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1·2 days agoRussia has to be very disappointed about this. They really really don’t want another east-west trade/energy corridor to arise through the Caucasus to their Central Asian backyard after all the trouble of getting a thumb on Georgia.
What kind of busywork were they doing for almost a decade when they couldn’t even agree on a foundational issue like can we use it on a carrier or not?
They also bombed Syria and Azerbaijan which have zero American bases
Can’t imagine Ukraine would harbor terribly much sympathy for Iran given the tens of thousands of Shahed drones that have been bombarding their cities that were either made in Iran or based on Iranian drone designs licensed to Russia. They probably figure that if Iran was fine starting this by selling such weapons to Russia that were certain to be used on Ukraine, then turnabout is fair play. They have basically no economy in Ukraine so they’re desperate for any way to make a buck to put back into military production for fending off their gigantic neighbor, anyway.
You aren’t going around calling Armenia a genocider nation, though, are you?
All the Western Azerbaijan stuff is tit for tat fodder Aliyev says to boost appeal with nationalists. Azeris get incensed when all the formerly occupied regions and NK get referred to as “Artsakh”, and its capital as Stepanakert after Stepan Shaumian whose forces murdered thousands of Azeris, or the cases of Armenian media calling Azerbaijan a fake nation younger than Coca-Cola that should go back to Mongolia or whatever. So because they find that sort of stuff humiliating, nationalists get a fuzzy feeling when Aliyev claps back and returns that by calling their cities and regions by Azeri names from before they were cleansed out of Armenia which he’ll sometimes do to shore up nationalist support. But in actuality Azerbaijan has been angling to get the borders demarcated and settled with an agreement that allows them to transit to their exclave as settling those uncertainties would bring an insane amount of money in which would be impossible if they actually attempted to conquer Armenia.
With respect to the siege, the context of it was that originally the ceasefire agreement stated the following:
- The Republic of Armenia shall return the Kalbajar District to the Republic of Azerbaijan by November 15, 2020, and the Lachin District by December 1, 2020. The Lachin Corridor (5 km wide), which will provide a connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia while not passing through the territory of Shusha, shall remain under the control of the Russian Federation peacemaking forces.
As agreed by the Parties, within the next three years, a plan will be outlined for the construction of a new route via the Lachin Corridor, to provide a connection between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, and the Russian peacemaking forces shall be subsequently relocated to protect the route.
The Republic of Azerbaijan shall guarantee the security of persons, vehicles and cargo moving along the Lachin Corridor in both directions.
[…]
- All economic and transport connections in the region shall be unblocked. The Republic of Armenia shall guarantee the security of transport connections between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic in order to arrange unobstructed movement of persons, vehicles and cargo in both directions. The Border Guard Service of the Russian Federal Security Service shall be responsible for overseeing the transport connections.
As agreed by the Parties, new transport links shall be built to connect the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic and the western regions of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan re-opened the Lachin corridor in a flash. Armenia however did not do the same for Azerbaijan to access its exclave and kept on dragging its feet on the topic. So Azerbaijan started doing more and more tactics to pressure Armenia into reciprocity like by having the supposed environmental protests. Armenia did not budge at all and eventually Azerbaijan determined that if Armenia wasn’t going to provide the access that the ceasefire called for then neither would it and so blocked the Lachin corridor, BUT they did have an alternative ready of supplies via Azerbaijan’s Aghdam road. The problem is that the NK Armenians absolutely loathed the idea of relying on Azerbaijan in any way. Here is an Armenian website’s article about the protests blocking Azeri supplies from coming on the Aghdam road, which they called a “road of death”. Another Armenian website here showing concrete barriers installed to prevent the wrong kind of aid from getting to them. It’s kind of a weird siege where people are setting up barriers to prevent aid from getting to their own people. Then again these were supporters of Ruben Vardanyan who was a stooge installed as Minister of State of NK a month before he got his Russian citizenship personally annulled by Putin so he could afterwards become a citizen of the state he was now a leading politician of.
Firstly, screw Russia for their part in making this conflict far bloodier and worse than it had to be.
Secondly, Armenia ethnically cleansed well over half a million people from not just contested Nagorno-Karabakh but the seven overwhelmingly Azeri regions of Kalbajar, Lachin, Qubadli, Zangilan, Jabrayil, Fuzuli and Aghdam surrounding it for their ‘buffer’, in which they would destroy Azeri cities, use their mosques as stables and settle Armenians from Syria and Lebanon. In both the first and second war for Karabakh Armenia was the side that killed more civilians whether it be through direct massacres like at Khojaly or by stunts like the missile strikes on Ganja in the second war. It is not unreasonable for Azerbaijan to get the territory back when it had hundreds of thousands of IDPs, well in excess of the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh.
10·16 days agohttps://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/surgeon-general-social-connection-advisory.pdf
Not having friends has similar health impacts to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Making friends makes you physically and mentally healthier, gives connections that can help you out of rough patches in your life and into opportunities.
You ‘can’ live without them, but probably not as long as you would have otherwise.
Kingdom of Dragon Pass / Six Ages is pretty niche and the lore there basically has people larping so hard to re-enact divine stories that the divinity rubs off on them and gets them magic and neat stuff. Or terrible deaths.
Ex. head of the Orlanthi pantheon in myth slays a dragon to rescue a rain god inside it and end a drought:
The “We have that at home” version:
(They have even larped as cows… that one’s on the dangerous side though…)
Edit: I think I misunderstood what you were going for nvm
I think you are thinking of Qatar which Israel struck nearly a year ago. Israel and the UAE are close partners who have similar goals for the region.
I’m flattered but I don’t know the first thing about modding and I’m just here to goof off so I don’t want to make it a chore, if that makes sense. I’ll certainly subscribe to that group, though.
Unsurprising. Hezbollah was hard carrying Assad’s Syria while the big man was busy playing Candy Crush… now that the Assadists have nowhere else to go Hezbollah is the only option. The rest of Lebanon hates the Assadists for partially occupying Lebanon, Turkey hates them because they were also fighting each other in Syria, the neighboring mostly Sunni northwestern parts of Iraq generally also hate Assadists from Baathist era rivalries out to modern sectarian tensions, Jordan is extremely uninterested in bringing in controversial groups that could upset its relations with neighbors and the group had officially still been at war with Israel since 1967. Not many options left for those without the contacts to get to Assad’s gamer pad in Russia.
Hezb found the time in its schedule to shell Syria in March and recently Syria uncovered and liquidated some Hezbollah cells in the country that they say were intending to do some sabotage and assassionations. Not really sure why those are on the priority sheets at all while Israel is occupying their home turf.
Before WWI the Kurdish people were split between the Ottoman Empire, Persia, and a tiny number in the Russian Empire.
The Ottomans entered WWI when a faction within it pulled an ill-advised gamer move against Russia that pushed the whole state into the war. Persia under the Qajar dynasty was very weak and informally controlled in large areas by Russia and the British so although they were officially neutral basically nobody else respected that so they were a battleground also. The Entente basically surrounded the Ottomans except for in the European part and they also had powerful naval forces so there were many fronts to the war. The British got a foothold in Iraq and convinced the Arabs to rebel. The Ottomans were losing ground gradually, especially in the south but fortunately for them the Russians fell to pieces so from there they could rest or advance on the northern Persian and Caucasus fronts and got a really good set-up there. However later on the southern fronts in Syria and Iraq were going badly and Bulgaria sued for peace which then put their now-exposed capital in Europe at risk, so the Ottoman government situated there determined the war was unwinnable and signed an unfavorable armistice that had them retreat from their gains, have some areas to be occupied by Europeans while a peace treaty was hammered out and to demobilize the army. Many of the people and army were incensed at this and would keep fighting at small scale. During this time Ataturk put out a communication that said the country’s independence and integrity was in grave danger, that the government was compromised and that delegates from the provinces should hold congresses in the safest areas of Turkey away from outside influence to determine the path forward. These established a burgeoning rival government to the one in the capital which was hemorrhaging legitimacy since it was being pressured by forces stationed right there to be compliant. As part of the new order envisioned in the newly drafted Treaty of Sevres, in addition to the ceding of land and influence to the British and French, there were also to be cessions to Greece, Italy and Armenia as well as a Kurdish autonomy or independence.
By that point though control of the unoccupied areas had firmly shifted to the Ankara government which did not agree to the terms. It warred with Armenia over their disputed territory and won, then when the Bolsheviks took over Armenia shortly after Turkey series of treaties with them that basically established the current borders and friendly relations (both had similar enemies at the time and wanted some friendly borders which would continue until Stalin fumbled things later). So that border set as Turkish one side, Soviet on the other. There was a small Kurdish population that they would intermittently make an autonomy (“Red Kurdistan”) for when sweet-talking Kurdish groups and then dissolve later, but no intention of independence from the USSR. There had been some earlier instances of Kurds revolting in Armenia and Azerbaijan but that was all squished by the time the Soviets rolled in.
Turkey continued with wars against the occupying powers and after forcing back a Greek attempt to push for Ankara the French agreed to settle the border (some modication would occur later w.r.t. Hatay state) in exchange for Turkey recognizing Syria as French in a 1921 treaty. There was a small Kurdish population in Syria at the time but more would flee there from turmoil in southeastern Turkey later. That was great as far as the French were concerned and they encouraged that since they figured that would boost the economy and simultaneously weaken the issue of Arab nationalism plaguing them in Syria (the Terrier Plan) but they wanted to control Syria themselves, not to give it to the anyone. Neither did Syria later on though under Assad rule it did allow Kurdish separatist groups aimed at Turkey to use some areas as training grounds safely out of Turkish reach so it would have leverage to make demands on other matters. Way way later on the SDF was able to control a decent chunk of Syria in the chaos of the Syrian civil war but they recently saw much of their majority Arab territories swap over to the new Syrian government and with a really bad situation if it goes to military means again they are integrating now.
The 1923 Treaty of Lausanne officially canceled the Treaty of Sevres and confirmed the border Turkey had with French Syria but the border with British Iraq was more contentious and was left tbd since both sides wanted the Mosul area (which was expected to be rich in oil). It was referred to the League of Nations which settled in favor of the area belonging to Iraq in 1926. Turkey was miffed but the British agreed to give them a part of the oil revenue and some other sweet rights and benefits so the Turks signed a treaty with them on it. The British did not want an independent Kurdistan because the oil was necessary for their navy and King Faisal of Iraq (a Sunni Arab) wanted to be able to have a higher Sunni population to balance against the many Shia Arabs in his kingdom. The Barzanis especially tried many many many times to get Kurdish state off the ground. Such attempts have been helped out at times by Turkey, Iran, the US etc. whenever they wanted to tweak the British/Iraq and presently they have an autonomous region albeit smaller than it was before the failed independence referendum.
Anyway in the meantime relations between Turks and Kurds had gone way south. For some background Sunni Kurds had for centuries been favored by the Ottoman governments and granted many traditional rights (albeit eroded in the latest Ottoman modernization campaigns) in exchange for serving as the first line of defense against the Shia leaning Qizilbash Turks who were often aligned with the various Iranian dynasties. After Turkey won back control of Thrace and Istanbul it had ended the monarchy but maintained the role of the former sultan as Caliph. The Caliph went into exile and his cousin was subsequently elected as new Caliph but it was a powerless position. He asked for more money and foreign scholars asked for him to have more power, but aggressive secularist Ataturk (who does not want religious influence entering politics) seized on this potential channel for “foreign influence” as grounds to actually abolish the Caliphate as well and force the Caliph and his family out of the country. He made many secular reforms in an attempt to shift from religious based identity to a Turkish national identity and promoted the Turkish language in line with that nation-state model.
All of that was quite toxic to Sunni traditionalists, and to ones who were also Kurdish it was viewed as sundering the only link that tied them together so that was an extra twist of the knife. Sheikh Said called all Muslims to rise up but he was only really answered by Kurdish groups (though notably some Kurdish Qizilbash who had previous been a big pain for the Ottomans opposed Sheikh Said). They laid siege to Diyarbakir but ultimately the rebellion was crushed. It was very expensive and worrisome for the Turkish government which commissioned a report on what to do. The Report for Reform in the East made many extreme recommendations on what to do that kicked Turkification into overdrive, established martial law in eastern areas and so on and made life very difficult for Kurds. In my opinion it sowed the seeds of many future problems ex. Dersim massacre. But as of yet despite insurgencies and the like, no Kurdish autonomy or independent state has been allowed from Turkey.
Qajar Iran was kind of a doormat that everyone stepped on. Much of it was basically occupied by the British and Russians and at times in WWI the Ottomans were making serious incursions. The Ottomans and early Turkey supported a revolt by Simko Shikak in western Iran (who had earlier fought them) who was eventually put down and forced into exile in Iraq by the new Pahlavi dynasty. Later on as described before Kurdish relations had gotten worse and rebellions were becoming a problem in Turkey so Turkey and Iran agreed to delimit the border more strictly which set the modern borders (very similar to older ones excluding ex. loss of Iraq) in 1937. In WWII Iran got invaded by the British and Soviets accompanied by some revolts. At the end of the war the British and the Soviets were supposed to leave but pro Soviet governments were declared in Mahabad (Kurdish) and Tabriz (Azeri). Tribes in the British occupation zone were not interested though and these attempted states collapsed when the Soviets blinked under American pressure and withdrew to leave them to Iran’s mercies. Some support flowed from the USSR and even Saddam’s Iraq to Kurdish groups in Iran (which similarly meddled back in Iraq) with a big revolt after the Iranian Revolution. Of course as you’ll know this didn’t work though some Kurdish insurgent groups exist to this day.
To make a long story short, the folks altering the maps were generally looking to do so in their own favor. Kurdish independence was mostly something to support somewhere else that you didn’t plan on annexing yourself and that would cause a power you were concerned with to be distracted. These were largely very poor tribal areas so with a poor economy they don’t have much ‘oomph’ so to speak in a prolonged war themselves so they would need support… which is also hard to provide because as they’re landlocked a ways in from the water you need the backing of a neighbor to actually get arms and supplies to them. And all the countries currently with a large Kurdish population - Iran, Iraq, Syria, Turkey - share an incentive to not actually want an independent Kurdish state that would may be ideologically inclined to provide a safe haven for their separatists to retreat to and strike back from. Plus Kurdish people are ideologically divided with constellations of parties with different objectives.
Huge order sizes for military industries keeps the costs of production low in addition to exports bringing in cash from outside. So generally if a country wants a strong military but getting the money for it from taxes is problematic due to the political situation or state of the economy, they’ll try to export as widely as they can. Downside is that if someone you exported to does something nasty with those weapons then everyone who didn’t care for that will give you the side-eye
All these reports beg the question… have they found a country that ISN’T carrying out covert schemes in Canada?
I am not sure how reliable this other site is but they claim that mixed results came from the emergency meeting becuase the UAE rejected strong language directly mentioning Ethiopia or referring to external support. The meeting apparently did get language of condemnation of attacks against Sudan generically and that Sudan has a right to defend its sovereignty.
Unsurprising, they are quite tightly aligned.
They are extremely overpopulated in much of the US, in part because most of the natural predators capable of keeping their numbers down have been killed off and there has been a huge artificial increase in field/forest interfaces where they thrive. Huge amounts of starving deer abound and descend on diminishing native vegetation with a voracious appetite while generally ignoring weird invasive foreign plants. Many native plant gardeners are vexed by their tendency to gnaw native plants, trees and shrubs to death unless those are caged in and some got a taste for venison out of revenge haha.
Would be cool if we could re-introduce red wolves and the like to keep a lid on the deer without like half of the predators ending up shot or run over
The quoted text does not look like a threat but rather a warning, so the headline of the article reads as kinda misleading to me.
Anyway no particular surprise, Turkey and Israel are in competing emerging blocks with different visions for the Middle East. Turkey is aligning with Saudi Arabia, Pakistan, Qatar and Egypt. That block has various states and factions relying on one or more members like North Cyprus, Syria, Eritrea, and the recognized governments of Sudan and Somalia and Yemen. Whereas Israel is in an emerging block with the UAE, India, Greece and Ethiopia. They have states/factions relying on them like the recognized government of Cyprus, the RSF in Sudan, Hijri’s National Guard in Suwayda (southeast of Syria), Somaliland (and to a lesser extent also Puntland) in Somalia. Also formerly the South Yemen separatists before they got canceled by Saudi Arabia following their offensive in Yemen. Some other regional states are split like one faction in Libya is backed by Turkey but another by like both Egypt and the UAE (they used to be on the same side).
This former emerging block is very concerning for Israel because the Turkish and Egyptian conventional militaries are quite large and Pakistan while distant has pre-existing nuclear weapons, which are in range to hit Israel anyway and could be moved quite close to give less reaction time if the other countries did some sort of nuke sharing. The foundation of it is the SMDA signed between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia in the immediate aftermath of the Qatar bombing which made it clear that American protection has its limits when Israel is the one striking you, even over something America told you to do. (Namely Qatar’s hosting of Hamas leadership, which although blasted by Israel was requested by the US because previously the Hamas leaders were based in Iran and that’s a hostile place for American and Israeli diplomats to travel for peace talks considering the history there so Qatar was desired as a comfier neutral site.)
Want to emphasize again that alignment doesn’t mean the groups are in total lockstep with each other on everything they do. For instance while Israel jumped to recognize Somaliland since it could be a base against Ansar Allah (Houthis) in Yemen, and Ethiopia wanted to do a port-for-recognition deal with Somaliland but was forced to reject the idea due to international pressure, India actually issued a public statement against it. And the UAE doesn’t usually make many waves publically while sending huge money behind the scenes. And North Cyprus is more of a Turkey project than everyone else in its faction plus it’s at odds with some others on who it supports in Libya.
But anyway if you look for it you’ll see increasing cooperation among intra-block relations I mentioned and generally more negative statements from the countries involved about ones in the other block and their dependencies. For instance Greece is actually having a small uptick in public sentiment towards Israel (though still net negative) at a time when much of the rest of Europe is disliking Israel more strongly.