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Van Jackson

@vanjackson.bsky.social
3.9K followers 392 following 1.7K posts

The class politics of geopolitics. Newsletter, Un-Diplomatic.com. Co-host, www.BangBangPod.com; www.undiplomaticpodcast.com. 🇺🇸🇵🇭🇳🇿. www.vanjackson.org

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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 2h
Few things more satisfying than a reader sending proof that they’re REALLY reading your book
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John Carl Baker @johncarlbaker.bsky.social · 12h
Glad to see this piece from @vanjackson.bsky.social foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/28/t...
foreignpolicy.com
Trump’s ‘Greater North America’ Is Fascist Geopolitics
The administration’s hemispheric vision has dangerous roots and dangerous implications.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 30/09/2026
Important piece (w quotes from me) about the Philippines as a site of intersecting forces: the resource-extraction fetish, US militarism, Manila’s oligarchic families, and imperialist multilateralism www.motherjones.com/politics/202...
motherjones.com
Tech Bros and the Trump administration are building an AI empire—in the Philippines
Pax Silica aims to lock up rare earths, and hand Silicon Valley the keys.
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Foreign Policy @foreignpolicy.com · 29/09/2026
Understanding Trump’s Greater North America on fascist terms suggests the worst is yet to come. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/28/t...
foreignpolicy.com
Trump’s ‘Greater North America’ Is Fascist Geopolitics
The administration’s hemispheric vision has dangerous roots and dangerous implications.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
“Something that should arouse introspection is that the methods of fascist geopolitics are imperialist top to bottom—methods that the US has been intermittently deploying around the world for generations, and with growing frequency the past decade.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/greater-no...
un-diplomatic.com
“Greater North America” Is Fascist Geopolitics
Earlier this year, Pete Hegseth gave a speech at one of the new, imperialist multilateralism conferences the US now leads against the old liberal order.
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Brad Simpson @bradleyrsimpson.bsky.social · 29/09/2026
This by @vanjackson.bsky.social is very good on Trump’s neo-fascist regional politics. foreignpolicy.com/2026/09/28/t...
foreignpolicy.com
Trump’s ‘Greater North America’ Is Fascist Geopolitics
The administration’s hemispheric vision has dangerous roots and dangerous implications.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have a new essay out in Foreign Policy raising alarm and introspection about the geopolitical concept of “Greater North America”: "Is fascist geopolitics somehow unique? How, if at all, does liberal imperialism differ from fascist imperialism?” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/greater-no...
un-diplomatic.com
“Greater North America” Is Fascist Geopolitics
Earlier this year, Pete Hegseth gave a speech at one of the new, imperialist multilateralism conferences the US now leads against the old liberal order.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 28/09/2026
I have a new essay out in Foreign Policy raising alarm and introspection about the geopolitical concept of “Greater North America”: "Is fascist geopolitics somehow unique? How, if at all, does liberal imperialism differ from fascist imperialism?” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/greater-no...
un-diplomatic.com
“Greater North America” Is Fascist Geopolitics
Earlier this year, Pete Hegseth gave a speech at one of the new, imperialist multilateralism conferences the US now leads against the old liberal order.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Trump may or may not declare martial law ahead of the mid-terms, but the election is already being made unfree and unfair in a dozen different ways
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 24/09/2026
Lunchtime flying armbar
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“We do to ourselves far worse than anything Osama bin Laden could have cooked up.” www.damemagazine.com/2026/07/15/w...
damemagazine.com
Why U.S. Foreign Policy Needs a Fundamental Reset
American military dominance has shaped the modern world—but at enormous cost. Here's what a more peaceful, democratic U.S. foreign policy could look like.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“the US is trying to preside over a global hegemonic order shorn of any obligations or reciprocal restraint. Classical theorists had a word for preponderant power minus obligation or restraint: Domination.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/against-im...
un-diplomatic.com
Against Imperialist Multilateralism
Training as an international-relations scholar in the ‘00s meant getting pounded with the idea that multilateral institutions are good because they facilitate cooperation and, by logical extension, re...
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Atlas Mugged (N95 Duckbill 😷)✊🏿🏳️‍🌈 🏳️‍⚧️ @pamacious.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
"The Board of 'Peace' is the most grotesque example of imperialist multilateralism, coordinating the dispossession of Palestinian land via ethnic cleansing and ensuring that the worst humans in the world profit from it.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 23/09/2026
“the US is trying to preside over a global hegemonic order shorn of any obligations or reciprocal restraint. Classical theorists had a word for preponderant power minus obligation or restraint: Domination.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/against-im...
un-diplomatic.com
Against Imperialist Multilateralism
Training as an international-relations scholar in the ‘00s meant getting pounded with the idea that multilateral institutions are good because they facilitate cooperation and, by logical extension, re...
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“Trump 2.0 has been extremely active fashioning imperialist multilateralism 1) between the global North and South but also 2) between the US and everyone else....groping toward a reactionary, anti-liberal, some might say fascist, global order.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/against-im...
un-diplomatic.com
Against Imperialist Multilateralism
Training as an international-relations scholar in the ‘00s meant getting pounded with the idea that multilateral institutions are good because they facilitate cooperation and, by logical extension, re...
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Spencer Ackerman @attackerman.bsky.social · 22/09/2026
“Classical theorists had a word for preponderant power minus obligation or restraint: Domination.” @vanjackson.bsky.social going hard this morning
un-diplomatic.com
Against Imperialist Multilateralism
Training as an international-relations scholar in the ‘00s meant getting pounded with the idea that multilateral institutions are good because they facilitate cooperation and, by logical extension, re...
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polqat @polq.at · 21/09/2026
Another great podcast from @vanjackson.bsky.social. This time on AI cognitive surrender and how end times AI doomerism is distracting from how AI is enabling war crimes now youtu.be/QTj-ja8QfJc?...
youtu.be
A.I. Doomerism | Working-Class Populism Experiment | Drop The Genocide 20 Campaign
YouTube video by The Un-Diplomatic Podcast
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Politics Theory Other @poltheoryother.bsky.social · 21/09/2026
Thanks to @the-syllabus.bsky.social for making the recent episode with @tejnagaraja.bsky.social on his new book 'Troop Movements: Labor, Race, and Global Freedom Struggles in America’s World War II' one of their podcasts of the week:
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 20/09/2026
People should be more worried that the secretary of war, who's literally wearing a t-shirt that says "This Is War," thinks he's presiding over the end of days. I doubt even half of these troops knew they were signing up for white Christian nationalist Armageddon
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 19/09/2026
“To live through the ’90s meant witnessing the rise of coffee chains and erotic thrillers, grunge and the golden age of hip-hop. It also meant taking for granted an extreme concentration of global power in the hands of a single nation-state that faced no serious threats” - @vanjackson.bsky.social
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 17/09/2026
This report is brilliant, and a devastating takedown of the NZ government’s plans to blow a hole in the budget by acquiring frigates. Jettison a prestige navy, divest of imperialist adventures, and embrace non-offensive defense internationalpolicy.org/publications...
internationalpolicy.org
Rebuilding New Zealand’s Navy for Security, Not Aggression - CIP
A frigate-less New Zealand navy can avoid sunk costs and create a non-provocative defense strategy for the 21st century
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
Militarism is backdoor austerity politics. Glad that Tribune and the UCU gets it tribunemag.co.uk/2026/09/high...
tribunemag.co.uk
Higher Education Workers Take A Stand Against Militarism
UCU General Secretary Jo Grady speaks to Tribune about the union’s efforts to advance a ‘wages not weapons’ programme at TUC Congress.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 16/09/2026
We did a 3-part miniseries on Guzman’s Battle of Chile w @katz.theracket.news, which is just something everyone must watch and learn about before they pass. RIP www.bangbangpod.com/p/the-battle...
bangbangpod.com
The Battle of Chile (Part I) (1975) w/ Jonathan M. Katz | Ep. 31
Van and Lyle are joined by journalist and historian Jonathan M.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 15/09/2026
“The failure of national security elites to update their priors makes them handmaidens of empire and oligarchy right now, but it also paves a future to something like fascism” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/australias...
un-diplomatic.com
Australia’s Romance with American Empire
I’m quoted extensively in a new reported piece in The Guardian that’s raising critical questions about how Australian national security elites do their sub-imperialism.
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Dale Smith @journodale.bsky.social · 14/09/2026
Democrats keep trying to guilt-trip Canadians into backing down. Fuck off. Deal with your own mess. This is your problem to solve, not ours. www.cbc.ca/news/politic...
Gallego, the Arizona senator, said the two sides need to figure out how to mutually step down from the current trade tensions, adding that it appeared both Trump and Prime Minister Mark Carney were playing politics when trade talks fell apart last month.
"I'm not asking Mr. Carney to just bend at the knee and give in, but this is the role of diplomacy," Gallego said. "You figure out how to actually start bringing the heat down little by little to a point where you can get to the negotiation table."
Likewise, Maine's governor, Mills, said there need to be "serious negotiations on both sides," and she hopes a third party can sit down with the two countries and make it clear a tariff fight damages both of them.
"The retaliatory tariffs, I can understand why that's happening," Mills said. "I can't say it's not damaging our economy, though."
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
You can’t seek security for the US by redirecting insecurity at everyone else. Might as well invade Iran and back a genocide www.un-diplomatic.com/p/killing-em...
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 12/09/2026
You can’t seek security for the US by redirecting insecurity at everyone else. Might as well invade Iran and back a genocide www.un-diplomatic.com/p/killing-em...
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
"One way of understanding the decline of non-fiction is as the shrinking market for specifically airport bookstore slop. I think back to how much crap I read from about 2000 to 2018...Millions of words that amounted to justifying the status quo." www.un-diplomatic.com/p/the-dire-s...
un-diplomatic.com
The Dire State of Non-Fiction Publishing...
...is a self-inflicted wound.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 09/09/2026
That’s my boy @attackerman.bsky.social: “If you are not from a community experiencing persecution...then keep your opinion of the right way for that community to resist to yourself.” www.forever-wars.com/return-to-li...
forever-wars.com
Return to Little Pakistan: Mohammad Razvi Holds It Together (Reprise)
During COVID-19, as after 9/11, the son of a bodega owner navigated the city’s power structure on behalf of his frightened neighbors. Part 3 in a series
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Inequality News @inequalitynews.bsky.social · 08/09/2026
🤔 Who knew that the decades-long callous abandonment of working class voters to poverty and precarity by comfortable middle and upper class political elites would result in a resurgence of the far-right...? 🙄 www.theguardian.com/world/2026/s...
theguardian.com
Europe’s centre fears nationalist wave after AfD victory but only has itself to blame
Saxony-Anhalt win part of wider trend driven by mainstream policy failures and gradual normalisation of far right ideas
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The film that predicted the US Cold War against Canada 30 years ago. Funniest episode of the pod we’ve ever done! www.bangbangpod.com/p/canadian-b...
bangbangpod.com
Canadian Bacon (1995) w/ Eric Stinton | Ep. 75
A president stuck in the polls needs an enemy.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 07/09/2026
The film that predicted the US Cold War against Canada 30 years ago. Funniest episode of the pod we’ve ever done! www.bangbangpod.com/p/canadian-b...
bangbangpod.com
Canadian Bacon (1995) w/ Eric Stinton | Ep. 75
A president stuck in the polls needs an enemy.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.un-diplomatic.com/p/senior-fel...
un-diplomatic.com
Senior Fellow for Mass Murder and Colonial Relations
Or, how many lives is a think-tank grant worth?
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Kevin Fox @michigrim.bsky.social · 05/07/2026
Imagine you sign up for a rideshare gig app after you get laid off. Imagine it starts offering gigs that break the law in exchange for thousands of dollars for a night of work. What happens when it starts blackmailing you into killing your best friend? Check out Happy Traveler now!
youtu.be
Happy Traveler
YouTube video by Kevin Fox
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 06/09/2026
www.un-diplomatic.com/p/senior-fel...
un-diplomatic.com
Senior Fellow for Mass Murder and Colonial Relations
Or, how many lives is a think-tank grant worth?
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polqat @polq.at · 05/09/2026
Van Jackson provides a great explanation of the fascism that is occurring in America, but can equally apply to Australia too. At the 24 minute and 10 second mark, but watch the whole episode featuring @boganintel.bsky.social as well. #auspol
What is fascism? It's a state-led counterrevolution on behalf of capital. What is counterrevolution? It's a reactionary far-right overthrow of the norms and the institutions and the practices that make up our social order. And it's a small section of capitalists that are benefiting from it. And it's the rest of us who are just suffering what we must. Everyone is pissed and scared and insecure because they're experiencing a shrinking wage share of national income. And that is by definition what happens in an asset economy. If home values and stocks and investment portfolios are where all of society's wealth concentrates, the working class has to sell their labour for a wage in order to survive by definition. The overall economy is in crisis for everyone whose wealth does not come in the form of assets. And there is no reason to think that deporting immigrants would improve that situation. But if you're an ethno-nationalist, if you're a reactionary, you live by this idea that the purge is going to restore working class wealth. That's part of the theory of the case of like hate-based racial politics, but it's nonsense. Like, you've been duped. If you believe that, you didn't know who your actual enemy was, and so you fell for oligarch propaganda. Rich old mostly white dudes pissing on you and then telling you it was the immigrants. Come on, man.
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Joel Jenkins @boganintel.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
The excellent Prof. Van Jackson joins the latest episode to give an outsiders perspective of Australia's strategic posture and current alliances contrasted with other US allies in the wake of Canadian PM Carney's defiant speech. Link: youtu.be/LonGu_qjqgs #auspol
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 04/09/2026
Why “purging immigrants” doesn’t fix working-class wages—it’s a wealth story, not a race story. www.un-diplomatic.com/p/us-territo...
un-diplomatic.com
US Territorial Confession | The Economist Loves Australian Empire | ICE Raids Are Bad for the Economy | Keeping Climate Protest Alive
Why “purging immigrants” doesn’t fix working-class wages—it’s a wealth story, not a race story.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 01/09/2026
New Zealand is a paradise, but for whom? Not the homeless www.webworm.co/unhoused/
webworm.co
Why Do People Have To Live Outside?
David Farrier's Webworm features guest writer on Aaron Hendry on New Zealand's unhoused crisis, in which 4 people have died this winter alone.
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Albert Pinto @70sbachchan.bsky.social · 31/08/2026
We are going to win, AI data centers edition. Please keep saying this Mr Trump.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 30/08/2026
Bro is harsh on the Fabians but he called me “young-ish” so I guess it’s all good!
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Like and subscribe to the only anti-imperialist film podcast hosted by antiwar veterans! www.bangbangpod.com/p/inglouriou...
bangbangpod.com
Inglourious Basterds (2009) w/ Carlos Hogan | Ep. 74
In Afghanistan in 2010, most frontline units Lyle spent time with had at least one Jewish Marine, and every one of them was nicknamed Bear Jew.
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 27/08/2026
Triangle off the scramble
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“The ideology of the national-security state is a self-exculpating alchemy of brute force and American exceptionalism that redounds to the benefit of American oligarchs.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/bullshit-w...
un-diplomatic.com
Bullshit Wars in a Multipolar World
Why does the United States keep waging one bullshit war after another?
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
The important thing is I got past his guard to side control
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Robert Raymond @robpertray.bsky.social · 19/08/2026
guy who just paid $100 for basic groceries and whose license plate was tracked 8 times on his way home: "china is an authoritarian surveillance state"
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Robert Raymond @robpertray.bsky.social · 23/08/2026
I live in the freest country in the world. the fact that I have to put in my bio that my opinions are not those of my employer is irrelevant, I just don't want to get fired for expressing my beleifs and opinions. also, did you know that china is a surveillance state?
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 25/08/2026
“The ideology of the national-security state is a self-exculpating alchemy of brute force and American exceptionalism that redounds to the benefit of American oligarchs.” www.un-diplomatic.com/p/bullshit-w...
un-diplomatic.com
Bullshit Wars in a Multipolar World
Why does the United States keep waging one bullshit war after another?
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
Too much fun revisiting Quentin Tarantino’s Inglorious Basterds on the pod. Also dismayed to learn about Tarantino’s Zionist politics (!)
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Van Jackson @vanjackson.bsky.social · 22/08/2026
What a headline
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