The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

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=enRace, Foreign Policy, and the 2024 Presidential Election: https://carnegieendowment.org/research/2024/10/election-survey-2024-foreign-policy-race?lang=enFind Chris on Twitter: https://x.com/ChrisShell95

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 recall where they were when Obama ordered Seal Team Six to pull that trigger.Get the full episode--and all episodes--at: https://www.bangbangpod.com

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 Bellamy Foster, "Actual U.S. Military Spending Reached $1.537 Trillion in 2022—More than Twice Acknowledged Level: New Estimates Based on U.S. National Accounts"Black Alliance for Peace, "Black Alliance for Peace Condemns the Federal Indictments of Uhuru 3 and Denial of their Fundamental Human Rights to Speech, Association, Information and Political Dissent"Further Listening:Dead Prez, “Police State"

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 Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. In 2002, she co-founded United for Peace and Justice, a coalition against the Iraq war. In 2001, she helped found the U.S. Campaign for Palestinian Rights and more recently spent six years on the board of Jewish Voice for Peace, where she now serves as its International Adviser. She works with many anti-war and Palestinian rights organizations, writing and speaking widely across the U.S. and around the world. She has served as an informal adviser to several top UN officials on Middle East issues and was twice short-listed to become the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.Phyllis has written and edited 11 books. Among her latest is the 7th updated edition of her popular Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict, published in 2018. She is also the author of Before & After: U.S. Foreign Policy and the War on Terror and Challenging Empire: How People, Governments, and the UN Defy U.S. Power.Roua Daas is a Palestinian organizer with Students for Justice in Palestine. She attended Butler University for undergrad, where she co-founded the Students for Justice in Palestine chapter and led several campaigns, including a successful defeat of the IHRA definition of antisemitism, which falsely conflates anti-Zionism and antisemitism, and a campaign against an authoritarian university administration decision to cancel a student-led event featuring abolitionist, scholar, and activist Angela Davis. Currently, she is a graduate student in Pennsylvania State University’s Clinical Psychology and Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies program, where she organizes with Penn State Students for Justice in Palestine.Their recent work:How we passed a cease-fire resolution in our town, Roua Daas, American Friends Services CommitteeUncommitted voters sending a clear message to Biden about slaughter in Gaza, Phyllis Bennis, Institute for Policy Studies

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. government created the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act (RECA) to aid some of those harmed, but the program has expired. This September, members of several Indigenous communities and allies are traveling from New Mexico to D.C. with a simple message: Pass RECA before we die. Please consider donating to help bring Indigenous radiation survivors to D.C.: https://chuffed.org/project/pass-recaAnd read Jasmine’s recent work, here:The false equivalency of nuclear disarmament and nuclear abolition, The Bulletin of Atomic ScientistsUnderstanding the Gap Between Vision and Practice: Understanding Emergent Strategies for Authentic Intersectional Organizing in the Nuclear Abolition Movement, Win Without WarBuilding The World Anew: The Case for Radically Redefining the Nuclear Abolition Movement, Win Without War

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/donateThe Hegemonicon PodcastConvergence 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 broken student loan system, provide relief to millions of borrowers, and address inequities across American higher education. He was the second government official, and the first political appointee to publicly resign from the Biden Administration due to its policy on Gaza and unrestricted support for Israel’s aggression against Palestinians. Prior to joining the government, Tariq was a cofounder of the Student Borrower Protection Center, a national research and advocacy nonprofit where he led the organization’s investigative work on student loan and consumer finance policies. He also spent years working at The Century Foundation, specializing in higher education affordability, accountability, and consumer protection issues. Tariq holds degrees from the Harvard Graduate School of Education and the University of Miami. Harrison Mann is a former U.S. Army major and executive officer of the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) Middle East/Africa Regional Center who resigned in protest of his office’s support for Israel during its Gaza campaign. He previously served as a Middle East all-source intelligence analyst and led a crisis cell coordinating intelligence support for Ukraine. Prior to DIA, he worked at the U.S. Embassy Tunis Office of Security Cooperation and led Army Civil Affairs teams combatting regional smuggling under U.S. Naval Forces Central Command (NAVCENT) in Bahrain. Harrison began his Army career as an infantry officer. He received a B.A. from the College of William & Mary and a Master in Public Administration from the Harvard University John F. Kennedy School of Government. Lily Greenberg Call is a former Special Assistant to the Chief of Staff at the Department of Interior. She has nearly a decade of experience in politics, movement organizing, and domestic and international human rights work. She worked on President Biden's 2020 campaign and served in the administration until May 15, 2024, when she became the first Jewish political appointee to resign in protest of US policy in Gaza. Lily grew up doing pro-Israel advocacy with AIPAC and other organizations throughout high school and college, and later became invested in Palestinian rights and Jewish anti-occupation movements. She has appeared as a guest on MSNBC, CNN, NBC, and given commentary for the Washington Post, Politico, and the Associated Press. Lily holds a B.A. in Political Science and Public Policy from the University of California, Berkeley.Further Reading: The Moral Limits of Public ServiceState Department Official ResignsBiden Staffers Mobilising Non-Violent Resistance Against the US Government

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. María José Espinosa is the executive director of the Center for Engagement and Advocacy in the Americas (CEDA) and a Senior Non-Resident Fellow with CIP. Her work focuses on shaping U.S. foreign policy toward Latin America and the Caribbean on issues such as U.S.-Cuba relations, regional migration cooperation, climate, LGBTQ+ and women’s rights, and protections for refugees and migrants.

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 Newsletter: https://www.forever-wars.com/cops-arrested-over-3-500-pro-gaza-campus-protesters-new-data-shows/?ref=forever-wars-newsletterMatt Duss's piece on Kamala Harris in Foreign Policy: https://foreignpolicy.com/2024/07/24/kamala-harris-gaza-israel-democrats-united-states-presidential-race/?tpcc=recirc_trending062921International Crisis Group Report on War Powers: https://www.crisisgroup.org/united-states/009-bending-guardrails-us-war-powers-after-7-octoberSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

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

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=842sUn-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-thinkEliana 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 the Report: https://www.apln.network/projects/nuclear-weapon-use-risk-reduction/what-should-be-done-practical-policies-to-prevent-nuclear-catastropheWatch the full event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=41-28QIUDbQ&t=4842sSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

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-technologyJamaal Bowman on The Breakfast Club: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/p/white-supremacy-aipac-and-us-foreignRoger Wicker's peace-through-strength chauvinism: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/29/op... Brian Rathbun, Christopher Parker, and Caleb Pomeroy, "Separate but Unequal: Ethnocentrism and Racialization Explain the 'Democratic' Peace in Public Opinion": https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/american-political-science-review/article/separate-but-unequal-ethnocentrism-and-racialization-explain-the-democratic-peace-in-public-opinion/0BEEE1D2EC35BFD9EE6A8BA8E344643A

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.comSquaring 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.comAre We Really Prisoners of Geography?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/10/are-we-really-prisoners-of-geography-maps-geopoliticsIdeology in US Foreign Relations (the volume containing "Galactic Vietnam"): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810

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 politics and ideology of George Lucas's Star Wars. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com.Are We Really Prisoners of Geography?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/10/are-we-really-prisoners-of-geography-maps-geopolitics.Ideology in US Foreign Relations (the volume containing "Galactic Vietnam"): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810.

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.Speaker Bios:Spencer Ackerman, the foreign policy columnist for The Nation magazine, is a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award-winning reporter. Focusing on the War on Terror, Ackerman has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and numerous U.S. bases, ships and submarines as a senior correspondent for outlets like Wired, The Guardian and the Daily Beast. His 2021 book, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, was named a book of the year by the New York Times Critics, the Washington Post and the PBS NewsHour, and won a 2022 American Book Award. Ackerman writes the popular FOREVER WARS newsletter on Ghost (foreverwars.ghost.io) and recently released the spy thriller graphic novel WALLER VS WILDSTORM for DC Comics.Amel Ahmad is Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her main areas of specialization are democratic studies, with a special interest in elections, voting systems, legislative politics, party development, and voting rights. She is author of Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her new book entitled When Democracy Divides: The Regime Question in European and American Political Development, examines the impact of regime contention on political development in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.Van Jackson is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, host of The Un-Diplomatic Podcast, and author of The Un-Diplomatic Newsletter. Van’s research broadly concerns East Asian and Pacific security, critical analysis of defense issues, and the intersection of working-class interests with foreign policy. He is the author of scores of journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports, as well as four books, including Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace, with Yale University Press (2023) and Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking, with Cambridge University Press (2023). His fifth book, forthcoming with Yale University Press, is The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy (with Michael Brenes). Van is a senior researcher at Security in Context and co-director of the Multipolarity, Great Power Competition and the Global South research track.Omar Dahi is a professor of economics at Hampshire College and director of the Security in Context research network.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comVisit Security in Context: https://www.securityincontext.com

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.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic NewsletterShahar and Lee’s piece, “China, International Competition, and the Stalemate in Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Beyond Geopolitics.” Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China’s Rise.Deborah Brautigaum, “A critical look at Chinese ‘debt-trap diplomacy’: the rise of a meme.”Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, “Debunking the Myth of Debt-Trap Diplomacy.”

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic NewsletterReview of Democracy Podcast

What does Guam’s political status say about US strategic thought? What strategic choices does Guam have if it were allowed self-determination? What does America’s imperial relations with Guam have in common with the rest of the Non-Sovereign Pacific? And why does the existence of a Non-Sovereign Pacific region make both the Pacific and the great powers less secure? I assure you, you’ve never heard a foreign policy conversation like this. A hilarious, personal, and highly edifying conversation at the intersection of social justice and defense strategy, with Dr. Ken Kuper from the University of Guam.Subscribe to the Pacific Center for Island Security’s daily newsletter.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic newsletter.Further reading on Guam.

This episode is unusual, more like part of a mini-lecture series. I was asked to give a talk recently on inequality, development, and IR theory for an audience that skews quite young. I’ve chopped it up to just bring out the highlights, but we hit many topics that might be of interest:—Why IR paradigms are not especially useful for making sense of inequality.—Why it sucks to be poor, no matter what flag you live under.—Capitalism v. Marxism, and by proxy, modernization theory v. dependency theory.—Why the East Asian development model is at its end.—Why it can be useful to think of political economy as a capitalist world system.—Why redistribution is the only alternative to revolution if you want to reduce inequality.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter

What’s wrong with liberal internationalism? What alternatives do socialists and progressives offer? Is voting more (or less) than a defensive tactic? Is the Democratic Party beyond redemption? Is China a force for good or evil in the world? Van went on the 1 of 200 podcast to have a really real debate about everything on the left’s mind at the moment. They talk about his new book--Grand Strategies of the Left--but couch it in a larger conversation on left perspectives about foreign policy. 1 of 200 Pod: https://www.patreon.com/1of200Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comBuy Grand Strategies of the Left

How do the space-colony visions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos meaningfully differ? What does a company like Space-X have in common with the old imperial company-states, like the British East India Company? And why are billionaire bros obsessed with “political exit” projects like seasteading and galactic escapism? We tackle all that and more with Alina Utrata, a scholar whose new article in American Political Science Review called, “Engineering Territory: Space and Colonies in Silicon Valley” is a banger.Morris Cohen, Property and SovereigntyRobert Nichols, Theft is PropertyAlina’s PodcastSubscribe to Alina’s NewsletterSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What separates conservatives from reactionaries, and where do they converge? What are the politics inherent to counterinsurgency strategy? What does the popularity of counter-insurgency in the 21st century say about Democratic Party politics? How does small-war thinking unify counter-revolutionary monarchies with Edwardian imperialism with anti-communism? And where does David Petraeus fit into these questions?All that and more in this wide-ranging conversation with Joseph Mackay, anchored in his award-winning book, The Counter-Insurgent Imagination: A New Intellectual History.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What made Daniel Ellsberg—the famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower—different from today’s public intellectuals? How has the think tank environment in Washington changed over the decades? Why were the Pentagon Papers such a big deal? Why is foreign policy change so difficult? And how does progressive foreign policy fit into the story of Washington’s intellectual stagnation?I sat down with Matthew Petti to discuss a new essay he had on the life of Daniel Ellsberg, the death of the old-style think tank, and so much more.Matthew’s Newsletter: https://www.pettimatthew.comUn-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

After George Floyd’s police murder and the Black Lives Matter movement explosion in 2020, the field of international relations rushed to engage the topic of race after ignoring it for half a century. When they did, they largely acted as if early generations of international-relations scholars hadn’t engaged with or theorized the topic. But they had. In this episode, Van sits down with Robbie Shilliam, a multidisciplinary IR scholar and postcolonial theorist, to talk about:What made Hans Morgenthau a theorist of race relations, not just international relations;Why the field of IR has a racial blind spot in the first place;Why IR’s leading journals, editors, and scholars re-engaged racial questions after 2020 but without drawing on what the discipline’s own canonical thinkers had to say about race;Why the Gen Z and Millennial generation of scholars are possibly built differently when it comes to racial issues and historical IR;How the concept of “frontier” unites Republicanism and imperialism in some of the early thinkers of IR like Frederick Jackson Turner, William Allen, and Merze Tate.I was sick as a dog when we recorded this, but it was one of the most generative conversations I’ve ever had on the pod and Robbie is one soulful human being. Hope you enjoy this one!Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comRobbie Shilliam, “Republicanism and Imperialism at the Frontier: A Post-Black Lives Matter Archeology of International Relations,” https://robbieshilliam.files.wordpress.com/2023/03/frontier-2.0.pdf.Epeli Hau’ofa, WE ARE THE OCEAN: SELECTED WORKS (Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 2008).

In this episode, Van sits down with Adom Getachew to talk about W.E.B. Du Bois’s life and Du Bois-ian thought as a prism for making sense of the world, including: The global color line and its limits for understanding IR; Du Bois’s complicated attitude toward violence versus pacifism; strategies for trying to make change as a public intellectual; how he viewed World War I, and how that view changed with time; his blind spots on gender equality and empire—especially imperial Japan; how Du Bois viewed capitalism and Marxism; why the Cold War is the reason I (and probably you) never learned about Du Bois in school.W.E.B. Du Bois: International Thought (by Adom Getachew and Jennifer Pitts)Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Have you ever wondered about the political economy of movie-making?Like, why are Hollywood movies globally hegemonic, and why is South Korea its only rival, and why are most foreign countries mere backlots for American studios?What does it have to do with the Netflix-Hulu-Amazon-Disney+ streaming model?Why are the WGA and SAG-AFTRA on strike? What kind of solidarities unite American writers and actors with Korean writers and actors?And what is the future of film?Some really big questions, and US foreign policy plays a role in answering them, remarkably. I sat down with writer/director/producer/editor Kevin Fox to discuss. This was fun!Kevin’s epic tweet thread: https://twitter.com/Michigrimk/status/1695209106921947232Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

I just gave a talk to a section of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs—a great group of a couple dozen Gen Z’ers, at a nice little bar in Wellington. What started out as shooting the shit about foreign policy turned into a live show of the podcast.In this live show, I put three propositions on the table—Un-Diplomatic regulars will be at least somewhat familiar with all these themes: 1) Sino-US rivalry is not a struggle for hegemony or domination; 2) US grand strategy is one of primacy, and the requirements of primacy today conflict with the requirements of peace in Asia and the Pacific; 3) The root-cause of our problems with China is inequality—at multiple levels, but especially within China.Along the way, we talk about policy thinking as a practitioner versus as an IR scholar; speaking truth to power; job prospects for Gen Z; why New Zealand’s priority ought to be preventing another Gallipoli; and more! Shout out to Tom Preston and Celia McDowell for putting this on.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

This episode doesn’t just have a theme, it has a thesis. Have you wondered how precisely the Pentagon manages to siphon so much taxpayer money year after year? How the military-industrial-congressional complex functions in practice? Why US primacy is so expensive yet perpetually in crisis? This episode with William Hartung and Julia Gledhill is something of a tutorial for understanding Pentagon bloat and corruption—which are deeply intertwined. US defense strategy has been hot garbage for, well, as long as I’ve been alive. It’s never been well conceived, sets impossible standards that it uses to request evermore funds when it fails to meet them, and heightens the very threats it aims to guard against. As we discuss in this episode, a key cause of this strategic ineptitude is Pentagon graft and the ability to buy its way out of the kinds of tradeoffs that would impose discipline on strategy-making.Bill and Julia’s piece in The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/pentagon-debt-ceiling-bill/Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

In this cross-over episode with the Security Dilemma podcast, Van speaks with Patrick Fox and John Allen Gay of the John Quincy Adams Society about a range of issues: dissident thinking and intellectual diversity in foreign policy; how to think about China and deterrence; what’s wrong with a "foreign policy for the middle class”; fissures in the progressive movement on foreign policy; and more! Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comSubscribe to the Security Dilemma Podcast: https://jqas.org/security-dilemma/John Quincy Adams Society: https://jqas.org

Part II of my conversation with Jonathan Kirshner about his new book, An Unwritten Future: Realism, Uncertainty, and World Politics. Kirshner explains how classical realists think about the “national interest"; distinctions between realist and progressive political economy; what he doesn’t like about the “Thucydides’ Trap,”; the poverty of offensive realism; and how classical realism understands everything from British appeasement of Hitler to the Vietnam War.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Part I of my two-part conversation with Jonathan Kirshner about his new book, An Unwritten Future: Realism, Uncertainty, and World Politics. Kirshner explains why classical realism is a misunderstood intellectual tradition. We get into: Why realism recruits dead people into their intellectual tradition; what we can learn from Thucydides, and why an armchair understanding of the Peloponnesian War does more harm than good; why realist pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy; why international relations has somewhat lost its way; how we should think about the “national interest"; and distinctions between realist and progressive political economy.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What's the difference between centered and de-centered international orders? How do small states navigate geopolitics without becoming pawns? What does it look like to have a world in which there is no hegemon, and how is it sustained? And why was 15th century maritime Southeast Asia a different international order than the Sino-centric "tributary system" in what is now Northeast Asia? Dr. Manjeet Pardesi joins the show to share new research that sheds light on all these questions and more. A tour-de-force of historical international relations, what it means to take a relational view of world politics, and small-state strategies in Asia. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comManjeet's article in Global Studies Quarterly (open access!): https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac072/6947856

What's wrong with liberal hegemony? What does it mean for New Zealand to have an "independent foreign policy?" Why did New Zealand's Prime Minister recently visit China? And why are the interests of New Zealand's leading dairy supplier far from the same thing as the interests of the nation? In this cross-over episode, Van sits down with the good folks at the 1 of 200 Podcast to discuss an unusual intersection of US foreign policy pathologies with those of New Zealand.Subscribe to the newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comListen to the 1 of 200 Podcast: https://www.1of200.nz/podcastKyle Church on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KyleDChurchBranko Marcetic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BMarchetich

Van sat down with China watcher Carla Freeman (US Institute of Peace) to explore this thing Xi Jinping announced last year called the “Global Security Initiative,” which turned into a larger discussion about how China thinks about security and international order generally. The catalyst was a piece she wrote with Alex Stephenson. We get into: What China’s “relational” thinking about world politics really means in practice; How Chinese security thinking affects the global South; How US choices affects Sino-Russian ties; How Made in China 2025 looks in hindsight; The aspects of international order China likes most; and more!Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Opposition parties carried the day in Thailand's recent multiparty elections on May 14. The Move Forward Party, led by Pita Limjaroenrat, and Phue Thai party of Thaksin Shinawatra's family, won a sizeable majority, with the military's coalition parties losing resoundly. What does the recent election mean for the country's path forward? Will the military's election commission let the opposition form a government, or will it stage another coup like in 2014? Has Thai society finally moved on from the Yellow Shirt-Red Shirt divide that paralyzed the country's politics for the past two decades? Hunter Marston sits down with ANU professor Greg Raymond and University of Sydney professor Aim Sinpeng to discuss Thailand's democratic crossroads.Support the pod by subscribing to our newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What does it mean to write with not just logos but pathos? How has racial violence in America shaped the identity of Asian-Americans? Why is the "model minority" myth so problematic? And what possibilities emerge from recognizing that people of different nationalities share a common repression? Van speaks with Gaiutra Bahadur about her experience growing up around anti-Indian racism in New Jersey and how that sheds light on all these questions and more.Gauitra's essay, "Unmaking Asian Exceptionalism": https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/unmaking-asian-exceptionalism-bahadur/Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

The award-winning, New York Times best-selling author, Nick Turse, has done some deep investigations at the intersection of Southeast Asia; the intellectual bankruptcy of US geopoliticking; and Henry Kissinger’s direct role in the slaughter of 150,000 civilians in Cambodia. A wild story and some great journalism. Van Jackson sat down with Nick to talk about it all. They also swap anecdotes about their personal run-ins with Kissinger. A must-listen.Nick’s story in The Intercept: https://theintercept.com/2023/05/23/kissinger-phone-call-transcripts/Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What makes neoconservatives different from Cold War liberals? Why did Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" lament the end of the Cold War? What's classical liberalism? And how do liberals like Fukuyama size up our current historical moment? Dr. Daniel Bessner joins the pod for all that and more. Bessner on Fukuyama: https://www.thenation.com/article/society/francis-fukuyama-liberalism-discontents/Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com Subscribe to the American Prestige podcast: https://www.americanprestigepod.com

How does the narrative of a Blue Pacific complicate strategic narratives about the "Indo-Pacific?" How do the nations of the Pacific Islands region think about security? What role does the Pacific Islands Forum play in regional security? Why do most Pacific states try so hard to avoid "choosing" between the United States and China? And what would Pacific governments do if Guam determined it wanted to be its own independent nation? Van Jackson sits down with Sandra Tarte (University of the South Pacific) to discuss all that and more."Bringing the Blue Pacific and Indo-Pacific Narratives Together: https://www.lowyinstitute.org/the-interpreter/bringing-blue-pacific-indo-pacific-narratives-togetherSubscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

From a freelance journalist in Southeast Asia to becoming a “foreign policy person,” and how to publish your first book. Can authoritarian countries practice meritocracy? How can we make sense of good governance and public trust in authoritarian governments like Vietnam when support for western democracies seems to be at an all-time low? How China’s rise has challenged democracy’s global appeal, and what does it mean if the United States reverts to MAGA autocracy? Hunter Marston speaks to Charles Dunst about his new book, Defeating the Dictators: How Democracy Can Prevail in the Age of the Strongman.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comDefeating the Dictators: https://www.hachette.co.uk/titles/charles-dunst/defeating-the-dictators/9781399704434/Honorable mention to Ali Wyne's book: https://www.amazon.com/Americas-Great-Power-Opportunity-Revitalizing-Competition/dp/1509545549

Why is it that we're spending more money and resources than ever on this thing we call “national security,” and yet not only does the world feel perpetually insecure; it feels like insecurity is getting worse for most of us? That's what the new organization Security in Context sets out to address. Van Jackson is part of bridging the gap between policy and critical scholars, and will be co-directing Security in Context's project on Multipolarity, Great-Power Competition, and the Global South. This is his short interview with their podcast host, Anita Fuentes, talking about his background, how his view of security evolved, and why he's part of Security in Context.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comSecurity in Context site: https://www.securityincontext.comSecurity in Context video interview: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNpHI4kD_qM