Van Jackson is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for International Policy.  He is also a senior lecturer in international relations at Victoria University of Wellington in New Zealand, and a senior research scholar at Security in Context where he co-directs the "Multipolarity, Great-Power Competition, and the Global South" project. He specializes in East Asian and Pacific security, critical analysis of defense issues, and the intersection of working-class interests with foreign policy.

Jackson is the author of the Un-Diplomatic Newsletter, as well as four books on international relations, including most recently Grand Strategies of the Left: The Foreign Policy of Progressive Worldmaking (Cambridge University Press, 2023) and Pacific Power Paradox: American Statecraft and the Fate of the Asian Peace (Yale University Press, 2023). His writing has been featured in wide-ranging outlets, including The Nation, New York Times, Washington Post, The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Dissent Magazine, and Current Affairs. A one-time "defense intellectual" turned peace strategist, Jackson previously served as a strategist in the Office of the Secretary of Defense during the Obama administration and is a U.S. Air Force veteran.