The Future of American Foreign Policy, with Van Jackson

This transcript was automatically generated and may contain minor errors.

[00:00:00] Josh Elstro: Welcome to Block and Build, a podcast from Convergence Magazine. I’m producer Josh Elstro filling in this week for Caden Mock. On the show, we are building a roadmap for the movement that’s working to block the ascent of authoritarianism while building the influence of a genuinely progressive trend the broad front [00:00:30] we need to win.

[00:00:32] Before we get started, I want to invite you to join our subscriber program. Convergence Magazine is an independent publication that relies on the generosity of our readers and listeners to create the rigorous, thoughtful takes You’ve come to expect from us week in and week out. You can become a subscriber at convergencemag.

[00:00:50] com slash donate. Any amount helps either as a one time donation or a recurring monthly or annual subscription. This week on the show, [00:01:00] we have an interview with scholar of international relations and host of the undiplomatic podcast, Van Jackson. That Caden prerecorded a few weeks ago. They assess the conjuncture of U.

[00:01:11] S. foreign relations and what may or may not shift under a Harris presidency. But before we get to that. Here’s some headlines. We love to celebrate any little victories we can whenever we can. So listeners of this show may recall. We recently discussed the messy back and [00:01:30] forth of state election rule mandates happening in Georgia that were being handed down by Trump loyalist dominated state board of election officials.

[00:01:39] Their latest edict from that board required that ballots this November all be hand counted before certification. This was a measure designed to sow confusion and discord in the days following the election. This would potentially allow Trump the window of confusion he would need to repeat his election denial strategy of 2020.[00:02:00] 

[00:02:00] That rule has this week been blocked by a County judge for the upcoming 2024 presidential election, but it so far remains intact for future elections in the state that judge coincidentally, a Trump appointee cited that the rule passed just last month was quote. Continuing on, though, through election law meddling in southern states, a federal judge has blocked Alabama GOP Secretary of State Wes Allen’s attempt at an [00:02:30] Election Eve voter purge.

[00:02:32] Allen removed more than 3, 000 voters from the rolls and referred them all for criminal prosecution. He targeted naturalized U. S. citizens. Over 2000 of those targeted have already been deemed eligible to vote. These tactics have reared their head over and over again. Not so coincidentally in states with GOP secretaries of state.

[00:02:57] They often cynically are weaponizing language [00:03:00] about fairness and about law, but we all know exactly what this is. It’s an attempt to suppress the vote in states and counties that the GOP fears they may not be able to win fairly. And as you may know, without our having to point it out, these are often places heavily populated by people of color and the use of these tactics has spiked ever since the Federalist Society majority on the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act back in 2013.

[00:03:28] decision in Shelby v. [00:03:30] Holder, which is coincidentally a case that also had its roots in Alabama. Earlier this week, Trump’s sycophantic VP nominee, J. D. Vance, inched ever closer to fully endorsing the lie that Donald Trump did not lose the 2020 election. Now we all know a willingness to never back down from this lie is probably Trump’s top qualification for his vice presidential nominee ever since January [00:04:00] 6th, 2021.

[00:04:02] When we all watched as he happily egged on a crowd which had brought out a gallows to hang his then vice president, Mike Pence, for refusing to commit to that lie over the past several months and not doubling down on it that day as the election was to be certified. While Vance is still too cowardly to just say it with his full chest.

[00:04:24] looking out for himself, protecting himself from entanglement and any legal issues down the line. [00:04:30] His statement on the issue this week was quote, did Donald Trump lose the election? Not by the words I would use, end quote. JD, what words would you use? Finally, as Israeli officials celebrated their assassination of Hamas leader Yassin Lahr this week, it’s important to note this comes amidst weeks of increasing violence by Israel in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, [00:05:00] and Lebanon.

[00:05:01] No food has been allowed to reach nearly 400, 000 people starving in Gaza for the first two weeks of October, and aid officials have said Israeli forces have even fired on families who are heeding evacuation orders. This behavior defies U. S. demands that Israel provide and allow humanitarian assistance into Gaza, or risk losing military assistance from the U.

[00:05:25] S. What remains to be seen is if U. S. [00:05:30] officials will stick to that word, that Israel has 30 days to quote, reverse the downward humanitarian trajectory, end quote. As was stated in a letter from Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Pentagon Chief Lloyd Austin. That letter was leaked earlier this week on Tuesday.

[00:05:47] It comes months after the U. S. Agency for International Development and others informed the State Department that Israel has deliberately blocked aid to Gaza. That behavior Would make continued [00:06:00] arms transfers illegal under the U. S. ‘s own law. The Biden administration disputed and blew off those warnings to further comment on the story.

[00:06:10] I just want to quote a recent social media post from a U. S. advocacy director at the Center for civilians and conflict. She says, quote, once again, the Biden administration is doing bureaucratic gymnastics to avoid enforcing U. S. law and ending arms transfer to Israel. [00:06:30] Asked at a press conference whether the U.

[00:06:32] S. really would cut aid, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean Pierre said the following. 

[00:06:38] Sound on Tape: Is the administration really willing to halt military aid to Israel if you don’t see a significant improvement in humanitarian aid flowing to Gaza? I’m not going to get into hypotheticals from here. Like I said, we did it back in April.

[00:06:51] This sent a letter very similar of a letter from both the state department and the department of defense. We got a constructive response. That’s what we’re hoping to see. We wanted to [00:07:00] address this. This is connected to a decrease of humanitarian assistance aid that is very much needed in Gaza, as you all know.

[00:07:07] And so that’s what that this is a we’ve done this before it’s worked. And so we’re doing this again. And so we want to see a constructive response. 

[00:07:15] Josh Elstro: And with that, let’s turn to Caden’s interview. Stay tuned and enjoy.

[00:07:25] Cayden Mak: It’s pretty clear to us now that the Harris campaign is trying to carefully [00:07:30] thread a needle. One that I’m sure is leaving many of our listeners wanting more. There’s some clear red flag areas around Israel and Gaza, to be sure, but also about competition with China and our orientation towards the Russia Ukraine war.

[00:07:43] There’s a lot to unpack, and it has me asking, what do we want Harris to move on, and how might we get her to do it? Conventional wisdom on why people turn out to vote has more to do with domestic policy proposals and the way people are feeling about the state of the economy than foreign policy. But in a [00:08:00] lot of ways, the genocide in Gaza has turned that on its head, and we’re entering a moment.

[00:08:04] Where more movement actors in the U. S. are looking beyond our borders both for inspiration and to understand what it means to be citizens of an influential empire in the 21st century. I’m joined today by Van Jackson, a scholar and commentator on foreign policy and national security whose expertise focuses heavily on the Asia Pacific region and the U.

[00:08:22] S. interests there. I certainly learned a lot from his writing and found a lot of alignment in his analysis of the moment. It’s been particularly helpful to me when [00:08:30] it comes to understanding how we might orient towards a 21st century leftist foreign policy for our country, which is critical in an often overlooked looked aspect of the build part of block and build.

[00:08:40] Welcome to the show, Van. 

[00:08:42] Van Jackson: Thanks for having me. I’m a fan. 

[00:08:45] Cayden Mak: Likewise it’s cool to get, it’s like cool to get to talk to other podcasters where you’re like, yes, this person is putting consistently putting out interesting, worthwhile stuff. So 

[00:08:54] Van Jackson: feel the same, 

[00:08:55] Cayden Mak: I guess for a little context for especially our listeners who might not.

[00:08:59] know you [00:09:00] and your work. One thing I think that’s interesting about your background is that you’ve done some advising on foreign policy in the last presidential cycle for some various candidates. But I’d be interested to know, and I’m sure our listeners would be interested to know what your experience was like as a foreign policy advisor on a presidential campaign.

[00:09:20] Could you give us like a little slice of life about what that work is like? And I guess the ways in which personnel form policy at that level? 

[00:09:28] Van Jackson: Yeah, once [00:09:30] you’re doing it, you realize that personnel really is policy in a way that’s not just cliche. You end up the people who staff presidential campaigns as advisors, 99 percent of whom are unpaid, of course, they come to the campaign via social networks, and the attitude of most foreign policy professionals, practitioners, technocrats, whatever you want to call them, they Almost agnostic about the candidate in a way It’s more like they’re samurai who pledged their [00:10:00] sword on behalf of a feudal lord, you know So it’s who’s gonna be my patron?

[00:10:04] Yeah, and that’s how you end up finding your way into a campaign And so again these elite networks if you went to the same, Ivy league finishing school as another guy that is how you find your way in Once you’re in There are usually teams set up based around issues, so a China, an Asia, a Middle East, there’s functional issues like the defense budget or defense [00:10:30] strategy, nukes is usually its own team, and even on Some of the like campaigns that don’t have a ton of funding, like smaller campaigns, whether it’s not this big Hillary Clinton empire or something, even in those cases, you still have this differentiation of specialists.

[00:10:47] And so everybody clusters around what their specialty is, and then those various teams. Are shepherded or lorded by literally a couple people at the top, [00:11:00] usually who had been senior appointees in previous, democratic administrations very like blob like creatures almost inevitably. And so your work that you end up doing is.

[00:11:12] thankless urgent work that is unpredictable. So the candidate needs background briefing papers. And so they push it. So they get, they create binders literally of every type of issue. And here’s the background paper. And those papers are written and [00:11:30] assembled by the people on the teams. So you end up on, zoom calls and coordinating shit over emails and that kind of thing.

[00:11:36] And. It leads into things like background papers, talking points. Occasionally you’ll get a glance at a speech before it comes out and you’ll advise on wording or whatever. But these are such sprawling empires in a way that your ability to influence the candidate is highly mediated. Let’s put it that way.

[00:11:56] Yeah, on the margins, 

[00:11:58] Cayden Mak: It’s it sounds like in [00:12:00] some ways the formation of campaigns platform on any specific foreign policy issue is by nature, a conservative process in the sense that there are these patronage networks, there are these sort of like professional networks, and that people are coming from previous administrations and hoping to get into the next one.

[00:12:19] Yeah, 100 

[00:12:22] Van Jackson: percent that is exactly part of the pathology that explains why these things end up being so rigid and conservative is [00:12:30] like groupthink pervades and everybody’s doing. Because it’s unpaid work. Everyone’s doing it for the most part because they think it’s their ticket into the political appointment.

[00:12:41] Sure. Yeah. So they’re not trying to cause waves or whatever. 

[00:12:46] Cayden Mak: Yeah, totally. It seems structurally, just not set up for people to be like, Let’s exercise some divergent thinking, or ask some critical questions about things. Makes a lot of sense. It’s not a, that doesn’t give us a [00:13:00] super hopeful outlook about like, where any of this is going.

[00:13:03] But I do hope it’s, that’s like a little informative to people. Our listeners about like how these decisions get made because I see a lot of people asking those questions. Yeah, online, yeah, the 

[00:13:17] Van Jackson: how doesn’t give confidence you can take as a proxy, though if you can find out who it is. The who gives a sense of things, because you look at the milieu and be like, oh, These are a bunch of primacist hawks or these [00:13:30] are you know, progressive leaning people or these are people from movement spaces Which doesn’t happen often?

[00:13:36] And so that’s a proxy thing indicator 

[00:13:39] Cayden Mak: Yeah, that’s good to know, and I think that reading your sub stack has helped me understand the lay of the land of those kinds of people a little bit more, because you really need some of that insider knowledge to understand who these people are, where they’re coming from, and what they care about, 

[00:13:53] Van Jackson: yeah, they believe they’re good people is the thing. Yeah. So when they do, right? Yeah. And so it’s important to [00:14:00] understand, like, how they got there, if that’s the case, because they’re making a bunch of horrific decisions, 

[00:14:04] Cayden Mak: yeah. Yeah. Speaking of horrific decisions I named these sort of three key areas that I think warrant movement attention in this moment, Gaza, obviously, and the urgent task of stopping the genocide.

[00:14:16] And then the subsequent task of What are we going to do about Israel? And The choices that they’ve made in the region competition, or I might even say like brinksmanship with China and then the Russian [00:14:30] invasion of Ukraine and the ongoing war there. So I was hoping maybe we could spend a little time on each of these.

[00:14:36] Three areas and one of the things I want to think about together is not just what’s the state of play, but also like, where are the places where we might be able to gain some leverage as movements that are interested in a United States that actually does stand for peace and an understanding that whether we like it or not, whoever’s in the White House is going to be driving the bus on [00:15:00] that which again I think that mod moderating our expectations a little bit does help the heartbreak but let’s start with Israel, right?

[00:15:08] I think, One of the big news items this week was these horrific attacks on, on basically just Lebanese civilians, where somebody, probably Israel, detonated these pagers, killing, I think the death tolls, as of, we’re recording this on the 18th of September, so I think the death tolls now up in the mid teens, [00:15:30] thousands of people are injured, including Scores in critical condition and it seems like Netanyahu’s desire here is to provoke regional conflict.

[00:15:38] And what we’ve seen from the Harris campaign is that it seems like she’s trying to thread this needle. Where she’s not walking back US support for Israel while also acknowledging that now, nearly a year on, unconditional support for genocide is galvanizing parts of the democratic base against her.

[00:15:53] This is clearly super live day to day, so I’m sure whatever we talk about now in some ways will feel dated when it [00:16:00] hits people’s podcast feeds, but what do you see as the calculus for Harris on this? 

[00:16:05] Uncommitted is obviously the place where people have tried to gain a little leverage, but do you think that these things are having a material impact that we can see?

[00:16:14] Van Jackson: So Harris is, across all issues, but especially on Israel. She’s postured rhetorically, publicly, as if the more she says, the more problematic it’s going to be for her. It’s only a space where she can lose, but the result of that is a kind of [00:16:30] insularity, or like a buffering between public demands, grassroots of the party demands.

[00:16:37] And then the sort of elite cadre that surround her they’ve got her convinced that, her best path on foreign policy is to sound like a neoconservative, basically. And that, that works partly because it’s a contrast with how they portray Trump, which is also a bit of a caricature. Trump is super problematic, but they portray him as, An [00:17:00] authoritarian loving isolationist whereas he’s unilateralist.

[00:17:04] He’s militarist. He’s not isolationist by any stretch, and the adoration for dictators, of course, has a personal quality and is true. But look at the dictators that we support. The Biden administration, yeah, sure. Including saudi arabia including the israeli genocide and everything So like she has I think you said this but on israel, she’s promised to [00:17:30] continue Flowing arms and then just right before we recorded this she mused publicly in an interview about she’s thinking about Suspending the delivery of 2 000 pound bombs to israel Which is the fact that we were doing that in the first place was egregious but a this is like selena meyer veep territory because She’s thinking about doing it.

[00:17:53] She would support that as if she’s not currently in the administration but then also that’s just like one [00:18:00] egregious tip of a much larger iceberg of weapons sales Like yeah, she explicitly supports this policy of qme Qualitative military edge, which is this idea that isn’t from the bowels of the Pentagon for decades now, where we index Israel’s military capability to whatever the military capabilities are of everybody else in the region and make sure that they have a military edge on everybody as our proxy, as our subimperial power in effect.[00:18:30] 

[00:18:30] And so there she has subscribes to that. Her current national security advisor is much more not hawky about this stuff And yet we’re in this space and yet There’s no sense that she’s going to try to exercise real leverage to implement a ceasefire or to cause a ceasefire she only wants to talk about it You find that very troubling because that’s what co ops the public and creates false optimism While [00:19:00] underneath the material realities are Brutal and bloody and keep going, 

[00:19:04] Cayden Mak: yeah, I think that this is one of these things where if we if we like cling to closely to like, looking at every single thing that she says, it feels like it, you can get whiplash just from reading headlines in the morning and then headlines in the afternoon.

[00:19:21] Yeah, but I don’t know, it is interesting to know that her national security, the person who’s advising her at the top in terms of national security is a little less hawkish. But [00:19:30] yeah, I think it’s, this is one where I feel a little stumped about what other piece of leverage.

[00:19:37] Our movements have in this situation. 

[00:19:40] Van Jackson: It feels like we’re maxed out. The uncommitted movement is this stroke of strategic brilliance, given how thin our resources are, like it’s maximizing our leverage such as it is. But the balance of forces between society and the state in this case [00:20:00] is so lopsided and foreign policy is so unaccountable and insular and that has real consequences.

[00:20:06] It means that when we decide we want to really demand change and prioritize it. Yeah. What are we going to do, go out into the streets, and we do, and we continue to, 

[00:20:16] Cayden Mak: yeah. Yeah, I think that what that makes me think about is the thing that, Maurice Mitchell from the Working Families Party always says is that state power is the prize that there is a lot here to, That indicates what it means or what it [00:20:30] could mean to build real like independent political power, but there’s like that unfortunately feels like a long way off and doesn’t do a lot to stop the slaughter of Palestinians right now, but is the pathway, 

[00:20:46] Van Jackson: it seems true.

[00:20:47] It’s true. I’ve heard him say that. And it’s true that state power is the prize. The problem is, it’s not only the prize. It’s also a non neutral actor, largely in opposition to the demands [00:21:00] of civil society. You’re right. So it’s a, we, it’s like wanting to win over your enemy or something, like the state exists in antagonism toward democratic demands to a large extent. We need to capture it so it can be not that’s really hard. 

[00:21:13] Cayden Mak: Yeah it’s it’s I love the ambition, right? The ambition is necessary. But it’s, that, it’s definitely this is one of the areas where I just feel like it’s hard not to feel a little despair.

[00:21:27] Van Jackson: We’re supporting not just a [00:21:30] genocide at this point, but a state that has committed terrorism just after us, before us, recording us, we’re in really grim territory. The idea that we’re going to keep on the same basic policy in the face of state sponsored terrorism Is wild genocide gets bogged down in definitional issues, but like this exploding beeper shit is just pure terrorism.

[00:21:55] And I don’t know what the national security state has been optimizing for the last 30 years, if [00:22:00] not opposition to that. So what the fuck, 

[00:22:02] Cayden Mak: What are we even doing here? Yeah, I think the beeper thing is just, I like. It’s really hard to, it’s been like, I’ve been in a couple of my group chats have just been like what even is this?

[00:22:17] The the premeditated nature of it the amount of planning that had to have gone into it the technical capacity to pull it off there’s just, It’s 

[00:22:26] Van Jackson: the way mainstream media have basically covered it as if [00:22:30] it’s this glorious feat as opposed to Terrorism, hey, yeah Impressively precise so has bin laden.

[00:22:38] I mean what the fuck 

[00:22:39] Cayden Mak: right? like I don’t know I don’t know what the point is here if we’re not if we’re not calling this what it is and you know the Trying to say that this was some kind of strike against Hezbollah is like just Nonsensical in terms of the the scope of the impact of this thing.

[00:22:56] This is not 

[00:22:57] Van Jackson: they knew. Yeah, they knew I didn’t read [00:23:00] right before we jumped on that. There was a possibility that the well, 1st of all, there was an anonymous official in the Biden administration who spoke to the press and said that. There was Israeli briefing of the U. S. prior to this happening, but that they might have been pushed because Hezbollah might have found out that the beepers had been compromised.

[00:23:23] And we’re about to switch up their trade craft. So Israel was in a use or lose situation with the bomb and might [00:23:30] have decided to use it again, who knows? But that was the last thing I read. 

[00:23:34] Cayden Mak: Yeah, it’s wild. I, I also think there is something to the way in which the international community more generally has been turning against Israel and that, like Israel and the United States are increasingly isolated.

[00:23:45] And I gotta think that’s, that has to be at least of some concern. To a democratic administration that like a lot of people who are historically our allies a lot of countries who? Support us and various other things are just [00:24:00] like this. This is a no go like we can’t continue to support Basically, what’s a rogue state at this point?

[00:24:07] Van Jackson: Yeah I think the two most the two greatest sources of influence on at least the Biden administration and probably a Harris administration Are this is unfortunate, but the opinions of other sort of governments and world leaders and especially allies So if we’re getting constant pressure from people that we consider allies and partners that [00:24:30] weighs heavily On democratic administrations, like that’s the most important thing I think and then secondarily opinion polling which they pay attention to and it’s the only it’s their only temperature taker that they have on Grassroots interests, basically, because they’re not connected to movements and they keep their distance.

[00:24:51] They largely view them in a negative way, if we’re being honest, and on foreign policy issues, especially. Public mood and mass opinion [00:25:00] reaches the administration. In this trickle highly mediated form of the opinion poll, which is part of what’s the genius of the uncommitted movement is it plays in that space.

[00:25:10] Cayden Mak: Yeah, speaking a language they can really understand. Yeah, that’s a 

[00:25:14] Van Jackson: great way to put it. 

[00:25:14] Cayden Mak: Yeah. And I think this this point about other world leaders feels really important to that’s again, pointing to the urgency of building like a re like, an international left, right?

[00:25:25] That being able to exert pressure from both within and [00:25:30] outside of the United States at the same time is actually maybe a big piece of the puzzle for our movement strategies going forward. 

[00:25:37] Van Jackson: Yeah, 100%. The idea that like, we can just do this because we’re in the metro pole, although I’m physically not in the metro pole right now.

[00:25:44] But the idea that as a left, we could pressure the government to change is Not super realistic, but it is super realistic to build cross national progressive ties, cross national union ties, like there are [00:26:00] progressive political constituencies in damn near every country, and their political actors within their own system.

[00:26:06] And that’s a way in. 

[00:26:08] Cayden Mak: Yeah that, that feels a little more hopeful to me and something that feels like we can engage on this today and start building towards results tomorrow in a way that actually matters. Yeah. Cool. Anything else that you think that folks should be thinking about, about like Israel and U.

[00:26:27] S. policy towards Israel that we haven’t talked about [00:26:30] so far? 

[00:26:31] Van Jackson: The only thing I would flag is that the ongoing genocide is part of effectively a regional war in the Middle East already, and it’s not quite getting narrated that way, but proof of it literally in the exploding beepers. In lebanon, like the attacks have crossed into lebanon into syria into the red sea against the houthis This is the whole damn region on fire basically [00:27:00] And it we it was announced I think two weeks ago or for the pentagon acknowledged That there are now 40 000 u.

[00:27:06] s. Troops in the middle east so they’re not there on r& r. It’s not a vacation. Yeah So we got 40 000 troops. We have at least five countries where militarized combat is happening and battle deaths are happening And at the core, the burning ember of all of this is the Gaza genocide. But it’s a regional, it’s a regional [00:27:30] war.

[00:27:30] Not great, 

[00:27:31] Cayden Mak: yeah, not great. And also not a good look for the Biden administration bragging about how the United States is not at war when we have 40, 000 troops stationed in the Middle East. 

[00:27:42] Van Jackson: This was one of the things that it gives ammunition to the Trump administration in a way because Trump pretended as if he was like this peace candidate, peace president, whatever, very untrue, patently untrue.

[00:27:54] But he’s contrasting that fake image of himself with an image of the [00:28:00] Biden administration as this presidency. That’s just obsessed with war. That’s going to war everywhere. Flagrantly incompetent with the use of force. And those accusations stick. Is it entirely because of the Biden administration? Not entirely, but they can’t exempt themselves.

[00:28:17] They’re not, they’re not innocent here. 

[00:28:21] Cayden Mak: Yeah. And I think that like the way in which this is becoming a sort of what is the word, this sort of like political [00:28:30] punching bag is not beneficial to anybody at the end of the day. But it’s a way for people to spin and spin around each other as you’re describing.

[00:28:38] Yeah, this is depressing. Yeah. The other, I guess like the other actual hotspot that I think a lot of listeners are probably thinking about is Ukraine. And I think the way that the Biden administration talks about Vladimir Putin is He’s this avatar of global authoritarianism, right?

[00:28:55] And he’s this boogeyman and it seems especially from, for instance, looking at Harris’s [00:29:00] website and the way that she talks about this is that she really wants to burnish her record on working with NATO I haven’t really heard a ton of analysis yet on the left about how to really understand this in this moment but I also know that USA to Ukraine comes up, it feels like Perpetually in Congress as like a football.

[00:29:19] I doubt this has as big of an impact as Israel or even China on voter perspectives. But what should we be watching for here? And is there any sign that sort of there’s [00:29:30] dissent within the like national security, foreign policy world on this? 

[00:29:35] Van Jackson: Russia, Ukraine is more of a signifier than anything else about where you what you feel about a lot of other issues, Yeah, and that goes doubly for the national security state itself who finds a kind of redemption Ukraine in just faithless support or faithful support of ukraine fully, you know Unflinching unquestioning so like right now it’s become a [00:30:00] war of attrition and they’re basically In the best case in a long mutually hurting stalemate, which in theory means it’s ripe for a negotiated settlement where both sides have to compromise.

[00:30:13] It’s a negative some situation, basically. And so all of that. Structurally suggests like great we can we’re in a space now as tragic as it’s been to get here Where we could have a negotiated settlement The problem is that negotiated settlement will require compromises from [00:30:30] ukraine that would look like a compromise of territorial sovereignty the current government under vladimir vizelinsky is Not interested in that politically so they wish to fight on but it’s not totally their choice It’s largely up to us like with israel because we’re the supplier of choice.

[00:30:48] Yeah, they can’t do this fight without us but and this is why it matters that the national security state is all in including on ukraine’s firing missiles into Russian [00:31:00] territory, right? Which is the new thing and trying to engage seize Russian territory. There’s a theory of the case there which is you’ve, you’re creating leverage, artificial leverage for a negotiated settlement, but Russia has that same kind of thinking.

[00:31:16] And so it’s still offense versus offense and the balance of forces. Overwhelmingly favors Russia, the shot clock, the political pressure, the political realities of America, also probably favors Russia [00:31:30] because MAGA and Trump want to end, of course, Aid to Ukraine. And so if they get their way, they will. And that means Putin will have all the leverage against Ukraine.

[00:31:43] Maybe can take it over. And so for the left, like people view this different ways. I view this, I view Russia as a kind of empire. Imperialism is not the answer to imperialism, of course, but I view Ukraine [00:32:00] as a white man’s version of a decolonial struggle, like they’re trying to achieve national liberation in the shadow of a historical empire.

[00:32:09] And because of that I’m of course supportive of a small state trying to defend itself, if we can make a difference with, marginal contributions relative to what we spend on defense and stuff, I’m all for that. The caveat is that there’s gotta be a kind of theory of victory. Which it seems like there’s not [00:32:30] and there’s also got to be no nuclear war man And when you start launching missiles at russia the nation in the world with the largest nuclear arsenal And putin makes veiled threats that he might respond With a nuclear attack tactical nuclear weapons or whatever.

[00:32:46] Yeah, that’s a game. That’s not worth the candle And that’s the thing. I think that nato lovers and ukraine lover flag people are like They’re not sensitive to risk. They think putin is a bitch and they [00:33:00] want to test his metal constantly Yeah, 

[00:33:03] Cayden Mak: and I think that plays into the whole like ooh putin is this like avatar of global authoritarianism 

[00:33:08] Van Jackson: Yes, and that bullshit is that’s part of Kamala Harris’s thing.

[00:33:13] She has really leaned into this neoconservative framing of like democracies versus autocracies, fully blind to the autocracies that we support across Asia and the Middle East, 

[00:33:26] Cayden Mak: yeah and the way is completely separate [00:33:30] from the 2024 presidential cycle that democracy has been eroded.

[00:33:34] methodically in this country over the past 60, 70 years. Like it’s I think that one of the things that rings true to me is just that it’s hard to make the case all the time that we are the defenders of democracy when we have this, like the capture of the judicial system is so blatantly obvious and that at the state level, the states are now laboratories of authoritarianism, not laboratories of democracy.

[00:33:58] Yeah, 

[00:33:58] Van Jackson: I, this [00:34:00] is, I don’t know if this is controversial. There are studies that show this, like America is a functional oligarchy. It’s just that we happen to have elections. Yeah I think we have to be clear eyed about that assessment, 

[00:34:08] Cayden Mak: Totally. And I don’t think that’s a controversial assessment.

[00:34:11] observation, especially when you look at the way in which like especially like corporate power has increased in the years since Citizens United, like it’s not. 

[00:34:21] Van Jackson: It’s clear who gets to write the rules and who the rules are for, like it’s, it would be a joke to pretend otherwise.

[00:34:27] Cayden Mak: Yeah. Yeah. No. So I think that this [00:34:30] observation about the all in nature of U. S. policy towards Ukraine is, that feels like a handhold for me in terms of understanding where we’re at and what the stakes are. And I do think that yeah, no, nobody wants to talk about nuclear risk, but Dude, as soon as a 

[00:34:46] Van Jackson: nuke gets used, it’s all anyone’s gonna talk about.

[00:34:50] And unfortunately, that’s a discourse that’s monopolized by people who are phallic obsessed, you know [00:35:00] There’s a masculine filter a patriarchal filter on all things nukes at all times, it’s an insular Conversation that’s highly technocratic and doesn’t get aired into the public really so all very concerning Yeah, also like I don’t want to tie this like I don’t want to get on a tangent But like this whole like threat of a pogrom against haitian immigrants in ohio, you know That like I haven’t seen a single congressman argue that we need to do something to prevent that And yet he’s all these congressmen [00:35:30] got like Ukraine flags and Taiwan flags in their Twitter bios and sure, 

[00:35:35] Cayden Mak: it’s, it’s clear.

[00:35:37] It’s clear who like, not to put too fine a point on it, but it’s clear whose lives matter here. 

[00:35:42] Van Jackson: Yeah. 

[00:35:43] Cayden Mak: Yeah. And I also think that Kate Ross the researcher who I spoke to about Blood Tribe and these Nazi groups. The thing that she pointed out that I found to be really important is also just that so much of so much of this of the [00:36:00] memes that the Nazis glom onto and try to leverage, they’re not the originators of it, they’re trying to leverage rumors and just ordinary prejudice.

[00:36:09] in order to recruit for their movements. And that’s, I think it’s something that we really have to reckon with. And I think that it’s, it’s anti immigrant, it’s anti black, it’s, it says something about like how we as the United States see our place in like a global order, I think.

[00:36:24] You’re absolutely right. 

[00:36:25] Van Jackson: Yeah. Yeah. I don’t want to keep saying it’s [00:36:30] depressing, but 

[00:36:30] Cayden Mak: Cool, I guess the last area that feels huge is of course China. Whether we see them as our collaborator or competitor or boogeyman, I just feel like China’s this easy punching bag every presidential cycle, before I came here to Convergence, I was working in Asian American racial justice advocacy and just, I felt like it was like one of those things that we could depend on every year that somebody would put out some kind of, messed up statement about China and conflating the government of China with Chinese people with Chinese Asian looking [00:37:00] people here in the United States.

[00:37:01] But, I do think that the consequences of that conflation or that the U. S. Is in this like sort of perpetual head to head competition cycle or sees itself that way. The government sees it us that way. And that gets more deeply entrenched every cycle because of that. Because of that rhetoric.

[00:37:18] And I think regular people are also, because of things like xenophobia and a long track record of racism against Asian people sucked into that sort of [00:37:30] vortex, right? And this is something that I know that, your forthcoming book about great power rivalries is also really focused on.

[00:37:36] And that we know that this kind of entrenched head to head competition narrative also just creates worse outcomes for working people, both here and in China. 

[00:37:46] Van Jackson: Yeah, geopolitical rivalry in general, but especially in the current Sino U. S. Context is bad for workers, like really bad for workers in terms of opportunity costs, in terms of the sacrifices, in terms of the [00:38:00] diversion of resources, all of that.

[00:38:02] The surveillance state that gets used against movements, which is built Sino U. S. rivalry, really bad for workers. And for the national security state, China is the lodestar. Long term rivalry with China is their primary project it’s the thing that they think they exist for most to do and anybody who’s not in support of that project is [00:38:30] Considered useful idiot enemy of the state whatever, like you’re the op at that point So the this China rivalry stuff is really drives everything.

[00:38:39] And it’s on the back of China rivalry that we that the Pentagon justifies the 900 billion defense budget which by some estimates might actually be 1. 5 trillion already, but it’s being miscalculated. But anyways, it’s very large. It’s most staggeringly 

[00:38:57] Cayden Mak: large 

[00:38:58] Van Jackson: the way the Pentagon thinks about this [00:39:00] like they index what the size and shape of the military Is supposed to be?

[00:39:05] against the like hardest challenge that they can imagine Which it happens to be China and then they use the military and they use what they’ve learned Built and funded wherever they wish basically and so we end up doing a lot of shit in the middle east, etc But those are everywhere where we use it is considered like a lesser included case but the benchmark that fuels [00:39:30] all of it that justifies it is this grand china challenge this grand china project and the Reason why china is such an enemy to the national security state’s mind Is racialized there is a huge racial component and as we do geopolitical rivalry it spikes anti asian violence as you probably saw yourself You know, yeah, like that was a big thing in the end of the trump years but even separate from all of that they think that china and this is probably true is [00:40:00] Its existence is a challenge to american primacy Sure, that’s not acceptable to the national security state And they then start weaponizing legitimate concerns about Human rights abuses and the sort of dystopian forms of social control that exist in china They start getting super paranoid about china’s foreign policy and then now when the rivalry locks us into this like What’s called a security dilemma in effect where like we take measures to secure ourselves against them.

[00:40:29] They [00:40:30] do the same We’re all we’re off And less secure net and it’s because we’re like presuming the worst about each other, it’s a bad cycle. 

[00:40:39] Cayden Mak: Yeah, and I think that one of the things that’s interesting to me here, too, is that one of our, so one of our editorial board members to be to chow, like a lot of his work with justices global has been about, connecting.

[00:40:53] Workers here in the US to workers in China doing that like person to person work of defusing some of this and [00:41:00] like I think one super important to I think there’s like a scale that is really hard to achieve in the face of the sort of I don’t know, I think a lot about how the sort of vociferousness and velocity of the domestic mediascape here in the U.

[00:41:16] S. Really, it feels like we’re using a teacup to bail a sinking ship a little bit sometimes with this work but that I don’t know, I, I think that there are [00:41:30] I guess there are a lot of ways that we could go with this, and related to the surveillance stuff, I’m thinking about the also the number of Chinese born academics.

[00:41:39] Here in the U. S. who, some of them end up they get fired, some of them end up, dying by suicide, because the pressure on them is so great around this, and it just it’s nonsense, right? We’re causing a 

[00:41:52] Van Jackson: Chinese brain drain in our own country, because, FBI stuff, 

[00:41:55] Cayden Mak: yeah, no I don’t know there’s all of these kind of thick kinds of things at play and [00:42:00] I think the other thing that I find also that is sometimes troubling is because of the, what you were talking about the US government weaponizing real concerns about repression by the Chinese state against dissidents, whatever, that you’ll also see a lot of apologists for that because of a perceived need to do.

[00:42:23] Criticize US empire. It all feels like a very tough place from which to operate [00:42:30] as like US based social movements. But I’m wondering if you see any sort of like hooks or opportunities or like levers to even just like wiggle public opinion loose a little bit on this one, just because it feels so deeply entrenched.

[00:42:45] Van Jackson: So there is there was polling, I think by national security action. It’s like a liberal democratic party, a little bit squishy group. Their polling was like attitudes toward China are net negative in the U [00:43:00] S not surprising given the drumbeats of war by the people with the largest 10 years.

[00:43:06] Of course, but that part’s not surprising. What was more useful maybe is that there is. mass opposition to spikes in anti Asian racism. To if there are racist if there’s racist backlash as a consequence of our foreign policy People have a problem with that and I think that’s what justice is global seized on very smartly but [00:43:30] also people are like overwhelmingly opposed Surprise to world war iii And so like good So whatever negative attitudes people might have Cultivated to have about China and some of which has a valid material basis in reality Those opinions don’t translate into we need to now optimize for World War three We need to be all become deterrence hawks about Taiwan.

[00:43:59] Like [00:44:00] it does not follow so what the national security state is doing is leveraging its own unaccountability to optimize for World War three to Contain China to sectorally decouple and impose these tariffs, create firewalls between the US and China as much as it can all under the sort of auspices of competition and the sort of negative antagonistic views that people have of China, but they’re trying to thread that new needle where we don’t make, [00:44:30] World War Three more likely, even as we’re preparing for it.

[00:44:33] And Kenneth Boulding is old peace intellectual scholar from the Cold War. He flipped that Roman adage on its head. If you want peace, prepare for war. He was like most countries that prepare for war end up getting it. And that’s true. That’s just a historical observation. So the greater balance of our effort ought to be in trying to like foreclose on war, but we’re trying to self fulfilling prophecy it on behalf of the neocon view, which [00:45:00] has taken over the Democratic Party, by the way.

[00:45:02] Cayden Mak: Yeah, totally. This is, this feels like the big bipartisan consensus, right? It’s and it, so it does sound like, from what you’re saying, that it makes sense that it is incumbent upon our movements to be very outspoken advocates for peace. That there needs to be people in the streets, there need to be people creating media, there need to be people in the streets.

[00:45:25] Advancing this line in political education and in public discourse that we need to [00:45:30] invest in peace in a meaningful way, and that also means not preparing for war, as you say. 

[00:45:35] Van Jackson: Yeah, this is a point of contention on the left, but I honestly think that peace and anti militarism of the many struggles that we have is actually the most important and the most urgent because, many reasons.

[00:45:52] One, because geopolitical rivalry is bad for workers, right? But two, We have the urgency of an ongoing genocide in a [00:46:00] regional war. Three, we have this looming risk of nuclear war, either with Russia or China, that’s in the background, and it’s like people aren’t tuned into it until it’s too late, but also, the national security state is what’s going to prevent workers from exercising any real leverage. Right now. We’re on good vibes territory between the administration and laborer But when once organized labor starts to leverage choke points like put [00:46:30] pressure on the economy The national security state has been even in the biden administration been used to say no.

[00:46:37] No, it’s too important It’s too important and guess what? We have a national security state unrivaled in history So we will stop you from exercising your leverage, it’s always been the boot that comes down on labor and that’s one of the that’s even more likely when it’s the national security state has primacy Which is what the china rivalry can [00:47:00] perpetuates and builds and justifies but on top of all of this Fucking if kamala harris wins, we’re all coasting on the good vibes and joy and whatever but What’s being that’s laundering a foreign policy that’s more hawkish than the damn george bush administration Yeah, like we’re demand where she’s already showing a surprising degree of unresponsiveness and unaccountability to democratic demands biden was making more [00:47:30] concessions in 2020 To the democratic progressives in the democratic party than we’re seeing from kamala right now and look what that translated into during the biden administration More primacy, more spending, more nukes, support for genocide, multiple wars, the only good thing we got out of Biden really is withdrawal from Afghanistan and even that was poorly executed that was not done.

[00:47:52] You know So we’ve got a right wing foreign policy in essence a militarist foreign policy And at that’s so [00:48:00] far that looks like what kamala is trending toward Unless something intervenes You Yeah, and so anti militarism and a peace based sort of movement pressure That is the thing that is going to be extremely necessary Not just to avoid world war iii, but that’s the thing that kamala is going to bring to us is a permanent war economy yeah rivalry consumes all things.

[00:48:27] Cayden Mak: Yeah, I mean You [00:48:30] know to reference a meme. I don’t want the most lethal fighting force in the world. I want free health care You I think that there’s a way in which that feels deeply intuitive for a lot of people which seems like a real there’s an opportunity in that for our movements to seize on and to really lay out some of this vision for where to go this, I feel like and I know that you’ve been on Will Lawrence’s pod and I feel in a lot of ways, Will’s analysis [00:49:00] around left internationalism here in the U.

[00:49:01] S., that, like, when we were growing up, and I feel like especially in the shadow of, the way that, in really starting in the mid 90s, the. S. foreign policy has been so focused on primacy, that any kind of internationalism has felt scary. In some ways, and that it’s time to get over that.

[00:49:22] I think it’s really time to look at why we have thought that’s been so scary for so long. And reckon with some of this tough [00:49:30] stuff. 

[00:49:30] Van Jackson: Yeah, more work needs to be done to connecting the national security state and what we do in foreign policy. To our various struggles. I think there’s this tendency that the national security state encourages Which is to view foreign policy as somehow separate or other than And that is that’s a death that’s bad analysis, but that’s also a detriment to our movements 

[00:49:53] Cayden Mak: I guess where I’d like to take us before we wrap here is also just thinking about other places where The [00:50:00] build work is happening around some of this left forward policy analysis I, I think that one of the things that has been hard is that there are not a ton of commentators that I trust, to really give a a peek inside of this thing that doesn’t feel like a weird word to use, but that doesn’t feel like, that feels rigorous, that feels grounded, that feels both in conversation with movements and [00:50:30] a real conjunctural analysis about like where we are that’s clear eyed, but I’m wondering, from where you sit like who are the folks that you like talking to, that you like reading, who have, who Helped you see this stuff a little more clearly. Obviously we’re, we’re going to link to your sub stack in the show notes so people can follow you and your work.

[00:50:50] But what are the sort of like bright spots for you in this landscape? And, where do you think people should be turning their attention? 

[00:50:58] Van Jackson: Yeah, funny [00:51:00] enough my there was a brief time Ten years ago where I was an early China hawk. Like I was this is a Limitation, but I advocated for great power competition before that was really a thing and I had been in a position to do that Because I’d worked in the Obama administration I’ve turned over a different leaf obviously and my analysis is radically different than it used to be part of that You That transition, though, was Justices Global and Toby Chow and Jake Werner.[00:51:30] 

[00:51:30] Their work on China had a good analysis underneath it, so there was policy advocacy, but the advocacy had an argument underneath it, and it addressed all the concerns I had been socialized into having about, geopolitics and thinking about war and peace and stuff. So that was like, not a trivial thing.

[00:51:52] And the work that they do is quite good. I’m affiliated at two places that do great work too. [00:52:00] And one is called Security in Context, and it’s this transnational network of basically scholars against militarism, but they’re trying to, they’re trying to achieve a durable security in the world, not this false chimerical militarized justification for, defense spending and stuff.

[00:52:20] They’re thinking about causes of war in a deeper way. And thinking about how public policy can be used to build peace and oppose [00:52:30] war. And then the Center for International Policy, they, in D. C., they have a tradition going back to, they were set up in the 70s to oppose the Vietnam War as a think tank, huh. But a buddy of mine is the vice president there, and he was Bernie’s foreign policy advisor, Matt Duss. And they’re doing like groundbreaking sort of intersectional work on like policy, foreign policy, speaking as an insider. You know cultivating relationships on the hill and talking to [00:53:00] people in the administration and that kind of thing while also being principled and strategic and moral and progressive at the same time and coming up with no shit here’s what here’s the 10 things we need to do thing yeah here’s the levers to pull in order to help build a better world or avoid conflict here and a think tank that’s progressive is.

[00:53:22] Shockingly rare, particularly in DC, but they are one of them, yeah, they’re doing good work. Awesome. 

[00:53:28] Cayden Mak: Yeah I feel like it’s important to know [00:53:30] about this stuff at the end of the day, the the thing that we’re also up against here in this country, speaking of the oligarchy is just like how much money the like weapons manufacturers and that lobby has.

[00:53:41] And there’s a reason they spend so much money on the hill. And I, at the end of the day, I’m like, no I do think that we have the people and, as you pointed out earlier people don’t, people in the United States don’t want to be in World War III. It’s not a there’s a very clear value proposition about peace to regular human beings who live in this country.

[00:53:59] Van Jackson: Oh, plug two more [00:54:00] places just like ink stick media, which is for it’s like almost entirely foreign policy coverage, but it’s got an unconventional point of view and it’s much more concerned with standpoints, which is really good, refreshing and win without war, which is not a media organization, but is an advocacy NGO group, they’re doing great.

[00:54:18] They do great analysis too. 

[00:54:20] Cayden Mak: Yeah, I know some of the folks over there. That’s great. This is not something that I plan to talk about. But it also occurs to me that I think it’s worth thinking [00:54:30] about to in terms of thinking about how we got here with this kind of neoconservative military and security policy.

[00:54:38] It’s also on my mind, you brought out that up of the Haitian migrant thing. And the other thing that I am thinking about is the militarization of the US border. And I, there are some people who are making these connections between not just U. S. military intervention abroad, but also climate change, right?

[00:54:55] That The way in which people are being dislocated from the [00:55:00] global south because of the very real effects of climate change, and I’m very curious if that’s part of the national security conversation explicitly or if it’s more an implicit thing around like hardening our borders, thinking about, I think Christian Parenti described it as like the Armed gunboat of the global north.

[00:55:20] Van Jackson: Yeah. No, he had this book 10 years ago, 15 years ago, Tropic of Chaos, I think, which presaged where we were going, but he was doing [00:55:30] a lot of reading of national security documents and how, the state was thinking about climate change in the security context and on a superficial level I think you might think it’s great that they’re coming to jesus on climate change But the way that they’re doing it is terrifying.

[00:55:47] Yeah coming to satan. I don’t know like 

[00:55:52] Cayden Mak: I reread that book earlier this year. And it’s as relevant now as it’s ever been I feel like 

[00:55:57] Van Jackson: Yeah. Weirdly, I’ve heard he’s like [00:56:00] anti intersectional. He’s got some weird views now, I’ve heard. I don’t know that for a fact. But anyways the imaginary about climate and security for foreign policy is all about really treating the world as like a sacrifice zone that’s going to need to be patrolled and cordoned off.

[00:56:16] And that’s the scary thing. So It’s like a zone for future wars that needs to be contained. 

[00:56:23] Cayden Mak: It is deeply dystopian. 

[00:56:25] Van Jackson: Yikes. Yeah, super scary. 

[00:56:27] Cayden Mak: I feel like that’s something that [00:56:30] I think, that also deserves our attention as a movement that cares about people all over the world, regardless of where they live, and I don’t know, I think that There’s, there are clearly reasons to be worried about, about this national security framework because of that too.

[00:56:50] Yeah. Yeah. Van thank you so much for this sobering, but necessary conversation. Is there any other stuff that you want to plug places where folks can find you [00:57:00] and yeah, where can people follow your work? 

[00:57:03] Van Jackson: Undiplomatic. com on hyphen diplomatic. That’s the newsletter site, but it also links to the podcast.

[00:57:09] It’s one stop shopping for everything. And then I’m very Google. So 

[00:57:14] Cayden Mak: awesome. Great. Always a pleasure. Thanks for coming on the show. 

[00:57:17] Josh Elstro: Likewise. Thank you for having 

[00:57:18] Van Jackson: me. 

[00:57:18] Josh Elstro: My thanks again to Van Jackson for making time to join us. Please check out and subscribe to his show as well. That’s the undiplomatic podcast.

[00:57:27] It’s available wherever you listen to [00:57:30] podcasts and it’s on YouTube. Links will be in the show notes. Finally, we have this week another audio diary from our friends at Seed the Vote. This week, volunteer Mickey Angeline speaks about their experience canvassing for Kamala Harris. While they talk about convincing voters on the doors to vote for Harris, I do want to remind listeners that Convergence is a nonpartisan publication and that this personal perspective is not an endorsement of any particular candidate or party by [00:58:00] our organization.

[00:58:01] Take a listen.

[00:58:07] Mickey Angeline: Mickey Angeline here. Today is day two for me and I realized I did not share my favorite story from yesterday. My favorite contact was a woman named Janice, 85 years old, widowed. She worked on Kennedy’s campaign. She met Kennedy. We had a really great talk. She was leaning towards Kamala. towards [00:58:30] Rosen and then admitted that she voted for Trump twice, 2016, 2020.

[00:58:35] She admitted it was a mistake. So I asked her what prompted her to vote for Trump in 2016. And she mentioned that he was. I had a rally at the Golden Nugget here, and that he was rushed off stage because somebody held a gun. But then later in the news or on social media, Hillary posted that he was running from the IRS.

[00:58:59] And for [00:59:00] Janice, she did not like that. She doesn’t like liars. So then when I asked her, so why aren’t you voting for him in 2024? And she said, 34 felony counts! We had the greatest conversation. I wish I could have talked to her longer. The more we talked, the more she realized I have to vote for Kamala Harris.

[00:59:18] So that was a definitely a win and I felt like I made a friend out of James.

[00:59:28] Josh Elstro: This show is published by [00:59:30] Convergence, a magazine for radical insights. I’ve been Josh Elstro filling in this week for Caden Mock, who will return next Friday. If you have something to say, please drop us a line. You can send us an email that we will consider running on an upcoming Mailbag episode. That address is mailbag at convergencemag.

[00:59:47] com. If you’d like to support the work we do here at Convergence, bringing our movements together to strategize, struggle, and win in this crucial historical moment, you can become a member at convergencemag. com [01:00:00] slash donate. Even a few bucks goes a long way to making sure our independent small team can continue to build a map for our movements.

[01:00:09] Caden will be back next week. We’ll talk then.