The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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 role of Bernie Sanders and (opposition to) Trumpism in bringing to life a new anti-imperialism; andMy personal role in becoming a major voice in the “progressive foreign policy moment.”I also reflect on the populism and socialist candidates carrying forward radical new visions of what the world requires of US foreign policy today. The emerging class of politicians—Graham Planter, Zohran Mamdani, Kat Abughazaleh, Kyle Blomquist, William Lawrence, and many others—are its next-generation organic champions.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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?Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch the Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch The Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Learn More About Defuse Nuclear War: https://defusenuclearwar.org Learn More About The Teach-In Network: https://teachinnetwork.org Learn More About Roots Action: https://rootsaction.org

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

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). Subscribe to the Forever Wars Newsletter: https://www.forever-wars.com/ Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

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/nostalgiatrapSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comCatch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

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 close reading, which we get into. And his favored genre—which also happens to be mine—is the memoir. My co-host Lyle Rubin wrote a memoir, and his wife, Colette Shade, just came out with a memoir too (both are excellent). In that context, George started asking about my story, and the beginnings of my own memoir inadvertently came pouring out.The conversation has stuck with me everyday since. Although I have no shortage of distractions, I’ve begun putting pen to paper, reckoning with the slow-burning crisis of conscience that took me from being an agent of the national security state to one of its fiercest critics.As we discuss in this short episode, there are a few factors that might account for my political consciousness.Hip-hop not only acquainted me with the Black Freedom Struggle from an early age; it provided a soundtrack, a musical coda, to my life. And I think that made a difference.Spending time in Monterey, California, at the Defense Language Institute, was a pivotal experience. In a twisted way, so was my immersion in “hustle culture,” which was so strong that I basically lost my 20s to obsessive self improvement. When my humanity finally thawed in the 2010s, the world had changed dramatically and I started questioning my place in it.Physically getting out of Washington—an idea whose appeal grew during my alienation in Obama’s second term—was almost certainly crucial too. It feels like I’ve always been on some Robert Frost shit. Few roads are less traveled by than New Zealand, and it has made all the difference!But I also grew up precarious working class. The lives of the people surrounding me had no connection to the foreign policy world I strived so hard to enter. At first, I saw that as a problem of social mobility. Eventually, I would see it as a problem of class antagonism—national security takes its legitimacy from the people but forsakes them in its every decision. The most generous thing I could say about foreign policy is that people like me faced problems growing up that were never made better by anything happening in national security.Anyway, I have a lot to work through. But if you’re interested in memoir as a form, close reading as a practice, or some of the details in my personal evolution, you’ll find this impromptu conversation as stimulating as I did.Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast: https://www.bangbangpod.comSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

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. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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 Caleen’s journey from warrior to survivor, cradling new life in a liberated field.We also discuss Cassian’s confrontation with the rebel leadership and his scathing defense of Luthen Rael. Namely, his accusation that those who sit in safety have committed only a fraction of the sacrifice they demand of others. As well as Bail Organa’s (wink wink, nod nod) “May the Force be with you, captain,” sealing the fate of Cassian’s transition from hunted thief to selfless insurgent.In our Rogue One discussion, we note the apocalyptic awe of Krennic’s “Oh, it’s beautiful” as he watches Jedha obliterated, a moment that recalls the real-world language of U.S. reporters and officials after Hiroshima.Check out the Bang-Bang Podcast and subscribe: https://www.bangbangpod.com/

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.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

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 Antony Blinken during the Biden administration, the foreign policy implications of ICE raids, and why he ultimately fell out of love with the "Lockheed Left." Antonio's Twitter: https://x.com/AntonioDeLoeraB Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/ Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.