The US shot down a Chinese balloon last Saturday off the coast of South Carolina, saying it was a surveillance device. The Chinese maintain it was a weather-related airship. Since then, secretary of State Antony Blinken canceled his trip to China and the Chinese reportedly refused to take a call from the US, all bringing a further worsening of relations between the countries.

Joining us understand the landscape that lead to these tensions is Professor of political anthropology David Vine.

Photo by Lan Lin on Unsplash

David Vine is Professor of political anthropology at American University in Washington, DC. David’s newest book, The United States of War: A Global History of America’s Endless Conflicts, from Columbus to the Islamic State​ (University of California Press, 2020). His other books are Base Nation: How U.S. Military Bases Abroad Harm America and the World (Metropolitan/Henry Holt, 2015) and Island of Shame: The Secret History of the U.S. Military Base on Diego Garcia (Princeton University Press, 2009).

David has also co-written and compiled Militarization: A Reader (Duke University Press, 2019) and The Counter-Counterinsurgency Manual or, Notes on Demilitarizing American Society, (Prickly Paradigm Press, 2009). His work has appeared in the New York Times, Washington Post, The Guardian, Mother Jones, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, and the Chronicle of Higher Education, among others.

David is a board member of the Costs of War Project and a co-founder of the Overseas Base Realignment and Closure Coalition. David is a contributor to TomDispatch.com and Foreign Policy in Focus.

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