Four Great Reads
I have no specific commentary that unifies the following four pieces, but each is truly a must-read in its own right if you vibe with this newsletter.
Spencer Ackerman, “Biden, Through The Devastation of Gaza, Argues for His Legacy,” Forever Wars Newsletter
If you don’t subscribe to Spencer, what are you even doing with your life? I’m not even sure how to summarize his latest post piece. It’s great prose, peppered with personal anecdotes and sound critical argument, spanning all the big foreign policy issues.
Jonathan Guyer, “Antony Blinken’s Legacy is Buried Under the Rubble of Gaza,” The Nation
Guyer, one of the best journalists in the game, critically captures the Biden administration’s bizarro victory lap celebrating their world-historical failure of a foreign policy. An all-too-perfect way to end four years of just total unreality—asserting a victor’s narrative in the face of defeat on every front imaginable.
Kim Kelly, “What is Salting, The Organizing Tactic Spicing Up The Labor Movement?” Teen Vogue
I routinely speak with students and recent grads who have some intersection with or interest in foreign policy. As recently as a few years ago, the standard thing is that they’re literally all interested in becoming foreign service officers, intelligence analysts, or Hill staffers. To get to those gigs, they’re usually willing to be underemployed at an online zine, a think tank, or a consulting firm that touches on some aspect of the international.
But increasingly, grads are having a tough time even finding the precarious underpaid and volunteer work in foreign policy. Facing tough times, one thing I urge them to consider is to go find a workplace that needs unionizing and be a salt. You’re not going to be doing George Kennan shit, but it’s noble work. The reality of salting is far more dramatic and risky than anything you’re likely to do in foreign policy. And there’s little risk of being implicated in a genocide.
I’ll keep my door open to help folks navigate careers in foreign policy, but if the opportunities just aren’t there, if the moral compromises it requires are too unpalatable, or if precarious underemployment is unappealing, read Kim Kelly’s piece on salting and consider that there are many ways to make a difference in this world—addressing the imbalance of power between capital and labor is, for my money, the most important.
Joshua Kaplan, “The Militia and the Mole,” ProPublica
This story is intense and terrifying and fascinating all at once. A left-libertarian survivalist vigilante of sorts went under cover—without talking to law enforcement or the FBI—to spy on one of the biggest militia groups in America. Just wild stuff, and a harbinger of one version of reality in America that’s forthcoming.
ICYMI: