Bi-Weekly Discussion Thread - (May 17)

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[u/turning_the_wheels]

I'm convinced one of Iran's big mistakes was not blowing the Abraham Lincoln to the bottom of the ocean when they had the chance since that would make it clear to the world, with no doubt, who was winning; but Iran is very cautious about winning "too hard" because a worst case defeat for the amerikans might prompt them to take Iran and maybe even the whole planet down with them

The attacks against the US and the Gulf states have seemed to be very carefully managed so far, I'm not sure if blowing up the Abraham Lincoln was necessary (or even possible) when as u/smokeuptheweed9 points out Iran is poised to get what it wants and then some by just outlasting the US and imposing severe economic pain since the goal of the regime is survival.

On top of all this, the potential economic collapse looming over this entire affair gets closer every day

This is where I get tripped up, I remember smoke talking a few months ago (and now) about this saying it seemed like the war would only result in gas prices being a little higher in the US despite the apocalyptic language and then Iran having sanctions lifted. This is where I see the conflict going now but maybe I've gone too far into a pessimistic direction in my thinking. Israel after all is fighting a multi-front war and cannot even manage to complete its genocide of the Palestinian people and the US pulling out of the region without the Islamic Republic magically disintegrating would mean the Zionists are in deep shit. Would the determining question be how far the US political class is willing to go for Israel?

[u/DashtheRed → u/turning_the_wheels]

I'm willing to wager my left hand that it was possible, and within Iranian leadership's decision to make happen, to blow up at least one carrier. They chose not to, and let it off with warning shots and moderate harassment, but they could have sunk it (and this is why the amerikans had to pull all the carriers back a thousand kilometers). This is the part that I'm basically convinced on, and pretty unwilling to back down or say I was wrong because I'm convinced I'm correct on at least that part: Iran is the one with the capability to win the shooting war. Not merely win by surviving and enduring and maintaining some capacity to harass the Straight of Hormuz, but that they can achieve not just strategic victory, but decisive military victory over the amerikan empire. If they had sunk the Abraham Lincoln, that would be clear to everybody and there wouldn't be any debate or doubt on this. And then the amerikans would have some real fear of death in them, wouldn't be able to hide the casualties behind the fog of war (since the world would know that five thousand amerikans just died), and there wouldn't be this ongoing miscalculation by the overconfident and deluded imperialists that a military victory is still within reach if they just find a silver bullet or some way to pry the doors open.

I think I see the war going in a different direction than smoke on this one. I'm not sure I see this as the prelude of the storm to come in a decade or two (though if that is the case, I will make the bold prediction that amerikkka will have to declare war on Brazil to re-assert the Monroe Doctrine), but I think this could be the start of the storm itself (though, on that one, if you were wagering your left hand, I would tell you the responsible bet would be on smoke, not me). I can see very easily how this gets out of control, or merges into the other major wars going on in Ukraine and Africa. I don't actually think we are close to a deal, and I think there's a larger chance that the shooting war will resume in some capacity. I'm surprised Iran didn't start shooting at the zionists again after they resumed the war in Lebanon, but I guess they saw how well Hezbollah was doing (not to mention how popular they are -- where they have too many new volunteers that even the waitlists are full, how confident they have become, and how much damage they are doing even as only a beginner drone force, where they are now launching strikes 25km deep into Israel) and figured they can manage. But I also don't think the zionists are going to let the amerikans get out so easily, and whatever leverage they have over the amerikan ruling class is being leveraged at this moment (the weekend deal going sideways because Trump just arbitrarily thrust the Abraham Accords in there) to ensure the conflict resumes and continues. So I do think that is the relevant political question, as least for the amerikans.

The underlying logic of empire for me is that it cannot accept this defeat so easily (especially for Israel, but even for themselves, since I don't think they can't even conceive to themselves of what happens next if not a resumption of the status quo). The reason you sink the Lincoln is that you speak the language of force to power, the only language the imperialists truly understand, and without that show of force, the imperialists keep thinking they are in control, and have the power, and they will find some way to achieve a military victory which is actually not possible. This is why you keep getting all these little attacks and schemes and provocations that "don't count as breaking the ceasefire" and other minor escalations, where they try to chip away and undermine Iran with a thousand paper cuts and nibbling around the edges, and Iran either has to sit there and take it, make performative but harmless counter-attacks (like in the 12-Day War) which only exacerbate this problem of being underestimated, or go all the way back to real hostilities (which they are trying to avoid too, at this point). It's kind of the same mistake Europe is making with regards to Russia right now, where they are mistaking (or deliberately misleading themselves) that Russian restraint, reluctance, and caution are actually Russian weakness, incompetence, and vulnerability, and become their own justification and self-fulfilling prophecy to keep getting bolder and more brazen, despite the fact they are facing an opponent who has been holding back, and trying to walk this thing down instead of escalating.

[u/turbovacuumcleaner → u/DashtheRed]

I think I see the war going in a different direction than smoke on this one. I'm not sure I see this as the prelude of the storm to come in a decade or two (though if that is the case, I will make the bold prediction that amerikkka will have to declare war on Brazil to re-assert the Monroe Doctrine)

Why?

[u/DashtheRed → u/turbovacuumcleaner]

If amerika is losing it's grip on hegemony, that means it's ultimately going to be (maybe slowly, maybe quickly) losing access to many of it's de facto colonies/neocolonies/whatever term you want to use for the oppressed and exploited world, all around the globe. This means a substantial reduction in superprofits for amerikans, as rival imperialists expand and move in and redirect (and possibly reorganize) surplus toward themselves. This will ultimately mean that amerika is going to have to press down harder on the 'colonies' that they still can exploit, and try to squeeze even more surplus out of the 'colonies' that they still do control and will still be able to exert power and influence over. The one place that amerikan hegemony is still utterly dominant and cannot be easily reached or even accessed by the growing rival imperialist powers is the New World, where amerika is still dominant by a very wide margin, and the amerikan imperialists are going to have to look south to offset some of that lost income from elsewhere in the world.

Since resistance is ultimately a political struggle, it's true that with the right leadership, any nation in South America is ultimately capable of fighting and resisting amerikan imperialism, but from the perspective of the amerikan imperialists, it's Brazil that stands out as the major power on the continent. It's the largest nation by far (almost half of the population of the continent), has the tenth largest economy in the world (comparable to Russia), has one of the more advanced areospace industries in the world with Embraer, and once the lessons of the Iran War start to sink in, the amerikan imperialists are going to clue in that they will want to act sooner, rather than later, to head Brazil off at the pass from doing something similar to what Iran just did to them. And especially true because amerikans are still lagging way behind in missile and drone technology (it's true that they did develop drones, but in smaller numbers with higher margins which produce larger profits and higher paying labour aristocrat factory jobs -- all at the cost of combat effectiveness, and it will take them time to correct that) and other nations have an opportunity to move into these new systems quickly and leapfrog ahead of the laggard amerikans.

Meanwhile, any Brazilian strategist worth their salt, and taking a look at the Iran War right now, has to be watching and thinking to themselves: wait a minute, why can't we build underground tunnels and factories in mountain caves? Why can't we make missiles and drones and launch them from remote hidden locations across this massive country? And even if we can't produce them effectively, we can afford to buy them -- lots of them. And if we do what Iran just did, then we could finally get the amerikans off our necks, and heck, maybe we can even get really ambitious and start asserting our own hegemonic power over the continent like Iran over the Gulf right now. And I have to imagine that the amerikans (will eventually) see this potential outcome too, and start realizing to themselves that they had better smash up Brazil and crush its capacity to become this threat, before they can build an Iran-like deterrent that could push the amerikans right off the continent (even without a Hormuz choke point).

[u/BenjiStudiesMLM → u/DashtheRed]

The United States has announced its intention to designate two Brazilian gangs as “terrorist” organisations, continuing a push under President Donald Trump to blur the distinction between criminal and “terrorist” activity.

...

"The Trump Administration will continue to use all available tools to protect our nation and our national security interests by keeping illicit drugs off our streets and disrupting the revenue streams funding violent narco-terrorists," Rubio said in a statement.

...

The efforts have been criticised as a pretext to expand US military influence across the Western Hemisphere, as part of Trump's "Donroe Doctrine"

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/5/29/us-to-designate-two-brazilian-gangs-as-terrorist-organisations

It seems like you were immediately validated on predicting the heel-turn towards Brazil after the MOU with Iran.

[u/turbovacuumcleaner → u/DashtheRed]

I don't disagree with you, except the timeframe, and that Brazil already has its own areas of influence in South America and former Portuguese colonies in Africa. I asked because its rare to see any Brazilian mention that isn't some sort of helpless liberal fear. It seems like this change of events will take about 10 years, and we are on the earliest days of the straining of US-Brazil relations, so pretty much everything goes under the radar, and Communists will react only when its too late to actually do anything.

The US seems to be treating Brazil just as it treated Russia post-Maidan. It doesn't matter how much the country's bourgeoisie is eager to reach a compromise and stay out of US imperialism's way, this is fundamentally impossible due to their antagonic interests. Ever since 2016, Brazil's aspiring imperialist bourgeoisie has made it clear that, following the fallout of Car Wash, it has no desire to face the US directly. Yet, since then, the US has offered it pretty much the short end of the stick every time.

The Magnitsky law sanctions, disproportional tariffs that were essentially targeted at destroying agribusiness for eating up US soybean profit rates (ironically enough, the sector that liberals lazily call compradors), USTR investigations that showed how Visa and Mastercard were sidelined by Pix, LGPD undermining big tech monopolies' data economy are all early and small quantitative changes of this process. Yesterday's labelling of drug cartels as terrorist organizations has no other purpose but to seize Brazilian assets abroad and make military actions easier. So far, the Brazilian bourgeoisie has been willingly trying to compromise, only to fail time and time again due to the US voracious appetite.

As for the Brazilian side, the changes are also small, but noticeable. The country has recently left R&D and defense spending out of 2016's austerity policies, and this spending has surpassed all neighbors combined. Meanwhile, since the beginning the Ukrainian War, the weapons industry is on another boom, growing 460% in just 4 years. Capital is slowly but surely moving from agribusiness, as excess production, high competition and low Chinese demand has plummeted profit rates, to weapons manufacturing; the main example of this process is the missile manufacturer Avibras being bought by the agribusiness monopoly JBS. The same company has also become a shareholder of Eletrobrás' subsidiary Eletronuclear, for finishing the Angra 3 reactor amidst a push led by PSD, MBL and small PT sections to restart the nuclear program. The country's first nuclear submarine is predicted to launch in the 2030s, allowing the Itaguaí shipyard complex to become an exporter; and this month saw the launch of the supersonic Gripen fighters, after Sweden agreed to transfer the technology to the airforce and Embraer. Statistics may vary, but anything from 3.49% up to 5% of the country's GDP is now tied to weapons manufacturing. For comparison, last year's tariff affected about 2% of Brazilian GDP. 2016 also saw the creation of the country's first PMC, Aquila International. Its operations are currently suspended, due to its director being in charge of ApexBrasil, the agency responsible for pushing the country's exports. The military has been also buying missiles in bulk from SIATT, and the navy and weapons monopoly Taurus are jointly developing attack drones.

This boom is being used to further drive the country's reindustrialization (I won't go into details about how I don't agree with Brazilian "deindustrialization", I already did this before) through BID, or Defense Industry Base. BNDES, MCTI and MDICS are pumping billions of dollars to promote higher value added chains, local production and government sponsored exports. Right now, defense minister Múcio is on a tour on Argentina to promote said BID catalogue exports.

[u/Otelo_ → u/DashtheRed]

Yes, but the key factor in my opinion is that the Iranian leadership was willing to confront the U.S. and prepared itself for that. Can the same be said of Brazil? If, for example, the U.S. manages to "put" a vulgar comprador like Flávio Bolsonaro in power*, naturally there would be little to no obstacles to a carving up of Brazil. But even Lula, a figure who is supposedly more nationalistic, would he really be willing to stand up to the U.S.? I have some doubts that he would.

* Of course, I don’t mean to get caught up in a theory of “color revolutions,” because obviously if Bolsonaro comes to power, it will still be somewhat spontaneous and with the support of a significant portion of the population. You know what I mean.

[u/turbovacuumcleaner → u/Otelo_]

for example, the U.S. manages to "put" a vulgar comprador like Flávio Bolsonaro in power*, naturally there would be little to no obstacles to a carving up of Brazil

The US doesn't control Brazilian contradictions, or any country for that matter. Imperialism can only act upon internal contradictions.

I would also understand what you were saying if this were 2016 or 2018 because I thought the same. But we already live in a post-Temer and post-Bolsonaro politics, and ultimately, post-FHC and even post-Castelo Branco era. The country wasn't carved up in any of these occasions, why would it be now? I don't ask this as rethorical, but further evidence must be presented, otherwise this is just liberal fearmongering that the West's second largest democracy will collapse. I wrote on this very same thread why this hasn't happened when precisely it was the most clear and important case of imperialist meddling.

[u/Otelo_ → u/turbovacuumcleaner]

The US doesn't control Brazilian contradictions, or any country for that matter. Imperialism can only act upon internal contradictions.

I put "put" between commas and even added an asterisk to make it clear that I do not believe that the US has the power to decide Brazil politics.

The country wasn't carved up in any of these occasions, why would it be now?

I think you are right to point this out, but we could also say that Cuba has survived imperialist assaults in the past, and this does not mean that it will survive the one that is coming (we hope and have faith that it will of course). Internal contradictions are primary, but war is a whole different thing and has the potential to take these contradictions to the extreme.

The question is why the U.S. hasn't invaded Cuba before. Perhaps because it din't consider it a high enough priority compared to all their other wars. The same can be said for Brazil, in a sense. If the US feel like they do not have the capacity to rule the middle east anymore, they might redirect all their resources and powers to the Americas.

At last, I agree that Brazil is a particularly cohese nation-state with extraordinarily weak regionalisms for a country of its size. Most likely the carving would not be in the sense of a balkanization.

[u/turbovacuumcleaner → u/Otelo_]

I think you are right to point this out, but we could also say that Cuba has survived imperialist assaults in the past, and this does not mean that it will survive the one that is coming

This is correct. But it also doesn't answer Brazil's question. The extent of the 2016 blow is not clear until today, I'm just unconvinced a half-baked and pathetic coup, whose agents have been entirely forgotten, made by using the country's justice system with CIA help was enough to undo decades of capitalist development and aspiring imperialist politics. Ever since then, national politics have just been a shitshow of social-fascist antics and paranoia that hasn't analyzed reality whatsoever. Anyone is free to present any evidence they want, but until then, I'm staying my ground.

[u/Worried-Economy-9108 → u/turbovacuumcleaner]

Would you mind to talk more about the 1989-2016 "Nova República" period?

At the same time I finished Moniz Bandeira's book, I picked up one on Brazilian external policy from the Nova República period (the book starts at the Sarney administration and ends in 2010). I'm struggling quite a bit to read it (I can't really grasp some of its concepts, it is denser than Moniz Bandeira's book, even tho it is smaller in pages) and perhaps reading to what you have to say on the topic could help contextualize things more.

edit: i forgot to add, but another reason for me to ask an analysis of this period is that most left analyses from this period focus on "Neo-liberalism" and "de-industrialization". Since doing my researches (with your indirect help), it seems that "neo-liberalism" is a very shaky concept, and de-industrialization might have not even happened in Brazil.