#Paraguayan war

[millenniumcomett]

[thatscarletflycatcher]

Paraguay and Rutherford B. Hayes

Because @fictionadventurer requested it, so I'll try my best, although I'm no historian and not a Paraguayan, so if there is some inaccuracy it is completely unintentional and I'll gladly welcome corrections!

South America, 1864. Blancos and colorados* in Uruguay are once again at war. The Colorados, diplomatically supported by the Empire of Brazil, had raised against the Blanco government, and had advanced north and put siege to the city of Paysandú. Paraguay, an ally to the Blancos, declared that any Brazilian or Argentinian invasion of Uruguay in support of the Colorados would be seen as an attack on the stability of the region. Brazil ignored this warning, and it intervened, causing the fall of Paysandú and defeat of the Blanco side. Brazil had a particularly vested interest as a Blanco government in Uruguay would have provided an opening to the sea for Paraguayan products (which was also against the interests of the British Crown, as Paraguay was rapidly gearing towards industrialization. This has been more or less accepted in recent decades as one of the underhanded causes of the war).

Paraguay invaded both Brazil and Argentina in an attempt to A) force Brazil to retreat from Uruguay B) Cross Argentina (neutral until that point) with troops to reinforce the Blanco defense, as permission was denied to them by the Argentinian government. This prompted an alliance between Argentina, Uruguay (now in Colorado hands), and Brazil against Paraguay. The war lasted till 1870, half a million people died -making it the bloodiest war in the History of South America-, counting between 50% and 85% of the Paraguayan population -specially the overwhelming majority of it's male population of reproductive age- and it is because of that considered nowadays a war of extermination, a genocide.**

At the end of the war, Brazil and Argentina appropriated chunks of the Paraguayan territory; on the Argentinian side, it was basically the totality of the Paraguayan Chaco. Negotiations between the two countries went back and forth for years, until in 1976 they agreed to appeal to the president of the US (at the time, Rutherford B. Hayes) to arbiter between the two (as there were no international courts they could go to). Hayes accepted, received the claims from the two countries, and failed in favor of Paraguay by the end of 1878.

Because of this, Hayes is remembered fondly in Paraguay, and a whole departamento (one of the 17 administrative regions of Paraguay) is named Presidente Hayes after him, and so is its capital city, Villa Hayes. There's also a soccer club named after him.

*The National or "Blanco" party and the Colorado party are the traditional founding parties of Uruguay. They are very difficult to align in terms of the political compass as usually understood in the Anglosphere, as they have/had a wide range of political orientations within them (for example, the Colorado party had a Catholic wing and an extremely anti-clerical wing, the Blanco party had a large landowner side and a side that pushed for redistribution of land, etc, etc). In a very gross simplification, the Colorado Party was the "civilization" party, urban, europeizing, economically conservative and socially liberal, whereas the Blanco Party was a rural party, economically liberal and socially conservative. The Blancos had a habit of getting up in arms every few years, as they found their political rights being ignored or curtailed by the ruling Colorados. To mention the main ones, The Great War (1839-1850), Revolution of the Spears (1970-1872), the Revolution of 1897, and The Revolution of 1904.

** as a side "fun" note, Uruguay returned war trophies to Paraguay in 1885, and forgave it the money sanctions against it. It took Argentina till 1954 to return their war trophies, and Brazil has yet to return anything.

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Above in (1) to shown the area where Bolivian and Paraguayan troops are waging bitter combat in the dispute over the Gran Chaco territory. Latest reports are that each side has lost about 2,000 men in the Bolivian attack on Fort Nanawa, held by the Paraguayans. The marshland surrounding the fort is a sea of mud making military operations difficult. In (2) is shown General Hans Kundt, veteran German army officer, who is directing the Bolivian attack and calling into operation military tactics used during the Great War. A Paraguayan anti-aircraft gun is seen in (1) indicating the combatants have at their service the necessary attributes of modern warfare.”

- from the Kingston Whig-Standard. January 30, 1933. Page 3.

[imsobadatnicknames2]

Yeah... the USA's abuse of Latin America is a republican issue.

It's not like the Obama administration and Hillary Clinton's tenure as secretary of state featured some of the worst foreign policy moments regarding Latin America in recent memory, like support for the 2009 Honduran coup and the 2012 Paraguayan coup, shutting down a minimum wage increase in Haiti because it would have affected American companies using Haiti as a source of cheap labor, multiple free trade agreements that wrecked havoc on the economy of several Latin American countries, and many more things. Also Plan Colombia during the late Bill Clinton administration saw the USA give millions of dollars in military aid to one of the most far-right governments my country's ever had, essentially subsidizing the work of goverment-allied far-right paramilitary squads which murdered countless union acivists and afro-colombian and indigenous social leaders. Republicans aren't clean when it comes to foreign policy here either but fucking say they're the only ones trying to wage war on us lmao.

[hotvampireadjacent]

Good lord. I knew the oil industry was drenched in blood but I didn’t know that literally. Still reading opens veins of Latin America. How the oil barons keep control over Latin America and sometimes literally instigating coups and wars for their own advantage.

One specific example is the Chaco war of 1932-1935. “Huey long shook the United States on may 30,1934 with a violent speech according standard oil of New Jersey of provoking the conflict and of financing the Bolivian army so that it would appropriate the Paraguayan Chaco on its behalf. It needed the Chaco- which was also thought to be rich in petroleum- for a pipeline from Bolivia to the river. “These criminals,” Long charged, “have gone down there and hired their assassins.” At Shell’s urging, the Paraguayans marched to the slaughterhouse: advancing northward, the soldiers discovered standard oil’s perforations at the scene of the dispute. It was a quarrel between two corporations, enemies and at the same time partners within the cartel, but it was not they who shed their blood.” (Page 163)

[manessha545]

North Yungas Road, Bolivia: The Yungas Road, popularly known as The Death Road, is a 64-kilometre long cycle route linking the city of La Paz with the Yungas region of Bolivia. It was conceived in the 1930s by the Bolivian government to connect the capital city of La Paz with the Amazon Rainforest in the north part of the country. Large parts of it were built by Paraguayan prisoners during the Chaco War. Several sections of the road are less than 3 metres wide, and due to presence of rain, fog, landslides, cascades, steep slopes and cliffs that drop more than 610 meters or 2000 feet, it is largely considered the most dangerous road in the world. Wikipedia

[mesetacadre]

The makeup of every International Brigade

XI Brigade: Battalions Edgar André (German), Paris Commune (Franco-Belgian), Dombrovski (Polish-Balkan & Paraguayan), formed in late October 1936, and first experienced combat the 8th of November

XII Brigade: Battalions Garibaldi (Italian), André Marty (Franco-Belgian), Thaelmann (German). Formed in early November, 1936, and first experienced combat the 13th of November (other sources say it was the 9th of November)

XIII Brigade: Battalions Chapaiev (Balkan), Mickiewicz (Polish, Jews, and a few dozen survivors from Makhno's army), Henri Guellemin (Franco-Belgian). Formed between December 1936 and January 1937, and first experienced combat in mid-late January.

XIV Brigade: Henry Barbuse (French), Ralph Fox (Franco-British), Domingo Germinal (Spanish anarchists), Number 9 or 9 Nations (Multinational, including Spaniards). Formed between December 1936 and January 1937, and first experienced combat in mid-late January.

XV Brigade: Lincoln (US Americans, Canadians, Cubans, Argentinians, and the Connolly Column, made up of a few Irishmen), Dimitrov (Yugoslavs and Bulgarians), February 6th (Franco-Belgian), British (British and Irish), Voluntario 24 (Spaniards). Formed between December 1936 and January 1937, and first experienced combat in mid-late January.

129th Brigade: Dimitrov (Balkans), Massaryk (Czechoslovaks), Djakiquiek (Yugoslavs and Bulgarians). Formed in late 1937

150th Brigade: Dombrovski (Polish), André Marty (Franco-Belgian), Rakosi (Polish-Hungarian). Formed between June and July of 1937

The 86th Spanish Brigade also had an international battalion within it

These are just how each Brigade was formed. As the war progressed, losses were suffered and battalions had to be recomposed, newer battalions were created and existing ones shifted around. The battalion compositions are somewhat simplified, because they were extremely heterogeneous, as 52 nationalities heeded the call of the Third International. For example, there was a Swedish core within the Thaelmann Battalion in charge of the machine gun emplacements.

The Brigades were, generally, composed of three battalions each, made up of a single nationality, or ones with similar languages, to ease communication. Each battalion had three riflemen companies and 1 machine gun company. Aside from the military leader, each battalion also had a commissar in charge of the brigadiers' political education and morale, in many cases leading charges by rallying demoralized brigadiers. Instruction generally lasted between three weeks and two months, although in the first year of the war, in the case of the XI and XII Brigades especially, it had to be rushed. Quite often due to shortages, instruction had to be done without actual weapons.

[mapsontheweb]

Borders of Bolivia

« Atlas des peuples d’Amérique », Jean Sellier, La Découverte, 2006

by cartesdhistoire

In the Atacama Desert, which belongs to Bolivia, local rulers ("caudillos") granted concessions to foreigners. Around 1840–1850, Chileans exploited guano and then discovered nitrates. British and Chilean investors founded the port of Antofagasta in 1868, then established an Anglo-Chilean company in 1872 and constructed a railway. The Atacama effectively became a Chilean colony. When Bolivia threatened to confiscate the assets of the company that refused to pay a tax of 10 centimes per quintal of saltpeter exported, the Chilean navy landed in Antofagasta (February 14, 1879). Chile then declared war on Bolivia and its ally Peru: it was the War of the Pacific from which Chile emerged victorious; it ended on October 20, 1883, with the Treaty of Anc��n, and Bolivia lost its maritime access. This loss was finalized in 1904 and 1929 when the Chileans ceded Tacna to Peru. In return, Chile constructed a railway from Arica to La Paz.

The liberals in power at the time attempted to retain Acre: situated in the north, this territory assigned to Bolivia in 1867 had attracted many Brazilians during the Rubber Fever. In 1899, Acre proclaimed its independence. When Bolivian troops dispatched there were defeated, Bolivia ceded the territory to Brazil (Treaty of Petropolis, 1903).

To the southeast, Bolivia claimed territory where, under nominal Paraguayan authority, Argentine companies exploited a wood called "quebracho". Incidents between Bolivia and Paraguay were frequent along the demarcation line in the 1920s. In 1931, President Salamanca broke off diplomatic relations with Paraguay. This led to the Chaco War and Bolivia's defeat; an armistice was negotiated in Buenos Aires in June 1935, and the peace treaty – simply initialed – allocated the coveted territory to Paraguay (1938). The final treaty was signed on April 27, 2009, in Buenos Aires.

[elbiotipo]

oh hey, river navigation in south america! I'd like to add about it: the Paraná and the Amazonas have historically been, and presently are, particularly convenient because they cut through land that's exceptionally difficult to traverse on foot. one being, of course, the goddamn amazon rainforest, and the other being a whole lot of treacherous marshland.

the Paraguay War was in most stages like a naval war being fought on land even, because armies could only meaningfully advance over the river. they generally only fought on land if the invaders were ambushed while making camp.

the Amazon River is also very interesting as a hub of both transportation and just settlement. even now, there's a whole lot of houses built partially into the water, usually inhabited by fishermen. we call them "ribeirinhos"!

(however, pity to end on a bleak note, but -- climate change has been a huge threat to their lifestyle...)

This is true. People REALLY understimate how hard was to travel through South America outside of rivers just a century ago. While I'm not an expert on the Triple Alliance War, I remember going to a museum visit in high school and people snickered at the "Paraguayan Navy" and... yes, of course they would have one, have you seen the rivers? River warfare in South America has a very important history since precolumbian times.

Also, those kinds of villages (we call them palafitos in Spanish) are also widely reported by the Spanish when they first went up the Paraná and Paraguay. They're also still widely found in Lake Maracaibo and elsewhere, though there are virtually none here (which makes no sense, as this is a floodable area, they are the ideal kind of house). But yes, I've seen the recent Amazon drought and it's heartbreaking, I have full hope it can be protected and restored though.

[allthebrazilianpolitics]

In Latin America, Nostalgia Can Be “One Hell of a Drug”

A new book by a veteran journalist tracks the political uses and abuses of the region’s history.

The novelist William Faulkner once wrote, “The past is never dead. It’s not even past.” In other words, the past haunts the present in ways that are sometimes deliberate, and sometimes not. In Patria, a retelling of the history of Latin America since its pre-Columbian period, Laurence Blair gives this phrase a different spin. Nostalgia for the past can be “one hell of a drug,” he writes.

Blair is referring to how the memory of Francisco Solano López, Paraguay’s president during the devastating Paraguayan War that took place between 1862 and 1870 and killed around two-thirds of the population, has fed popular beliefs about what Paraguay could have been had it not been defeated. This dream, Blair says, has been used by the Colorado Party to solidify its rule for 70 years. The past is an opiate that keeps Paraguayans distracted while their political leaders plunder the country.

To achieve a more nuanced view of Latin America, Blair argues, we need to pay attention to the way historical narratives are constructed. Out of the centuries-long debate that Latin Americans have conducted over their history, Blair highlights two clashing extremes. On the one side, there are the anti-colonialists, like decolonial Argentine academic Walter Migolo, who mourn the cultures erased from the map after colonization. On the other, pro-Hispanists like Peruvian novelist Mario Vargas Llosa argue that Latin America is better off having been conquered.

Blair rightly points out that both views are incomplete. “Either approach—dwelling endlessly on past trauma, or launching into a headlong fight to forget—is likely to yield similar results,” he writes. Through rich storytelling, Patria demonstrates that the way we remember cultures from long ago—the Inca empire in Peru, the escaped slaves of Palmares in Brazil, the Diaguita in Argentina, to name a few—still very much influences how each country is building its present. And we must be mindful of what we choose to remember.

Continue reading.

[breakingarrows]

Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies as Literature

Within Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies are two parallel narratives. One is a man recalling the memories of his time as a child during a war. This war is the one that you participate in during missions as Mobius 1, the call sign for the player character, and follows their ascension to becoming a legendary icon over the course of that conflict.

Missions are your general arcade flight simulation kind of tackling varied objectives to rack up high scores, combating air and land targets, picking your aircraft and armament as you proceed along the linear progression of the game's campaign. In between missions will occasionally be interludes, allowing the player to view the recollections of someone who was a child during these same concurrent periods. These are presented with still images, with voiceover by the adult child and greatly moving pieces of music. The first interlude, “Prelude”, is scored by the composition “La Catedral” by Paraguayan guitarist and composer Agustín Barrios Mangoré (1885-1944) and generally considered one of his greatest compositions. This piece introduces the overall mood of these interludes, and the game proper, as a melancholic reflection on what is later described as a “meaningless war.” It is the first, and most recurring, of the three tracks composed by Barrios that appear in Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies.

The emotional crux of this prelude is the death of the child’s family, the result of a plane crashing to earth after being shot by an invading army. The only identifying factor for the killer was a yellow 13 on the tail of the plane that circled around to confirm the kill. The death of the child’s family is dramatic, and at the same time so casual. These are the facts of war: civilians who aren’t involved suffer no matter their allegiance or status. Throughout the interludes the child has to grapple with the fact that the new family he has found, a group of ace pilots, are the ones responsible for his loss. This is revealed in another interlude featuring a piece from Agustín Barrios named “Session." This piece is played diegetically by the lead pilot of Yellow Squadron, whom the child joins on his harmonica after it is revealed that this pilot is Yellow 13, and the song is one the child’s father played at the end of each day, connecting them not only through death but also in life.

The child’s complex feelings are the basis for all the interludes. He hates Yellow 13 for being responsible for the death of his family, but also finds himself loving this same man for offering protection and warmth during an occupation. The child feels obligated to support the resistance within his town, but also follows the Yellow Squadron after they are routed. He grows to admire Yellow 13 for his moral character, but continues to imagine their eventual confrontation over his family’s death. When Yellow 13 discovers the barkeep's daughter is responsible for recent sabotage, the child yells, “Get out of our town, you fascist pig!” It is the last time we see them speak to each other. Yellow 13 lets the two go, unable to turn in these children, and similarly feeling a mixture of both love and hate towards those he watched over reveal their resentment towards him and what he represented.

These complex feelings can also be felt by myself for this game, and the series as a whole, as one that actively engages with and benefits imperial industries. By licensing real world models from various manufacturers, and rendering them in lavish detail, Ace Combat projects these airplanes as noble creatures fighting for the benefit of mankind which is far from the reality. As Autumn Wright wrote of the series, “But we also can’t, we mustn’t, separate a games fiction from its own politics of creation. To do so would be to betray the story, the artistry, the work.”

There is a shared fascination with how planes, specifically fighter planes, can be objects of such beauty but also of such violence by many artists. Hayao Miyazaki’s The Wind Rises is about Jiro Horikoshi, an engineer whose desire to create aircraft was subsumed by Japan during World War II and led to him helping develop planes that caused much destruction over the course of that war. His film has been the subject of much analysis and debate over interpretations of its message in regards to Horikoshi and their contributions to the war machine. As someone who grew up both day dreaming and sometimes even lucid dreaming about being able to fly myself, I have a fascination with the freedom granted by flight, especially that of fighter pilots with their speed and maneuverability that easily outpace any private aircraft. I also find myself fiercely opposed to instances such as the recent Call of Duty: Modern Warfare (2019) casually integrating something as awful as white phosphorus into its plaything multiplayer mode. I criticize Call of Duty’s obsession with rendering their guns in the most “real” style, I should do the same for Ace Combat and its rendering of aircraft built to kill. Most of my reluctance to condemn this series’ participation in propaganda, despite atrocities constantly committed by military aircraft, is due to the smaller mindshare it has compared to Activision’s preeminent shooter. Ace Combat has never been as commercially successful or influential as Call of Duty. Nonetheless it has the same responsibility towards what it is presenting. Project Aces was able to produce an entire fictional world and history for players to inhabit. I think they can also produce fictional planes to further separate themselves from promoting war machines and benefiting their manufacturers. Though it will cost them the World of Tanks obsessive crowd, it would be worthwhile to see a line drawn not only by the series’ themes but also by its rendering of aircraft.

It doesn’t help that as the series progressed, it lost the subdued tone that is found here in Shattered Skies. Future entries would increase the superweapon scale and stretch the reality further. Belka, a country found nowhere within this entry, would become such a boogeyman for the series that they have become a meme within the community for its frequent employment as the “true antagonist” in games such as Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, Ace Combat Zero: The Belkan War, and the latest Ace Combat 7: Skies Unknown. In that latest installment, the dissonance between the arcade-style flight sim and serious war storytelling becomes much more prominent and harder to buy into as compared to Shattered Skies. As Ben Sailer writes of Skies Unknown, “But the unintentional sub-text of its design decisions undermines its sense of escapism its otherwise throwaway plot tries to create, breaking its own sense of illusion by failing to stick within a consistent narrative universe.” Reviewing Ace Combat Infinity, a multiplayer-focused entry taking place on Earth as opposed to the “Strangereal” conjured for Shattered Skies, Nick Capozzoli writes, “But Ace Combat once chased its Top Gun guitars with Agustin Barrios Mangore. It interlaced vignettes about the personal lives of rival squadrons in among its screeching dogfights. Those old games were idealistic and enthusiastic (occasionally embarrassingly so), full of operatic flourishes and moments of pathos that few video games can claim--let alone ones about planes. These were games that knew that when engagements take place over the span of miles, between pilots who never see each other's face, it's the little personal touches that keep the whole affair from feeling like a training exercise. The melancholy cutscenes. The frantic radio chatter. The call signs and emblems and the way enemies sauntered onto the field of battle like WWE wrestlers...that was what made Ace Combat human.”

Yellow 13 crosses over the parallel line of the child and into the missions of Mobius 1, connecting player and child even if secondhand. First Yellow 13 appears as an invincible foe that forces you to retreat. You later strike back, wounding through the downing of Yellow 4, someone the player knows was dear to Yellow 13. It’s a moment of victory, in that you have shown Yellow Squadron is mortal, but also at great personal cost to an opponent you have empathy for. This complex feeling the child has is now shared by you, the player. The penultimate mission sees you coming up against Yellow Squadron for the final time, destroying them all, Yellow 13 included. All that remains of him is a handkerchief that floats back to the earth, buried by the child. The interludes end with the narrator revealing that all of these reflections have been from a letter written to you, the player as Mobius 1. By writing, and speaking, these words he continues to keep Yellow 13’s memory alive, just as Yellow 13 confided in the child about Yellow 4 after her death to keep her memory alive. 

“I know it must have brought him unexpected joy to have an opponent like you,  at the end of that meaningless war. At least that’s what I want to believe. Only you… the pilot who shot him down, can confirm this. And so I write to you.”

It was overwhelming to realize that all of these interludes being retold by the grown child have been intermixing with your own characters' recollections of their participation in that war, coming to better understand those that they fought and humanizing what would otherwise be another number on your long kill list. This reveal worked not only for players at the time of release, as noted by IGN “The ending would be criminal to give away, but it has a very neat O. Henry sort of twist to it, capping off a surprisingly effective bittersweet memoir.” (Smith) But it also worked for contemporary players as well, such as YouTube channels alter ego, Salokin, and oboeshoesgames, who all comment on the way the story touched them in their reviews. “...all culminating in a triumphant ending for Mobius 1 and ISAF, but a somewhat bittersweet ending for the narrator as he recollects on past events to the fighter pilot.” (McCoy)

The penultimate mission that ends with the death of Yellow Squadron also reveals the motivation behind the war, as Farbanti, the capital of Erusia, the opposition, was not protected from the falling meteors described in the introduction. Stonehenge, a series of cannons constructed to protect the mainland from the meteors, had Farbanti within the very edge of its range, and so the city, and country, suffered. As you fly around the capital you view the sunken portion of the city and the crater (a recurring geographical feature throughout multiple missions) that was the cause of such destruction. Erusia’s war was one of revenge, but to what purpose? It makes sense to take Stonehenge and turn it against its creators, the ones who either through ignorance or purpose excluded Farbanti from its umbrella. Erusia struck out and locations such as the child’s town, San Salvacion, places that had no real participation in their wounding but who benefitted where Erusia did not, suffered under the boot of occupation. What was accomplished by this war? Flying over Farbanti and destroying the last remnants of their armed forces, it does not fill me with the same feeling of victory as the sixth mission, “Invincible Fleet,” which ends with the allied radio joining together to sing the “USEA National Anthem (Hymn Of Liberty)”. Instead it is a feeling of, “What are we doing?”

Mobius 1, the callsign for the player character, is a silent protagonist, a trope often clung to by games attempting to avoid the difficulties of player character writing. A character controlled by the player provides a unique challenge for developers, who often side-step by having the player-character be an empty vessel such as within Half-Life 2, Dead Space, and The Legend of Zelda. Unlike in those games, Mobius 1 isn’t being addressed directly in conversation by any other character, and so more easily skirts around it. I find it also works here in favor of the game as there is no personality to inhibit Mobius 1 from becoming a legendary icon by the game’s end. This game’s sequel, Ace Combat 5: The Unsung War, has your collective squad ascend to a similar status of godhood. Though your character in that game is given prompts to respond to your wingmen (and wingwoman), it is largely their burden to contemplate and engage in what it means to become an icon for your country, especially once betrayed by that country. Shattered Skies, by comparison, is a lonely affair. One in which the player is given the space to reflect on the effect they are having on morale on both sides, never being distracted by a scripted monologue or by one-sided conversations from allies.

Throughout the progression of missions radio chatter from ally and enemy alike begin to recognize your prowess and reputation as a fighter pilot, to the inspiration of the soldiers below you and the fear of the enemies around you. It all culminates in the finale, in which an extremist group of surviving Erusian officers have secured an experimental superweapon and are planning on launching it against any and all of their enemies. This mission is introduced by the track “Rex Tremandae” attributed to Keiki Kobayashi and followed by the main mission track “Megalith (Agnus Dei)” attributed to Tetsukazu Nakanishi. “Agnus Dei'' is traditionally in Catholicism the name of music that accompanies prayers to the Lamb of God. Its use here is representative of the collective prayers of the USEA nation for Mobius 1 to succeed in their current mission, insinuating they have ascended from being just another individual to something much more. Even without that context, it is a track that ascends above all the others for its choir vocals and imbues your final mission with a much grander scale and risk than any previous one, and is a fitting end cap.

I have attempted to write about Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies multiple times since I first played it so many years ago, but I do not believe I will ever be able to communicate how hard it hits me every time I replay it. Here I sit, twenty-two years after its release and I’m still finding new insights into how it affects me. Tracks from Agustin Barrios bring a warmth and longing to the interludes in a way no other composer could. Despite having sold over two million copies, discussion about this game is lacking. All those who have played it find it affecting like so few games are, especially one that falls under the arcade flight simulator genre. For how it continues to touch me to this day and for continuing to be a source of new script, Ace Combat 04: Shattered Skies is Literature.

[usafphantom2]

Russia threatened to shoot down French AWACS over the Black Sea

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 02/23/2024 - 00:08in Military, War Zones

Russian forces threatened to shoot down a French surveillance plane that patrolled international airspace over the Black Sea, a sign of Moscow's increasingly aggressive behavior as the invasion of Ukraine struggles to move forward, French defense officials said on Thursday.

“A Russian air traffic control system threatened to shoot down French aircraft in the Black Sea when we were in a free international zone where we patrolled,” French Defense Minister Sébastien Lecornu told RTL radio.

A French military spokesman, Colonel Pierre Gaudillière, said Lecornu was referring to an incident in mid-November that involved one of the four gigantic E-3F of France's Airborne Alert and Control Systems, or AWACS, surveillance aircraft flying over international waters in the Black Sea. Gaudillière described the incident as unprecedented for the French pilots in that region.

“Through a radio exchange, the pilots were threatened by the Russians,” Gaudillière said.

“It was a particularly aggressive radio exchange,” he added. "It's the first time."

Two other authorities said that the conversation was in English and that Russian air traffic control said that their forces would "destroy" the French aircraft. The authorities spoke on condition of anonymity for discussing the confidential details.

In his radio interview, Lecornu said that Russia is returning to a "particularly aggressive" posture that recalls the behavior of the former Soviet Union during the Cold War.

“Russia's behavior in 2024 is not related to what we saw in 2022 and, obviously, before the aggression in Ukraine,” the minister said. "This is explained by the fact that Russia is in difficulty on the battlefield in Ukraine."

French air force pilots regularly patrol NATO's eastern flank, part of the efforts of the military alliance of 31 nations to strengthen their defenses since Russia launched the large-scale invasion of Ukraine two years ago on Saturday.

On board a French air force AWACS flight to the Black Sea coast in January, one of the pilots told the Associated Press that they seek to calm any tensions if they are intercepted by Russian planes, which he said was rare.

“Our orders must be, say, passive,” said the pilot, Major Romain. "For a civilian, let's say 'educated'".

Flying well above the Black Sea coast, the French AWACS use their powerful radar and other surveillance equipment to spy on the Crimean Peninsula, which was taken from Ukraine by Russia and annexed in 2014. Flights can detect missile launches, aerial bombardments and other military activity in the Ukraine war.

Russian pilots have sometimes made it clear that they do not like to be observed.

In 2022, a Russian fighter launched a missile near a British Air Force RC-135 Rivet Joint surveillance aircraft that was flying in international airspace over the Black Sea, the British government said. The United States government released a video in March 2023 of a Russian jet fighter dumping fuel into a U.S. Air Force surveillance drone. The drone crashed into the Black Sea.

Source: AP

Tags: Armée de l'air - French Air Force/French Air ForceMilitary AviationE-3 SentryWar Zones - Russia/Ukraine

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Fernando Valduga

Fernando Valduga

Aviation photographer and pilot since 1992, he has participated in several events and air operations, such as Cruzex, AirVenture, Dayton Airshow and FIDAE. He has works published in specialized aviation magazines in Brazil and abroad. He uses Canon equipment during his photographic work in the world of aviation.

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[humsbugs]

I should make a fic with paraguay one day... after the paraguayan war argentina wanted half their fucking land I could make something with that

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

“Will Avert Threat of Mennonite Migration,” Kingston Whig-Standard. February 13, 1933. Page 1. ---- Paraguay to Grant Concessions to Former Canadian Subjects in Order to Retain Them in the Chaco— Hoe and Plough More Important Than Armaments ---- ASUNCION, Paraguay, Feb. 13 — Threatened migration of 5,000 Canadian Mennonite from farms in the Chaco to new and warless fields in Uruguay or Brazil will be averted if any concessions which Paraguay can make will induce the sturdy colonists to remain.

Official sources deny that a commission sent to treat for land concessions in Northern Uruguay and the Brazilian State of Santa Catalina represents the majority of the Chaco Mennonites, but serious attention is being given to the matter because the Paraguayan program for development of the Chaco counts heavily upon the Mennonites.    In its war with Bolivia for possession of the Chaco, Paraguay has relied more upon hoe and plow than upon armaments for eventual victory. Colonlzsilon has been a Paraguayan weapon which Botivia could not match. 

Secession of the Mennonites would not only remove a sixth of the white population of the Chaco and leave  idle a fourth of its cultivated area, but would halt a colonization project which bad been counted upon to bring 60,000 members of the sect eventually onto farm wrested from the wilderness. When the first Mennonites   came from Canada in 1927, they acquired 120 square miles of land in the Central Chaco and made plans for an eventual 400 villages of twenty families each. The colony has grown steadily.

[inoppositionflorien]

the world now:

the world if President Rutherford B. Hayes had been acknowledged as the loser of the 1876 election rather than agreeing to end reconstruction while having the south carolina, florida, and louisiana republican elector slates accepted so that he could be president, rather than let Samuel Tilden win, who would end reconstruction anyway:

(not pictured, the few 19th century Paraguayans who haven't starved during the famine and war, disappointed that occidental paraguay, 60% of the country's land area, is owned by bolivia and argentina in this timeline)

[transgenderer]

The number of people who died in the Paraguayan War (1864–1870) is unknown. Widely diverging estimates have been made. "Determining the size of Paraguay's population has always been an exercise in frustration."[1] However, there is a widespread impression that the casualties (military and civilian) were immense; there was also some population loss from non-lethal causes such as migration. The Dutch human geographer Jan Kleinpenning thought that Paraguay lost between a quarter and a half of its population, but much higher and lower estimates have been made. No academic demographic scholarship makes it less than 7% (including migration) or greater than 69%.

The traditional estimate was that the War cost Paraguay at least half its population including military and civilian casualties (the latter mainly owing to disease, dislocation and malnutrition) and that 90% of males of military age died.[2] If that was so the Paraguayan War must have been 10 to 20 times more lethal than the slightly earlier American Civil War. The traditional estimate was based partly on anecdotal evidence and partly on a supposed census of 1857 which gave Paraguay a prewar population of about 1.3 million,[3] which, if correct, implied an utterly catastrophic decline in the subsequent War.

The first step in modern research was realising that prewar Paraguay's population could not possibly have been 1.3 million

In 1976 John Hoyt Williams published 'Observations on the Paraguayan Census of 1846'. He analysed 20,000 pages of documentation surviving from an 1846 census of Paraguay ordered by the dictator Carlos Antonio López.[11] Correcting the raw figures for missing returns, he arrived at an estimated population of the order of 240,000 for the year 1846. To estimate the population for the year before the War (1864) he assumed various growth rates, yielding a range between about 373,000 (annual growth rate 2.5%) to about 575,000 (annual growth rate of 5%). He remarked that “even the highest figure is far short of what is usually claimed by historians not utilizing hard data”.[12] In his opinion the most likely growth rate was 3%, implying a population of about 407,000.

theres a whole story here. very strange. could have been almost a genocide, could have been a pretty run of the mill high-casualty war. wonder if well ever know