The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

Have you ever wondered about the political economy of movie-making?Like, why are Hollywood movies globally hegemonic, and why is South Korea its only rival, and why are most foreign countries mere backlots for American studios?What does it have to do with the Netflix-Hulu-Amazon-Disney+ streaming model?Why are the WGA and SAG-AFTRA on strike? What kind of solidarities unite American writers and actors with Korean writers and actors?And what is the future of film?Some really big questions, and US foreign policy plays a role in answering them, remarkably. I sat down with writer/director/producer/editor Kevin Fox to discuss. This was fun!Kevin’s epic tweet thread: https://twitter.com/Michigrimk/status/1695209106921947232Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

In this live show, the speaker explores controversial propositions about US grand strategy, Sino-US rivalry, and the root cause of problems with China. They challenge conventional views on the rivalry, discuss deceptive narratives, analyze China's actions, and discuss the shift towards China hatred in the US. They also examine the challenges of sustaining primacy in a multipolar world.

This episode doesn’t just have a theme, it has a thesis. Have you wondered how precisely the Pentagon manages to siphon so much taxpayer money year after year? How the military-industrial-congressional complex functions in practice? Why US primacy is so expensive yet perpetually in crisis? This episode with William Hartung and Julia Gledhill is something of a tutorial for understanding Pentagon bloat and corruption—which are deeply intertwined. US defense strategy has been hot garbage for, well, as long as I’ve been alive. It’s never been well conceived, sets impossible standards that it uses to request evermore funds when it fails to meet them, and heightens the very threats it aims to guard against. As we discuss in this episode, a key cause of this strategic ineptitude is Pentagon graft and the ability to buy its way out of the kinds of tradeoffs that would impose discipline on strategy-making.Bill and Julia’s piece in The Nation: https://www.thenation.com/article/world/pentagon-debt-ceiling-bill/Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

In this cross-over episode with the Security Dilemma podcast, Van speaks with Patrick Fox and John Allen Gay of the John Quincy Adams Society about a range of issues: dissident thinking and intellectual diversity in foreign policy; how to think about China and deterrence; what’s wrong with a "foreign policy for the middle class”; fissures in the progressive movement on foreign policy; and more! Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comSubscribe to the Security Dilemma Podcast: https://jqas.org/security-dilemma/John Quincy Adams Society: https://jqas.org

Part II of my conversation with Jonathan Kirshner about his new book, An Unwritten Future: Realism, Uncertainty, and World Politics. Kirshner explains how classical realists think about the “national interest"; distinctions between realist and progressive political economy; what he doesn’t like about the “Thucydides’ Trap,”; the poverty of offensive realism; and how classical realism understands everything from British appeasement of Hitler to the Vietnam War.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

Part I of my two-part conversation with Jonathan Kirshner about his new book, An Unwritten Future: Realism, Uncertainty, and World Politics. Kirshner explains why classical realism is a misunderstood intellectual tradition. We get into: Why realism recruits dead people into their intellectual tradition; what we can learn from Thucydides, and why an armchair understanding of the Peloponnesian War does more harm than good; why realist pessimism is a self-fulfilling prophecy; why international relations has somewhat lost its way; how we should think about the “national interest"; and distinctions between realist and progressive political economy.Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com

What's the difference between centered and de-centered international orders? How do small states navigate geopolitics without becoming pawns? What does it look like to have a world in which there is no hegemon, and how is it sustained? And why was 15th century maritime Southeast Asia a different international order than the Sino-centric "tributary system" in what is now Northeast Asia? Dr. Manjeet Pardesi joins the show to share new research that sheds light on all these questions and more. A tour-de-force of historical international relations, what it means to take a relational view of world politics, and small-state strategies in Asia. Subscribe to our newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comManjeet's article in Global Studies Quarterly (open access!): https://academic.oup.com/isagsq/article/2/4/ksac072/6947856 

What's wrong with liberal hegemony? What does it mean for New Zealand to have an "independent foreign policy?" Why did New Zealand's Prime Minister recently visit China? And why are the interests of New Zealand's leading dairy supplier far from the same thing as the interests of the nation? In this cross-over episode, Van sits down with the good folks at the 1 of 200 Podcast to discuss an unusual intersection of US foreign policy pathologies with those of New Zealand.Subscribe to the newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.comListen to the 1 of 200 Podcast: https://www.1of200.nz/podcastKyle Church on Twitter: https://twitter.com/KyleDChurchBranko Marcetic on Twitter: https://twitter.com/BMarchetich

Carla Freeman, China watcher from US Institute of Peace, discusses China's relational thinking about world politics and its impact on the global South. They explore China's Global Security Initiative and its role in exporting policing functions and surveillance systems. The podcast covers topics such as the treatment of Uyghurs, the appeal of China's framework to post-colonial states, and the collaboration between the developing world and great powers on issues like climate policy and debt restructuring.

Opposition parties carried the day in Thailand's recent multiparty elections on May 14. The Move Forward Party, led by Pita Limjaroenrat, and Phue Thai party of Thaksin Shinawatra's family, won a sizeable majority, with the military's coalition parties losing resoundly. What does the recent election mean for the country's path forward? Will the military's election commission let the opposition form a government, or will it stage another coup like in 2014? Has Thai society finally moved on from the Yellow Shirt-Red Shirt divide that paralyzed the country's politics for the past two decades? Hunter Marston sits down with ANU professor Greg Raymond and University of Sydney professor Aim Sinpeng to discuss Thailand's democratic crossroads.Support the pod by subscribing to our newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com