The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

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. 

Watch The Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast 

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Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and...

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

Watch The Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

S...

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. 

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

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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. 

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

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

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. 

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

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Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the ind...

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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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/ 

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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/

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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 

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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