The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

Biden's best chance of winning might be embracing the anti-war movement.  Democracies for Taiwan.  Is there anything Australia can do to save the United States?  Is the US Space Force a militarist boondoggle?  Also this episode: The legacy of Henry Kissinger.  Turkish imperialism.  Pompeo gaslighting on Iran.  And advice about studying international relations.  Demand Progress: https://demandprogress.orgCaitlin Talmadge Tweet: https://twitter.com/ProfTalmadge/status/1259240712777928704Don Moynihan Tweet: https://twitter.com/donmoyn/status/1259477460904808449?s=20Benjamin Young Tweet: https://twitter.com/DubstepInDPRK/status/1259673664456359937?s=20Quantian Tweet: https://twitter.com/quantian1/status/1260387202871287809Brendan Taylor in Australian Foreign Affairs: https://www.australianforeignaffairs.com/articles/extract/2020/02/message-to-washington

American foreign policy is a reality TV show.  Through the China looking glass with HR McMaster.  Also this episode:Why is Korean peace a dirty phrase in Washington?   Did a member of Congress just tell a journalist that defense hawks will have to lies in the form of strategic rhetoric to keep the defense budget obscenely high?  Yes, he did.  Does speaking Chinese make for good anti-China propaganda?  Matt Duss's Tweet: https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1258094892351467520?s=19James Palmer's Tweet: https://twitter.com/BeijingPalmer/status/1258484792049520641Paul McLeary: https://twitter.com/paulmcleary/status/1258007330651803648Matt Korda's Tweet:https://twitter.com/mattkorda/status/1257775280388812806?s=20Damon Linker's Tweet: https://twitter.com/DamonLinker/status/1258023836341219329Nick Miller's Tweet: https://twitter.com/Nick_L_Miller/status/1256672374868660225Ethan Paul in Responsible Statecraft: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/2020/05/05/how-mcmaster-sees-china/

The "Blob" national security establishment is necessary, often wrong, and loses any argument where it concedes that it's a Blob.  Are nuclear weapons inherently undemocratic and tyrannical?  George Orwell predicted yes.  Are political scientists wrong about diversionary war?  The National Republican Senatorial Committee thinks so in their latest memo that directs candidates to not defend Trump and instead attack China.  Has "the data" really replaced "strategy" as Washington's new favorite empty term?  Why fair trade might be a better way to fight China than the Hayekian wet dream of free trade at all costs.  Also this episode: How did Van Jackson become a North Korea watcher?Matt Duss Tweet: https://twitter.com/mattduss/status/1255610412189581314?s=20Anne Marie-Brady Tweet: https://twitter.com/AaronFriedberg/status/1254861734059421700?s=20Robert Kelly Tweet: https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1256033975568482304Adam Serwer Tweet: https://twitter.com/AdamSerwer/status/1255620408952393729?s=20"In Defense of the Blob" piece: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/united-states/2020-04-29/defense-blob 

Grand strategy is more necessary--and harder to do--than ever.  Alliance management with Japan and South Korea is becoming impossible when one is a hawk and the other a dove.  What the hell is happening with Kim Jong Un?  China's horrible...and so is anti-Chinese racism.  Van's endless white-collar frustrations with working from home in the Coronavirus era.  Also this episode: What does Van like to eat?  Uri Friedman on New Zealand's Crisis Response: https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/04/jacinda-ardern-new-zealand-leadership-coronavirus/610237/Aiden Smith's Tweet: https://twitter.com/AidanSmith2020/status/1252041966214242305Jackie Schneider's Tweet: https://twitter.com/JackieGSchneid/status/1252391127652552707Duyeon Kim's Tweet: https://twitter.com/duyeonkim/status/1252429076205203464?s=19

Why Senator Chris Murphy might end up being the Henry Kissinger of the Left.  Are Millennials more hawkish on China than Boomers and Gen X?  Chicago Council on Global Affairs has polling data that tells us.  Robert Zoellick's new book highlights a neoliberal split on the China question.  Why socialists need to support Biden.  South Korean elections bring a North Korean defector to the National Assembly.  And we're living in a cyberpunk dystopia.Alex Ward's Profile of Chris Murphy in Vox: https://www.vox.com/2020/4/16/21127501/chris-murphy-foreign-policy-coronavirus-trump?fbclid=IwAR08dq1ioUta18m-dCMTPbGkhEB7oeJ47ThrOQV6ChLAiaPplGrTK9-b1MoKelsey Atherton on our Cyberpunk Dystopia: https://slate.com/technology/2020/04/coronavirus-cyberpunk-science-fiction-government-politics.htmlRobert Kelly's Tweet: https://twitter.com/Robert_E_Kelly/status/1250940245626941443Stephen Maher's Tweet: https://twitter.com/stphnmaher/status/1250414565399187457?s=20 

Does the novel Coronavirus pandemic count as a Black Swan? Van Jackson goes deep on why it was and why it matters. Is strategic competition within interdependence possible? The neoliberal irony of strategizing to fight China using resources gotten from trading with China. Why the metaphor of Pearl Harbor is not just in appropriate securitization of the pandemic--it's ultimately an un-democratic power grab. Also this episode: Where Van fits in the international relations paradigm wars, why North Korea needs but doesn't want help, and what happened to Van's old podcast.  George Takei tweet: xhttps://twitter.com/GeorgeTakei/status/1246904615985188867?s=20Abe Denmark tweet: https://twitter.com/AbeDenmark/status/1247867195859914752?s=20Euan Graham tweet: https://twitter.com/graham_euan/status/1248033806226870273James Laurenson tweet: https://twitter.com/j_laurenceson/status/1247839183646883846

Singapore's not happy with any of the great powers, but do they have a Plan B for a failure of US leadership?  Should NATO expel Hungary for turning into a dictatorship?  What happened in the latest Korea-watcher spat between Jeffrey Lewis and Joel Wit?  Also this episode: The paradigm wars in international relations theory didn't end; they migrated into Asian security studies.  The Coronavirus shouldn't be a national security issue.  Why John Steinbeck's Grapes of Wrath is more important than Matt Damon's Contagion.Christopher Woody shouts out the pod: https://www.businessinsider.com/backlash-to-trump-use-of-sanctions-as-coronavirus-spreads-2020-3Antonio DeLoera Tweet: https://twitter.com/AntonioDeLoeraB/status/1244708115720728578Dan Nexon Tweet: https://twitter.com/dhnexon/status/1244990273899450368Nick Bisley Tweet: https://twitter.com/NickBisley/status/1245589570806145029Fred Kaplan on Hungary and NATO: https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2020/03/orban-hungary-dictatorship-eu-nato.html

Is US China policy racist?  A better question is whether Pompeo is the Sebastian Gorka of China policy. How to make sense of dueling Chinese diplomats.  Will the European Union expand, even as it's contracting?  Is the US prepping an invasion of Venezuela?  And the avoidable nightmare of a suspended presidential election.  Also this episode: North Korea as a bizarrely stable nuclear flashpoint, and whether arms-racing with North Korea makes any sense (it doesn't).  Erin Ryan's Tweet: https://twitter.com/morninggloria/status/1241041892231413760Ryan Hass's Tweet:https://twitter.com/ryanl_hass/status/1242088502189326337Benjamin Denison's Tweet: https://twitter.com/DenisonBe/status/1241885474144256001How to Vote During a Pandemic: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/2020-03-24/how-vote-during-pandemic

Why does the Pentagon keep getting deterrence wrong?  Why is Mike Pompeo threatening the families of staff who work for the International Criminal Court?  And what makes Russia so different from China?  Also this episode: the danger of US-China conspiracy theories; why China's bid for hegemony involves a lot of cheap talk; white supremacy in the military; and the inhumanity and anti-strategy of sanctioning Iran amid the coronavirus.  Mehdi Hasan on Iran: https://theintercept.com/2020/03/17/coronavirus-iran-sanctions/Daniel Larison on Iraq: https://www.theamericanconservative.com/larison/we-have-lost-in-iraq-and-we-should-leave/Matt Zeitlin's Tweet: https://twitter.com/MattZeitlin/status/1239024271877439489Matt Korda's Tweet: https://twitter.com/mattkorda/status/1239968570043289606Gerry Doyle's Tweet: https://twitter.com/mgerrydoyle/status/1240085453690130438

Why liberal foreign policy is a bad fit for dark times.  What Netflix's Narcos can tell us about order and stability in international relations. Why Russia started an oil price war with Saudi Arabia.  Why the critical left doesn't understand power as well as it thinks.  If your think tank gets money from Ali Baba, that doesn't automatically make you a Chinese agent.  What does Bernie Sanders really think about China?  Also this episode: A brief history lesson on the politics of the American Progressive Era.  Matt Stoller tweet: https://twitter.com/matthewstoller/status/1237580289888505856Rush Doshi tweet: https://twitter.com/SolomonYue/status/1237579397483261952Jeff Colgan tweet: https://twitter.com/JeffDColgan/status/1237075224446881792Ivan Krastev and Stephen Holmes on democracy's decline: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/09/opinion/democracy-eastern-europe.html