Last week's posts at Moon of Alabama:

• August 2 – Why Hypersonic Missiles Are Real Game Changers – by Gordog
  Related:
  – Russia to Help China Develop an Early Warning System – The Diplomat (Oct 2019)
  – Massive fields of new nuclear missile silos may be China's answer to rivals with a lot more nukes – Business Insider / MSN
  – A US-Sino nuclear arms race is already underway – and we know who the winner will be – RT

> While China has not publicly released a new nuclear posture statement that supersedes the 2006 White Paper, the construction of new missile silos configured to hold solid-fuel ICBMs possessing multiple warheads changes the nuclear posture options for China. The most likely change is to transition from a pure retaliatory strike capability (“counterattack in self-defense”) to a launch-on-warning posture, which means the Chinese missiles would leave their silos when an attack was detected instead of waiting for a nuclear attack to actually occur. Given China’s declared nuclear policy, a launch-on-warning posture allows China to retain its no-first-use policy while simultaneously ensuring the survivability of its nuclear forces. <

• August 3 – How AKP Cronyism Let Turkey's Forest Fires Get Out Of Control
  Related:
  – Interview to a former Türk Hava Kurumu Canadair CL-215 pilot – Piero Castellano
  – Erdogan struggles to contain political fallout from Turkey’s wildfires – AL Monitor

• August 4 – 'Maximum Pressure' Against Iran Has Failed. What Will Biden Do Next?
  Related:
  – Iran embraces its Eurasian future – Pepe Escobar
  – Gantz: Iran 10 weeks away from amassing enough weapons-grade material for nuke – Times of Israel
  – The US is misreading Iran: Raisi believes no nuclear deal is near – Elijah Magnier / The Cradle

• August 6 – From The Periphery To The Core – Taliban Capture First Provincial Capital
  Related:
  – Spectre of Syria haunts Afghanistan – Indian Punchline
  – US B-52 bombers and gunships sent into action in Afghanistan in attempt to stop Taliban advance on key cities – MSN

> Although Joe Biden has set a deadline for withdrawal of August 31, American defense sources told The Times that there was every intention to continue with the airstrikes after that date. <

> The taking of province capitals continues. On August 6 the Taliban took Zaranji (Nimruz province). Yesterday they took Sheberghan (Jowzjan). Today Kunduz (Kunduz) and Sar-e Pol (Sar-e Pol) have fallen though fighting on their peripheries continues. Fighting is currently ongoing within Taloquan (Takhar), Fayzaabd (Badakhshan) and Mazar-i-Sharif (Balkh).

The first thing the Taliban do in every large city they capture is to free prisoners and to seize truckloads of weapons from police and military headquarters before the U.S. can bomb those. They can thereby increase their numbers even while taking casualties. – b. <

Su-57 5th Gen Fighter @5thSu – 10:30 UTC 8. Aug 2021

So taliban will be the second largest “military force” in the world to operate #Oshkosh JLTV after #American forces😜😜

bigger

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Other issues:

Anti-China Lobby:

• Top Democrats Unite With Christian Far Right to Bash China – Religious freedom: the new front in the New Cold War – Alex Rubinstein
• A Cult, a Fake Gov't & US-funded NGOs Hold Panels Panning China – Alex Rubinstein

Dark Matter:

• Dark matter: one last push to crack the biggest secret in the universe – Guardian
• A non-Standard model – Aeon
  Most cosmologists say dark matter must exist. So far, it’s nowhere to be found. A widely scorned rival theory explains why

Woke Watch:

• Triumph of the professional class – US liberals’ hysteria outlives Trump – Thomas Frank / Le Monde Diplomatique <- Recommanded
• Thread by Peter Lee

> To China watchers, what's going on in the U.S. is pretty familiar. A political faction that has been identified as dangerously disruptive and expendable is being purged. Main tool available is crime of insurrection under U.S. criminal code (10 years prison/barred from office) but unclear to me it will be able to nail El Trumpo let alone spade out his GOP sympathizers. Thoroughgoing purge easier with kind of tools the CCP has.

Maybe people who write longingly about a China coup can apply that state/party model to sorting out U.S. political headaches. The big no-no for the CCP today is dragging street action into factional politics a la Mao/GPCR (and Zhao Ziyang in 89). Upsets the applecart in a dangerous, uncontrolled way and takes things out of the elite comfort zone. U.S. is now developing a suite of legal/media tools to manage and channel street activism (BLM!) and suppress it as needed ("war on right wing extremism"!).

So instead of getting a cathartic and effective show trial where by previous arrangement the splittists recant and put the fear of G*d or at least quick and effective reprisal in the hearts of their followers, we get 1/6 performance art where the bad guys don't even show up. <

Use as open thread …