The Un-Diplomatic Podcast

The award-winning, New York Times best-selling author, Nick Turse, has done some deep investigations at the intersection of Southeast Asia; the intellectual bankruptcy of US geopoliticking; and Henry…

What makes neoconservatives different from Cold War liberals? Why did Francis Fukuyama's "The End of History and the Last Man" lament the end of the Cold War? What's classical liberalism? And how do …

How does the narrative of a Blue Pacific complicate strategic narratives about the "Indo-Pacific?" How do the nations of the Pacific Islands region think about security? What role does the Pacific Is…

From a freelance journalist in Southeast Asia to becoming a “foreign policy person,” and how to publish your first book. Can authoritarian countries practice meritocracy? How can we make sense of goo…

Why is it that we're spending more money and resources than ever on this thing we call “national security,” and yet not only does the world feel perpetually insecure; it feels like insecurity is gett…

What is multipolarity?  Is the unipolar moment totally over? What is a great power?How do nukes fit into these questions? And how do the left, the right, and the restrainers metabolise these question…

What is the nuclear revolution and why can't we agree on it? What is the Third Nuclear Age, why is it problematic as a concept, and what special dangers or opportunities might it hold? How important …

The legendary New Leftist and historian Michael Kazin joins the pod to talk about his recent essay in Dissent, "Reject the Left-Right Alliance in Ukraine." We also talk he ended up on the New Left, s…

What Fareed Zakaria doesn't get about the dollar supremacy debate. Why American exceptionalists can't see Asian arms-racing clearly. Why AUKUS is controversial, in Australia, New Zealand, and across …

How do African Americans view America's role in the world?  What does it mean when Black Americans say the US should "keep out" of foreign interventions?  What explains Black Republican hawkishness? …

For the pod's first movie night, Van, Colette Shade, and Matt Duss discuss the 1998 cult political comedy, Bulworth. Did Bulworth presage Bernie Sanders? Where are the Bulworth Democrats today? How d…

We're trying to do more to spotlight interesting journal article-based academic research in a non-boring way. So today Van sits down with Dr. Samantha Leigh Payne to talk about her new history on fea…

Kate and Hunter are back with Van. What's up with the "Rage Against the War Machine" protests? Is it really antiwar? Working class versus middle class--what's the diff? Cambodia versus economic state…

Van does battle with voices ranging from John Mearsheimer and Robert Kagan to Joseph Nye and Hillary Clinton in this book launch at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy for his book, Pacific Power P…

Part II of Van's interview with Dr. Matthew Specter, discussing his new book, The Atlantic Realists. Was Hans Morgenthau a Leftist? Is great-power competition just offensive realism? Is realism a res…

Van's interview with Dr. Matthew Specter discusses his new book, The Atlantic Realists. They get into the diverse understandings of the realist tradition, trace its roots to imperial competition in t…

What is the real nature of the "China problem?" How did Sino-US detente and collaboration become great-power competition and rivalry? What did Obama's pivot to Asia have to do with all of it? And why…

What is empathy, and why is it important in making strategy? Why is "strategic empathy" so problematic? Can empathy be institutionalized? How did neoliberals steer empathy wrong? Dr. Claire Yorke sit…

Does Southeast Asia matter? How does SE Asia view and respond to great power competition, Russia’s war in Ukraine, and tensions in the Taiwan Strait? And how can the Association of Southeast Asian Na…

How's Biden doing on foreign policy?  Where is the "Biden doctrine" going wrong?  Matt Duss and Stephen Wertheim--leading voices in progressive foreign policy--come on the pod to hit all the issues w…