Vantage Point North

White Guards at Lemi In January 1918 Finland was in turmoil. While the nation had mostly avoided the horrors of the Great War and successfully declared itself independent in December of 1917, the population was divided between socialists and the rest, the Reds and the Whites. After mid January both the Red Guards and the Suojeluskunta, also known as White Guards, began to clash, especially in Karelia. The Imperial Russian army was still occupying Finland and the White Guards managed to disarm the passive Russian forces in Sortavala, Antrea and Joensuu. On the 26th the socialist Red Guards begun an open revolution. In January 26th the Suojeluskunta Battalion from Viipuri, that had regrouped at Venäjänsaari after communists took over the city, began to march, mostly on skis, towards the railway stations at Kämärä and Säiniö in order to disrupt the vital railway line between Petrograd and Vyborg. The battalion had roughly 500 white guards and its forward elements managed to capt...

Chinese People's Armed Police Force on a drill The Beijing’s paramilitary arm Chinese People's Armed Police Force is concentrating its light mechanized infantry formations into the areas surrounding Hong Kong. The force is equipped with wheeled APCs and it’s supported by at least PLA combat engineers. The ongoing wave of protests in Hong Kong doesn’t seem to run out of steam and the city’s own police force seems to be unable to contain the protesters. The Hong Kong administration seems to be equally inept at resolving the underlying conflicts between Beijing and Hong Kong. PAP on the march. Source: Aurora Intel The Chinese communist regime will certainly not accept any solutions that would increase the freedoms or rights of the Hong Kong's citizens. The already huge disparity between the western styled society of Hong Kong and the developing dystopian police state in the mainland China is becoming a tough sale to the Chinese citizenson the mainland tryin...

The social stability in Finland had steadily deteriorated as the newly independent nation lacked both police and military forces and the Russian army still had a strong presence within the Finnish borders. Both socialists and conservatives had begun to build their own security forces during the previous summer. Red Guards and Russians supporting them To solve the situation, that had already escalated into sporadic violence and acts of terror, the Finnish Senate, with a mandate from the elected Parliament, declared in 25th of January1918 that the Civil Guards would become the Senates army under the command of the General Carl Gustaf Emil Mannerheim, a 30 year veteran of the Imperial Russian Army. The Reds immediately refused to obey the order to stand down their military forces. The Civil Guards began to disarm the Russian garrisons and used the captured weaponry to arm their forces. During the 27 th of January 1918 the Red Guards issued a full-scale mobilization within the...

Kurdish Peshmerga The autonomous Kurdistan Region votes enthusiastically for independence. A perfect world would welcome a new member into the family of nations, but the local powers in the Middle East are preparing to extinguish the flame of freedom before it even has a change to light up properly. Iraq, Turkey and Iran all strongly oppose the creation of a Kurdish state, as they fear that the Kurdish minorities within their borders would seek to follow the lead of the Kurds in Iraq. While USA and many of the western countries are supportive to the Kurdish cause and have sent both arms and trainers to help the Kurdish Peshmerga’s to fight the Islamic State, it’s doubtful that they are willing to or even able to protect Kurdistan with either sufficient diplomatic pressure or military action. The Iraqi parliament has ordered the government to seize all border crossings from Kurdistan to Iraq and to the neighboring countries. The Iraqi prime minister ordered the I...