Woke Imperium: How the U.S. Uses Social Justice to Sell Empire | Christopher Mott

In this episode, we discuss geopolitics and the emerging age of multipolarity with Dr. Christopher Mott, Research Fellow at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy. Dr. Mott is an international relations scholar specializing in historical geopolitics, grand strategy, and the intersection of defensive realism and sovereignty in an increasingly multipolar world.

Previously, he served as a fellow at Defense Priorities in Washington, D.C., and as a researcher at the U.S. Department of State. He holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of St Andrews and is the author of The Formless Empire: A Short History of Diplomacy and Warfare in Central Asia, which explores the rise of indigenous geopolitical strategies on the Eurasian steppe.

We discuss Dr. Mott’s analysis of contemporary geopolitics, focusing on how the American empire often cloaks its foreign policy objectives in the rhetoric of social justice—a theme he explores in his article “Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice and Neoconservatism.”

Dr. Mott’s work has appeared in The National Interest, The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Agonmag, India’s World, and UnHerd.
Follow him on X (Twitter) @chrisdmott and on Substack @chrismott296764.

Articles discussed in this episode:
https://peacediplomacy.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/Woke-Imperium.pdf
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/the-moralistic-risk-for-trumps-foreign-policy/
https://indiasworld.in/the-global-ngo-complex-fades-but-do-the-missionaries-remain/
https://unherd.com/2025/06/regime-change-wont-neuter-iran/?us=1
https://www.agonmag.com/p/modus-vivendi-realisms-missing-link

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