The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

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...

Is a new Non-Aligned Movement emerging to counter the United States (and is it trying to counter the US)? What was the original Non-Aligned Movement during the Cold War? What was the New International Economic Order, and why did it disappear? What prospects are there for a global order in a post-hegemon, post-American, multipolar world? And what does the US Democratic Party have to do with all the...

Why Graham Platner's victory in the Democratic primary for Maine's senate seat is so important for the antifascist antiwar movement. Why Americans no longer believe the hype about the China threat. Inside Marco Rubio's imperial control of the Panama Canal and Panama's expropriation of a Chinese company's assets. Israeli piracy targets the Gaza Sumud Flotilla, creating "Apartheid without borders."...

What Palantir's manifesto says about its the politics of militarism. The Substack controversy about Andrew Tate, and why we stand with Talib Kweli and W. Kamau Bell. Ben Rhodes co-signs Graham Platner in the New York Times. Why the Democratic Party must become anti-war if it wants to win. The contradictory information about blockading the Strait of Hormuz. Ben McKenzie's new anti-crypto documentar...

Why did the US invade Iran? What does it have to do with American imperial decline? Why do oligarchs need the permanent war economy? Why is left populism impossible without an anti-war movement? What should a leftist or progressive foreign policy actually look like? Is AOC an organic intellectual, and what do we need from her foreign policy? Why did Bernie Sanders shift from talking about kleptocr...

The fragile US ceasefire with Iran has collapsed. Why? What is "goliath's curse" and how does it help us understand America's maximalist demands? Is Trump's new threat to blockade the Strait of Hormuz possible? Does the US have any leverage against Iran? And what makes the US an anti-hegemon? Many questions, many answers in this emergency episode of the pod.  Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newslet...

Emergency episode covering the terms of the US-Iran ceasefire; why it signals the end of US hegemony; the risks of nuclear war, which remain in place; Israel’s role as a spoiler; indicators of Chinese hegemony (or not); the limits of US power; and what it means to think of Iran as a great power controlling the Strait of Hormuz. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.c...

AOC announces that she opposes arming Israel in any way--a welcome shift. What makes the Iran war a class war that takes money from every worker in the world. NATO has many problems, but its biggest is the United States. What makes the world post-hegemonic; new signs that the United States repudiates its own form status as global hegemon. Why slaughter is not a strategy--the Trump administration a...

While America's war in Iran slides into higher casualties and greater costs, most of the world remains distracted from America's illegal blockade of Cuba--an act of war. Why the oil crisis is going to fuel a food crisis, which is going to sow revolutionary conditions around the world. How imperialism does and doesn't help explain the US bombing a dairy farm in Ecuador. Pete Hegseth's pastor prayin...

Free episode crossover with The Bang-Bang Podcast! You might know Morgan Spector as the critically acclaimed leading man in The Gilded Age and The Plot Against Americ a. Or for his appearances in Boardwalk Empire , Suits , Homeland , How to Make It In America (one of Van’s favorites), or even as a producer on The Big Scary “S” Word . What you might not know is that Morgan is both an impressive cri...

Why the Iran war is creating a global financial crisis. Why China doesn't want global hegemony, but if it did, now is the best time imaginable. Signs of American hegemonic decline. And Joe Kent's resignation from the Trump administration and how to read it in light of anti-semitism. Van Jackson and Matt Duss chopping up all that and more in this episode. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter:...

What is the US shortage of standoff weapons? What's Iran's strategy? Why are missile defense systems moving from South Korea to the Middle East? And why is it wrong to believe that war with Iran comes at the expense of war with China? Can the US even defend Taiwan from a Chinese invasion? In this episode live from the Kapiti Coast, Dr. Van Jackson analyzes the latest in the US and Israeli war with...

What is techno-industrialism, who benefits from it, and what does it mean for the working class? Maddy Crowell joins Julia Gledhill on the podcast to discuss her new article in Harper’s Magazine, in which she explores the effort to reindustrialize the United States through rearmament.  Read “The Plot to Save America,” here: https://harpers.org/archive/2026/03/the-plot-to-save-america-maddy-crowell...

In this episode live on location in the Kapiti Coast (the background noise is the ocean), Dr. Van Jackson explains five truths about war with Iran that account for why the war happened, who benefits from it, and what comes next.  Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/  Watch Un-Diplomatic Podcast on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast  Disclaim...

As the Trump administration prepares for war with Iran, why does it suddenly care about manufacturing consent? Inside the US military's munitions shortfall and what it says about capitalism, oligarchy, and the US relationship with war. War games with artificial intelligence say chatbots choose escalation to nuclear war 95% of the time. What's at stake in Anthropic's fight with the Pentagon, and wh...

What did AOC reveal about her foreign policy vision during her trip to Germany and the Munich Security Conference? Why is the US about to illegally attack Iran, again? Proof from the New York Times that the Democratic Party as we know it is in crisis. And what we can learn about tech-worker backlash against AI and Anthropic's fight with the Pentagon.  Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: htt...

How did opposition to the Iraq War become the largest peace movement in recorded history? Why is the world ripe for a new generation of peace activism? And why is it so important to diagnose militarism as a primary cause of global insecurity today? Dr. David Cortright--a legendary peace activist and peace scholar--joins the pod to offer an oral history of the global peace movement in the context o...