🇺🇸 🇯🇵 🇨🇳 The news of Nippon Steel moving to acquire US Steel is an opportunity to post this important chart; and to remind ourselves that steel is the backbone of civilization, necessary for industrial production, essential to our daily life, and a sustaining element of military power.

📎 malmesburyman

📢 🇨🇩 🇷🇼 DRC's President Tshisekedi tells voters: Re-elect me and I will declare war on Rwanda

🔶️ This, he said, was because he was tired of Rwanda's role in the instability in the eastern part of the country, where M23 rebels were a menace.

https://www.news24.com/news24/africa/news/drcs-president-tshisekedi-tells-voters-re-elect-me-and-i-will-declare-war-on-rwanda-20231219

https://archive.ph/PsTFC

⚡️🇳🇪 The United Nations has announced that the military junta that took power in Niger after ousting the president is now the real legitimate government of Niger.

The UN Credentials Committee recognized Niger's ruling military junta as the sole representative of the Nigerien authorities to all UN bodies.

@themediterraneanman

🚢 🇹🇼 🇨🇳 Taiwan to seize intruding sand dredgers from mainland China to fight illegal mining and ‘grey zone warfare’

🔶️ In addition to increasing maximum jail terms for the offence to seven years from five, lawmakers also doubled the fine to NT$100 million (US$3.2 million). The revised law also authorises Taiwanese authorities to confiscate the dredgers.

🔶️ Between January and September, the island’s coastguard expelled 652 mainland Chinese fishing boats and confiscated 20 of them for crossing into Taiwanese waters for illegal fishing.

🔶️ “The forays have not only damaged our environmental and fishing resources but they are also intended to exhaust our coastguard,” he said, adding the PLA was increasingly using such tactics to pressure and intimidate the island.

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3245500/taiwan-seize-intruding-sand-dredgers-mainland-china-fight-illegal-mining-and-grey-zone-warfare

https://archive.ph/3bMva

⚓️ 🇺🇸 🌍 19DEC2023 correctional updated map of warships operating in Red Sea, Gulf of Oman, Gulf of Aden, Persian Gulf, Arabian Sea.

📎 Intel Schizo

🚢 🌍 🇾🇪 There goes the wave. Just about every westbound ship has turned south for the Cape.

📎 Nathan Strang

🇵🇸 🇮🇱 Hamas's Cheap, Makeshift Drones Are Outsmarting Israel's High-Tech Military

⬛️ The use of commercial UAVs rigged with bombs has exposed gaps in Israeli defenses

🔶️ Militaries have been using drones in conflicts for more than two decades. Israel itself boasts one of the largest armies of unmanned aerial vehicles in the Middle East. Today, a new generation of cheap, commercially available systems — like the ones Hamas used in the Oct. 7 attack — is emerging, challenging some of the world’s most technologically advanced forces.

🔶️ The effectiveness of the Hamas drone program also exacerbates growing concerns that non-state actors could develop deadly weapons with dual-use tech whose sales can’t be tracked. Even as militaries spend record amounts on sophisticated technology, simple equipment can allow marginal players to coordinate devastating attacks.

🔶️ Many soldiers in Gaza have been resorting to shooting the slow-moving drones out of the sky. The Israeli army said in a November blog post it has assigned a handheld SmartShooter precision targeting system to a soldier in every infantry unit for the first time.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-12-19/israel-s-advanced-defenses-are-pierced-by-makeshift-hamas-drones-in-gaza-war

https://archive.ph/5Qgxo

🇿🇦🚢 Just in time to go through South Africa's ports that the ANC government has run into a nightmarish state of chaos and disfunction.

🔸The container backlog at our 3 major ports stood at 100 000 at the beginning of December.

🔸The congestion crisis at South Africa’s state-run ports has resulted in cargo ships having to wait 215+ hours at Port Nqura and 32 hours to enter Port Elizabeth port. Meanwhile, the wait to enter the Durban port stood at 227+ hours at the end of Nov.

🔸According to the state-owned enterprise in charge of South Africa's ports, Transnet, this severe shipping backlog will only be cleared by February or March 2024.

🔸The situation has become so dire that the CEO of Transnet described it as "Rome is burning"

🔸“The average South African [doesn't] realise what a complete and utter catastrophe Transnet is. It is way worse than Eskom (state-run power monopoly)"

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1736987028619694506.html

⚡️🇮🇷 Regarding the post of one of my friends about the IRCG converting over 33,000 civilian vessels to be used for military action against naval forces that are hostile towards Iran.

In 2002, the US conducted a wargame by the name of "Millennium Challenge 2002", that ran from July to August of that year, with the US being on one side and the other side being "Iran/Iraq"

All in all, it ended horribly for the U.S in this simulation, to the extent that the Commanding officer of the Red side stated that his superiors bluntly ordered him to disclose his own locations, forces, and not to engage with certain US units (even if he was capable in), the U.S simply lost in that simulation.

Cut forward to 21 years later, the US navy is not what it used to be in 2002, it has shortages of sailors, officers, maintenance issues, the fleets are decaying, and so on.

Overall, this is NOT a fun time for the U.S.

@themediterraneanman

🇮🇱 🇵🇸 Due to the Rejection by Israeli Prime Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu of the Palestinian Authority returning to Governance in Gaza, several Western Diplomats are beginning to believe that the only Option now for the Future of the Gaza Strip is a Total Occupation by the Israel Defense Force.

https://www.timesofisrael.com/israel-cornering-itself-into-postwar-gaza-military-occupation-western-diplomats-warn/

📎 OSINTdefender

🇺🇸 🇾🇪 💵 A $2M missile vs. a $2,000 drone: Pentagon worried over cost of Houthi attacks

⬛️ “That quickly becomes a problem because the most benefit ... is in their favor,” one expert said.

🔶️ As American warships rack up kills against Houthi drones and missiles in the Red Sea, Pentagon officials are increasingly alarmed not just at the threat to U.S. naval forces and international shipping — but at the growing cost of keeping them safe.

🔶️ U.S. Navy destroyers have shot down 38 drones and multiple missiles in the Red Sea over the past two months, according to a Defense Department official, as the Iran-backed militants have stepped up attacks on commercial vessels moving energy and oil through the world’s most vital shipping lanes. On Saturday alone, the destroyer USS Carney intercepted 14 one-way attack drones.

🔶️ Houthi leaders have said the attacks are a show of support for the Palestinians, and that they won’t stop until Israel halts its operations in Gaza. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin on Monday announced a new international maritime coalition to safeguard shipping and counter the attacks.

https://www.politico.com/news/2023/12/19/missile-drone-pentagon-houthi-attacks-iran-00132480

https://archive.ph/lHK3Y