The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

Obama comes out against the Iran war, MAGA foreign policy, and Pete Hegseth's grooming obsession. New estimates suggest that even if the Iran War ended today, its cost would exceed one-trillion dollars. The war has already cost US households $147 billion is excess energy costs. Global dockworkers across 111 countries on five continents have coordinated a strike against all the wars. Dr. Van Jackso...

The State Department is now vetting career employees for political loyalty to the president...in the past and now, against the law. The Pentagon is deploying corporate spies in China to steal tech secrets. Saudi Arabia is rendering Yemen into its Gaza--a site of exceptional war crimes. And why Netanyahu could go to jail, but for corruption in a submarine deal, not war crimes. Matt Duss is back wit...

Dr. Van Jackson revisits his predictions about the start of the Iran war and explains five secrets about war with Iran that account for why the war happened, who benefits from it, and what comes next. Also this episode: Understanding why the student-led riots in France will grow then fail; what Antonio Gramsci tells us about riots; and what makes a riot different from a strike. Watching recommenda...

The Trump administration's new geopolitical concept of "Greater North America" is fascist imagineering of international relations. It's imperialist, but a variation that differs meaningfully from liberal empire..and the implications are dire. Dr. Van Jackson breaks down his new essay in Foreign Policy magazine, "Trump's Greater North America is Fascist Geopolitics." Also this episode: Why the cost...

Separating truth from fiction in Secretary of War Pete Hegseth's "State of the Force" speech at Quantico. How is a crisis of capitalism driving a crisis of American militarism? Why is he accusing journalists of treason, lying about the Iran War, or bragging about slashing staff while inflating the military budget? Why are right-wing oligarchs (Elon Musk, Palmer Lucky, and Newt Gingrich) appointed...

Making sense of the Trump summit with China's Xi Jinping--why MAGA respects Chinese power and why an imperialist peace between the great powers is no peace at all. Marco Rubio rejects international order at the United Nations. Against data centers or A.I.? Then the US security state is coming for you! Russian hybrid aggression has spilled out of Ukraine and into Europe--why the "sandbox theory" of...

A new campaign just launched called Drop The Genocide 20. It demands banning the leading officials from the Biden administration most responsible for Gaza policy since October 7, 2023--and every person with a policy background should sign the pledge to keep these genocidaires away from the halls of power. The Center for Working Class Politics is tracking four key working-class candidates running a...

A new report from Defense Priorities has a radical proposal: End US alliances with South Korea, Japan, Australia, and the Philippines; drastically cut US military presence in East Asia; declare a non-intervention policy on Taiwan; and shift US military strategy from defending a "first-island chain" defense perimeter to the "second-island chain." Dr. Van Jackson explains the meaning and implication...

In this episode: Why "purging immigrants" doesn't fix working-class wages—it's a wealth story, not a race story. Attending New Zealand's student-led "School Strike 4 Climate" in Wellington—how the movement's demands have evolved from narrow climate asks (ending fossil fuel exploration, scrapping fast-track approvals) toward linking climate justice with broader political education and youth voter e...

How has labor organizing of tech workers changed from the early 2010s to today? What has been the tech oligarch playbook for labor repression, and why have tech billionaires mutated into oligarchs? How did Kickstarter become the first company to unionize in the tech sector? How does far-right culture-war politics benefit the oligarchic class? And what makes exercising worker power in the tech sect...

Why are US troops in South Korea? Dr. Van Jackson talks about his history working Korea policy, and why he doesn't think the old rationale holds up in 2026. The real meaning of the Pentagon's announcement to produce 200,000 drones for "drone dominance." With Alexander Vindman's loss to Angie Nixon in the Florida senate primary, we are seeing the twighlight of the "resistance liberal" from Trump 1....

What Tupac Shakur would've made of Marco Rubio (nothing good!). Tyler Austin Harper's essay in The Atlantic about leaving academia out of frustration at being a "Token Black Professor." University students skipping meals and skipping classes is a sign of a broken system. And in the back half of the episode, Dr. Van Jackson speaks with Dr. Robbie Shilliam about international relations since the Bla...

What is the meaning of empire? Ta-Nehisi Coates commiserates with Hasan Minhaj about living unaware of American imperialism for too long, and Dr. Van Jackson explains why coming to consciousness about empire was key to his personal political awakening. The UAE is facilitating a genocide in Sudan, and it's doing so as a sub-imperial power of the United States. Left-populist candidates won 11 out of...

What is the meaning of left populism and what does it stand for? Inside the politics of the most popular candidates running in 2026, from William Lawrence to Francesca Hong. What happened at the Pentagon's secret meeting with munitions suppliers, and what does it have to do with the new idea of a "forever" missile gap? What nations does the United States still control as colonies in 2026, and how...

The Trump administration is trying to manufacture a new anti-communist red scare, enlisting the national security state into a counter-revolutionary political project. Marco Rubio is obsessed with making Cuba an enemy. How Democrats gave up the only leverage they had to stop the Iran War. Think tanks and the foreign policy establishment are in crisis and dangerously out of touch with reality--Emma...

Trump's speech to the nation claiming that China stole the election from him is a farce, and an excuse to use the power of the state against his political enemies. Dr. Van Jackson warned about this in the 2025 book The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy. What's bringing back the repression politics of the Cold War. And what Marco Rubio's 60-nation meet...

Why we're seeing a rise in geopolitical gambling, speculation, and insider trading. Why the Iran War ceasefire was always going to fail. How to make sense of China's submarine-launched ballistic missile test over the Pacific, and why anti-imperialism is the only solution. Peter Theil calls Pope Leo a Chinese communist agent. And the devastation over the Graham Platner scandal.  Subscribe to the Un...

The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) is winning elections around the US. Their growing popularity is a democratic response to growing insecurity in an age of oligarchy. Zach Woods (from HBO's Silicon Valley) goes after Democratic strategist James Carville in the best way. Why DSA's victories are key to changing US foreign policy. Why Trump's corruption, oligarchy, the k-shaped economy, and A...

Why is America no longer the global hegemon? What is world order becoming after liberal hegemony? What's happening to international relations as a discipline? What does it mean to say that the era of ideology is over? In what way does Daniel Bessner sort of agree with G. John Ikenberry? Why does the dominance of liberal capitalism means shedding liberalism, and why does that help explain the world...

Inside the peace deal end the US war against Iran--and the spoilers that can bring it down. What’s behind the Department of War’s name change from Indo-Pacific Command to Pacific Command? Why decolonizing the Pacific Islands Region (including Guam) has to be part of American territorial defense. Taking a zero-based approach to the military budget. And Peter Theil’s secret society has way too many...

Harrison Mann was an army intelligence officer who resigned in protest against the genocide in Gaza in 2024. Since then, he's been a man on a mission--against war, against the political appointees who perpetuate war crimes and genocide, and for a new, more progressive foreign policy cadre for the Democratic Party. Mann joins Dr. Van Jackson in this episode about the future of Democratic Party fore...

The government is now going after regular people who oppose data centers and are calling it "anti-tech extremist violence.” Congress's anti-China conspiracy theory about data center opposition in the US is a very real farce. Bernie Sanders is in the New York Times with a new proposal to seize the means of A.I. production, sort of. New Zealand is allowing itself to fall into a militarist trap of it...

Antiwar comedy kills! Orli Matlow (host of War is Stupid: An Antiwar Podcast About War) and William Hartung (co-author of the Trillion-Dollar War Machine) are both comedians who make jokes against militarism and war. In this laugh filled episode of the pod, Orli, Bill, and Dr. Van Jackson explore the challenges of political or "charged" comedy in a country always at war.  Subscribe to the War is S...

This episode is a live public lecture to the New Zealand Fabian Society in Wellington. Our governments are clinging to outdated mental maps of the world—maps that obscure the pain and profit associated with their foreign-policy choices. In this public talk, Dr. Van Jackson diagnoses our moment of global “polycrisis” as a crisis of capitalism anchored to a single declining hegemon. The United State...

What does Trump's summit with China's Xi Jinping mean for rivalry, the permanent war economy, strategic stability, and US imperial decline? The deep sexual anxieties underneath the White House's anti-democratic counter-terrorism strategy. Graham Platner takes the lead in defining the working class and left populism. Why military spending is out of control, and who benefits. Matt Duss, Julia Gledhi...