Van Jackson @RealVanJackson Twitter profile

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Van Jackson

5 months

The Rivalry Peril has a cover! Everything Washington has told you about great-power competition is wrong. Come January 2025, @mbrenes1 and I are gonna reveal why! #TheRivalryPeril

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

17 days

Ta-Nehisi Coates is our truest successor to James Baldwin. Watch him deal with getting race-baited by a white moderate. Reminds of the Baldwin's many appearances on white moderate TV

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

7 years

Admin source tells me "Everyone wants 'preemptive war' now except for Mattis." Normal Korea experts have no idea how serious this is

Steve Herman

@W7VOA

7 years

Tonight's Nelson Report (a reputable newsletter on NE Asia): Removing personal assets from #ROK now advisable, say sr. admin. officials.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Fukuyama: “the invasion of Ukraine was such a shock bc in our lifetimes we’ve never witnessed one country militarily invading another.” Chris Hayes: “Well, Iraq.” Fukuyama: “Yeah but…well, ok” 😂😂😂

'Liberalism and Its Discontents’ with Francis Fukuyama

Podcast Episode · Why Is This Happening? The Chris Hayes Podcast · 05/31/2022 · 57m

podcasts.apple.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

--Gorka, Rodman, Bolton all going to Singapore. --Trump says he doesn't need preparation for the biggest diplo move ever. --Pompeo swears KJU is ready to denuclearize. --Gripping TV. But in the end NK will have nukes and the US will be much lowered. Are you not entertained???

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

I’ve had a number of media interview requests ahead of the Trump-Kim summit, which I’ve mostly declined. I’ve been relatively reticent about it, and a number of people have asked why. Here’s why. (1/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

16 days

The thing Walz is struggling with right now is not his performance, which is strong. It’s that he can’t offer a meaningful enough contrast with Vance’s ethnonationalist answers to every question, from Iran to climate change

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

I find the entire summit—and so far the preparations involved—to be nothing but theatrical. It’s a performance—not in the political sense, but in the entertainment sense, distracting from the growing illegitimacy of a scandal-besieged celebrity playing president (2/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

Oh man, the product of 5 years of research is finally out in Security Studies! I bring you “Left of Liberal Internationalism: Grand Strategies within Progressive Foreign Policy Thought.” 1/x

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

15 days

Reporter: “you're gonna grind the economy to a halt...” Labor: “no, not us--they are. Don't spin it…They have the capital to settle this thing...People never gave a shit about us until now…you know how many people depend on our jobs? Half the world!”

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

This is a joke. 1) Obama released more prisoners from NK than Trump. 2) KJU is being called a "world leader" on CNN right now. 3) NK hasn't offered to denuke. 4) It's arsenal is bigger and better than it's EVER BEEN. 5) we almost had nuclear war last year.

ian bremmer

@ianbremmer

6 years

Trump has accomplished more on N Korea to date than any US President. 1. China tightening sanctions 2. Nuke & ballistic missile test suspension 3. Prisoners released 4. Kim Jong Un reaching out to China, S Korea, Russia & US diplomatically However summit goes, that’s progress

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

It’s a farce. He’s a farce. But some of us delude ourselves into thinking Trump’s theatricality might be put to work for our own agenda, never mind his corrupt motives and what it does to US and world politics beyond our pet issues. (7/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

17 days

“When the Israelis pick up guns—or the Poles, or the Irish, or any white man in the world says, ‘give me liberty or give me death,’ the entire white world applauds. When a black man says exactly the same thing, word for word, he is judged a criminal and treated like one. And

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Because even suspending disbelief for a moment about what Trump can deliver, you have to measure the expected “good” against what Georgetown prof Dan Nexon calls the “analytical normalization” of treating Trump like a serious president, judged by serious standards. (6/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

The Trump-Kim summit has none of that, because of Trump’s revealed motivations--small, egoistic, and emotional. So I’m disinclined to comment on the summit in a serious analytical way because nothing really matters—and certainly not a summit—as long as it’s all a show (4/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

And that’s IF you’re willing to accept the fact that treating him in an analytically serious way legitimizes his deviancy. If Trump himself becomes some kind of political norm then god help us; anything that happens with KJU will be the least of America’s concerns (11/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

This is the real game. You want to out-something China? Out debt-relief them in the global South. In addition to saving lives and accruing positive influence, you'll be ameliorating root sources of geopolitical conflict

China forgives debt for 17 African nations

China will forgive 23 loans for 17 African nations, China’s foreign minister Wang Yi has announced.

www.news.com.au

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

@RadioFreeTom As a Korea and IR scholar, this is all basically right. So right that I'm finishing a book for Cambridge UP on this right now, writing it as it happens

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

He is so deviant from historical norms and anything recognizable in American politics that any deal reached or progress made with North Korea has a vanishingly small chance of surviving him. See the dems' recent proposals for NK policy if you don't believe me… (9/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

9 months

On foreign policy, Biden is no longer better than Trump. And there is nothing more damning I can say about his foreign policy than that

IMEU

@theIMEU

9 months

BREAKING: Biden has cut off funding to @UNRWA , which provides life-saving aid to 2.2 million Palestinians in Gaza every day. The US is collectively punishing Palestinians, who rely on UNRWA to survive, based on Israeli allegations against 0.0004% of UNRWA's staff. Outrageous.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

Am I worried about Kim Jong Un right now? Yes, and I'll spare you my keen observation that he's fat, stressed, and has every bad habit you could have except meth. I'm worried because North Korea isn't prepared for him to kick the bucket and neither are we. 1/x

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

As the one year mark approaches, you wouldn't believe the amount of criticism I got when I tweeted what is indisputably obvious now

Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Prediction: one year from now, North Korea will have neither surrendered nor dismantled any nuclear weapons AND we still won’t know how many it has or where they’re located

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

…And it's not just the prospect of no "winning" via summit. There's a huge likelihood of narrowing later space for future policymakers to achieve something real and stabilizing if the summit comes to be seen as an example of the inefficacy of diplomacy (10/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Once the smoke clears on this, I hope transnational right-wing radicalism becomes a priority for Five-Eyes. It's a racial variant of neofascism, which is a transnational threat

MSNBC

@MSNBC

6 years

BREAKING: New Zealand Police: A serious and evolving situation is occurring in Christchurch with an active shooter. Police recommend that residents across the city remain off the streets and indoors until further notice.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Could something good come out of the summit? Some might say yes; lots of people hope for peace and denuclearization. I do too, though I don’t pour those hopes into a false prophet. Why? (5/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Now, to some extent summitry is inherently performative, but the underlying reasons for that performativity are usually strategic. The national and strategic motivations for summits give them meaning; make them part of a historical process. (3/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

The problem of Trump and the summit goes beyond optimism, pessimism, or skepticism. Trump poses a practical problem for FP serious analysis. (8/11)

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

OMG, proofs are finally in! You think you know about America's role in Asia. But like DMX said, "If you think you know, then I don't think you know." 🐕

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

16 days

Vance has a coherent but evil framework from which all his answers follow. Democrats reject the coherence that framework offers but accept many of its policies and basic logic. This leaves Walz trapped on unfavorable terrain

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

Wild that we would withhold arms sales to Saudi Arabia because of its stance on Ukraine but not for corrupting DC politics, bone-sawing journalists, or waging an insane war in Yemen. But I'll take it

Andrew Desiderio

@AndrewDesiderio

2 years

NEWS—Senate Foreign Relations Chair Menendez is about to call for an immediate freeze of U.S. cooperation w/ Saudi Arabia. Menendez has veto power over foreign weapons sales. “I will not green light any cooperation w/Riyadh until the Kingdom reassesses its position” on Ukraine.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

Holy crap, this is the first time I've ever gotten this response from a journal after sending a piece of mine out for review. Sharing because a) it's good news, b) I usually share my many rejections from reviewers, and c) this will probably never happen again

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 months

Brilliant piece. Anyone who shrieks about Beijing’s suppression of free speech but supports state suppression of peace protestors has some shit to work out

Grieving Tiananmen as US Cops Crush Campus Protests

To reclaim the legacy of Tiananmen for emancipatory ends, we must release it from Cold War politics and place it in a longer, larger history of struggle.

www.thenation.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

"Left of Liberal Internationalism" is officially out!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

This thing is covered in my blood and sweat and insecurities, but it's complete!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

A lot of friction and potential catastrophe in the US alliance with South Korea these days. Why? Because of Trump’s terrible, no good, very bad Asia policy. Exacerbating a long term trend that makes the US-ROK alliance quite fragile

Jennifer Jacobs

@JenniferJJacobs

5 years

US is warning it will send furlough notices within weeks to 9,000 South Korean workers at US bases if South Korea doesn’t reach agreement on Trump’s demand for an increase in what it pays for US troops. He initially wanted 5x more. @nwadhams @TheJihyeLee

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

Dear fellow think tankers: Don't rehabilitate these guys. They should've pulled the rip cord long ago. They're leaving two weeks before being forced to resign. Normalizing people who've done Trump's bidding will forever keep us in this "How could this happen?!" Hellscape

Kaitlan Collins

@kaitlancollins

4 years

National security adviser Robert O'Brien, deputy national security adviser Matt Pottinger and deputy chief of staff Chris Liddell are all considering resigning, sources tell me, @jaketapper and @vmsalama .

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 months

What’s the word for when your foreign policy staff sleepwalk you into a regional war that your ally’s far-right leader wants for domestic political reasons?

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

If you don't know anything about political economy, but follow this guy, you're unwittingly consuming assloads of "alternative facts"--a fictive information ecosystem full of self-validating numerical references that are wrong but confirm status quo biases

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

OMG, just got a journal article accepted that I've been working on for 4 years. Look out for "Left of Liberal Internationalism: Grand Strategies Within Progressive Foreign Policy Thought" in a forthcoming issue of Security Studies!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Remember when we used to call Trump's tariffs a "trade war" with China, but now that we're doing those tariffs plus a hundred other techno-containment policies we call it "de-risking" and "resilience" etc? Doesn't that strike anyone as weird?

Is US China Policy a Danger to Itself and Others?

A question you can’t deflect with whataboutism

www.un-diplomatic.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

The hotness is here! First copy of my book, #OntheBrink , fresh off the press! #NorthKorea #NukeYourDarlings

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

Civil war is possible. War with a nuclear North Korea is possible. The nightmare WWIII with China is possible. These outcomes hinge partly on decisions we make. Hell of a time to have a president who thinks we should drink disinfectant to cure a virus. END

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Quite a move of the goalposts. June: NK will denuclearize quickly. July: NK will denuclearize, no timeline. Early August: NK is absolutely making progress toward denuclearization (Pompeo to Congress quote). Late August: NK could possibly make progress toward denuclearization.

Yonhap News Agency

@YonhapNews

6 years

(LEAD) Pompeo says progress can be made on N. Korea

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

We need a word for China-induced rejection of human values by people who think of themselves as liberal. Cowardice doesn't quite get at it, though it features. It may or may not be corruption. But it's def gross.

Bonnie Glaser / 葛來儀 🇺🇦

@BonnieGlaser

5 years

Dr Bruce Aylward of #WHO refuses to answer a question about Taiwan and rudely cuts off the interview. This is despicable. Watch the clip.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

The world’s worst theory of diplomacy. Contain them, condemn them, orient your entire being to disrupting their growth…but dial buttons on the phone really hard and when they don’t answer you can say, “We tried”

Peter Martin

@PeterMartin_PCM

1 year

The US is trying to make it hard for China to say no to engagement by seeking a flurry of meetings and phone calls, a strategy aimed at easing tensions and painting President Xi Jinping as recalcitrant if he refuses Latest with @jendeben

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

My latest: "This is not the rationale of a country that is simply balancing Chinese power or trying to stop Beijing from creating a sphere of influence...It is containment in all but name."

The Problem With Primacy

America’s dangerous quest to dominate the Pacific.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

It took a long time, but my explaining spheres of influence in international politics--what they are, how they work, who has them--is finally in print!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

10 months

If US Steel is not owned by the workers, then this posturing is neither here nor there. The company looking to buy US Steel is Nippon Steel, a Japanese firm. What happens to the surplus value that US Steel produces is what matters, not the nationality of its oligarchs

Senator John Fetterman

@SenFettermanPA

10 months

The acquisition of @U_S_Steel by a foreign company is wrong for workers and wrong for Pennsylvania. I’m gonna do everything I can to block it.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 months

As I gradually grew more alienated from the foreign policy establishment circa 2019-2020, one of several things driving that estrangement was their explicit willingness to literally choose heightening geopolitical rivalry—premised on bad analysis—at the expense of climate change

New Left EViews

@NewLeftEViews

4 months

The maddest thing about this mad statement is that accepting a resurgent China––which means not engaging in a super carbon-intensive arms race––is a precondition for not having the planet boil in its own juices.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

@WillSaetren I've given a shorter version of this thread to 5 journos over the past 24 hours. Maybe they're keeping powder dry, but I've yet to see any of them run it. There's a strong temptation to take a traditional news narrative approach when the news narrative should be "Wrestle Mania"

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

The Mattis legacy is SUPER complicated. The one narrow claim I can make confidently: We would've bombed North Korea last year (or early this year) if instead of him we had a Secretary Graham, Rich, Cotton, Bolton, or [insert conservative doormat] #OntheBrink

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

Your activity on twitter can easily disqualify you from political appointments, but nothing you do on this platform will ever get you one. A major reason why a lot of foreign policy Mandarins you follow have gone quiet in the last couple months

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

This was one of the discoveries I came across in interviews for my last book--Obama's team did everything necessary to get Trump's incoming team ready for foreign policy, and almost no meetings happened because Trump's guys never showed. There was no transition

Jung H. Pak, PhD

@junghpak1

4 years

Going thru old papers today and found an Exceptional Performance Award for assistance in the 2016 POTUS transition, signed by then DCIA Pompeo. The Bolton revelations make me profoundly sad, knowing how hard we worked to prepare POTUS about the natsec challenges facing the US.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

Important piece both explaining how Singapore's history under Lee Kwan Yew plays in the fever dreams of the new far right. Intersections like this simply can't be processed or acknowledged by Asia hands who pretend to bracket off...politics

How the “soft” dictatorship of Lee Kuan Yew became a template for the American right

The Singaporean leader implemented a unique vision of state control. Some Republicans want to see the same in the United States.

www.motherjones.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

I’m not an impartial voice on Flournoy (twice my former boss and I loved her). But to the extent reservations about her concern her ties to defense contractors, it seems...inconsistent...to not hold similar reservations about other appointees

Flournoy gets progressive boost in Biden's search for Pentagon chief

"We believe Michèle Flournoy is the best candidate for the job," a group of arms control veterans write in an open letter to Biden.

www.politico.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

We failed South Korea when China bullied it in 2016. We’ve spent 2017-2020 faking being tough on China while really just badgering and bullying our friends. With Australia we have another chance at bat. Let’s not blow this off or blow this up—solidarity time

Peter J. Dean

@DefenceProf

4 years

WP editorial today: “Australia is standing up to China’s bullying. It needs U.S. support.”

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

If Tooze is right, then a failure to have accelerated green energy transitions earlier has not just empowered the Russian petrostate--it makes the Global North so reliant on Russian oil and gas now that it can't sanction w/ strategic effect

Chartbook #86: About those sanctions: SWIFT, correspondent banking, and the GL 8 energy carve-out.

On the afternoon of February 24 2022 East Coast time, the day Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, after a morning of consultation with the G7 governments, President Biden strode to...

adamtooze.substack.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

People don't appreciate the kind of courage it takes to speak out against a powerful, well financed political conventional wisdom that wraps itself in a national security mandate. Props to @jessicacweiss

A Professor Who Challenges the Washington Consensus on China

Jessica Chen Weiss argues that Biden Administration policy is contributing to an “action-reaction spiral.”

www.newyorker.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

Draft book cover, baby! Not sure if this is final/final, but I dig it #PacificPowerParadox

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 months

China had a coherent strategy via industrial policy. We do not. Ours throws money at undisciplined capital while trying to destroy the world’s factory and deferring action on climate

Kyle Chan

@kyleichan

5 months

Industrial policy across sectors can have a multiplier effect. China’s solar industry benefited from its R&D on semiconductors. China’s high-speed rail built on its aerospace research. Chinese EVs draw directly on China’s smartphone supply chain, as @robinsonmeyer points out. 1/

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Oh man, Grand Strategies of the Left is getting real! Available for pre-order already!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Not shown: the amount of effort America’s political class and the national security state have put into making this America’s “reality”

Isaac Stone Fish

@isaacstonefish

1 year

A stunning 50% of Americans see China as the greatest threat to America. Agree or disagree, like it or not, support it or hate it, this is our reality. Businesses, Investors, regulators, elected officials, everyone needs to understand and discuss this.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Wild how Americans are mobilizing en masse against our violent, intellectually exhausted foreign policy. Meanwhile, Washington can’t even process what’s happening except through a lens of presidential polling

BreakThrough News

@BTnewsroom

1 year

BREAKING: Activists are blocking the entrance of the Port of Tacoma where a U.S. ship believed to be carrying weapons to Israel is docked. Days ago it was blocked in Oakland. The ship is currently unable to depart.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

Maybe the most important thing in Korean geopolitics at the moment...but you won't hear it from most DC pundits because it's true. Professional Washington is partisan in South Korean politics

John Carl Baker

@johncarlbaker

3 years

I don’t know what’s going to happen with the South Korean presidential election but there are a lot of people in DC not-so-subtly rooting for the conservatives to win

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

"By treating security as something that only missiles and submarines can ensure...and forfeiting opportunities to address underlying sources of violence, the United States is helping create a perilous situation in the Indo-Pacific." My sure-to-vex latest

America Is Turning Asia Into a Powder Keg

The perils of a military-first approach.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

It's not American exceptionalism unless you're refusing to allow others to do what you yourself insist on doing

Bloomberg Asia

@BloombergAsia

1 year

Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said the US “won’t tolerate” the recent decision by Chinese authorities to ban chips by Micron Technology in some critical sectors

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

Why is it that the biggest China hawks do the least for those targeted and threatened by China? Because they're racists and militarists, not defenders of democracy

US senator blocks bill giving Hongkongers special refugee status

Senator Ted Cruz says with the legislation Beijing would exploit relaxed immigration standards to send spies to the US.

www.scmp.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 months

Undersea cable breaks “happen every other day, about 200 times a year. The reason websites continue to load...is because of the thousand or so people living aboard 20-some ships stationed around the world, who race to fix each cable as soon as it breaks.”

The invisible seafaring industry that keeps the internet afloat

How one crew risked radiation, storms, and currents to save Japan from digital isolation.

www.theverge.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

A premature Kim Jong Un death is foreseeable but unpredictable, unlikely but high consequence. In a strategic sense, not something we should wish for. Most of the scenarios work out unfavorably for us, and we're very poorly positioned to do anything constructive the "day after"

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

For days I couldn't sleep; I just obsessed about finishing this. It's the most personal piece of analysis I've written, and I think one of the most important. I hope you'll read it, and that it seeps into your bones.

The Liberal Internationalist Origins of Right-Wing Insurrection

Violence in the periphery always comes back to the center, eventually. On January 6, the world saw Trump-supporting protestors and conspiracy theorists coalesce in Capitol Hill before storming...

inkstickmedia.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Alastair Iain Johnston launching into our annual Kippenberger lecture. Topic is how race in Sino-US relations feeds a security dilemma. Timely!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

Only someone who truly has no fucking idea how the Pentagon works could possibly say this...or he's gaslighting for votes

Rep. Dan Crenshaw

@RepDanCrenshaw

3 years

For too long, progressive Pentagon staffers have been calling the shots for our warfighters, and spineless military commanders have let it happen. Now we are going to expose you.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

“Capable dildos” should say “capabilities.” Tragic typo

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Every 6 months or so, I'm forced to screenshot a Luttwak comment and announce that it's the stupidest thing I've ever read. Remarkable because literally today I was teaching an excerpt from one of his old books

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

This. A tremendous, bigly, grand nothing burger. That's not fair. KJU got just about everything he wanted

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 months

this guy is f’ing crazy. WTH is he talking about--China trying to force hegemony on us? Pure fever-dream shit. He doesn’t deal with reality. He creates broken logic puzzles that he wants to impose on reality as part of a dark political project

Elbridge Colby

@ElbridgeColby

6 months

Whether China is ruled by the CCP or not, if they meet us and a sufficiently strong coalition, Beijing will be unable to force their hegemony on us. We can trade among ourselves and resist Beijing's efforts to coerce us. So, bottom line, we don't need regime change in China. 4/

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

This piece from Bob Gates merits meditating on. The military-as-solution has contributed to the fear and chaos of the past week, but also the atrophy of strategic acumen in Washington. Militarism in its many forms will never deliver security

The Overmilitarization of American Foreign Policy

The United States has relied too much on its military in recent decades, neglecting its subtler instruments of power.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 months

What kind of sick, twisted dialectic leads to media validation of military primacy in the midst of genocide because it helps make the case for a president who can’t make the case for his own presidency? His foreign policy is a travesty, and greases the skids to WWIII

Kamala HQ

@KamalaHQ

3 months

Maddow: President Biden showed a startlingly impressive command of the issues at his press conference. He is not only strong on foreign policy, he is just just fundamentally right on foreign policy in the way that he talks about it. It just shows you he is a master of the foreign

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Getting some poorly informed hate mail the past couple hrs. 1) I served 6yrs in USAF 2) I spent 2 of those years in SK 3) I ran Korea policy in OSD for 3 yrs--negotiated w NK 4) I'm American! (not Canadian) 5) I speak Korean (though it's declining) 6) I've written A LOT re: NK

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

2 years

Final cover for #PacificPowerParadox --it's real and it's spectacular!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

Putin is such a piece of shit

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

"The farce is that...if you're worried about war with China—and especially losing a war with China—the greater portion of your efforts should be going into war prevention, not war optimization"

Manufacturing Fear...of a China War

There's a dark farce at the heart of the "preparing for war with China" industry

www.un-diplomatic.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 months

A strategy of primacy was always hostile to international institutions that seek to check US preferences. But rarely has there been an opportunity to witness a confrontation that reveals the contradiction nakedly

Financial Times

@FT

5 months

Biden administration signals it will support bipartisan push to sanction ICC

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

I had hoped this was why the Secretary of Defense nominee wasn't announced last week. But didn't for a second expect it would actually be the reason why

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

7 years

Xi Jinping says what global elites want to hear, does whatever the hell he wants, and gets fawned over anyway because he's not Trump

Stephen McDonell

@StephenMcDonell

7 years

Xi Jinping - even with his dull delivery - just hit DonaldTrump out of the park at APEC. Xi championed multilateralism, tackling climate change, poverty alleviation (standing ovation); Trump wanted 2-way deals that benefit the #US (asked for applause). Geopolitical shift on now!

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

Let me show you how @realDonaldTrump took a dangerous situation, made it worse, and then pretended to solve it by doing nothing but meet w/ Kim Jong Un. The film is called #TheNuclearButton . You'll learn, laugh, and shake your head in disbelief

The Nuclear Button: How Trump and Kim Blustered to the Brink of War

In 2017, Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un locked into a battle of insults and threats that risked nuclear war. Months later, they swapped a real crisis for reality-show…

vimeo.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

This guy is so full of bad takes about the one thing he's supposed to be an expert at--geopolitics. His history is bad; his analysis is worse. It's a daily thing. Confirms a suspicion that, beyond a certain threshold, there's an inverse relationship btwn insight and star power

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

If you thought liberal hegemony violated your sensibilities of justice, fairness, and sovereignty, just wait for the Chinese version

Patrick Chovanec

@prchovanec

6 years

Chinese diplomat called up Australian TV news producer and demanded they halt a report critical of China. "You will listen," she reportedly shouted into the phone. "There must be no more misconduct in the future."

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

Is it cool if the “rules-based order” is fascist? Then what the hell are we doing? China-threat politics is actively strengthening reactionary forces domestically and internationally. It’s a language almost exclusively of militarism and oppression.

China tops agenda as Biden meets Italy's Meloni in Washington

U.S. President Joe Biden and Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni met at the White House on Thursday, vowing to deepen economic ties and strengthen cooperation on challenges posed by China, while...

www.reuters.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

Putin has really screwed Xi. No matter what angle I view it from I come to that same conclusion

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

We're not supposed to say this out loud, but most plutocrats do not believe climate change is existential for them. The lack of proper response isn't just partisan; it's that power knows it can live in a climate apartheid dystopia and be ok. Existential for thee but not for me

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

4 years

And here's the part where it matters that the US is run by idiots. Thanks to maximum pressure and other idiotic decisions, we've made it almost impossible to be a moderate in the North Korean system. To say there's no trust is an understatement. 9/x

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

3 years

Parsing Bernie's piece on China carefully, there's not one thing in it that's incorrect.

Washington’s Dangerous New Consensus on China

Developing a mutually beneficial relationship with China will not be easy. But we can do better than a new Cold War.

www.foreignaffairs.com

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

I may be a Korea watcher, but I'm infinitely more concerned about nuclear instability between India and Pakistan right now

Ankit Panda

@nktpnd

6 years

A former Pakistani general on what course of action the country should take after #Balakot cited by @praveenswami : “Our response should be to escalate and push the envelope of hostilities so that nuclear war is a likely outcome.”

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

As much as security studies has obsessed with the Thucydides' Trap, I've never seen theories, models, or debates incorporating the plague of Athens in the second year of the Peloponnesian War. Could prove to be an important plot point 🙄

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

1 year

As a direct and predictable consequence of US “strategy,” China is setting up a de facto secondary sanctions regime from which US allies could suffer the most. This is what happens when you ride so hard on ideology and domestic politics that you misdiagnose the larger situation

Adam Tooze

@adam_tooze

1 year

"Trade officials across Asia were assessing the fallout from the latest escalation in the US-China technology battle after Beijing said it would impose curbs on exports of metals used in chipmaking."

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 months

Sure, but it’s worth stressing that your safety from a missile barrage will never be secured by one piece of technology or another—it will be secured by reducing the chances that another country has cause to fire missiles at you in the first place

Ken Moriyasu

@kenmoriyasu

6 months

Japanese officials watched how Israel fended off 99% of Iran's missiles and drones and are simulating how it may apply to the Indo-Pacific. "We are watching this with keen interest, especially how the ballistic missiles were shot down," one official said.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 years

I'm fairly productive as a scholar and a policy pundit, but the last few months, I can feel my capacity taking a hit. Amid a new dumpster fire each day, it's getting harder and harder to keep a clear head and just write

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

6 months

Watch this 6 minute video. Understand that our political possibilities are changing

More Perfect Union

@MorePerfectUS

6 months

BREAKING: Over 4,000 Volkswagen workers in Tennessee just joined the @UAW in a landslide. They’re the first American workers to win a union at a non-union car company in decades. This historic victory will change the auto industry, and the future of American labor.

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Van Jackson

@RealVanJackson

5 years

Xi Jinping is as full of shit as Trump

Estimates Show Wuhan Death Toll Far Higher Than Official Figure

Based on cremation figures, Wuhan residents estimate more than 40,000 have died, compared with an official toll of 2,535.

www.rfa.org

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