Volkswagen no longer sees chip shortages ending in 2023, and the German carmaker is preparing for the “new normal” of supply chain disruptions, Murat Aksel, head of procurement on the Volkswagen board, told German weekly Automobilwoche.

it keeps happening :marx-goth:

The megathread is dead! Long live the megathread!

1130 comments! At least for a little while, we are back to posting levels seen only near the first couple months of the war.

Summary for September 19th

News

The EU has cut funding to Hungary because Orban is a very bad person (and also because Orban is on Russia’s team more than the EU’s, it seems). A great big undersea cable is in construction between Egypt and Greece that will bring green energy to Europe and save it from the energy crisis!.. 8 years from now. US energy producers are unwilling to boost their production of oil and gas, so Europe is basically screwed. Ukraine receives more financial aid. Putin has made a number of statements at the SCO, one of which is that Russia is not responsible for the EU’s energy crisis because Nord Stream 2 is available, which is very true. Volkswagen thinks that the chip shortages will last past 2023, and that this is just the new normal. Germany has confiscated an oil refinery owned by Russian oil company Rosneft, which accounts for 12% of Germany’s oil processing capacity - how illiberal of them! 33% of the UK’s exporters to the EU have vanished due to Brexit stuff.

Biden has said that the US armed forces would defend Taiwan if China invaded - explicitly saying that this wouldn’t be Ukraine 2, that American soldiers would literally be fighting and dying for Taiwan - while also thinking that this somehow falls within the bounds of the One China policy. Ominously, Taiwan then got hit by 2 relatively strong earthquakes in quick succession. China accounts for about half of the world’s industrial robot installations, in a push for automation and manufacturing dominance. China’s gasoline exports have doubled year-on-year. China urges Russia and other countries in the SCO to work at preventing colour revolutions from foreign powers. China has signed a railroad deal with Uzbekistan and Kyrgyzstan, which would establish a shorter route to Europe (and also co-incidentally bypass Russia, though Russia and China are also working on constructing a gas pipeline to replace Russia’s exports to Europe, so it’s not just a snub). India’s central bank could hike interest rates by 0.5%. Indonesia is still thinking about purchasing Russian oil, though it isn’t yet available to Indonesia (I’m not sure why - not enough tankers? idk). Natural disasters in Australia have become so frequent that Australia’s defence force has been almost totally preoccupied with them.

Putin has called for de-escalation between Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan. Iran officially joined the SCO. Turkey wants to become a full member of the SCO, potentially as soon as next year, when the summit is held in India. Russia’s gas supply to Turkey will be paid 25% in rubles. Pakistan says that it won’t default on its debts despite the huge flooding that has displaced over 30 million Pakistanis.

Hundreds of people in Niger peacefully protested against the French armed force in their country, the Barkhane - 3000 French troops are still deployed in the Sahel (the region lying south of the Sahara desert). The Benin bronze sculptures will soon be returned to Nigeria from Berlin’s Humboldt Museum. Nigeria’s public university system has lost 57 cumulative months to industrial action in the last 23 years, caused by a lack of revitalisation and wage increases - and this latest one - beginning on February 14th - is described as “indefinite” by the strikers.

Electric bills across the United States are soaring due to natural gas prices. Energy and mining in the United States are having an outsized role in making the stock market look good, and if you take them out, earnings for the S&P 500 will fall, rather than rise 8%. Biden has said that the pandemic is over, which is news to a lot of people as the US experiences 2 million coronavirus cases in the last 28 days - that’s not even to mention excess death rates. Cuba is having a legislative referendum for the new Cuban Family Code. Cuba has denounced Israel for destabilizing West Asia, and Cuba’s foreign minister has expressed his solidarity with the Syrian government and people.

Venezuelan institutions in the area of health and scientific research are seeking cooperation with Iran. Venezuela has rejected the US report on drug producers, also saying that since the expulsion of the Drug Enforcement Administration from Venezuela, the largest seizures and confiscations of drugs in history have occurred.

Conflict, Climate, and Science

Ukraine and various Russian telegram channels claim that Russia is using Iranian drones (to great effect), while the Russian military says that they aren’t still, I think(?). The head of NATO’s Military Committee admits that NATO had planned its expansion near Russia’s borders several years ago.

The world’s fossil fuel reserves, if all burned, would blow through the remaining carbon budget that would tip temperatures to 1.5 C of warming - seven times over. And Russia and America each have enough by themselves to pass this threshold, even if everybody else stopped burning fossil fuels tomorrow.

Chinese scientists have developed long-distance underwater communication, that would allow submarines and drones to maintain contact over more than 30,000 square kilometers, and pass sound signals over 100 km away, while still being difficult to detect.

Dipshittery, Good Takes, and Hope

I think I’m just gonna stop even putting the mainstream media’s interpretation of the war in Ukraine in these things because there’s not really any point in including them other than a quick laugh. Russia is losing and Ukraine is winning, also Russia just lost over 100 tanks, also they’re using inmates as conscripts, also they have no reserves left, also Ukraine took no casualties, also Ukraine will retake Crimea next week… it’s entirely disconnected from reality.

In the vaguely more interesting terrible articles, we’ve got one by Bloomberg on how China is cranking up its “global propaganda machine”, which America definitely does NOT have, no sirree. Politico writes some dumbass article on Xi Jinping being dictator for life. Jordan Peterson - yes, him - has wrote an article about how Queen Elizabeth II kept tyranny at bay, which is an astounding premise but I’ve already read one too many Peterson articles in my life. Texas and Florida are going “Full Belarus” on migrants, whatever that means, as the author says that good things are actually the exact same as bad things, and being incredibly racist and anti-immigrant is the exact same (in terms of morality or helpfulness or something) as being pro-immigrant, and that the true answer is somewhere in the middle - presumably, we should only put half the refugees in concentration camps. Al Jazeera has some dipshit write an article on European unity and how it’s being challenged by Italy and Bulgaria or something, who cares.

Now for some better takes: Al Jazeera, being a land of contrasts, also has an article on how degrowth is not austerity, but actually its opposite. The Guardian has written an article on how the recent electoral victory by Sweden’s right simultaneously reinforces the hold that these racist parties have had over Sweden’s policies and perception of things like immigration despite not being in power (and so them being in power won’t be a massive shift in the status quo), but also that they probably arrived too late and that Sweden will forever be more multicultural and multiracial, barring outright fascist genocides - though, of course, the government can do plenty to make minorities’ lives miserable without mass murdering them. US railroad workers have received a deal that included much of what they asked for that prevented a massive strike that would have frozen the nation’s freight railroads (though I believe they are still yet to vote on it, and they could still very well vote no if they’re unsatisfied) and CNN details how other groups of unionized workers - in UPS, in airlines, and in auto workers - are also negotiating (and potentially striking) for their contracts.

US M777s Could Come To A ‘Grinding Halt’ In Ukraine; Kiev Is Running Out Of Patience & Pentagon Is ‘Struggling’ To Help

The US Army, on August 18, released a survey to find companies that can produce 12,000 M795 155 mm artillery shells a month. This was after depleting its own stockpile when it supplied 800,00 rounds to Ukraine as of early September.

Just for Ukraine’ – After Cutting Production, US Army Wants to Revive the Factory Floor

The M795 is the standard ammunition for the M777 lightweight towed howitzer used by the US Army and US Marine Corps. As of September 8, the US has transferred 126 M777 guns to Ukraine since Russia’s military intervention began on February 24. This is part of a $14.5 billion security assistance program, according to a Department of Defense (DoD) factsheet. However, in June 2021, the Army announced cutting its spending on 155 mm shells to $174 million from $306 million for the fiscal year 2022. Reports quoted officials citing “budget pressures” rather than “operational needs such as the drawdown from Afghanistan.” Wanting to repurpose the money saved for other modernization efforts, the Army ensured that it had enough rounds to expend for training purposes. The US Army hoped to fund the development of new systems like the rocket-assisted XM113 and the Extended Range Cannon Artillery costing $51.1 million with the saving.

Ukraine Uses 5,000 a Day – But US Wants To Produce 500 & Russia Can Make 2,000

By June, Ukraine was using 5,000 to 6,000 rounds every day, but with a ratio of only one piece for Russia’s 10 to 15 artillery pieces, the deputy chief of Ukraine’s military intelligence, Vadym Skibitsky, said in a Guardian report.

The report also said Ukraine’s military intelligence believes Russia can continue fighting at the current rate for another year without having to manufacture more weapons or mobilize the population.

Skibitsky also added the near impossibility of being able to take back southern Ukraine’s Kherson and Zhaporizhzhia, where Russia has dug in for the “long haul,” building even “double” and “triple” lines of defense.

Secretary of Defense Llyod Austin, on September 8, announced the US’s readiness to “integrate,” “work together,” and “innovate” Ukraine’s own “long haul” against Russia.

But that would first require being able to produce 12,000 rounds a month (144,000 a year), which translates into 500 rounds per day, far from meeting Ukraine’s daily need of 5-6,000.

Interestingly, Russia-critical media itself notes Russia’s sheer military industrial wherewithal that could churn out 570,00 artillery ammunition annually as of 2017, which translates to 47,500 a month (almost 2,000 a day) – four times what the US aims to do.

Heavy use of artillery by Ukraine was also putting Germany’s own Panzerhaubitze-2000 (PzH-2000) Self-Propelled Howitzer (SPH) out of action. (SO MUCH FOR THAT NAZI GERMAN ENGINEERING LMAO :pit: )

Ukraine was firing far above 100 shells a day, stipulated as “high intensity” by the system’s manufacturers Krauss-Maffei Wegmann (KMW), Rheinmetall, and the primary user, Bundeswehr (German Army).

Concerns with post-Covid supply chain disruptions is another issue the US industry might run into. It figured in Lockheed Martin’s media interactions regarding the Javelin missile and the F-22 Raptor, where they said ramping production and getting vendors in order would take a very long while.

To ‘Arm’ Ukraine, US Allies’ Unarm’ Themselves (lmao even)

Lastly, arming Ukraine from its stockpile has been an irritant between US allies. In May, Poland expressed disapproval of Germany’s inability to replenish Warszawa with old ‘Leopard’ tanks after the latter sent Ukraine dozens of its Soviet-era T-72 tanks. (Cope, pole-fash)

Poland was hoping for a circular deal that Germany had with the Czech Republic, where Berlin restocked Prague’s armor with older variants of the Leopard tank (possibly the Leopard 1) after it, too, sent its Soviet-era tanks to Ukraine. Meanwhile, Canada too said it was expecting South Korea to replenish its arsenal of 155 mm rounds in May this year. Ottawa had sent 20,000 additional such rounds to Ukraine. South Korean defense ministry officials said the deal could involve up to 100,000 shells from Seoul’s own reserves. (A win for the DPRK as the southern puppet state drains their own reserves of war material expressly made for killing their own brothers)

Truss’s plan to hike defence funding and ignore the climate is a disaster Open Democracy

TLDR: Truss is that excellent mixture of incompetent and malicious; seeking to somehow rebuild the UK using economic logic that was already shown to not work when it was created, as well as put more funding into the military and essentially flipping the bird towards environmentalists even as climate change gets ever worse and becomes ever more costly for the economy. A real “Fuck it, let’s just exploit and pollute everything, everybody get your bunkers ready and we’ll let whoever replaces us take the blame for it and be hated” move - and Boris Johnson had that same worldview so it’s even worse now - by a party of people who have tried nothing and are all out of ideas.

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Liz Truss, the UK’s new prime minister, places a high premium on loyalty. This is why many former members of the cabinet, however experienced, have been relegated to the backbenches. There is, though, one survivor from the Cameron-Clegg coalition era – Truss herself.

In keeping with her own politics, the market fundamentalism of the Tufton Street brigade is very much in evidence in her choices of both ministers and advisers – and in her response to the energy crisis. This will be met by a price cap, but that will be achieved by loans of up to £130bn that will have to be repaid by the public, with the massive profits of the fossil carbon corporations scarcely affected.

Meanwhile, the obscene maldistribution of wealth in the UK continues. The country’s billionaires have now accumulated more than £600bn of wealth, with the top ten on the Sunday Times Rich List amassing £176bn between them – but perish the thought that wealth redistribution or even windfall taxes should be mentioned in polite company.

This issue of who pays extends to a major element of Truss’s wider politics: defence policy. A key context, much in tune with grassroots Tories, is that the UK is one of the world’s great powers, to be demonstrated by increasing military spending to 3% of national income by 2030. This is the biggest hike since the 1950s, even though military spending went up under Boris Johnson, largely by diverting money from the international aid programme.

Truss’s plan goes very much further. According to a leading defence economist, professor Malcolm Chalmers from the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), this substantially increased spending will run to an additional £157bn at current prices. Chalmers points out that unless there are even more cuts in public spending, this would require income tax to increase by 5p in the pound, or for the standard VAT rate to rise from 20% to 25%.

Even if this were to be achieved, it leaves unsolved the much bigger issue of whether Britain’s current defence posture is relevant to the security challenges ahead, not least in terms of recent performance, let alone monetary efficiency.

On the issue of performance, the evidence is damning. During the past two decades, the UK has been a core player in three failed wars and one that is currently failing.

Of the failed wars, the longest has been the 20 years of the Afghanistan war, but the Iraq conflict has been similarly disastrous, with violence and instability continuing and a violent death toll currently standing at 288,000, the great majority of them civilians.

The 2011 Franco-British war in Libya left a deeply unstable and volatile country serving as a conduit for extreme paramilitaries and weapons spreading across the Sahel. Even the presumed defeat of ISIS in the 2014-18 air war has turned out to be anything but, as groups linked to ISIS and Al Qaeda grow elsewhere, especially in northern and eastern Africa.

As to efficiency in the UK military-industrial complex, this is little short of a joke. The lack of efficiency has shown itself repeatedly, with persistent cost overruns, long delays in programmes and embarrassing failures of highly expensive new items, the recent breakdown of HMS Prince of Wales being just the latest case.

The UK’s National Infrastructure Authority has done its best for years to keep tabs on dodgy programmes. Four years ago, these reached a peak when five systems under development and collectively costed at just short of £16bn were all red-flagged (at risk of collapse) at the same time.

Part of the problem is that Britain’s military-industrial complex is very much a closed system that requires enemies in order to thrive and, if need be, can always resort to appeals for patriotism. It is a thoroughly integrated system comprising the military, arms manufacturers, civil servants, think tanks, security and intelligence agencies and university departments, with trades unions necessarily looking out for their members.

Truss’s defence stance, however unaffordable, will go down very well in these circles. It is, after all, nothing new. Five years ago, when Boris Johnson was foreign secretary, he gave that year’s Tory party conference his “let the British lion roar” speech, all about a renewed greatness rooted in the military.

Eighteen months later came the retro-fantasy of a new global Britain favoured by Gavin Williamson during his brief sojourn at the Ministry of Defence. This quasi-imperial, post-Brexit lurch, just like Johnson’s speech, is likely to be reeled out in the months ahead, with enemies such as Russia, China, Islamists and others all serving to remind the public of the need for strong defence.

Ordinarily, this might be expected to work, but there is one very awkward element that suggests otherwise. It also stands to cause Truss really serious problems.

One aspect of her political make-up that was evident during the leadership campaign is an almost total ignoring of the challenge of climate change, reinforced last week by her decision to promote an arch-climate sceptic, Jacob Rees-Mogg, to the energy brief.

This should come as no surprise. After all, when the Tories won an overall victory in the 2015 election and were no longer encumbered with the Lib Dems, they immediately took an axe to many of the decarbonising initiatives advocated by Labour before 2010 and maintained by the Lib Dems during the five-year coalition.

These included reducing support for solar power and electric vehicles; stopping subsidies for onshore wind while increasing them for North Sea oil; privatising the Green Development Bank; and scrapping the “zero carbon homes” plan due to ensure all new homes would be carbon-neutral from 2016.

These lost the UK years in decarbonisation, making the current energy crisis even worse.

What is perhaps forgotten is that the environment minister at the time was a rising young Tory politician by the name of Liz Truss.

Now, we have an entire government minimising the climate crisis just when it is becoming blindingly obvious that it is the greatest single threat to global human security.

The government may ignore this but the people won’t – and we can be certain that it will emerge rapidly, before the next general election, to be a focus of mounting public anger and action that will far transcend the activities to date of Extinction Rebellion and other activist and campaigning groups.

Even as we face a recession and a winter of crisis for so many people, this may yet come to be the defining crisis of Truss’s time in Downing Street.