The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

This re-released conversation with Daniel Immerwahr is one of our all-time top ten episodes, initially released on December 28, 2022. Why do geopoliticians blow off climate change and environmental degradation?  Is geography really an insurmountable force?  What do "geopolitical risk consultants" really do?  And what should we make of the fact that geopolitics has its origins in imperialism?  What did Nazis, in particular, see appealing in geopolitics?  Van sits down w/ Professor Daniel Immerwahr (author of How to Hide an Empire) to discuss a new essay in The Guardian long reads section. They also talk about Daniel's recent chapter about the politics and ideology of George Lucas's Star Wars.  Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com.Are We Really Prisoners of Geography?: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/10/are-we-really-prisoners-of-geography-maps-geopolitics.Ideology in US Foreign Relations (the volume containing "Galactic Vietnam"): https://cup.columbia.edu/book/ideology-in-u-s-foreign-relations/9780231201810.

Out of the maybe 20 live events I spoke at in the US recently, only one—one!—was actually recorded and you’re about to hear it. About this Event: From the War on Terror to the militarization of the Pacific, and from imperial competition with China to US support for Israeli atrocities in Palestine, the US quest for primacy has devastating consequences globally, and a corrosive impact domestically. Join us for a free flowing conversation about the consequences of endless wars and militarism, rethinking US foreign policy and the implications for the upcoming 2024 elections.Speaker Bios:Spencer Ackerman, the foreign policy columnist for The Nation magazine, is a Pulitzer Prize and National Magazine Award-winning reporter. Focusing on the War on Terror, Ackerman has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and numerous U.S. bases, ships and submarines as a senior correspondent for outlets like Wired, The Guardian and the Daily Beast. His 2021 book, REIGN OF TERROR: HOW THE 9/11 DESTABILIZED AMERICA AND PRODUCED TRUMP, was named a book of the year by the New York Times Critics, the Washington Post and the PBS NewsHour, and won a 2022 American Book Award. Ackerman writes the popular FOREVER WARS newsletter on Ghost (foreverwars.ghost.io) and recently released the spy thriller graphic novel WALLER VS WILDSTORM for DC Comics.Amel Ahmad is Associate Professor of Political Science at University of Massachusetts Amherst. Her main areas of specialization are democratic studies, with a special interest in elections, voting systems, legislative politics, party development, and voting rights. She is author of Democracy and the Politics of Electoral System Choice: Engineering Electoral Dominance (Cambridge University Press, 2013). Her new book entitled When Democracy Divides: The Regime Question in European and American Political Development, examines the impact of regime contention on political development in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and the United States in the 19th and early 20th Centuries.Van Jackson is a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington, host of The Un-Diplomatic Podcast, and author of The Un-Diplomatic Newsletter. Van’s research broadly concerns East Asian and Pacific security, critical analysis of defense issues, and the intersection of working-class interests with foreign policy. He is the author of scores of journal articles, book chapters, and policy reports, as well as four books, including Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace, with Yale University Press (2023) and Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking, with Cambridge University Press (2023). His fifth book, forthcoming with Yale University Press, is The Rivalry Peril: How Great-Power Competition Threatens Peace and Weakens Democracy (with Michael Brenes). Van is a senior researcher at Security in Context and co-director of the Multipolarity, Great Power Competition and the Global South research track.Omar Dahi is a professor of economics at Hampshire College and director of the Security in Context research network.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comVisit Security in Context: https://www.securityincontext.com

Why is “debt-trap diplomacy” nothing more than an anti-China meme? Why is the geopolitical interpretation of Chinese overseas lending wrong, and what does that suggest about US/Western estimates of China’s intentions? Why do Chinese firms hate writing down unpayable debts? And why do smaller developing nations rarely benefit from international financial competition? I sat down with the great Shahar Hameiri to discuss all that and more in the latest episode of the pod.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic NewsletterShahar and Lee’s piece, “China, International Competition, and the Stalemate in Sovereign Debt Restructuring: Beyond Geopolitics.” Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, Fractured China: How State Transformation is Shaping China’s Rise.Deborah Brautigaum, “A critical look at Chinese ‘debt-trap diplomacy’: the rise of a meme.”Shahar Hameiri and Lee Jones, “Debunking the Myth of Debt-Trap Diplomacy.”

This interview with the Review of Democracy podcast is the deepest dive to date on Van Jackson’s book, Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking. Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic NewsletterReview of Democracy Podcast

What does Guam’s political status say about US strategic thought? What strategic choices does Guam have if it were allowed self-determination? What does America’s imperial relations with Guam have in common with the rest of the Non-Sovereign Pacific? And why does the existence of a Non-Sovereign Pacific region make both the Pacific and the great powers less secure? I assure you, you’ve never heard a foreign policy conversation like this. A hilarious, personal, and highly edifying conversation at the intersection of social justice and defense strategy, with Dr. Ken Kuper from the University of Guam.Subscribe to the Pacific Center for Island Security’s daily newsletter.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic newsletter.Further reading on Guam.

This episode is unusual, more like part of a mini-lecture series. I was asked to give a talk recently on inequality, development, and IR theory for an audience that skews quite young. I’ve chopped it up to just bring out the highlights, but we hit many topics that might be of interest:—Why IR paradigms are not especially useful for making sense of inequality.—Why it sucks to be poor, no matter what flag you live under.—Capitalism v. Marxism, and by proxy, modernization theory v. dependency theory.—Why the East Asian development model is at its end.—Why it can be useful to think of political economy as a capitalist world system.—Why redistribution is the only alternative to revolution if you want to reduce inequality.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter

What’s wrong with liberal internationalism? What alternatives do socialists and progressives offer? Is voting more (or less) than a defensive tactic? Is the Democratic Party beyond redemption? Is China a force for good or evil in the world?  Van went on the 1 of 200 podcast to have a really real debate about everything on the left’s mind at the moment. They talk about his new book--Grand Strategies of the Left--but couch it in a larger conversation on left perspectives about foreign policy. 1 of 200 Pod: https://www.patreon.com/1of200Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comBuy Grand Strategies of the Left

How do the space-colony visions of Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos meaningfully differ? What does a company like Space-X have in common with the old imperial company-states, like the British East India Company? And why are billionaire bros obsessed with “political exit” projects like seasteading and galactic escapism? We tackle all that and more with Alina Utrata, a scholar whose new article in American Political Science Review called, “Engineering Territory: Space and Colonies in Silicon Valley” is a banger.Morris Cohen, Property and SovereigntyRobert Nichols, Theft is PropertyAlina’s PodcastSubscribe to Alina’s NewsletterSubscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What separates conservatives from reactionaries, and where do they converge? What are the politics inherent to counterinsurgency strategy? What does the popularity of counter-insurgency in the 21st century say about Democratic Party politics? How does small-war thinking unify counter-revolutionary monarchies with Edwardian imperialism with anti-communism? And where does David Petraeus fit into these questions?All that and more in this wide-ranging conversation with Joseph Mackay, anchored in his award-winning book, The Counter-Insurgent Imagination: A New Intellectual History.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Matthew Petit, writer and expert on the life of Daniel Ellsberg and the think tank environment in Washington, discusses the impact of Ellsberg's whistleblowing act and reveals shocking classified nuclear planning documents. The podcast also explores the evolution of think tanks, challenges of representation, contradictory actions, and the complexity of US policy in the Middle East.