What it means that No Other Land won the Oscar for best documentary. The wicked politics of Ukraine's peace problems. Why China in't mussed about Trump's tariffs. The tradeoff between Taiwan's security and chip manufacturing in the US. And the growing problem of working-class homeless in America: You drive UberEats because of America's permanent war economy.

Watch Un-Diplomatic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

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Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

Explaining Europe's shift to strategic non-alignment. The false god of nuclear deterrence--why the nuclear triad is overrated. Making sense of the Pentagon's fake spending cuts. Privateer forces and American imperialism--the $25 billion Erik Prince proposal. Gen Z and Millennials can't afford a home. Expelling Canada from a Five-Eyes that nobody wants. Why great-power competition with China is still happening.

Subscribe to Un-Diplomatic on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@un-diplomaticpodcast

Subscribe to the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter: https://www.un-diplomatic.com/

Catch Un-Diplomatic on Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/undiplomaticpodcast

Disclaimer: The views expressed are those of the individuals and not of any institutions.

Free preview episode cross-over with the Bang-Bang Podcast. A madcap collage of American Berserk—that’s one way to describe David O. Russell’s Three Kings, and it’s exactly how Van, Lyle, and screenwriter Kevin Fox dive into it.

This two-part episode (the second installment drops shortly) unpacks the film’s wild genre mash-up: comic book absurdities collide with nods to Star Wars and Apocalypse Now, all while a grim commentary on U.S. militarism and society simmers underneath. The group digs into how the film disorients viewers with slapstick humor and sudden, brutal violence—like Mark Wahlberg’s character, whose torture by an Iraqi soldier (grieving the loss of his son to an American bombing) flips the script on American power. When Wahlberg’s character feebly defends U.S. actions as “maintaining stability in the Middle East,” the soldier shoves a CD-ROM in his mouth—a searing metaphor for the imposition of U.S. hegemony.

From cartoonish “United States of Freedom” patriotism to cow guts and milk truck explosions, Three Kings might not be the perfect vehicle for telling Americans—and all the privileged in the Global North—what they need to hear. But at times, it sure comes close.

Subscribe to the Bang-Bang Podcast to unlock the rest of this episode, Part II, and the entire Bang-Bang catalog: https://www.bangbangpod.com/p/part-i-three-kings-1999-w-kevin-fox

Kevin’s Website

“The Class of 1999: ‘Three Kings’,” by Matthew Goldenberg

“Three Kings: neocolonial Arab representation,” by Lila Kitaeff

“The Gulf War, Iraq and Western Liberalism,” by Peter Gowan

“The Gulf War’s Afterlife: Dilemmas, Missed Opportunities, and the Post-Cold War Order Undone,” by Samuel Helfont