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Who's a Bulworth Democrat?

For the latest episode of the pod, I sat down with Matt Duss (@MattDuss) and Colette Shade (@MsShade) to talk Bulworth—a movie from 1998 that played an outsized role in my political education during high school. As I stress during the episode, I loved the movie probably a bit

Peace, Primacy, and Washington's Anti-China Politics

In Washington, the politics of the “China threat” have become indistinguishable from a grand strategy of primacy. While this introduces risks to regional stability because the requirements of primacy are at odds with the requirements of regional peace, the problem is much graver still. Biden’s foreign policy team made

New Episode Drop: Raging Against the Foreign Policy Convo

Was finally able to record a new "variety" episode of the pod with my co-hosts. We hadn't been together since early December so there was much in the news to cover.   Podcast Audio here. I have some great interview episodes lined up for the next month or so, but in

Pacific Power Paradox Versus Mearsheimer and Kagan

I did my book launch at the Institute for Peace & Diplomacy recently, and there's both video and audio of the event below (audio quality is much better on the podcast version than on the video, but the video gives you something to look at...you probably knew that). The host

From Pivoting in Asia to Confronting the National Security State

A Master Class on Realism and the Realist Sensibility

"Great-power competition is basically a jobs program for Kennedy School graduates..." "Realism and liberal internationalism are two faces of empire." "Great-power competition is an idiom expressing a return to realism...offensive realism." I had a great extended conversation with Matthew Specter on the pod, which was a master class on

US Institute of Peace Panel: "The Fate of the Asian Peace"

So I did an official book launch event at the Institute for Peace and Diplomacy yesterday and it was a banger. Will have the video and audio for that soon. In it, I dished...very candidly...about both Bob Kagan's and John Mearsheimer's distinct versions of horseshit opinions. But I'll

Guam, Trapped by the Poverty of "Indo-Pacific" Strategy

After six months of working, waiting, and revising an essay on Guam's strategic choices, it's finally out, in Dissent Magazine. I'm a Dissent-nik! I decided a few years ago to only write when my soul is in it or my curiosity is piqued. This is both--an essay that reveals a

A Better Biden Doctrine

I forgot to share this amid the book-release tumult but Kate Kizer and I sat down with Matt Duss and Stephen Wertheim to talk about how we'd rate Biden's foreign policy, issue by issue and overall.   The past few weeks, there have been several attempts to grade or scorecard Biden

On Washington’s China Fetish

What follows is my general philosophy on China issues, by way of answering the hardest of hard defense framing questions regarding China. After my most recent piece in Foreign Affairs, I got a note from a semi-prominent friend in Washington's foreign policy community basically praising it but also posing some

Podcast Hotness

There's a lot I've been wanting to write about in this newsletter the past few weeks, and it's killing me that I haven't been making the time for it. Playing a little catchup, I wanted to shoutout a few money bits from recent podcast episodes. First, Jeanne Morefield came on

The Backstory on Pacific Power Paradox: Part II of II

[This is the second installment finishing an earlier post on the origins of the Pacific Power Paradox book.] Sorry there was such a delay between Part I and Part II of this post on the Pacific Power Paradox. Have been overwhelmed with bullshit related to the release of the book,

The Backstory on Pacific Power Paradox: Part I of II

Today’s the big release day for Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace. If your heart is pure and your intentions noble, then Pacific Power Paradox is calling out to you from wherever fine books are sold. Be your best self and buy a

America is the Preeminent Revisionist Power

The Biden administration’s jarring revisionism on economic policy toward China (and by extension the world) is reviving discussions (most acute during the Trump and George W. Bush years) about whether it’s right to label the United States a revisionist power. There’s a lot at stake in whether

Critical Strategic Studies, or Where Are the Peace Strategists?

We need a critical strategic studies, or maybe a strategic peace studies. Critical security studies, of course, is a venerable research tradition that I sometimes identify with. There are also scattered references to the phrase “critical strategic studies” out there in the literature, though it appears to be synonymous with

The Difference between Left and Right Radicalism? Violence

Violence is not the only factor distinguishing left and right radicalism, but it's the single most important one. I just dropped a fresh episode of the pod with two of my new co-hosts, Kate Kizer and Hunter Marston. You should listen to the entire episode because it's just a righteous,

No Lames: A Vibes-Based Theory of Power Politics?

Vibes are crucial to social interaction. They're what makes or breaks a job interview. They're what makes songs memorable. Your friends are the people you vibe with. But how do we think about vibes and power politics? In the most recent episode of the pod, I had a delicious conversation

The Andor Dilemma: Pop Culture’s Place in Leftist Strategy

This is about the role of pop culture on the left, not how good Andor is. I mean, Andor is the best thing in the Star Wars universe. And it’s the most radical thing I’ve seen on TV maybe ever. But that's a low bar and others have

A Foreign Policy for the Ruling Class!

I thought about calling this, “What’s the Economy Got to Do with It?” But rhetorical questions don’t seem to translate so well these days (maybe our brains are social media-addled). And the answer is obviously EVERYTHING! I just released a new episode of the pod with Adam Dean

Who’s Responsible for a Nuclear Korean War?

I spent most of my early career working on Korean security issues. Of late, I’ve spoken and written very little about North Korea. There are more pressing things going on in the world, of course, but also people don’t want to hear about Korea shit. And when I

Election Takeaways MSNBC Won't Tell You

Not hating on MSNBC, but come on, man.  None of the mainstreams are going to tell you any of the following, all of which is just stating what happened with a little exposition on why. The topline that everyone knows is that there was no “red wave”—Republicans underperformed in

Twitter’s Implosion is a Blow to Antiwar Politics

Anyone who knows me knows I hate Twitter—a segment on my podcast is literally called “Stay Off Twitter.” Yet, paradoxically, I find myself using the bird app nearly every day. Why? Because the pros outweigh the cons, for me at least. I’ve gotten speaking engagements, publishing opportunities, and

Whataboutism and the China Debate

I was on a panel recently at Australian National University called “What About Whataboutism?” It was about the way that everybody—hawks, doves, tankies, militarists, and racists—uses comparison in debates about China. The discussion with fellow panelists was very good, and you can catch the full audio for the

Adam Tooze and a General Theory of Fascism

There is no general theory of fascism, at least not a rigorous one. And historian Adam Tooze doesn’t claim otherwise, so don’t get this post twisted. But Tooze—one of the narrative sense-makers of our time—has weighed in on the “fascism debate” at numerous points the past

When American Fascism and American Hegemony Collide…

Does anyone think it’s ok for a global superpower to also be fascist? Is that a world we should all be cool with living in? Check out the news. American political life is descending into something particularly nasty, and it is at least fascistic, if not straight-up 1930s brownshirts.

Mike Davis in My Soul

Some of you may not know Mike Davis, but he just died after a prolonged bout with oesophageal cancer. If you haven't read anything by him, you're missing out. He was a truck driver, a Californian from birth to death, an uncompromising socialist, and one of the greatest critical writer-historians

Grand Strategy is Worldmaking

I think a lot of people are kidding themselves about what grand strategy is—it’s worldmaking. It’s an attempt to put the power of the state in service of grand political purpose. States big and small can have grand strategies because states big and small have elites who

A Sane Leftist Position on Russia-Ukraine

I have research just out on left-progressive strategies of worldmaking. I promise I'll write about it another day. What I want to do here is quickly draw some quotes from that research that explain what ought to be done in Ukraine. Why this, why now? Because the Congressional Progressive Caucus

Why the Elizabeth Warren Pipeline Goes Left and Far Right

There’s this guy, Matt Stoller, who’s managed to make himself kind of policy-famous as a progressive-leaning anti-monopolist. And now he’s blowing minds because of his sudden open flirtations with the far right, which some people didn’t see coming. This is a short story about why it

Imperial Agent Turned Anti-War Advocate: A Conversation with Lyle Jeremy Rubin

I had a really rich, personal conversation with Lyle Jeremy Rubin that I'm excited to share. He has a memoir just out, Pain is Weakness Leaving the Body: A Marine's Unbecoming, and man did it bring up some shit from my past and his. Even before I found out about

Primacy with a Side of Aspirational Liberalism

The good folks at Inkstick Media asked me to do a quick-turn reaction piece on the National Security Strategy. Between my gripes in my previous newsletter post and my Twitter sarcasm, I thought I had exorcised my demons on this one, but I had one more crucial point to make.

The National Security Strategy is a Snapshot of Hegemonic Decline

Nuclear Precarity and the Russia Crisis

Everybody’s talking about nuclear war with Russia right now and it bugs me, not least because I’ve seen (been part of) this nuclear frenzy before. Now, I think people have good reason to be worried about Russian nuclear use, as I wrote some five months ago. But what

Notes on Striking with My Union

This post is a departure from thinking about foreign policy, but it is about power politics. The bottom line is I’m going on strike. I’m a member of the Tertiary Education Union—which represents staff at universities across New Zealand. 95% of members voted to strike, which is

Washington Doing the Pacific Dirty While Looking Clean

Making Sense of Rules-Based Anti-Liberalism

Dozens of regimes around the world are anti-liberal--autocratic to varying degrees--but also big fans of a "rules-based" international order, which for the past 50 years or so has been a neoliberal economic order. Not a coincidence. The reason an anti-liberal might also be a neoliberal seems rather obvious: Because they're

The Only World Leader With a Freaking Clue

I have a pretty dim view of most politicians, even on my own side. But occasionally I'm pleasantly surprised. I just caught the UN General Assembly speech by Gustavo Petro Urrego--President of Colombia--and man does he get it. It was a good speech by the standards of speech-ifying, but the

Was George W. Bush More Fascist Than Trump?

Who was the bigger nightmare, Dr. Frankenstein, or the monster he created? That's the basic question being posed in this post's headline, and one raised in a tweet by Murtaza Hussain, who writes at The Intercept: I still consider the high-water mark of what felt like “fascism” in the United

The Shallow Origins of the Indo-Pacific

Antagonistic Trust, Asian Insecurity, and "Strategic" Competition

I was on a refreshingly contrarian panel recently as part of Victoria Forum, this big shindig in Canada (at University of Victoria in British Columbia, not to be confused with Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, where I teach). The topic was “Trust-Building in Asia in an Era of

Neocons Don’t Understand the Conservative Foreign Policy Debate

There is a debate about foreign policy happening within the “conservative movement.” The problem is that neoconservatives—who, maddeningly, still occupy the most prominent perches in public discourse—are actively misrepresenting what the debate is about. The Washington Post recently ran one such piece—which is why I feel the

The Best Newsletter, People Are Saying

Initially I thought of this site as the newsletter complement to The Un-Diplomatic Podcast. A lot of what we talk about on the show deserves more engagement than we can give in a 60-90 minute recording. So here we are. I also write at the Duck of Minerva, which is