Van Jackson

The domestic repression that Americans are experiencing is the counterpart to US imperialist geopolitics abroad. All of this flows from the permanent war economy, and if you don’t do anything about that, then most of us are going to die and it’s that simple www.un-diplomatic.com/p/imperialis...

Epstein Geopolitics And the Age of Primitive Accumulation The last time I wrote about the geopolitics of Jeffrey Epstein it went viral, but I sensed that many readers missed one of my key points:

Everyone knows the Game of Thrones quote “Chaos is a ladder,” quote, and it’s true, but that’s not enlightening enough. They want to profit from dehumanization, unsettling geopolitics. This is the age of primitive accumulation and it sucks www.un-diplomatic.com/p/epstein-ge...

I can’t believe I slept on it. We should have you on sometime!

Three Days of the Condor (1975) w/ Matt Duss | Ep. 58 Van and Lyle are joined by returning guest Matt Duss—former foreign policy advisor to Senator Bernie Sanders and current executive vice president at the Center for International Policy—to revisit Sydn...

I had never seen Three Days of the Condor and it was wild. Aside from seeing New York in the ‘70s, it was quaint that you could have a plot where revealing government corruption and a CIA oil plot might actually bring down US empire www.bangbangpod.com/p/three-days...

Epstein to Thiel: “as I said in your office…finding things on their way to collapse was much easier than finding the next bargain.” Primitive accumulation smoking gun open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...

Adam Tooze on the End of Hegemonic Ordering Hey, friend!

My thoughts after Tooze on Ezra Klein: “cycles of hegemony are only identifiable within capitalism itself...I believe, and it seems Tooze believes, that what we’re entering into is...a world in which even China cannot deign to become global hegemon.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/adam-tooze...

Honestly I had no idea Minnesotans were built like this. Gives hope

The ultimate end of culture-war politics is dispossession and subjugation to foreign powers

As Ta-Nehisi Coates recently said, it turns out culture war is also actual war. ACT wanted to reinterpret the Treaty--esp Article 2--not as pure right-wing identity politics, but because a restricted interpretation of the Treaty would ease the sale of natural resources to the US

That’s why basically anyone who has a famous name in DC or Hollywood between 2000 and 2020 is in those damn files—the files reveal the commitment mechanism that is ordinarily hidden from view

As someone who had been Democratic Party cadre during the crucial years when it could’ve turned left but didn’t, your conclusion is right but could go even further. Being an insider requires certain bonds of trust and the ultimate credibility mechanism is complicity in crime

Adam Tooze on the End of Hegemonic Ordering Hey, friend!

An interesting commentary by @vanjackson.bsky.social on Tooze's observations in Klein's podcast. The post's last footnote alone is worth the [time] price of admission.

Adam Tooze on the End of Hegemonic Ordering Hey, friend!

My thoughts after Tooze on Ezra Klein: “cycles of hegemony are only identifiable within capitalism itself...I believe, and it seems Tooze believes, that what we’re entering into is...a world in which even China cannot deign to become global hegemon.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/adam-tooze...

The Rupture of the “Rules-Based International Order” w/ Seva Gunitsky | Ep. 281 Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney gave the most important speech about international relations in 50 years.

@seva.bsky.social joins the pod to talk about Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney's groundbreaking speech at the World Economic Forum--the most profound international relations speech by a head of state in 50 years www.un-diplomatic.com/p/the-ruptur...

This would put New Zealand on the wrong—and most perilous—side of the defining global trend of our time. Bootlicking isn’t just an affect; it has consequences for the rest of us

US-Far Right Separatism Collab Threatens Canada | Denmark’s Debt Weapon | Industrial Manufacturing Fetish | Russia's Drone War of Attrition | Ep. 283 In our latest episode of the pod, Matt Duss and Julia Gledhill join me to make sense of the latest darkness befalling the world:

Just how bloody is drone warfare? New data from the Russia-Ukraine war reveals casualties on the order of World War I, with very little to show for it in terms of territorial conquest. www.un-diplomatic.com/p/us-far-rig...

Silicon Valley Wants to Make Greenland a Libertarian Dystopia Donald Trump’s push to acquire Greenland has alienated many longtime allies. But it has tantalized a cohort of tech billionaires who see the island as a potential laboratory for “freedom cities,” or p...

Was reading this really insightful piece about the tech obsession with Greenland and the network state, then find myself quoted at the end! jacobin.com/2026/01/gree...

The Old Wager in The New China Bargain Hey, there!

“The idea that you can perpetually maintain a favorable balance of power is a reactionary myth; an evidence-less logic that justifies arms-racing.” open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...

Scaremongering about competition from China will not save the Big 3–they must be nationalized or they won’t survive

Hotline operators report flood of calls for rental assistance as residents hide during ICE surge 211 calls from Spanish-speakers have increased more than 1,600 percent and requests for rental assistance have more than tripled, according to Greater Twin Cities United Way. Local officials are pushi...

Minneapolis has seen a stunning 1,646% spike in calls from families who can't pay rent because they're afraid to leave their homes to work.

This is state violence manufacturing housing precarity in real time.

People should not be facing eviction when their city is under occupation.

Sage Journals: Discover world-class research Subscription and open access journals from Sage, the world's leading independent academic publisher.

Great conceptual analysis of militarism. If I ever meet these Bryan Maybee or Srdjan Vucetic guys, I’ll buy them a coffee journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/...

YouTube video by The Un-Diplomatic Podcast The Rupture of World Order! The Meaning of Mark Carney's Speech, w/ Seva Gunitsky

Excellent breakdown with @vanjackson.bsky.social & @seva.bsky.social.
youtu.be/M6i5PCc-t2E?...

Imperialist Conflict at the Heart of the “National Defense Strategy” Nobody should care about the US “National Defense Strategy” (NDS) right now.

I decided long ago that confronting militarism required this habit of extreme focus on the clues the powerful leave. But the ritual of digging through their word vomit is starting to become farcical in a world where facts and reason have almost no weight. open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...

Imperialist Conflict at the Heart of the “National Defense Strategy” Nobody should care about the US “National Defense Strategy” (NDS) right now.

“it’s hard to give a shit about a PDF document authored by a cabal of bootlicking incels and sexual predators who are too cowardly to call themselves white supremacists even though it oozes out of their anti-DEI screeds like so much alcoholism” open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...

Imperialist Conflict at the Heart of the “National Defense Strategy” Nobody should care about the US “National Defense Strategy” (NDS) right now.

“American oligarchy would collapse if the national security state were forced to stop gooning to East Asian war fantasies.” open.substack.com/pub/undiplom...

Lies You Will Be Told • Ill Will Phil A. Neel examines the post-2020 political order, arguing that liberal myths about law, elections, and restraint function as counterinsurgency in an era of open state violence.

Don’t read this unless you’re ready to be confronted with the world as we’ve allowed it to be made illwill.com/lies

PatLabor 2: The Movie (1993) w/ Kevin Fox | Ep. 56 We’re joined by filmmaker and returning guest Kevin Fox to discuss Mamoru Oshii’s Patlabor 2, a film that masquerades as a techno-thriller before revealing itself as a bleak meditation on peace not as...

PatLabor 2 is a wild film! A traumatized veteran turning fascist, the dark side of the US alliance w Japan. But above all it suggests that peace is not the absence of war, but the alibi that allows it to continue unnoticed. @michigrim.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/thebangb...

PatLabor 2: The Movie (1993) w/ Kevin Fox | Ep. 56 We’re joined by filmmaker and returning guest Kevin Fox to discuss Mamoru Oshii’s Patlabor 2, a film that masquerades as a techno-thriller before revealing itself as a bleak meditation on peace not as...

PatLabor 2 is a wild film! A traumatized veteran turning fascist, the dark side of the US alliance w Japan. But above all it suggests that peace is not the absence of war, but the alibi that allows it to continue unnoticed. @michigrim.bsky.social open.substack.com/pub/thebangb...

Seems important

The People’s Weapon, Wargames, and Minnesota Escalation The people’s ultimate weapon has been deployed in Minnesota and I’m both impressed and scared.

"Don’t be so deluded as to think that non-violent tactics alone will keep you out of trouble. They’re publicly executing citizens with impunity!” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/the-people...