obviously very badly.
November 29, 2021
Ethiopian Civil War.
Artillery fell in Sudan due to the ongoing problems in Ethiopia, causing Sudanese troops to cross the border to deal with Ethiopian militias. Sudanese forces in turn lost twenty men in the encounter.
December 5, 2021
Russia v. Ukraine.
Russia is massing troops on its border with Ukraine with a probably offensive in mind.
December 6, 2021
Niger
Government forces engaged in a large gun battle with Islamic militants in the western part of the country over the weekend. Niger has ongoing problems with an ISIL affiliate and the Boko Harem.
January 14, 2022
Russia v. Ukraine and the West
I haven't updated this thread this year, although there's been the opportunity to do so. I probably ought to now.
Russia has been supporting Russian separatist in the Donbass of Ukraine, which reflects both the messy nature of Soviet imperialism and Slavic history. Ukrainians and Russians are closely related people, and they're both closely related to the Poles, but there are real distinctions between them. Be that as it may, as they were both territories held by the Russian Empire, and for historical reasons, their populations have traditionally bled into each other, rather than have clean lines. Thanks to forced population moves after the Second World War, this is no longer true for the Poles, but it is for Ukraine, which the Soviet Union never intended to see independent again.
As part of their policies, the Soviets settled Russians in areas of the Russian Empire it then controlled and also moved entire populations around. This very much impacted who lives where inside regions like the Ukraine. Most of Ukraine is populated by Ukrainians, but the Donbass region has a significant Russian population.
While if I was an ethnic Russian living in the Donbass I'd prefer to live under the democratic Ukrainian government, many Russians there would not, and Putin, who has said that the Ukrainian and the Russians are one people, has been supporting, heavily, a separatist movement there. Recently it's appeared that he may invade Ukraine, and its not clear on what scale.
Faced with this, the West has threatened to hit Russia with epic level sanctions if Putin carries his threat out, which is about as anemic of a threat as possible. The West might as well threaten not to send him a Christmas Card. The thread is absurd and won't work.
Putin hasn't backed down, but is now threatening to send troops to Cuba and Venezuela, and equally stupid and hollow threat. I suspect troops sent to Cuba, if they are, won't really be wanting to go back to Russia really.
January 15, 2021
Russia v. Ukraine
Yesterday news broke, probably leaked, that Russia may be planning a false flag operation in order to justify an invasion of Ukraine which, if true, is amazingly inept.
Such operations stage a false attack upon your own forces in order to justify military action. Such an action was staged by Nazi Germany in September 1939 in order to justify the German invasion of Poland, and another was staged by the Soviet Union in order to justify their invasion of Finland in 1940. As the outsized nature of a Russian intervention in Ukraine is so one-sided, nobody is going to believe that Ukraine attack Russia or Russian allies in a manner that would justify a Russian attack on Ukraine.
January 24, 2021
The United States ordered dependents of Embassy staff evacuated from Ukraine.
The Russians have amassed 100,000 troops on three sides of Ukraine. Ukraine's military is 280,000 men in size, but in terms of available combat troops, the imbalance of the sides is obvious. The US approved the shipment of arms to Ukraine from NATO allies who had received the same from the US.
Current positioning of the Russian Army along the Ukrainian border:
February 3, 2021
US. v. ISIL (or related groups).
The US conducted a raid of some sort in Syria which involved an "air drop" and which was followed by air strikes.
This appears to be the first such strike of the Biden Administration and while the details are murky, if correct, it's pretty significant as well as unusual.
February 4, 2021
News on yesterday's raid reveals that the target was an ISIL leader and that upon the arrival of US troops he detonated a bomb in the house, cowardly killing himself, and murdering members of his family.
Suicide and murder don't comport with the tenants of Islam, which really points out how questionable these figures religious tenants really are, in spite of what they claim them to be.
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