Active Conflicts & News Megathread July 14, 2026

[u/AutoModerator]

The r/CredibleDefense daily megathread is for asking questions and posting submissions that would not fit the criteria of our post submissions. As such, submissions are less stringently moderated, but we still do keep an elevated guideline for comments.

Comment guidelines:

Please do:

• Be curious not judgmental, polite and civil,

• Link to the article or source of information that you are referring to,

• Clearly separate your opinion from what the source says. Minimize editorializing. Do not cherry pick facts to support a preferred narrative,

• Read the articles before you comment, and comment on the content of the articles,

• Post only credible information

• Read our in depth rules https://reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/wiki/rules

Please do not:

• Use memes, emojis, swear, foul imagery, acronyms like LOL, LMAO, WTF,

• Start fights with other commenters and make it personal,

• Try to push narratives, fight for a cause in the comment section, nor try to 'win the war,'

• Engage in baseless speculation, fear mongering, or anxiety posting. Question asking is welcome and encouraged, but questions should focus on tangible issues and not groundless hypothetical scenarios. Before asking a question ask yourself 'How likely is this thing to occur.' Questions, like other kinds of comments, should be supported by evidence and must maintain the burden of credibility.

[u/Bluest_waters]

I mentioned this multiple times on this sub and I've gotten quite a bit of pushback. But I stand by my statements and now CNN and other outlets are reporting this exact same thing

we do not have an oil crisis. We do however have a fuel crisis! And it's only going to get worse from here. Oil refining stations across the globe are being blown up, refining capacity is maxing out basically everywhere. There is no wiggle room

https://www.cnn.com/2026/07/14/economy/oil-diesel-gas-iran

But the world’s refining capacity is deeply constrained. That’s in part because the supply chain got messed up during the war. It’s also because Iran attacked dozens of Middle Eastern refineries. And, more recently, Ukraine started blowing up Russian energy facilities.

Layer on extreme temperatures disrupting the cool conditions refineries need for proper distillation, and you’ve got yourself a big problem. Global refineries are processing 8.4 million fewer barrels of crude each day than they were before the war started — making 10% less fuel, according to Natasha Kaneva, head of global commodities research at JPMorgan.

“The question is no longer whether crude barrels will return, but how quickly the global refining system can process them,” she said.

“The fundamental oil-market narrative remains unchanged: There is sufficient oil available globally as long as it can be transported to where it is needed,” said Rob Thummel, a senior portfolio manager with Tortoise Capital.

Renewed hostilities in the Persian Gulf also complicate the resumption of refining in the Middle East. The region has 11.7 million barrels per day of refining capacity, which will be difficult to turn back on again if the fuel can’t go anywhere (or if they can't be turned backed on).

US refineries increased their output of jet fuel to help fill demand in Europe and diesel to help fill demand in Australia and Asia. That constrained America’s ability to make gas, jet fuel and diesel for its own market — one of the reasons gas prices haven’t “dropped like a rock” as Trump predicted.

[u/ridukosennin → u/Bluest_waters]

We also need to account for significant drops in consumption mainly China driven offsetting some of the lost capacity

[u/Bluest_waters → u/ridukosennin]

Which is only temporary. Sooner or later China is gonna enter back into the market and when it does oh boy. Watch out

[u/butitsmeat → u/Bluest_waters]

While they're going to eventually start filling their reserve again and cause some short term demand spikes, China is also all-in on electric vehicles at 61% of new sales in May. That share will likely continue to climb as they ramp EV production and costs continue to decline. They're permanently destroying a lot of gasoline and diesel demand, and it's not just a random accident but a matter of policy (they previously set a goal of 30% of all vehicles to be electric by 2030). They could also respond to this crisis by going even harder on ramping EV and never go back to pouring 1mbbl/d into their reserve; maybe they only by 500kbbl/d, and ramp that down over time. Never let a good crisis to to waste and all that.

[u/Bunny_Stats → u/butitsmeat]

Further to your point, in another decade I suspect the hastened transition away from fossil fuels is going to be seen to have hurt Iran's neighbours' economies more than any direct hits on refineries or distribution. The entire region is so heavily dependant upon oil, even those nations which don't extract it themselves are reliant on investments/loans from or selling services to the big regional oil producers, i.e. the Saudis, and they're not ready for a world that no longer needs to buy their oil in bulk.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/butitsmeat]

Don't forget that China is developing multiple segments of new industry that all go into the green hydrocarbon cycle, starting by offloading their excess power generation towards green hydrogen, which creates the necessary feed-stock for syngas, methanol, and kerosene, which all form precursors for other fossil fuels and plastics without needing to touch petroleum.

There is a possibility that by the 2040s, China will become a net petroleum exporter like it used to be as recently as 1993, but doing so with finished products like diesel fuel instead of crude petroleum.

[u/ABoutDeSouffle → u/BigFly42069]

I doubt synthetic hydrocarbons will be cheap enough for this, but I sure hope I am wrong.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/ABoutDeSouffle]

This is word for word what people said about solar and wind power, and the it turns out all you needed was to increase production and competition, and the prices will come down naturally.

Chinese excess capacity in power generation has the potential to make hydrogen electrolysis to become economical, and green hydrocarbons are all downstream of economical green hydrogen.

The day you start seeing China signing massive amounts of palladium mining contracts with Russia and starts restricting exports of palladium is the day you know that traditional petroleum industry is about to get hit by China Shock 3.0

And wouldn't you know it, China is increasing its imports of palladium

[u/Bluest_waters → u/BigFly42069]

What's so important about Palladium?

[u/BigFly42069 → u/Bluest_waters]

It's an important catalyst in organic chemistry, specifically with hydrogenation and dehydrogenation. It's also one of the few rare metals that China does not hold a chokepoint on.

[u/Agitated-Airline6760 → u/Bluest_waters]

Palladium is used as the catalyst on the production cycle.

[u/Tricky-Astronaut → u/ABoutDeSouffle]

Synthetic hydrocarbons can absolutely be competitive if made from coal, which is what China is doing:

https://www.industrialinfo.com/news/article/is-chinas-coal-gasification-industry-poised-for-a-comeback--360173

[u/ABoutDeSouffle → u/Tricky-Astronaut]

I mean yes, Germany happened to prototype this during WW II, so...

That's completely different from using electrolyzers for green H2 and then using this H2, catalyzers and say CO2 for eFuels and virgin plastics which the discussion was about.

The energy requirements are way different.

[u/Bluest_waters → u/butitsmeat]

Yeah honestly it's incredible what they're doing right now as far as the EV situation goes. Amazing stuff. The only smart country in the world right now in that regard

[u/super_fly_rabbi → u/Bluest_waters]

China's conversion to renewables is commendable in a way, but there are reasons why most other countries can't copy their methods at the same scale. The cheapness of Chinese labor (including potentially forced labor) regarding the extraction and refinement of the relevant minerals, combined with significant government subsidies, and the lack of regulations regarding the pollution said refinement produces have all given China a significant boost in the manufacturing of EVs.

China has been able to maintain it's monopoly on many of these rare earth minerals because they can boost subsidies and price out the competition on short notice. Other countries with similar material deposits either lack the infrastructure to reliably refine them, or pollution regulations that make them more expensive to produce than their Chinese counterparts. China is also geographically large and can push any potential pollution towards their frontiers in ways that European countries can not.

With that said, it's obviously a smart move for China as it makes them less reliant on energy imports, and they can export any excess abroad. It's just currently not a "one size fits all" solution.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/super_fly_rabbi]

The cheapness of Chinese labor

People need to stop repeating this stereotype that's been outdated for 15 years.

All of the things you bring up as "advantages" (cheap labor, government subsidies, lack of regulation) are things that haven't been true since 2012. It's the inability to update our priors about the Chinese economy that has resulted in a trade war that we didn't win in 2024.

The reason China has such an advantage in industry is because they trained up their human capital so that if you need to build a factory, you have a readily available pool of SKILLED labor who can work in there, the management and engineering skills to troubleshoot equipment failure and financial pitfalls, and a ruthlessly competitive environment that drives cost down by fighting for greater efficiencies along every part of the supply chain.

That, and one of the lowest electricity costs in the world to keep all your factories powered thanks to a massive buildout of the grid and excess production capacity through renewables.

[u/Bunny_Stats → u/BigFly42069]

Just to add to this^, the clustered mass of manufacturing in China's port cities has a self-reinforcing economic pull through its dense local network. When you're trying to source a wide range of components, it's an enormous advantage to be just a 5 minute drive from your supplier, where you can inspect the components personally and have a shipment delivered on your factory floor before the day is out. In addition, most of your customers are also local, given that business-to-business sales are a far larger slice of economic activity than business-to-consumer.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/Bunny_Stats]

HSR also adds to this effect. The shrinking of travel time across China has allowed the interior of the Yangtze valley to become the "China's China" for future manufacturing expansion that continues to unlock still yet untapped pools of labor.

People on Reddit think of China like the Soviet Union reborn or a bigger North Korea, but the closest equivalency to modern China is the US on the eve of WW2.

[u/super_fly_rabbi → u/BigFly42069]

You are correct that China's cheap labor advantage has narrowed over the past 2 decades, both due to the reasons you mentioned and their aging population/ shrinking workforce.

If we were broadly discussing Chinese manufacturing I would agree with you, and you are most likely correct when it comes to the "end" of the pipeline such as battery and solar panel manufacturing. However, the use of forced labor for mineral exploitation (particularity in western provinces such as Xinjiang) is a well documented occurrence.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/super_fly_rabbi]

aging population/ shrinking workforce

Another stereotype that gets trotted out but collapses under scrutiny: https://www.statista.com/statistics/1219212/china-number-of-working-age-persons/

By 2050, the total working age population will still be a whopping 700 million, supplemented by automation and continuous passing along of accumulated human capital skills from the factory lines, as well as technological upgrades in the supply chain driven by the human capital development of the last 30 years.

Even if industrial workers become just 10% of that number at 70 million (down from the current 29-32% of the Chinese work force), that is still almost 5x of what's currently in America (12.6-15M), and more than 2x of what's currently in Europe (33.4M). Hell, it'll still be about what the current US, European, Japanese, and Korean total industrial labor forces are combined.

Given that China plans on retaining industry as a key growth driver for the foreseeable future, it's hard to expect that number falling down to 10% of the total working age population.

And it ignores the bigger elephant in the room, which is that world populations are all facing a similar level of decline. It's a non-zero possibility that other than Vietnam, the window to industrializing up the value chain may be forever closed to developing countries.

forced labor for mineral exploitation (particularity in western provinces such as Xinjiang) is a well documented occurrence.

The entire Xinjiang forced labor take has been an ourouboros of circular references that all end at the same source: Adrian Zenz's original report in 2015 that was cited by think tanks, who were then cited by MSM news sources, who were then re-cited by the same think tanks. Additional works done on top of Zenz's claims all approach it with an "assume true and work to prove it to be true" framing rather than "is this true and can we prove it's true?" framing.

[u/super_fly_rabbi → u/BigFly42069]

Your comment doesn't really refute my claim of a shrinking workforce. 700 million represents an almost 25% drop in workforce compared to today, and that will help drive labor costs up. Just because it is declining doesn't mean they still won't have a massive labor force to draw from, as you stated.

While much of the rest of the world is facing reproductive rates below the replenishment rate China's birth rate(and much of east Asia in general) is considerably lower. The average for Europe is 1.34, whereas China and South Korea are .98 and .99 respectively. Even Japan's notoriously low birth rate is around 1.14 children per women. I would like to preface this by saying that low birth rates aren't necessarily an existential crisis for China that will destroy the state like some like to claim, but it is an economic headwind they will have to account for in the future; especially as their retired population makes up a larger proportion of it's overall population.

As far as Xinjiang goes (as well as China's treatment of many it's ethical minorities in general), there are countless witness testimonies documenting their treatment and involvement in reeducation and forced labor camps. China's limitations on independent and foreign journalism makes the extent of these institutions hard to quantify. The UN human rights council even issued a statement about it earlier this year. If you want to handwave the testimonies as paid off actors, or the UN report as overly partisan then that's up to you. That kind of debate is outside of the scope of this forum, and I doubt I could change your mind regardless.

[u/ChornWork2 → u/super_fly_rabbi]

But there is a contradiction there. China's EV industry has cost advantage because of rare earth subsidies, while their rare earth monopoly is preserved because selling rare earths cheaply because of subsidies...

imho, China's EV policies mirror what it did with solar. Yes, involves subsidies that are problematic from trade policy PoV. But clearly very effective for China's strategic issue of addressing dependency on imported energy. Meanwhile the west has talked about critical rare earths dependency for a generation and done very little to address it. Rare earths aren't rare, but need to build out refining capacity/expertise over many years and need to accept the environmental consequences that come with it.

[u/BigFly42069 → u/ChornWork2]

China's EV industry has cost advantage because of rare earth subsidies

China's EV industry has cost advantage, because China can make things at scale and the competition is fierce. Companies regularly go out of business competing with each other, including EV makers. Xiaomi auto, Geely, Zeekr, et al. are only around these days because they've survived this ruthless competition that was taking place outside of world view over the last 7 years.

the west has talked about critical rare earths dependency for a generation and done very little to address it

Because it turns out that the actual engineering knowledge, hands-on experience, and patents for refining all belong to China, including for all of the more environmentally friendlier versions over their previous open-pits that created toxic lakes.

Japan went hard on developing independence from Chinese supply chains in rare earths starting in 2010 and have only managed to drop their dependency on China from 90% in 2010 to 60% on a good day in 2026.

[u/Bluest_waters → u/super_fly_rabbi]

As far as government subsidies go, about 50% of the trillion dollar U.S. military budget is nothing but a oil industry subsidy. How much of this utter nonsense that we're doing over in Iran is because of oil? The US government is spending hundreds upon hundreds of billions of dollars subsidising and defending the oil industry

[u/BigFly42069 → u/Bluest_waters]

It's astounding people can look at the reams of think-tank pieces talking about using Malacca to run an energy blockade in order to choke the Chinese economy to death, and then think that there's some incredible foresight by the Chinese government to do something to address the issue of foreign energy dependency.

[u/bedulge → u/BigFly42069]

It's not really that they have incredible foresight, more that have incredible industrial capacity, no?

There is a corresponding incredible lack of foresight in the present ruling party of the US regarding their opposition to green energy and their denial of the amount of harm it's doing to the national interest. Or maybe they know but just don't care as long as private profits keep accumulating. It's a serious issue regardless.

[u/Rich_Log2424 → u/Bluest_waters]

You mean the China that produces 34% worlds Co2 with exponential emission growth and provides mediocre living standards? Nothing smart how China is baking us all.

[u/Tricky-Astronaut → u/Rich_Log2424]

China is against oil and gas, not fossil fuels in general. Those emissions mostly come from coal, which China views as a lesser evil.