The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

Free crossover episode with The Jacob Shapiro Podcast! It's a strategy of primitive accumulation masquerading as a culture warrior grand strategy. It's doing white Christian nationalism as foreign policy, imperialism in Latin America, far-right revolution in Europe. And what about China? In this crossover episode between The Un-Diplomatic Podcast and The Jacob Shapiro Podcast, Dr. Van Jackson--a former national security strategist--explains the significance of the Trump administration's new National Security Strategy and what it means for the world. 

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Free episode crossover with The Bang-Bang Podcast! Van Jackson and Lyle Rubin are joined by returning guest Sam Carliner to take on Marines, Netflix’s new 250th-anniversary docuseries, an unmistakable propaganda piece (it’s literally featured on the official Marine Corps website) that nonetheless reveals more candor than the institution intended. Directed by Chelsea Yarnell, whose style veers into Riefenstahl-lite, the series moves through the familiar mythology: Marines as the “meanest, baddest motherfuckers,” war as manhood, China as the next “bloody” proving ground. But between the clichés, something truer keeps slipping out.

The Marines themselves come across not as...

Free episode cross-over! Van Jackson appeared as a guest on Davis Ellison’s Official Positions podcast. They talk about how Van became a scholar, why he left Washington for New Zealand, the social realities of being a foreign policy wonk, the dark side of life in rich countries, what strategic studies ought to be, and how Davis himself went from being NATO analyst to being a NATO critic. 

Check out Official Positions: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/official-positions/id1798238454

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Why regime-change war with Venezuela is about drugs. And cartels. And immigration. And resource exploitation. And because it will be good for inflation. And because uranium to all of the world’s bad guys. What the fuck!? Things are shaping up like a choose-your-own adventure story that fails to learn from the Iraq War. What is the Ukraine peace plan and why is it destined to fail in its current form? The opportunity and threat of national-security democrats like Elissa Slotkin and Mark Kelly, and what it says that Trump is accusing them of sedition. Trump’s effort to brin...

Van Jackson and Julia Gledhill link back up to discuss Bret Stephens' op-ed in the New York Times making the case for overthrowing Maduro in Venezuela...and why it's the Iraq War all over again. How the Democrats are in bed with Palantir and why they need to get out. The G-7 meeting in Canada revealed what can only be called imperialist multilateralism. And Secretary of State Marco Rubio designates Antifa a foreign terrorist organization, which escalates an ongoing fight between rulers and subjects in most countries. 

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In this crossover episode with The Time of Monsters--a podcast of The Nation Magazine--Jeet Heer and Van Jackson discuss the worldmaking of Jeffrey Epstein and the complicity of America's entire ruling class in his crimes, from Larry Summers and Leon Panetta to Trump himself. Thousands of leaked emails reported by DropSite News have revealed something about Jeffrey Epstein that few people realized: He was one of the world's preeminent geopoliticians during the unipolar moment, and that's not a good thing. We now know that Epstein actively promoted the interests of the global far right; worked with Israeli security services...

Who’s afraid of Zohran Mamdani, and why New York newest mayor will lead to Trump escalating his war against Americans. An economic great depression is already hiding in plain sight. The Nazi debate within the Republican Party. Why the Trump administration’s war on Venezuela will expand to Colombia and Mexico. Making sense of Trump’s trip across East Asia as a symptom of hegemonic decline.

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Xi Jinping and Donald Trump just met in South Korea, agreeing to suspend the most acute aspects of economic warfare for 12 months, lowering US tariffs on Chinese goods, and resuming Chinese purchases of US soybeans. But Dr. Van Jackson explains why the inter-imperialist rivalry between China and the US endures, why talk of a G2 is premature, and what needs to be done to address the structural sources of great-power competition. 

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Part II of our crossover episode with The Bang-Bang Podcast! Van and Lyle are joined by Sam Ratner, Policy Director at Win Without War, and Andy Facini, Communications Director at the Council on Strategic Risks, to discuss WarGames, John Badham’s Cold-War techno-thriller that accidentally foresaw the age of algorithmic warfare. What begins as a teenage prank—Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman breaking into what he thinks is a computer game—quickly becomes a meditation on automation, deterrence, and human judgment in systems built to annihilate. Together, the group unpacks how WarGames’ “WOPR” supercomputer prefigures today’s AI decision-making, where machines l...

Free crossover episode with The Bang-Bang Podcast! Van and Lyle are joined by Sam Ratner, Policy Director at Win Without War, and Andy Facini, Communications Director at the Council on Strategic Risks, to discuss WarGames, John Badham’s Cold-War techno-thriller that accidentally foresaw the age of algorithmic warfare.

What begins as a teenage prank—Matthew Broderick’s David Lightman breaking into what he thinks is a computer game—quickly becomes a meditation on automation, deterrence, and human judgment in systems built to annihilate. Together, the group unpacks how WarGames’ “WOPR” supercomputer prefigures today’s AI decision-making, where machines learn t...

The RAND Corporation just cut 11% of staff--which is a further sign of a crisis of capital accumulation. The CIA is maybe rethinking China. The Trump administration is accelerating decoupling from China. Progressives and antiwar organizations send an open letter to Trump about detente with China. Graham Platner's tattoo is getting way too much attention, and also the reason he'll beat Susan Collins. Steve Bannon says Trump will be president in 2028, despite being unconstitutional.

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What it means that the Department of War just revoked the press credentials for more than 100 media outlets. Why the China trade crisis is a self-imposed Cuban Missile Crisis that could nuke the global economy (China has predictable control of critical minerals). Trump's covert action authorization against Venezuela is part of Monroe Doctrine 2.0. Why the criminal charges against Ashley Tellis signal a more perilous age for foreign policy analysts. And what Gaza ceasefire does and does not mean. And why everyone but Matt looks forward to pumpkin-spice latte season. 

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Jamie Merchant, author of Endgame: Economic Nationalism and Global Decline, wants you to stop thinking like a policymaker! He joins the pod to talk about a new essay he has in The Brooklyn Rail about the decline and decay of the "progressive managerial state." Van and Jamie also discuss their shared critique of the book Trade Wars Are Class Wars, the contradiction of Trump's tariffs, their mixed evaluation of Adam Tooze, why international relations as a discipline appears to be in terminal decline, the ideological conflicts within MAGA and what it has to do with a crisis of capital...

Pete Hegseth's fat-generals theory of war is a stabbed-in-the-back myth meant to justify brutality. Trump's NSPM-7 is very explicitly a war on anyone who advocates for peace, democracy, and equality. The government shutdown is being used as a war on Democrats and liberal democracy. The Gaza Sumud Flotilla gets targeted by Israel, in violation of international law--why don't modern states protect their citizens anymore? Trump wants to make a soybean deal with China--the makings of a new detente, but with corrupt, elite-serving foundations. 

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Why are both the left and the right opposed to the "liberal international order?" What are different schools of right-wing thought about the world, what makes the global far right a counter-order movement, and what, if anything, does it have in common with progressive foreign policy. Dr. Van Jackson, a scholar of international relations, explains the competing global visions of left and right in this live lecture you don't want to miss. This is part two of a two-part lecture on the politics of global order. 

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What was the "Liberal International Order," and why did people start calling it the "Rules-Based International Order?" Why do experts debate its meaning? What good has it been? How liberal was the Liberal International Order? And why is it over? Dr. Van Jackson, a scholar of international relations, explains in this live lecture you don't want to miss. This is part one of a two-part lecture on the politics of global order. 

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How do territorial disputes in the South China Sea impact biodiversity? Madelyn MacMurray joins the podcast to discuss how militarized fishing fleets deplete fish stocks – and why that matters to the world. 

Read Madelyn’s most recent piece: Militarized Commons: How Territorial Competition is Weaponizing Fisheries and Destroying the South China Sea: https://www.stimson.org/2025/territorial-competition-weaponizing-fisheries-south-china-sea/ 

And check out her team’s most recent report on the same topic, here: Policy Roadmap: Addressing IUU Fishing in Southeast Asia: https://www.stimson.org/2025/policy-roadmap-addressing-iuu-fishing-in-southeast-asia/ 

Follow Madelyn on X, if you’re still there: https://x.c...

Explaining how designating Antifa a terrorist organization and cancelling Jimmy Kimmel are part of the same emergency politics: A primer on securitization theory in the Trump presidency. White nationalist oligarchy is stealing your money and causing a recession: Here's how and why. The US TikTok deal with China could be the model for a new grand bargain, albeit a corrupt one. And the US National Defense Strategy is still targeting China. 

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On Charlie Kirk's horrific assassination and why Ezra Klein's hand-wringing shows that, contrary to his protestations, he in fact embraces some political violence. Trump and Pete Hegseth rename the Department of Defense the Department of War. The Pentagon starts shifting from Indo-Pacific to Asia-Pacific, which has the fingerprints of Elbridge Colby all over it (and I’m not mad at that!). Israel attacks US ally Qatar--what that says about war, expansionism, and revisionist foreign policy. ICE raids a Hyundai-LG factory in Georgia, exposing South Korea to white supremacist statecraft. 

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What is progressive foreign policy and what are its roots? The New Left’s struggles against racism, militarism, and imperialism were the real origins of what we call progressive foreign policy today. In this special oral history episode, I tell the story of progressive foreign policy and where it could be headed. Key moments in that history include:

Opposition to Cold War liberalism;

Advocacy for the Nuclear Freeze Movement in the 1980s;

How Democratic Party foreign policy became so hawkish during the Global War on Terror and the Obama presidency;

The ro...

The real price of Trump's military occupation of Washington, DC. Trump's war on George Soros and Alex Soros is a war on the Democratic Party. US "gray zone" covert action in Greenland is foreign malign influence against Denmark. Should the US state nationalize the defense industry? And MAGA's contradiction on China is not the rift it appears as. 

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Tulsi Gabbard is waging a war on intelligence, in more ways than one. 37 national security technocrats have had their clearances revoked, which is its own form of imperial blowback. State Department fires Shahed Ghoreishi for having a heart (and not being a white Christian nationalist). Also, what’s happened to Asian security scholars and policymakers?

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Co-host Matt Duss makes a guest appearance on Hasan Piker's Twitch stream! Van, Matt, and Julia talk about the Trump-Putin summit in Alaska, which has all the makings of either failure or an imperialist peace. Scott Bessent lies about tariffs, economic recession, and America's fake "sovereign wealth fund." Tony Blinken's blood-covered op-ed in the Wall Street Journal. And Trump's military occupation of Washington, D.C. 

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The rupture between the Pentagon and the think tank technocrats. The next clash of civilizations will be between the Global North and the Global South. Why ICE is now recruiting white supremacists and fascists. Palestine Action are not terrorists; they're trying to oppose state terrorism. 

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Dr. Van Jackson spoke as part of a live teach-in webinar for Roots Action and Defuse Nuclear War. He's joined on his panel by Emma Claire Foley, William Hartung, and Taylor Barnes. Together they explain what American militarism looks like under Trump 2.0; what makes Trump foreign policy imperialist; why it's being driven by both a crisis of capitalism and the Washington pursuit of primacy; how US militarism is affecting local communities in America; and what some groups are doing to fight back. 

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The tables have turned! In this crossover episode, Dr. Van Jackson gets interviewed by Jacob Shapiro of The Jacob Shapiro Podcast. Together they cover the enter landscape of geopolitics from a critical perspective: why the MAGA project of white nationalist social democracy cannot work; why Israeli primacy, not oil, explains US militarism in the Middle East; why the US doesn't want to fight the Houthis; how Japan failed to understand American politics; and the beginnings of a post-American Korean Peninsula. 

Jacob Shapiro Podcast: https://youtu.be/Ar6-f0OVAss?si=-0mrKcLjpUCRdj7P 

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Award-winning journalist, author, and lifelong New Yorker Spencer Ackerman joins the show to talk about the world from a New York point of view: The importance of NYC-DSA and the Zohran Mamdani mayoral campaign; how New York's oligarchs used unfounded claims of anti-semitism to protect class privilege; ICE's preparations to do mass extraordinary renditions; how Donald Trump's presidency has become the Global War on Terror that he used to mock George W. Bush for; and why US Central Command's new viceroy inflates the Iran threat (it's for Israel). 

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Van joined David Parsons of The Nostalgia Trap--literally Van’s favorite pod--in a delicious freak out about ICE arresting local college professors, MAGA's Jeffrey Epstein fissures, Andrew Cuomo aiming to spoil Mamdani's victory in NYC, Trump sending weapons to Ukraine, and the overall Third Reich vibes that America is currently giving. As the ever-rising waters of tyranny begin to splash onto our windowsills, what are any of us supposed to be doing?

Subscribe to the Nostalgia Trap: https://www.patreon.com/nostalgiatrap

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Free episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. The question of “Which side are you on?” haunted me (Van Jackson) intermittently throughout the long Global War on Terror. It was a beat that I would hear during occasional moments of consciousness, which I tried to suppress or rationalize away…until I no longer could.

On my other show, The Bang-Bang Podcast, I ended up having a surprising conversation with our guest, George Dardess. Before we started the actual episode, we talked at length about memoirs and stories of conversion.

George is an expert in the lost art of...

Ross Douthat confronts Peter Thiel with the possibility that he is the anti-Christ. Zohran Mamdani shows a model for politics that the media fears. The Democrats' Project 2029 is a farce that shows leaders of the party don't actually want to win. Fascist public policy is here, and it's class war. According to Gallup, even most Americans think US hegemony sucks. The Pentagon's Elbridge Colby just halted missile shipments to Ukraine so that the US can more readily fight a war against China that it just can't win. Why European elites are embarrassing themselves. 

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Free cross-over episode with the Bang-Bang Podcast. In this finale to our Andor series, Van and Lyle are joined by returning guest Paul Adlerstein and—making his first appearance on the pod—Matt Duss, former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders and current executive vice president at the Center for International Policy.

The conversation spans the closing arc of Andor Season 2 and Rogue One, treating them as one long meditation on revolutionary grief, sacrifice, and strategy. We reflect on Kleya Marki’s backstory, Deedra Meero’s karmic consignment to the labor camps, and the quiet closure of Bix C...

Van Jackson, Julia Gledhill, and Matt Duss confronting all things fascism at home and war with Iran abroad: Tucker Carlson roasting Ted Cruz over Israel and Iran is a bit too enjoyable…and says a lot about the fissures within the MAGA movement. America is already in Israel’s war with Iran. The promise and limits of the “No Kings” protests across the country. Why Democrats need a peace agenda. And why JD Vance loves his imperial president.

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The Trump administration's troop deployments to California are in defense of surging ICE raids against farm workers and immigrant communities across the state--a straightforward project of white supremacy meant to discipline the entire American labor force. But Antonio De Loera--communications director for the legendary United Farm Workers (UFW) union--also sees this as a larger war on American identity, America's claim to global primacy, and even America's humanity. Van and Antonio talk about how the United Auto Workers union helped birth UFW, working on the Julian Castro for president campaign in 2019, serving as a special assistant to Secretary of State...

Inside Ukraine’s Operation Spiderweb—a tactically brilliant drone operation against Russian bombers...but does it change anything? Why Palantir is a civil liberties nightmare. The bureaucracy of a white supremacist foreign policy—inside Rubio’s restructuring of the State Department. Elon Musk and the fractures in the oligarch coalition. And South Korea’s Bernie Sanders—the global (gendered) context of Lee Jae-myung’s stunning victory.

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Dr. Van Jackson was invited to speak at the first Security of Micronesia Group, hosted by the Pacific Center for Island Security in Guam.

I debuted a number of new arguments here, covering how to think about China’s desire for “strategic space” in the Pacific and its surplus labor problem compared with US declining hegemony and Washington’s desire for exclusionary control of the Pacific. I also try to explain why the Micronesian region’s “sovereignty deficit” imperils its neighboring regions of Polynesia and Melanesia, as well as why strategic autonomy is the only solution that addresses ever...

Free full-episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. Van (minus Lyle) is joined by historian David Austin Walsh to explore episodes 10-12 of Andor’s first-season finale. Their conversation focuses on Andor’s embrace of revolution and the surprising political realism of the show’s portrayal of labor exploitation and social uprisings. Van and David also discuss liberalism’s failure to inspire meaningful change in the real world—why has no electoral politician in our lifetime ever roused our souls like Marva did in episode’s 12’s revolt on the planet Ferrix? What might that say about the rise of fascism in the...

Why is the US unlikely to have a manufacturing revival, and who would benefit if it did? What happens to the rest of the world when the US tries to reshore manufacturing? What makes national security and labor power antagonistic to each other? What problems does worker-to-worker organizing solve? Why has organized labor been in decline since 1979? What's the relationship between social movements like Black Lives Matter and labor militancy? And what is the prospect that Shawn Fain's idea of a general strike in 2028 actually happens? Many questions, many answers as labor historian Dr. Eric Blanc joins Dr. Van...

Katrina vanden Heuvel--editorial director and publisher of The Nation magazine--joins Dr. Van Jackson to talk about: Europe's far right; the failure of centrist parties in the UK, France, and Germany; the trouble with European rearmament; Trump's and MAGA's effects on European politics; and the struggle of Europe's fractured left-wing political movements. 

Katrina's report with Robert Borosage, "Report From Europe: The Center Does Not Hold": https://www.thenation.com/article/world/european-union-right-left-parties-democracy/ 

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Covering the latest in the India-Pakistan military conflict and its nuclear risk; the US tentative ceasefire with the Houthis marks another lost war; why China's tech breakthroughs make arms-racing self-defeating for the US; the shape of a post-American Asia beginning to emerge; what a fascist budget looks like; why Stephen Miller is like that; the Trump administration is trying to export its "war on woke" to Stockholm, and it's failing; and more! 

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Free preview cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. Van and Lyle kick off their Andor series with Slate culture editor Jenny G. Zhang, diving into the show’s slow-burn opening arc where imperial bootlickers, jealous love interests, and rebels in the making collide on the Outer Rim. They discuss what makes Andor—a property of the Star Wars universe—feel different than its franchise kin, from its social realism to its psychological bite. If The Battle of Algiers looms large, so does Parable of the Sower, especially the show’s landscape of authoritarian company towns and the simmering hints of a revolu...

What's wrong with trying to be a Washington insider these days? How different is nuclear thinking under Trump compared to previous Democratic and Republican presidencies? Is Trump's "golden dome" idea just a grift (yes)? What's the best way to raise public consciousness about the danger of nuclear weapons? And what role could film and pop culture play in building mass support for arms control and nuclear disarmament? Dr. Van Jackson sits down with Emma Claire Foley--an anti-nuclear expert--to discuss her new essay in The Baffler magazine, "Probably Oblivion." 

Emma Claire's piece in The Baffler: https://thebaffler.com/l...

Free preview cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. Long before the Patriot Act, long before “See Something, Say Something,” long before 9/11—there was The Siege. Released in 1998, this Bruce Willis–Denzel Washington vehicle depicts a post–terror attack New York placed under martial law. The city is bombed, neighborhoods are surveilled, and Arab and Muslim men are rounded up en masse, held indefinitely in cages under the Brooklyn Bridge. And yet, in perhaps the most jarring twist of all, the whole thing was co-written by Lawrence Wright, the celebrated journalist behind the GWOT-era classic, The Looming Tower.

In this episo...

In this episode, Dr. Van Jackson appears as a guest on A Public Affair, a radio show with a live call-in segment. The conversation ended up being deliciously wide-ranging, including: Why the oligarchs who back Trump want an economic recession; What tariffs are good for, and how Trump’s tariffs impact both global trade and domestic labor; What separates Biden’s economic nationalism from Trump’s “zombie economic nationalism,” and why both are bad but Trump’s is much worse; The value of the #TakeDownTesla movement; What Arundhati Roy teaches us about civil disobedience; Why the general strike is civil societ...

The tech billionaires who are part of the Trump-MAGA coalition have repeatedly boosted the same collection of books that they think explain international relations. Dr. Van Jackson--a professor of international relations--explains why these books are not only bad books, but also books with a pessimistic, zero-sum, ethnonationalist, and militarist outlook on the world. 

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Live on location from Wellington Harbor (outdoors)! How did tariffs in the 1930s lead to World War II in Asia? How big of a deal is the China-Japan-South Korea coordinated response to Trump's tariffs? Why are tariffs part of economic nationalism, and why is economic nationalism a gift to to the far right? Why has China become the primary scapegoat of Trump's global tariff project? And what's Singapore's prime minister got to say about the way the world is changing? Dr. Van Jackson explores the many facets of our economic crisis and the emerging post-American world.

Watch...

Why did the US lose manufacturing jobs? What's the problem with Donald Trump's global tariff plan? Why is housing unaffordable in the US? Why are most of us economically insecure? And why is wage work so precarious? Dr. Van Jackson explains everything that's wrong with capitalism today in three charts, and offers some simple solutions to the problem of class war. 

For the charts referenced in this episode, check out the YouTube version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpOJU4qdS5c

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Dr. Van Jackson appeared in a guest lecture at the Catholic University of America with Prof. Andrew Yeo. They talk about progressivism and the restraint movement, Dr. Jackson's working-class origins, what's wrong with Washington, what to make of the Biden administration’s “foreign policy for the middle class,” and what progressives really think about Donald Trump's foreign policy. 
 

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How the national security clown show leaking war plan secrets to a journalist also led US officials to confess to war crimes. Why Europe's independence is leading to European militarism and the rise of the far right. Taiwan's insecurity from a progressive perspective. The Pentagon was never doing anything about the climate crisis. And what it means that BYD is outperforming Tesla. 

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Why Bernie Sanders's "fight against oligarchy" townhalls have made him the most popular politician in America. Inside Pete Hegseth's war plan leak. JD Vance's hatred of Europe explained. And why Trump's designation of fentanyl as a weapon of mass destruction is going to make a war with Mexico the Iraq invasion of the 2020s. 

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Free preview cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. In this episode, Van and Lyle are joined by writer Max Read to dissect The Sum of All Fears, the 2002 film adaptation of Tom Clancy’s novel. The film thrusts CIA analyst Jack Ryan, portrayed by Ben Affleck, into a high-stakes scenario where a nuclear bomb detonates in Baltimore, pushing the U.S. and Russia to the brink of war. The movie’s release shortly after 9/11 adds a layer of poignancy to its themes of terrorism and national insecurity.

The discussion delves into the portrayal of neo-Nazi antagonists manipulating global powe...

Grand strategy must be for war-crime dummies, because Jake Sullivan just got appointed the Kissinger chair at Harvard. Rahm Emmanuel should be exiled, not run for president. AUKUS may be doomed, but it doesn't also have to kill Australian Labour. How the Philippines is supporting the rules-based international order via domestic rivalry politics--the ICC has arrested Rodridgo Duterte with President Marcos's help. The coming American Great Depression--how Trump is killing the economy. Mahmoud Khalil's capture signals a War on Terror against us all. And what the DHS Deputy Secretary said about treating protests as terrorism. 

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What it means that No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary. The wicked politics of Ukraine's peace problems. Why China in't mussed about Trump's tariffs. The tradeoff between Taiwan's security and chip manufacturing in the US. And the growing problem of working-class homeless in America: You drive UberEats because of America's permanent war economy. 

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Explaining Europe's shift to strategic non-alignment. The false god of nuclear deterrence--why the nuclear triad is overrated. Making sense of the Pentagon's fake spending cuts. Privateer forces and American imperialism--the $25 billion Erik Prince proposal. Gen Z and Millennials can't afford a home. Expelling Canada from a Five-Eyes that nobody wants. Why great-power competition with China is still happening. 

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Disclaimer: The views expressed are tho...

Free preview episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlber...

What Tupac predicted about the defense budget. Pete Hegseth unveils Trump's imperialist peace plan for Ukraine. The Monroe Doctrine means mercenary imperialism. Why the Democratic Party can't critique Trump's lies about being antiwar. In the Trump era, being anti-anti-China is worse than being a white nationalist. 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ 

Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast 

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

Dr. Van Jackson gave a public lecture at the Havens Wright Center for Social Justice in the Department of Sociology at the University of Wisconsin on February 4, 2025. This episode is the full set of remarks plus Q&A from that lecture. 

About the lecture: The concept of the “national interest,” Van Jackson argues, has become an under-appreciated source of global insecurity. Not because there is anything intrinsically wrong with people having interests that must be preserved, promoted, or protected. Rather, the “national interest” as such obscures whose interests are served (and harmed) by the efforts of policy elites to...

Why Palantir and the new Silicon Valley defense-industrial cartel is bad news for humanity. How to talk about USAID without starting World War III (w/ cameo from Senator Chris Murphy). ICE immigration raids are trying to perform terror. Foreign influence is the new cocaine--legal for white folks. And imagining what a restraint-based, antimilitarist foreign policy could look like in Asia if the Philippines could make a missiles-for-peace deal with China. 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com 

Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

Why JD Vance's understanding of Christian patriotism fundamentally misunderstands christianity...on purpose. ANTIFA is not a terrorist organization, and we should all be antifascist. Why Burmese scholarships are not woke and DOGE has cut too far. And how to cut the Pentagon intelligently. 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com 

Read Julia's report (with William Hartung and Gabe Murphy) on cutting defense spending: https://www.stimson.org/2025/developing-efficient-effective-defense/ 

Catch Un-Diplomatic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

The views expressed are theirs alone.

The gang's back with another variety episode. Why Saudi Arabia throws so much money at Trump. Matt's trip to Israel amid ceasefire negotiations. The truth about DEI initiatives and the Pentagon. The best time for nuclear no first-use was 4 years ago; the second best time is now. What's Elon Musk doing with far right parties in Europe? And why is "the quad" both a joke and Steve Bannon's Asia fantasy? 

More Perfect Union: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Su8NHZY-CyY&t=92s

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ 

Catch Un...

Guest Daniel Bessner of The American Prestige Podcast joins the Un-Diplomatic livestream to talk about many topics. Is international relations dead or just irrelevant? Where did Democrats go more wrong, on domestic or foreign policy? What was the problem with Noam Chomsky's theory of change? And what even is a crisis of liberalism? 

Subscribe to The American Prestige Podcast: https://americanprestige.supportingcast.fm/listen 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ 

Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

Just for the strategy nerds, sharing a free preview of the Bang-Bang Podcast episode covering Ender’s Game, the 2013 film adaptation of Orson Scott Card’s classic sci-fi novel of the same name. Neither achieving box office nor critical success, the movie still evokes a wide range of reactions. Especially when it comes to its ambiguous relationship to the original text. Van and Lyle have fellow vet and strategist Alexander McCoy on the show to debate their competing reads. Along the way, they come to agree that certain insights gleaned from the cinematic rendering might be at odds with Card...

What is the role of crypto and AI in the new American oligarchy? What does it mean that Mark Zuckerberg has declared a re-embrace of "politics?" And what do Palantir, Anduril, and the new defense-industrial cartel have to do with everything from domestic governance to World War III and the "future of war?" All that and more in Van Jackson's chat with Max Read. 

Subscribe to Max's ReadMax newsletter: https://maxread.substack.com 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ 

Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

Stephen Wertheim joins as a guest in the Un-Diplomatic Podcast’s special livestream edition. He discusses two of his latest pieces, in the Financial Times and Global Asia magazine respectively. The chat includes thoughts about NATO in Asia, the unreliability of US commitments, how the Democratic Party has ceded peace narratives to Trump, and the romantic views of US power that leads European and Asian powers to think they're free-riding when they're really setting themselves up for a trap. 

"It’s time for Europe’s magical thinking on defence to end": https://on.ft.com/4iSWlkf 

"Asia...

Dumpster fire episode live-streamed on Twitch. Military Primacy is Anti-LGBTQ | US Sanctions on Spain for Opposing Genocide? | Israeli Beeper Terrorism | Your National Security Career is a Joke | Amazon’s Anti-Worker Brutality | USCENTCOM Bombing Yemen | Korea’s Fortune-Telling Shaman Coup Plotter | Ukraine-War Conspiracy Theory | Economic Anxiety and the Racist Right | Avocado Toast Beats Cereal

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

Follow Un-Diplomatic on Twitch to get notifications for livestreams: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

This live episode streamed on the Un-Diplomatic Podcast’s new Twitch channel, critiquing a think tank report about nuclear escalation in a conflict with China over Taiwan. 

Twitch Channel: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Stream on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/live/7N3IFWdqb2g?si=LX7vwVg1XNpB3_3v

The report: https://www.csis.org/events/confronting-armageddon-wargaming-nuclear-deterrence-and-its-failures-us-china-conflict-over

Checking in on the dumpster fire that is world politics.

This week:

Trump’s threat to annex Canada expands to Mexico (!).

Australia’s sphere of influence absorbs Nauru.

The South Korean right has been begging for a crisis with North Korea—here’s why.

JD Vance and Trump take on the Syria question.

A Biden China hand wants us to support Trump on China (!).

Further Reading:

JD Vance, Political Realignment, and Syria

At first glance, Australia’s new treaty with Nauru...

Checking in on the dumpster fire that is world politics.

This week:

South Korea’s president declares martial law in what is clearly an attempted self-coup.

Trump threatens to annex Canada.

Trump threatens 100% tariffs on BRICS nations for a non-existent alternative currency.

New Zealand’s Labour Party declares its independent foreign policy.

Let them eat nuclear subs—Americans are struggling while the White House tries to add $7.3 billion to the defense budget for nuclear-powered submarines.

Further Reading:

Sh*tting BRICS: Trump, Dollar Primacy, and Mu...

Julia, Matt, and Van convened for a mailbag episode to answer all the questions you sent in. Is Korea Asia’s hottest flashpoint? What concerns us about Trump’s political appointees? What do we say when someone claims that Trump is “antiwar?” How should we understand the rise of ethnonationalism, and how can we beat it? What does a democratically accountable foreign policy look like?

All that and more!

Checking in on the dumpster fire that is world politics.

This week:

Polling shows that Liz Cheney’s endorsement depressed enthusiasm for Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania and Michigan.

Trump’s national security adviser co-signs Jake Sullivan’s threat perceptions.

Senator Lindsay Graham’s plans to plunder Ukraine—“It’s about the money!”

The Philippines’ vice president threats assassination on…the Philippines’ president.

Fareed Zakaria lavishing praise on Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy (!).

Lessons for surviving autocracy, from a former Hungarian parliamentarian.

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic News...

How does the incoming Trump administration affect the future of EU defense? What obstacles does Europe face in advancing strategic autonomy? Nevada Lee joins the podcast to discuss recent initiatives to bolster European self-reliance, and why the United States should support them.

Read Nevada’s policy memo on the topic, here: https://www.stimson.org/2024/eu-defense-this-time-might-be-different/

Watch out for publication of her thesis, which she’s trying to un-embargo, here: https://doi.org/10.2870/0338094

Follow her on X if you’re still there: https://x.com/nevadajoan

The world is a dumpster fire right now. For my own sanity, but also for yours, we need more critical takes about current events. There’s too much happening and it’s hard to keep track of everything that matters.

So as a bonus for patrons of the newsletter, I’m going to check in each week with a run down of stories that deserve amplification, with critiques from the Un-Diplomatic perspective.

This week:

The gigification of Temu supply chains amid great-power rivalry.

The Russian missile crisis and what it has to do...

Free preview crossover with the Bang-Bang Podcast!

Arguably the most successful revolutionary film of all time, Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers boasts many legacies. For film buffs, its import derives from its landmark status in the pantheon of Italian neorealism and political cinema. For anti-imperialists, its value comes from its hardnosed but sympathetic depictions of armed struggle. And for imperialists or right-wing strongmen, the film has been deployed as a realistic guidebook for counterinsurgency. Van and Lyle relate these competing readings to the War on Terror and the latest debates around Gaza, Palestine, and liberation.

How exactly do police end up supermilitarized? What is the imperial booming that brings militarism abroad to the Homefront? And what does the feminist standpoint offer analysts of these problems? Part of the answer are obscure programs called 1033 and 1122. The founders of the Women for Weapons Trade Transparency (W2T2) join the pod to explain. 

W2T2: https://www.w2t2.org 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Is the War on Terror really over? Or is it just less visible? Julia is joined by Sarah Yager and Yumna Rizvi to discuss the makings of a militarized, counterterrorism-based U.S. foreign policy, how it impacts the world, and how to change it.

Sarah is the Washington Director at Human Rights Watch, where she leads the organization’s engagement with the United States government on global human rights issues, with a particular focus on national security and foreign policy. She has previously served at both the Department of Defense and the U.S. Mission to the Uni...

Does foreign policy matter in the presidential election? The answer might surprise you. Chris Shell joins the pod to discuss recent survey findings about foreign policy and the presidential election. Gaza, Ukraine, immigration, climate change, and China all feature in the discussion, as well as what's really going on with the African American vote. 

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com 

How Do Americans Feel About the Election and Foreign Policy?: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/american-voters-election-foreign-policy?lang=en

Race, Foreign Policy, and the 2024 Presidential Election: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/election-survey-2024-foreign-policy-race?la...

Crossover episode! Van appeared on Convergence Magazine’s Block and Build podcast, hosted by Convergence founder Cayden Mak, to talk about Kamala Harris’s foreign policy. They end up covering all the big issues--Ukraine, Israel-Palestine, and China rivalry. They also gab about what it’s like working as an unpaid foreign policy adviser to a presidential campaign. 

Subscribe to Block and Build: https://convergencemag.com/podcast/the-future-of-american-foreign-policy-with-van-jackson/

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Free preview of the Bang-Bang Podcast. “We tortured some folks.” Katherine Bigelow and Mark Boal’s cinematic blockbuster about the Bin Laden assassination was alternately ballyhooed and panned upon its release. Fans praised its purported cinematic achievements while critics lamented its alleged militarism or pro-torture sympathies. What’s remarkable today is the attention it received in all directions, perhaps a universal attention no longer possible in a society so fragmented and lost. Van and Lyle try to make sense of the movie as a contested event, and what its ambiguous ending might tell us about what came next. They also rec...

Matt and Van chop it up about the Veep debate between Tim Walz and JD Vance; how Ta-Nehisi Coates has taken up the mantel of James Baldwin; the Biden administration's expanding role in Middle East war; and the fanaticism of about China that is dividing America, predictably.

Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast: https://www.bangbangpod.com

Crossover episode! In addition to Un-Diplomatic, Van is now co-hosting Bang-Bang--a new show about war movies, with an anti-imperialist twist. Van and his co-host, Lyle Jeremy Rubin, are military veterans, war critics, and film junkies. Enjoy this free cross-over episode where Van and Lyle discuss Combat Obscura, a 2018 documentary from Miles Lagoze about Marines in Afghanistan (and Lyle’s experience as a Marine in Afghanistan at the same time this was filmed). 

Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast: https://www.bangbangpod.com/

Van spoke at the New Zealand Fabian Society about how the Democratic and Republican Party’s views on foreign policy are changing, and what those changes (and continuities) mean in the context of the US presidential election.

Written remarks: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/live-world-war-iii-and-the-presidential

Matt reports out on his recent trip to China. Israel's terrorism in Lebanon and the horizontal escalation happening before our eyes. And Pakistan as a case study of why geopolitics, climate adaptation, and the sovereign debt crisis must be addressed together or not at all. 

Matt's remarks from the Xiangshan Forum: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/the-right-way-for-china-and-the-us-to-get-along/ 

Van's remarks at the NZ Fabian Society: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/live-world-war-iii-and-the-presidential

The MAGA foreign-policy braintrust in Trump world is militarism all the way down. The unpopularity of the Democratic Party's popular front. The problem with threat inflation about disinformation. A defense budget out of control. And why Washington's manufacturing fetish is key to a convergence of jingoism, patriarchy, and oligarchy.

Further Reading:

Ken Klippenstein, “Russian Influence Operations Are A Joke"

Van Jackson, “Why the Working Class Strategizes Against Genocide”

Christian Lorenzten, “Not a Tough Crowd"

Thomas Brodey, “Disinformation Dilemma: US Hands Are Way Dirty, Too"

Gisela Cernadas and John Bella...

The election is nearing, and students are going back to school. What does this mean for student organizers demanding a ceasefire in Gaza? For the uncommitted movement? In this episode, Julia facilitates an intergenerational conversation about anti-war organizing. Guests Phyllis Bennis and Roua Daas reflect on campus demonstrations in the spring and share their thoughts on what lies ahead for the ceasefire now movement.

Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) Fellow Phyllis Bennis directs the New Internationalism Project at IPS, focusing on the Middle East, U.S. militarism, and UN issues. She is also a fellow of the...

What are the differences between nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition? How do disarmers and abolitionists balance the need for policy change with the need for sustainable, intersectional organizing? In this episode, Jasmine Owens discusses how Black and Indigenous thinkers inform her vision for the future of the nuclear abolition movement. She reminds us that “small is all” when it comes to organizing, and that community is everything.

Transformative justice is integral to community building. Indigenous folks are on the frontlines of radiation exposure from nuclear tests, uranium mining, and the dumping of nuclear waste. In 1990, the U.S. go...

Cross-promotion! Van Jackson joined the Hegemonicon podcast and is sharing the experience here with Un-Diplomatic listeners. Van and show host William Lawrence discuss the dangerous strategy of global primacy that drives US foreign policy from many angles. What are the contradictions in US industrial policy? How does primacy relate to China and great-power competition? What kind of international order is emerging? What is the political coalition that can keep us out of catastrophe?

Become a subscribing member of Convergence at convergencemag.com/donate

The Hegemonicon Podcast

Convergence Magazine

"This is what courage looks like." Today Matt talks to three people -- two Biden appointees and one career military -- who made the courageous choice to resign in protest over US support for the Gaza war. We hear from each of them how they came to work in the administration, how they made the decision to leave it, and how that choice has impacted them. 

Tariq Habash most recently served as a political appointee and policy advisor in the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Planning, Evaluation and Policy Development. Tariq worked to overhaul the...

What just happened in Venezuela? Matt Duss is joined by two great Latin America experts to talk about Maduro's very shady re-election, and how the US should respond. 

Paarlberg's piece: https://internationalpolicy.org/publications/venezuelas-people-not-government-deserve-solidarity/

Michael Paarlberg is an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University and associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies. His research focuses on Latin America, migration and security issues. He previously worked for the Service Employees International Union and was a journalist with the Guardian, and was a Latin America adviser for the Bernie 2020 campaign. 

Marí...

J.D. Vance imagines a global color line. Kamala Harris has an unprecedented opportunity to move beyond primacy and embrace a progressive foreign policy—will she take it? Biden's claim that America is no longer at war is at odds with...facts. Netanyahu's speech to Congress was evil but says something important about how the Democratic Party has changed. And a rant about the violent throughline that connects America’s war on the homeless with campus protest arrests, economic nationalism, MAGA’s Handmaid’s Tale fantasy, and the national security state.

Stephen Semler in the Forever Wars Newslett...

What can a revolution with progressive values look like? What kinds of non-violent resistance against oppression are possible? And what does everyday guerilla warfare do to people with humanist commitments? Dr. Justine Chambers talks about her new research with co-author Saw Ner Dhu Da, understanding how Myanmar's Gen Z led a nationwide revolution against a military coup in Feb. 2021 and has been living everyday revolution ever since. 

Read "'Living With' Revolution: The Everyday Experiences of Myanmar’s Generation Z Revolutionaries" in Journal of Contemporary Asia: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00472336.2024.2359373 

Justine Chambers on Twitter: http...

The vegetable versus the fascist? The Democratic Party is in chaos. Why AOC and the Squad back Biden (for now). Biden's Trumpian turn. The truth about Biden's foreign policy record.

An emergency live episode of the Un-Diplomatic podcast. Van explains the situation the Democratic Party faces: who will replace Biden, why it's likely Kamala Harris, why Bernie should be her running mate, and what all that means for foreign policy.

Livestream on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zSc9-8Qra5w&t=842s

Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Navigating the politics of Washington think tanks. Matt's interview with The New Yorker's Isaac Chotiner. Robert O'Brien wants the entire Marine Corps to relocate to Asia. Arundhati Roy is a target of Modi's Hindu-fascist turn. The case for defunding ICBMs. And Chiquita Banana death squads. 

Un-Diplomatic Newsletter on the politics of think tanking: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/a-political-map-of-washington-think

Eliana Johns on ICBMs: https://inkstickmedia.com/faith-as-small-as-a-titan-relying-on-icbms-in-a-post-cold-war-world/

Isaac Chotiner's interview with Matt Duss: https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/is-bidens-israel-policy-cynical-or-naive

“One man’s deterrence is another man’s escalation.” Van spoke at an event rolling out a recent report, What Should Be Done? Practical Policies to Prevent Nuclear Escalation. At the event and in the report, Van laid out a logic of peacemaking, relating the strategic, the political, and the nuclear all together. Listen further if you want to know why peace requires movement from Warming Actions-->Ripening Actions-->Reciprocal Transformations. Or if you want to know what the politics of Gaza has to do with nukes. Or why the North Korea strategic situation is so messed up. 

Read th...

Van, Julia, and Matt discuss how to think about Biden's Gaza ceasefire deal. Why "peace through strength" is a chauvinist meme. A.I. is a violent grift that hasn't changed war. Mexico's election of Claudia Sheinbaum highlights a potential contradiction between industrial policy and geopolitics. Thinking about the meaning of D-Day in light of militarism today. 

William Hartung and Michael Brenes on A.I. and the War Industry: https://michaelbrenes.substack.com/p/better-defense-through-technology

Jamaal Bowman on The Breakfast Club: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/white-supremacy-aipac-and-us-foreign

Roger Wicker's peace-through-strength chauvinism: https://www.nytimes.c...

Van made an appearance on the Squaring the Circle podcast, a military-facing show that got into his origins in the national security state. The discussion talks about the importance of a working-class perspective in foreign policy, what was really wrong with Obama’s pivot to Asia, why Van is critical of “great-power competition,” and a number of other issues.

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Squaring the Circle: https://shows.acast.com/squaring-the-circle/episodes/discussion-on-foreign-policy-and-the-pivot-to-asia-with-dr-v

This re-released conversation with Daniel Immerwahr is one of our all-time top ten episodes, initially released on December 30, 2022. In Part II of Van's sit-down w/ Professor Daniel Immerwahr (author of How to Hide an Empire), they talk about Daniel's recent chapter about the politics and ideology of George Lucas's Star Wars. Was the Galactic Republic really an empire the entire time? What made Star Wars a Vietnam movie? What's the deal with the Ewok? And what's wrong with Lucas's version of anti-imperialism?

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Are We Really Prisoners...

This re-released conversation with Daniel Immerwahr is one of our all-time top ten episodes, initially released on December 28, 2022. Why do geopoliticians blow off climate change and environmental degradation?  Is geography really an insurmountable force?  What do "geopolitical risk consultants" really do?  And what should we make of the fact that geopolitics has its origins in imperialism?  What did Nazis, in particular, see appealing in geopolitics?  Van sits down w/ Professor Daniel Immerwahr (author of How to Hide an Empire) to discuss a new essay in The Guardian long reads section. They also talk about Daniel's recent chapter about the polit...

Out of the maybe 20 live events I spoke at in the US recently, only one—one!—was actually recorded and you’re about to hear it. 

About this Event: 

From the War on Terror to the militarization of the Pacific, and from imperial competition with China to US support for Israeli atrocities in Palestine, the US quest for primacy has devastating consequences globally, and a corrosive impact domestically. Join us for a free flowing conversation about the consequences of endless wars and militarism, rethinking US foreign policy and the implications for the upcoming 2024 elections.

Speak...

Duration: 01:23:51

Why is “debt-trap diplomacy” nothing more than an anti-China meme? Why is the geopolitical interpretation of Chinese overseas lending wrong, and what does that suggest about US/Western estimates of China’s intentions? Why do Chinese firms hate writing down unpayable debts? And why do smaller developing nations rarely benefit from international financial competition? I sat down with the great Shahar Hameiri to discuss all that and more in the latest episode of the pod.

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Shahar and Lee’s piece, “China, International Competition, and the Stalemate in Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Beyond Geo...

This interview with the Review of Democracy podcast is the deepest dive to date on Van Jackson’s book, Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking. 

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Review of Democracy Podcast