The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

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 to be the Pentagon's brain trust in charge of "Project Meridian?" And how does Hegseth narrate the role of the military in peripheralizing the imperial core, making Alabama more like the new Guam or Philippines? Julia Gledhill is back with Van Jackson to break it all down, including her new investigation for The Baffler magazine on the role of "autonomous manufacturing" in transferring wealth from taxpayers to venture capitalists via the national security state. 

Read Julia’s piece in The Baffler: https://thebaffler.com/latest/up-against-the-wall-gledhill

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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 support for Ukraine was always going to be self-defeating. And YouTuber Alec The Pen satirizes the "Secret Society of Democratic Centrists." 

Alec The Pen's short: https://www.youtube.com/shorts/j5bXSIkpPJk

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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 as Democrats for the mid-term elections--here's how they're doing and what it means for the popularity of economic populism and whether we're really in a left populist moment.

Public debate has been consumed with the question of whether artificial intelligence will destroy the world. But that debate distracts from the real ways in which AI is ending the world right now--by destroying critical thinking capacities, by deskilling white-collar workers, by inflating the worst financial bubble in economic history...and according to a new MIT research paper, causing "cognitive surrender" in students who are addicted to using AI to avoid the difficulty of learning.

Finally, a new big report in The International Policy Journal makes an airtight case for why New Zealand should become a model for non-offensive defense; avoid acquiring naval frigates; and foreclose on multilateral warfighting with the United States. At stake is whether a small trading nation succumbs to empire or is capable of the independent foreign policy it's prided itself on for decades. 

For the Battle of Chile conversation referenced in this episode, as well as part two and three:  https://www.bangbangpod.com/p/the-battle-of-chile-part-i-1975-w

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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 implications of this proposal and evaluates it from the perspective of anti-militarist anti-imperialism.

Based on previous research, he also proposes the standard for "progressive foreign policy," whether progressives and socialists should support this new proposal, and no proposal for changing military strategy has a chance of stabilizing Asia if it does not prioritize the concept of the "Asian Peace."

W.E.B. Du Bois, “The Souls of White Folk” (1920), https://loa-shared.s3.amazonaws.com/static/pdf/Du_Bois_White_Folk.pdf. 

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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 enrollment. The White House's official website is hosting deportation-themed arcade games—fascism makes cruelty a spectacle. Trump's social media post depicting U.S. "territories," which doubled as an admission that Guam, Puerto Rico, CNMI, Washington D.C., Palau, the Marshall Islands, and the Federated States of Micronesia function as U.S. colonial holdings—plus a jab claiming the Strait of Hormuz as American territory. The Economist magazine had embarrassing coverage of Australia's Pacific security agreements, which are asymmetric "protectorate" deals that expand Australian sub-imperial influence and destabilize the region more than any Chinese military presence does. Economic pundit Steve Ratner has a chart showing that ICE raid-heavy states have seen the slowest wage growth...and that opens an explainer about fascism, counter-revolution, and who benefits from ethnonationalism (oligarchs!). Labor's share of national income—not immigration—is driving economic insecurity.

Non-sequitur: Hulu’s Furious might be the best show on streaming right now. 

Also this episode: A crossover conversation with the show Bogan Intelligentsia about US economic war with Canada; our complicated feelings about Mark Carney as Canada’s PM; why Australia is totally misreading American politics and the world’s geopolitics; how different political constituencies interpret multipolarity; the Democratic Party in the US; and more. 

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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 sector unique compared to worker power in the economy at large? JS Tan and Clarissa Redwine join Dr. Van Jackson to discuss their incredible new book, Against Tech Oligarchy: Worker Resistance in the World’s Most Powerful Industry. Also this episode: The Trump administration designates Palestine Action a global terrorist organization; fascist geopolitics propels the US toward trying to annex Canada; CIA operations in Mexico; and Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent announces an economic "D-Day" threat on Iran that he can't fully implement. 

Buy the book, Against Tech Oligarchy: https://www.haymarketbooks.org/books/2858-against-tech-oligarchy 

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

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 1.0. Could party structures modeled on DSA, the Democratic Socialists of America, emerge in other countries? There's a bond market crisis that could spark a financial meldown--here's why interest rates are rising. Also this episode: Dr. Jackson shares his panel discussion about left populism, democratic socialism, and the upcoming New Zealand at the NZ Fabian Society. 

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

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

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

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 Black Lives Matter uprisings of 2020. After George Floyd’s police murder and the Black Lives Matter movement explosion in 2020. They also discuss: 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; and 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. 

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

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

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 18 electoral campaigns this week, ushering in a wave that will transform American politics one way or another. 

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

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

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

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 can they get free? An update on Marco Rubio's attempt to transform the US State Department into a far-right deep state. 

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

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