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Title: Annie Jacobsen – Nuclear Armageddon in 2024 | SRS #120
Duration: 03:49:58
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Annie Jacobson welcome to the show it's
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delightful to be here thank you for
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having me I have been looking forward to
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this for so long we had to postpone it
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cuz you went and spoke at the EU
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Parliament I spoke in Brussels to
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members of the EU part parliament in the
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audience yes well I think uh it was well
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worth the wait and um actually I think
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it worked out better you know that we
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rescheduled for later because now we
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have more to talk about we do we have no
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shortage of things to talk about yeah we
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could we could probably go on for days
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here but um but everybody starts off
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with an introduction
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so let me know if I'm missing anything
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but Annie Jacobson American
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investigative journalist pullit surprise
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finalist and New York Times best-selling
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author you're an author of seven books
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and best known for your book so far Area
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51 in uncensored history of America's
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top secret military base you just
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released your seventh book called
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nuclear war a scenario WR and produces
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television programs including Tom clany
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Jack Ryan your books have been named
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best of the year and most anticipated by
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Outlets including the Washington Post
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USA Today Boston Globe Vanity Fair apple
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and Amazon your Princeton graduate and
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captain of the women's Varsity ice
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hockey team as we spoke about earlier
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and your wife and the mother of two
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sons yes am I missing anything that's
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that's about it well we got a lot to
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dive into I want to focus mostly on your
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new book nuclear war but
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um we have we got to knock a couple
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things out before we get in the weeds so
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I have a patreon account they're our top
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supporters they've been with us since
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the
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beginning I wouldn't be here if it
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wasn't for them and neither would you
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and uh so one of the perks that I offer
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them as they get to ask a question uh to
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each guest and so today's question is
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with today's attitude towards fake news
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do you think we will ever gain public
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knowledge of the topics covered by your
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books what a great opener question um
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I think of the idea of fake news as air
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quotes entwined with the idea of
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strategic
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deception and that is something I have
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written about in many of my books no
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doubt we will cover this but an
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interesting question there because what
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I the takeaway that I see is like how
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much should we trust what we are being
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told and that is certainly why I write
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books is to sort of uncover the these
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LGH held secrets and bring them into the
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light of day and so to answer the
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question specifically I think you want
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to go to as many sources as possible
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it's why I read all sides of the aisle I
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will read International papers I will
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watch different programs that people
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might otherwise think are in opposition
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of one another read things on the
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internet listen to the podcast and then
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come to your own opinion about things
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because that's that's interesting well
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one how much should we trust I would
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love to talk to you about that but you
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know I try to do that and I try to read
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both sides of the L do you get a lot of
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flak for
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that I used to but I don't anymore
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because I think that's very much part of
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my reporting style I no one knows how I
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vote no one needs to know how I vote um
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I write about podus in all of my books
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president of the United States and so
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that keeps me in the middle and it also
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allows me to have incredible
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conversations with all kinds of people
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and that I think keeps me comfortable
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with what I'm learning because I'm
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learning how to make my own judgments
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about things and I think America is
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getting Savvy to that as well man that's
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great to hear because
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I do that I think people probably know
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which way I vote but I don't I don't
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like to make it a point of any of my
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discussions I don't I like to hear both
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sides and sometimes when I'm especially
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when I'm critical to my own side man I
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really get a lot of flack but you know I
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think that's part of the problem that
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we're facing in the country right now is
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people have become and I've talked about
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this several times I think people have
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become
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they're not tied to their own ideas
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values and beliefs anymore they're tied
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to their political candidate and party
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and you know when you do that you're
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only getting what that side wants you to
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hear whether you like it or not you know
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and so it's just it's refreshing to hear
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somebody
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that that listens or pays attention to
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both sides and and gives a you know a
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bipartisan take on on whatever you're
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reporting on so thank you for doing that
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well also what comes to mind is there's
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people talk a lot about tribalism right
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like and there's tribe and then there's
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tribal you want to have a tribe you want
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to have people that you know have your
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back and usually those people the the
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tribe the true tribe right they actually
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are perfectly fine with you having
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opinions at least this is my take my
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tribe is oh Annie with her opinion about
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that or Annie with her interest in that
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they're fine with it you know they might
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not like that or do that or think that
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but that's the tribe tribalism is like
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that's where I think it becomes a little
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bit dangerous and fraught because then
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you're supposed to adopt really a party
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line you have to have an opinion about
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this BEC and that that just puts you in
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a really awkward position because I
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think naturally we're all such creatures
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of
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multiple you know multiple ideas and
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multiple ways in directions in which we
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want to head and it doesn't have they
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don't have to be mutually exclusive yeah
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yeah you know it's it's
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it's weird times we're in right well
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there are weird times but you know I am
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a historian also and so all of my books
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cover you know going back National
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Security issues to World War II and
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we've always we if we're talking about
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Americans have always been tribal have
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always had weird times so I'm not as
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pessimistic about how terrible the times
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are right now because I've read so much
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history about how terrible the times
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have always been yeah it's kind of how
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you want to see it do you find it do you
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find times today different than some of
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the stuff that you've studied in the
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past I I am well one thing about me is
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I'm always looking for the
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similarities and then understanding the
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differences but I find thing I'm a I'm
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an optimist at heart even though I write
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about these incredibly dark Grim topics
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I think that like I'm a pragmatist right
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like know the facts don't be afraid of
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them but the optimism of it all comes
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from from being able to see certainly as
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I get older um and I and I write more
(00:08:06)
books and I learn more things and I
(00:08:07)
interview more interesting people oh we
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are more
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similar than different both as people
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and
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also culturally through his like through
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the different decades and generations of
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modern America
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interesting how much you brought up how
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much should we trust M how much how do
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we even know what to trust
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anymore well I look at things
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specifically head-on so I'm uh it would
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be I would be better to your
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listeners and my readers to deal with
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like specifics than big generalizations
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I can certainly make big generalizations
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but what I think about war and weapons
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and US National Security and secrets
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because that is what I write about but
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in terms of operation
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um the specificity is important it's
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like wait is Area 51 really that were
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the Nazi scientists really that uh is
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the DARPA program about biohybrids
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really that you know I can speak to them
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specifically because I think that again
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I'm going to give you the information
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that I know and then people can decide
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what they think because the
(00:09:23)
takeaway is incredibly can want me to
(00:09:26)
give you an example yes please so this
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is the best example I can think of a
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point of view when I wrote a book called
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Operation Paperclip which is about the
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Nazi scientist who came to
(00:09:37)
America for to build our weapons
(00:09:40)
programs after World War II so they were
(00:09:43)
former Nazis MH um and this book
(00:09:47)
published in 2013 2014 back in a time
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when a journalist like me could actually
(00:09:54)
appear on Fox News and CNN on the same
(00:09:58)
night you almost can't do that anymore
(00:10:00)
yeah right they just don't the Royal
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they don't let you but you could then
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and I would go on to the let's just call
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them the conservative and the liberal
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right so I'd go onto a conservative
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organizations's media program and they
(00:10:14)
would
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say oh my God Annie Jacobson thank you
(00:10:18)
so much for writing Operation Paperclip
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I mean you showed us that these guys
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were these terrible Nazis they were
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odious etc etc but man did we need them
(00:10:30)
to come to the United States or
(00:10:31)
otherwise we'd all be speaking Russian
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now so thank you for writing this book
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okay then I would go over to the really
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liberal stations maybe even the
(00:10:41)
Holocaust Museum type scenarios and they
(00:10:44)
would say to me oh my God Annie Jacobson
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thank you so much for writing this book
(00:10:49)
Operation Paperclip you showed us in no
(00:10:51)
uncertain terms these horrible evil
(00:10:56)
Criminal Minds should have been hung at
(00:10:58)
nurburg they never should have come here
(00:11:01)
you make that so clear thank you so much
(00:11:03)
for writing this book
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interesting you take away they read the
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same
(00:11:10)
book they're they took
(00:11:13)
away the a point of view based on the
(00:11:17)
same set of facts and so when I can
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understand that about people and there's
(00:11:23)
no I suppose one group isn't right and
(00:11:26)
one group isn't wrong and when you can
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look at it like that
(00:11:30)
and maybe this also comes into play of
(00:11:32)
you being we talked about this earlier
(00:11:33)
like when you're a new parent versus my
(00:11:37)
kids are college aged right the wisdom
(00:11:40)
that comes with parenting I believe if
(00:11:43)
you want to be an
(00:11:44)
optimist is that you learn how to help
(00:11:48)
your children understand that different
(00:11:51)
points of view are fine same sets of
(00:11:55)
facts that's great advice that's great
(00:11:58)
advice parent to parent yeah thank you
(00:12:01)
thank you but um we want to talk about
(00:12:05)
actually I forgot something I almost
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sometimes I forget not very often but
(00:12:09)
everybody everybody starts off with a
(00:12:13)
gift okay there you
(00:12:17)
go performing Vig enhancing gummy bear
(00:12:21)
gummy bears they're not performance
(00:12:23)
there are legal in all 50 states amazing
(00:12:26)
they're definitely legal in California
(00:12:28)
so you're you're cleared hot to bring
(00:12:31)
them back it's just G amazing the TSA
(00:12:33)
will not you know pull me over they
(00:12:35)
might try to steal them but uh they' be
(00:12:37)
like wow that's sha Ryan that's right
(00:12:39)
that's right great fantastic you're
(00:12:42)
amazing keep going no is it oh no that's
(00:12:46)
good oh no this this is very important
(00:12:48)
some stickers yeah put it on my car
(00:12:51)
there there you go with my Mammoth
(00:12:54)
Mountain sticker nice and the Sha Ryan
(00:12:56)
Show there you go there you go I have
(00:12:59)
had a macv SOG sticker on my car for a
(00:13:01)
while did you really I did and it I got
(00:13:04)
some Hogs yeah that's a I've never even
(00:13:07)
seen a Mac v a Mac uh I'm going to send
(00:13:09)
you one thank you so much and here's
(00:13:12)
here's something for
(00:13:13)
you oh man that's a that's a billy W
(00:13:17)
coin and um we'll get I'm sure we'll get
(00:13:20)
into surprise kill vanish after nuclear
(00:13:22)
war but they kind of entwine all my
(00:13:24)
books in twine but Billy was perhaps the
(00:13:27)
most legendary
(00:13:30)
CIA operator
(00:13:34)
Singleton in the agency's history began
(00:13:37)
his operations when Eisenhower was
(00:13:39)
President that's incredible thank you
(00:13:41)
just died yeah he just died when did he
(00:13:45)
die he died April a year ago oh man so
(00:13:49)
yeah so a year exact almost wow well
(00:13:52)
thank you very much I can't wait to
(00:13:55)
speak about him in a little bit but um
(00:13:59)
nuclear war MH so your new book is about
(00:14:03)
a nuclear war
(00:14:05)
scenario and you know you talk to all
(00:14:10)
these I mean you get access to people
(00:14:12)
that nobody really gets access to I read
(00:14:15)
that Leon Panetta how are you getting
(00:14:18)
access to former SEF former director of
(00:14:23)
CIA um and all the rest of his resume
(00:14:26)
which I'm not I I could I could go on
(00:14:28)
here but
(00:14:30)
people don't get access to figures like
(00:14:33)
that how are you gaining access to
(00:14:36)
former
(00:14:37)
directors what's the saying the harder I
(00:14:40)
work the luckier I get there's that part
(00:14:43)
of it uh this is not my first rodeo so
(00:14:47)
seven books I do find that when I reach
(00:14:52)
out to people to ask them if I can
(00:14:55)
interview them and
(00:14:56)
I you know say my creds some sometimes
(00:14:59)
they say oh I'm familiar with your work
(00:15:02)
I've read and they name a book okay so
(00:15:05)
that helps um but I think in principle
(00:15:10)
the
(00:15:11)
greatest
(00:15:13)
contribution that I can put on the table
(00:15:16)
and it's perhaps why some of these
(00:15:18)
really you know significant people and
(00:15:22)
when I say that like they have a lot of
(00:15:24)
information to share that is powerful
(00:15:27)
and that the public benefits from
(00:15:29)
knowing
(00:15:30)
like Panetta um it's that objectivity
(00:15:34)
card that I have which I believe is so
(00:15:36)
important I'm trained as an old school
(00:15:38)
journalist you are here to report the
(00:15:40)
news down the middle of the aisle you
(00:15:42)
should not have an opinion okay when you
(00:15:44)
write long form books maybe at the end
(00:15:47)
you kind of give your opinion a little
(00:15:48)
bit or you might suggest it so that
(00:15:50)
there's something to think about for the
(00:15:52)
reader but for the most part tell the
(00:15:55)
you know relay the facts I mean the
(00:15:57)
origins of Journalism come from the idea
(00:16:00)
that anyone a high school student should
(00:16:03)
be able to understand what you're
(00:16:05)
writing about mhm and I that's how I
(00:16:07)
write you know I write for the regular
(00:16:11)
old people I know I'm read by the
(00:16:13)
generals and Admirals at the Pentagon
(00:16:15)
because they tell me so but I just write
(00:16:17)
for regular
(00:16:20)
people you know I've seen a lot during
(00:16:22)
my time as a Navy SEAL and a CIA
(00:16:25)
contractor and I've learned even more
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hosting this show the one thing I can
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now nice nice you had an interesting
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fact
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here I want to just kick it off with
(00:18:57)
this a full scale nuclear exchange
(00:19:00)
between the US and Russia will likely
(00:19:03)
kill some 5 billion
(00:19:06)
people can you yeah how did you come up
(00:19:10)
with 5 billion and what does that
(00:19:11)
scenario look like and and keep in mind
(00:19:15)
nuclear war a scenario is a nonfiction
(00:19:20)
book it presents a hypothetical
(00:19:22)
situation in the future that is based on
(00:19:24)
fact so the 5 billion figure for example
(00:19:27)
is not my fact that is a fact from
(00:19:30)
Professor Brian tun and a group of
(00:19:33)
scientists that he led reporting on this
(00:19:36)
subject for decades in their newest
(00:19:39)
paper for nature magazine uh nature food
(00:19:42)
actually based on climate modeling
(00:19:45)
systems of what would happen after
(00:19:46)
nuclear winter and so the book takes you
(00:19:49)
from nuclear launch to nuclear winter oh
(00:19:52)
God five billion people are dead after
(00:19:54)
nuclear winter but a key haunting
(00:19:59)
line that was said to me that really
(00:20:01)
allowed me to see the book clearly
(00:20:04)
because when you're you know writing
(00:20:05)
books as a process you're reporting
(00:20:07)
you're interviewing people you're
(00:20:09)
figuring out how your chapters are going
(00:20:11)
to lay out when I did an interview with
(00:20:14)
the former stratcom
(00:20:17)
Commander General keler and we were
(00:20:20)
discussing what a nuclear exchange
(00:20:22)
between Russia and America would look
(00:20:23)
like and he said to me the world could
(00:20:26)
end in the next couple of hours what is
(00:20:29)
stratcon okay great question and how
(00:20:33)
great that we don't need to know
(00:20:34)
everything that's how right um strategic
(00:20:38)
command is the most important combatant
(00:20:41)
command you know combatant commands
(00:20:43)
they're what 11 now
(00:20:45)
right um it's the most important
(00:20:48)
combatant command that almost nobody has
(00:20:51)
ever heard of outside of strategic
(00:20:54)
command outside of the military
(00:20:56)
structure it is the command commander of
(00:20:59)
strategic command is in charge of the
(00:21:01)
nukes he's in charge of them he's the
(00:21:05)
steward of them there's 150,000
(00:21:09)
employees beneath him in his chain of
(00:21:11)
command the president when the president
(00:21:14)
needs to launch nuclear weapons he
(00:21:17)
communicates with the stratcom commander
(00:21:19)
that's how important the stratcom
(00:21:21)
commander is no good and you got access
(00:21:24)
to him I did and you guys had a
(00:21:26)
discussion about this we did how did
(00:21:28)
that
(00:21:31)
start you know dear General keer I mean
(00:21:35)
the actual discussion oh the actual
(00:21:38)
discussion with
(00:21:41)
his Origins like very much it's what I
(00:21:44)
relate to about your podcast like his
(00:21:46)
Origins like how did you wind up the
(00:21:49)
commander of stratcom right and like he
(00:21:52)
wanted to
(00:21:53)
be uh a
(00:21:56)
musician you know so it's like there's
(00:21:59)
this idea that you wind up stratcom
(00:22:02)
commander and then you begin with
(00:22:05)
people's origin stories and how and and
(00:22:08)
how they are as a person and you know I
(00:22:11)
recall him telling me about how he was
(00:22:13)
tending his garden before our interview
(00:22:17)
now this is not all in the book because
(00:22:19)
unlike a podcast I interview people for
(00:22:22)
a certain amount of time and then I kind
(00:22:23)
of condense down what is I'm going to
(00:22:27)
say about them because I'm driving The
(00:22:29)
Narrative for the reader mhm but the um
(00:22:34)
discussions I think begin
(00:22:37)
with human questions and then you can
(00:22:40)
get
(00:22:41)
to uh what's important and what you're
(00:22:44)
after and and and also like you I'm I'm
(00:22:46)
very transparent about what I'm after
(00:22:49)
right so I I do not like the idea of
(00:22:51)
gotcha journalism I think it is
(00:22:54)
incredibly unhelpful I think it's at the
(00:22:58)
verge of dangerous whenever I read a
(00:23:00)
piece in the in any of the Legacy Media
(00:23:04)
that like sort of is a hit piece against
(00:23:06)
someone I cringe I think of that person
(00:23:11)
you know opening up themselves to a
(00:23:14)
reporter um and then being you know
(00:23:19)
presented in a way that perhaps they
(00:23:21)
certainly didn't intend yeah I think
(00:23:24)
that is I cringe and I and I actually
(00:23:27)
feel for the journalist who stuck doing
(00:23:29)
that you know because I think that it
(00:23:31)
just takes you down uh a real a real
(00:23:35)
path of mistrust and sub suspicion
(00:23:37)
anyways I'm digressing I tell my sources
(00:23:40)
right up front what I'm doing I told
(00:23:41)
every single one of them I am writing
(00:23:43)
this book called nuclear war a scenario
(00:23:45)
you know and I also asked them is this
(00:23:48)
fear mongering because that was the the
(00:23:51)
question in my own mind that led a lot
(00:23:54)
of the reporting Sean what happens in
(00:23:57)
this book is like everybody dies and
(00:23:59)
they die in the most horrific ways I
(00:24:01)
describe to you in appalling detail what
(00:24:04)
happens to humans you know in a nuclear
(00:24:07)
flash I wanted people to know how
(00:24:11)
horrific this concept is and I told my
(00:24:13)
sources that and they were forthcoming
(00:24:17)
with me which says so much about nuclear
(00:24:20)
weapons interesting what how did I mean
(00:24:24)
where did the interest in this come from
(00:24:26)
are you worried about a nuclear war I am
(00:24:29)
now um I
(00:24:32)
mean all of my books touch upon nuclear
(00:24:36)
weapons because they
(00:24:38)
all cover American history since World
(00:24:43)
War II and in every one of my books so
(00:24:48)
imagine a 100 plus sources for each
(00:24:51)
book how many of those people told
(00:24:55)
me with deep Pride Annie I did what I
(00:25:00)
did to prevent nuclear World War III
(00:25:04)
right so a lot of our really dark dirty
(00:25:07)
oper even the cia's most dastardly sort
(00:25:11)
of dark-hearted operations you could say
(00:25:14)
in the 50s and 60s people I interviewed
(00:25:16)
who worked on those or the very
(00:25:19)
non-kinetic operations like in Area 51
(00:25:21)
which deals with reconnaissance missions
(00:25:23)
you know spying on the Soviet Union to
(00:25:25)
try and find out what's really going on
(00:25:28)
there instead of speculating all of
(00:25:30)
these people a majority of them said to
(00:25:32)
me I did what I did to prevent nuclear
(00:25:35)
World War II and so in the previous
(00:25:39)
administration former president Trump
(00:25:41)
with the rhetoric about you know fire
(00:25:44)
and fury and against the North Korean
(00:25:45)
leader I found that like shocking and
(00:25:48)
rather
(00:25:49)
unpresidential right because there had
(00:25:51)
been a precedent not to threaten people
(00:25:53)
with nuclear weapons it's dangerous it
(00:25:55)
really is that's not an opinion that's a
(00:25:58)
fact
(00:26:01)
um I like many people began to wonder
(00:26:05)
what if deterrence failed deterrent just
(00:26:07)
another synonym for
(00:26:10)
prevention what if it fails because all
(00:26:13)
of nuclear war fighting deterrence is
(00:26:16)
predicated on this psychological
(00:26:18)
phenomena you who are so interested in
(00:26:20)
the mind right it is a psychological
(00:26:23)
phenomena deterrence will hold
(00:26:26)
deterrence will hold deterrence will
(00:26:28)
hold old then you have a quote from a
(00:26:32)
deputy director at stratcom saying if
(00:26:34)
deterrence fails it all
(00:26:40)
unravels that unraveling is this book
(00:26:43)
well it must be a very realistic
(00:26:46)
scenario if you're
(00:26:48)
speaking how do I say this
(00:26:51)
to you're speaking in Brussels and there
(00:26:54)
happen to be members of the EU
(00:26:56)
Parliament listening so let's go over
(00:26:59)
the scenario what do you think would
(00:27:01)
trigger
(00:27:02)
this a nuclear war could be triggered by
(00:27:06)
any nuclear launch at the United States
(00:27:10)
period right so there are now nine
(00:27:12)
nuclear armed nations in my scenario I
(00:27:15)
chose a rogue launch from a ballistic
(00:27:19)
missile an intercontinental ballistic
(00:27:22)
missile just like it sounds it can
(00:27:25)
travel from one continent to the other
(00:27:28)
that's
(00:27:29)
ICBM um in 30 minutes launch to Target
(00:27:35)
30 minutes that's the farthest Target 30
(00:27:39)
minutes 33 minutes is actually from
(00:27:40)
Pyongyang 26 minutes and 40 seconds from
(00:27:44)
Moscow to to uh the East Coast this is
(00:27:47)
specificity it doesn't change all the
(00:27:50)
new weapon systems that doesn't change
(00:27:52)
that is what it was when they were
(00:27:53)
invented this is just basic physics it
(00:27:55)
goes you know up and over the Earth and
(00:27:59)
down okay and so then once you know that
(00:28:04)
wait that's all it takes this is not a
(00:28:06)
911 scenario where you know someone
(00:28:09)
Whispers in the president's ears sir the
(00:28:12)
planes have hit the buildings it's not
(00:28:14)
that if you're me reporting this
(00:28:17)
suddenly you learn that the United
(00:28:20)
States has not only spent trillions of
(00:28:22)
dollars creating this vast arsenal of
(00:28:23)
nuclear weapons but defense systems to
(00:28:26)
un you know to survey other nations so
(00:28:28)
we have a system of satellites in space
(00:28:31)
in geosync one/ tenth of the way to the
(00:28:34)
Moon a satellite the size of a school
(00:28:38)
bus
(00:28:39)
parked over North Korea watching
(00:28:43)
watching watching watching so when
(00:28:45)
launch happens we see it in under one
(00:28:50)
second that's why my scenario goes by
(00:28:53)
seconds and
(00:28:55)
minutes it's 72 minutes this book wow
(00:29:00)
three acts 72 minutes 24 minutes 24
(00:29:03)
minutes 24 minutes then you got the
(00:29:06)
setup at the beginning and nuclear
(00:29:07)
winter at the end interesting real quick
(00:29:10)
before so here's what I'd like to do is
(00:29:12)
dive into the scenario and then talk
(00:29:15)
about some of the defenses that we have
(00:29:17)
MH talk about what maybe you weren't
(00:29:21)
maybe your sources weren't able to tell
(00:29:23)
you you know I'd like to go maybe a
(00:29:26)
little more into the scenario but
(00:29:29)
real quick who are the nine
(00:29:32)
Nations us
(00:29:35)
Russia
(00:29:37)
China UK
(00:29:40)
France Pakistan
(00:29:43)
India Israel North
(00:29:46)
Korea Iran's not on there yet Iran is
(00:29:49)
not on there yet right on good for us
(00:29:52)
but who would you out of those Nations
(00:29:54)
who would you be the most concerned
(00:29:56)
about give me your top three North Korea
(00:29:59)
North Korea North Korea and that's how I
(00:30:01)
begin the scenario it's a launch from
(00:30:03)
North Korea
(00:30:05)
um one of the most interesting people I
(00:30:08)
interviewed for this book okay th this
(00:30:11)
on the cover here is a thermonuclear
(00:30:14)
bomb called Ivy Mike this is the first
(00:30:17)
thermonuclear bomb ever exploded in 1952
(00:30:21)
in the Marshall Islands was a test okay
(00:30:24)
Hiroshima was 15 kilotons
(00:30:28)
this is
(00:30:30)
10.4
(00:30:32)
megatons wow okay think about that scale
(00:30:36)
this weapon takes a nuclear an atomic
(00:30:39)
bomb acts as its triggering mechanism
(00:30:41)
inside the
(00:30:43)
bomb okay I interviewed the man who drew
(00:30:48)
the plans for this bomb no kidding 93
(00:30:52)
now Richard
(00:30:54)
Garwin talk about classified his
(00:30:57)
information was so classified it was all
(00:31:00)
no one knew he even drew the plans to
(00:31:02)
the bomb he was 24 years old when he
(00:31:03)
drew them are you
(00:31:05)
serious does he regret drawing him I
(00:31:09)
asked him that
(00:31:10)
question I
(00:31:12)
said do you wish that you hadn't drawn
(00:31:16)
the plans for the thermonuclear bomb and
(00:31:18)
he said to me after a long
(00:31:20)
pause I wish they couldn't have been
(00:31:26)
drawn wow and I mean we could do a whole
(00:31:29)
podcast on what that might mean yeah
(00:31:32)
right does it mean Russia would have
(00:31:34)
drawn them anyways does it means right
(00:31:38)
but interviewing
(00:31:40)
Garwin who advised every president since
(00:31:43)
then on nuclear
(00:31:45)
weapons you asked about why North Korea
(00:31:48)
is like the most
(00:31:50)
dangerous
(00:31:52)
Garwin so sharp and you know in his we
(00:31:55)
did all these zooms during covid
(00:31:58)
um and he presented when I asked him
(00:32:03)
what's the what's the biggest threat he
(00:32:06)
said a Madman sort of Mad King logic is
(00:32:09)
what he called it a mad man with a
(00:32:11)
nuclear
(00:32:13)
Arsenal and he said this French term
(00:32:16)
which is
(00:32:19)
called after me the
(00:32:23)
flood okay right which is like if you
(00:32:28)
have have a Mad King
(00:32:30)
leader um who doesn't care what happens
(00:32:35)
you know let the let it all flood that's
(00:32:38)
what Garwin told me he was most afraid
(00:32:40)
of and so that made me interpret that he
(00:32:43)
was speaking about North Korea wow
(00:32:46)
because North Korea does not play by the
(00:32:48)
rules I mean it's very tricky we could
(00:32:50)
you know rules of nuclear warfare rules
(00:32:52)
of nuclear testing we all armed nuclear
(00:32:56)
armed Nations
(00:32:59)
inform their
(00:33:01)
adversaries of their nuclear tests like
(00:33:05)
informally formally through you know
(00:33:07)
different ways but not North
(00:33:10)
Korea they they just
(00:33:13)
launch and when you learn what I have
(00:33:15)
learned and you can learn in from
(00:33:17)
reading this book what happens inside
(00:33:20)
nuclear command and control inside those
(00:33:22)
nuclear bunkers at the Pentagon beneath
(00:33:25)
stratcom in Cheyenne Mountain the first
(00:33:27)
100 50 seconds after a ballistic missile
(00:33:30)
launches when the satellite in space
(00:33:32)
sees the launch it sees the hot rocket
(00:33:35)
exhaust from its incredible sensor
(00:33:37)
1/10th of the weight of the moon sees it
(00:33:40)
for the next 150
(00:33:42)
seconds US nuclear command and control
(00:33:45)
all those assigned to the job are trying
(00:33:46)
to figure out where that ballistic
(00:33:48)
missile is
(00:33:51)
going it's
(00:33:55)
like I'm glad you brought that up cuz
(00:33:57)
that's what I was going to ask so the
(00:33:58)
satellites Advanced enough to know to to
(00:34:01)
pick up on the trajectory and where it's
(00:34:04)
headed and how fast so in seconds the
(00:34:09)
data goes to the satellite and then it's
(00:34:12)
relayed to command centers in the United
(00:34:16)
States there's a facility called the
(00:34:19)
Aerospace data facility in Colorado that
(00:34:22)
was only declass its existence was only
(00:34:24)
Declassified in 2008 okay
(00:34:28)
and that
(00:34:30)
facility then and others NSA you know
(00:34:34)
there's a numerous intelligence agencies
(00:34:37)
Military Intelligence agencies that are
(00:34:39)
then processing that data this is
(00:34:40)
happening in seconds and interpreting
(00:34:43)
the trajectory of the missile launch so
(00:34:46)
I show a map in the book that Garwin
(00:34:48)
from the and uh professor ameritus at
(00:34:51)
MIT Ted postal Drew and then let me you
(00:34:55)
know render and put in the book that
(00:34:57)
shows so you can see a missile launching
(00:34:59)
it's a map and then it shows the missile
(00:35:02)
and it shows their Centric Rings it's
(00:35:04)
like at 10 seconds this is where it
(00:35:07)
might be going at 20 so Guam is in One
(00:35:10)
Direction Moscow is in that direction
(00:35:12)
and then you realize if it's going in
(00:35:14)
that direction San Francisco East Coast
(00:35:18)
Hawaii okay so as the seconds tick away
(00:35:22)
the data is determining where that is
(00:35:25)
headed so this is almost like a it's
(00:35:28)
like one of hurricanes inbound except a
(00:35:31)
lot faster it just Narrows in Narrows in
(00:35:34)
Narrows in Narrows
(00:35:35)
in and and by
(00:35:38)
150
(00:35:40)
seconds stratcom or you know the
(00:35:44)
Peterson Air Force Base the space force
(00:35:46)
the Aerospace data they know this
(00:35:49)
ballistic missile is headed toward the
(00:35:51)
United States 150 seconds normally what
(00:35:55)
North Korea does is send the satellite
(00:35:57)
it's uh they're sending it up to space
(00:35:59)
to drop a satellite so that's one
(00:36:01)
different trajectory or they launch into
(00:36:04)
the Sea of
(00:36:05)
Japan so in within seconds the the
(00:36:09)
facilities know it's going into the Sea
(00:36:11)
of Japan everybody can relax now but in
(00:36:14)
my scenario at
(00:36:16)
1502 boom Oh my God it's coming to the
(00:36:21)
east coast of the United States and that
(00:36:25)
is when everything kicks off because the
(00:36:27)
next step is to inform the president now
(00:36:29)
there must be a secondary confirmation
(00:36:32)
of that nuclear missile on its way to
(00:36:34)
the United States before the president
(00:36:36)
launches a
(00:36:38)
Counterattack that secondary
(00:36:40)
confirmation takes 8 and 9 Minutes these
(00:36:42)
are like nerd things that I figured out
(00:36:44)
in the book and present them to you
(00:36:46)
hopefully in this incredibly dramatic
(00:36:49)
manner that you
(00:36:50)
realize oh my God once a ballistic
(00:36:54)
missile launch happens nuclear war
(00:36:56)
begins because a ballistic missile
(00:36:59)
cannot be redirected or
(00:37:03)
recalled none of them not even our own
(00:37:07)
none none and once President Reagan okay
(00:37:12)
I mean the lack of information the
(00:37:15)
president has about nuclear war is
(00:37:19)
astonishing really president ra and by
(00:37:23)
the way they have presidential so
(00:37:25)
Authority so only the president can
(00:37:27)
launch nuclear war
(00:37:28)
only the president he doesn't ask
(00:37:30)
permission of anyone not his seaf not
(00:37:32)
his chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
(00:37:34)
Staff not the Congress certainly not the
(00:37:37)
Congress this is all happening in six
(00:37:39)
minutes president's in charge and
(00:37:42)
presidents most presidents Leon Panetta
(00:37:45)
confirmed this with me he was the white
(00:37:47)
house chief of staff under Clinton right
(00:37:49)
and he said that many presidents just
(00:37:51)
don't want to know because that again
(00:37:54)
the Paradox of nuclear war deterrence
(00:37:56)
will hold don't want to know what they
(00:37:59)
don't want to know about nuclear
(00:38:03)
war that's
(00:38:05)
frightening So Reagan mistakenly said
(00:38:08)
during a press conference and I think it
(00:38:10)
was
(00:38:11)
1983 that our submarine launched
(00:38:14)
ballistic missiles can be recalled they
(00:38:17)
can't he's the commanderin-chief mhm he
(00:38:21)
didn't
(00:38:22)
know do you think it's possible
(00:38:26)
that technology we have technology to
(00:38:29)
recall them but they're
(00:38:32)
noty it's
(00:38:35)
impossible and but I love the
(00:38:37)
astonishment with which
(00:38:40)
people Express themselves when they
(00:38:43)
learn these details
(00:38:45)
because it is astonishing and I had that
(00:38:49)
same experience even knowing what I know
(00:38:51)
I know so many other things about
(00:38:52)
nuclear weapons from different points of
(00:38:55)
view having having written a number of
(00:38:58)
books that deal with people who dealt
(00:38:59)
with nuclear weapons but I never knew
(00:39:02)
the command and control ticking clock
(00:39:05)
scenario hypothetically in the future
(00:39:08)
until reporting this book and I was I
(00:39:12)
was shocked at everything I
(00:39:13)
learned shocked at everything I learned
(00:39:16)
and it's such bait from wait a minute
(00:39:19)
they really can't be redirected or
(00:39:20)
recalled
(00:39:22)
nope wow I did not know that I did not
(00:39:26)
know that so so you're saying within 6
(00:39:30)
minutes
(00:39:32)
of something being launched towards us
(00:39:35)
we're going to we have right we make a
(00:39:37)
decision whether we're responding and
(00:39:40)
sending one at them or not yes so think
(00:39:43)
about it this way when the nuclear if it
(00:39:46)
just takes approximately 30
(00:39:49)
minutes the concept that has been put
(00:39:51)
into play over Decades of strategy of
(00:39:55)
how to fight a nuclear war is is
(00:39:59)
that the president must make a
(00:40:02)
Counterattack
(00:40:05)
decision before those nukes
(00:40:08)
land so this is all going to happen
(00:40:10)
without the public ever having any idea
(00:40:12)
Okay the reason is because no one ever
(00:40:15)
thought of having a nuclear war where
(00:40:17)
there's like one nuclear missile the
(00:40:20)
Rogue launch off of gwin's worry is how
(00:40:25)
my scenario starts and then you see all
(00:40:28)
these things go wrong the war fighting
(00:40:32)
concepts of nuclear war were built with
(00:40:34)
like Russia's going to send a thousand
(00:40:38)
missiles the motherload it's often
(00:40:41)
called and so a strategy kicks in called
(00:40:45)
use them or lose them very simple to
(00:40:48)
understand right if we don't use them
(00:40:52)
we're going to lose them to the Russian
(00:40:53)
incoming missiles and so that's why the
(00:40:57)
president
(00:40:58)
is positioned to make a Counter
(00:41:04)
Strike within a window of time before
(00:41:07)
the missiles
(00:41:10)
hit so basically so they have 6 minutes
(00:41:13)
why is the number 6 minutes so okay 30
(00:41:17)
minutes is the is
(00:41:19)
the nuclear launch gets detected in
(00:41:23)
let's say 150 seconds so we got 2 and A2
(00:41:26)
minutes gone all radical gone
(00:41:27)
everybody's now getting ready to prepare
(00:41:29)
the president at the same time the long
(00:41:31)
range uh ground radar systems that are
(00:41:34)
going to give that secondary
(00:41:35)
confirmation which exist in multiple
(00:41:37)
places around the world I write about
(00:41:39)
them quickly in the book in this
(00:41:41)
scenario if the missiles coming from
(00:41:42)
North Korea it's going to be the ground
(00:41:44)
station in Alaska they have this massive
(00:41:47)
radar of a picture of it in the book
(00:41:49)
it's like five stories tall it's just
(00:41:51)
sitting there waiting to see Over the
(00:41:54)
Horizon that will happen at 8 or n
(00:41:56)
minutes in the the meantime they have to
(00:41:58)
get ready to brief the president people
(00:42:00)
I have interviewed had to brief the
(00:42:02)
president when we had false alarms okay
(00:42:05)
so it's like really this
(00:42:07)
intense you know suddenly everything is
(00:42:10)
move the decision tree unfolds in this
(00:42:12)
radical way and while the individual
(00:42:16)
leaders the stratcom commander the SEF
(00:42:18)
the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of
(00:42:19)
stuff are getting ready to brief the
(00:42:21)
president they're waiting on the
(00:42:22)
secondary confirmation but once the
(00:42:24)
president is told so there is a it's
(00:42:27)
called the red the red clock is running
(00:42:29)
and that clock in the Strategic command
(00:42:32)
headquarters has s you know is ticking
(00:42:34)
down until the missiles going to strike
(00:42:36)
the in this case Washington DC now they
(00:42:39)
have to get the blue clock running the
(00:42:42)
blue clock is the
(00:42:44)
Counterattack okay so you send general
(00:42:48)
heighton the former another former
(00:42:50)
stratcom Commander during the fire and
(00:42:52)
fury rhetoric of trump did an interview
(00:42:56)
with Barbara star from CNN and she asked
(00:42:58)
him directly about this like what do we
(00:43:00)
do if they launch it us and heighten
(00:43:02)
said if they launch one missile we
(00:43:06)
launch one if they launch two we launch
(00:43:08)
two but if you dig a little bit deeper
(00:43:12)
as I did and it's all soured in the book
(00:43:14)
when you're reading you if you ever
(00:43:16)
wonder how does how does she know this
(00:43:18)
you can go to the back and you can see
(00:43:20)
the notes of the documents where it
(00:43:21)
comes from so the Deep Digger the deeper
(00:43:24)
digging revealed that if North Korea
(00:43:27)
launches just one missile at us we're
(00:43:28)
going to launch
(00:43:29)
82 in response 82 82 I
(00:43:38)
mean seems a little excessive uh you
(00:43:42)
know it's called escalate to deescalate
(00:43:45)
when you look at the size of Korea but
(00:43:48)
um I mean would it take how many how
(00:43:51)
many missiles would it take to just
(00:43:53)
completely obliterate Korea 82 it would
(00:43:56)
take 80 it would actually take 82 mes no
(00:43:59)
no you're absolutely right but there is
(00:44:02)
a sense of Overkill literally and
(00:44:04)
figuratively and you know this from your
(00:44:06)
operating days that like you know it's
(00:44:08)
called it's like go big or go home I
(00:44:11)
mean the idea it's there's a concept
(00:44:15)
with the president that was explained to
(00:44:17)
me by one of the President Obama's
(00:44:20)
National Security advisers named John
(00:44:22)
wolv Thal who sat in the room with the
(00:44:24)
president when this was being negotiated
(00:44:25)
okay so so there's a policy in the
(00:44:28)
United States called launch on warning
(00:44:30)
and this exists okay which this is the
(00:44:34)
this is the idea this is the president
(00:44:36)
has the authority that if the missiles
(00:44:37)
are coming he launches MH we launch on
(00:44:39)
warning we do not wait until we are
(00:44:43)
hit and wolf stall explained to me that
(00:44:47)
what that has to do with what's is
(00:44:49)
what's called a
(00:44:50)
damage Li damage limitation
(00:44:53)
responsibility okay everything has like
(00:44:56)
a a term that is difficult to come out
(00:44:59)
of the mouth it's why they have acronyms
(00:45:01)
for them but this is pointing to your a
(00:45:04)
why do we have to launch 82 questions so
(00:45:06)
the president now has a responsibility
(00:45:09)
to limit further damage that's what his
(00:45:13)
military is telling him so a strike with
(00:45:17)
a one Megaton thermonuclear weapon
(00:45:19)
against Washington DC that I describe it
(00:45:22)
kills 2 million people Sean
(00:45:24)
mhm that that that never mind that the
(00:45:27)
things are about to really take off it
(00:45:30)
destroys the Beating Heart of American
(00:45:35)
government that is like the response is
(00:45:38)
82 nuclear weapons the damage limitation
(00:45:42)
responsibility because all the military
(00:45:45)
stratcom is thinking at that point is
(00:45:47)
you're going to let another nuke come in
(00:45:51)
and so the
(00:45:53)
82 we learn
(00:45:55)
from the those the scientists and the
(00:45:58)
analysts who have spent a lot of time
(00:45:59)
looking at this is how to limit the
(00:46:02)
damage 82 nuclear weapons could possibly
(00:46:05)
take out not just like turn the entire
(00:46:07)
country into a furnace but obliterate
(00:46:10)
their nuclear command and control their
(00:46:12)
ability to launch more nuclear weapons
(00:46:16)
that's why that is set up that way man I
(00:46:18)
would think 82 nuclear missiles
(00:46:22)
would I would think the flash alone
(00:46:24)
would be enough to wipe out the entire
(00:46:27)
country
(00:46:27)
it would kill tens of millions of people
(00:46:30)
not a question but that and and the book
(00:46:34)
was read after it was written before it
(00:46:38)
went into production and publication by
(00:46:42)
many of my sources and by people who
(00:46:45)
actually were not my sources but who ran
(00:46:49)
these scenarios for norat generals I'm
(00:46:51)
talking
(00:46:53)
about people who were not in the book so
(00:46:55)
they didn't have a horse in the race
(00:46:56)
that they could say to me you're wrong
(00:46:58)
about this this is too and there were
(00:46:59)
some tweaks that I did but that was not
(00:47:02)
one of them no one said that's too many
(00:47:04)
we wouldn't do
(00:47:09)
that how how many do you have any idea
(00:47:11)
how many nuclear weapons we have how
(00:47:15)
many so on ready for launch status
(00:47:19)
meaning they're forward deployed meaning
(00:47:22)
they can be launched in seconds
(00:47:27)
or minutes from the president's order
(00:47:30)
seconds or
(00:47:32)
minutes we have
(00:47:38)
1,770 the numbers change a little bit
(00:47:40)
every year Russia has
(00:47:46)
1,674 that says nothing about the
(00:47:49)
thousands more in storage that we have
(00:47:52)
ready to you know that would could be
(00:47:53)
pulled out so we have approximately
(00:47:55)
5,000 each
(00:47:58)
why do we need that many nuclear weapons
(00:48:00)
you must be asking yourself we need that
(00:48:02)
many because they have that many and
(00:48:04)
they need that many because we have that
(00:48:06)
many and guess how guess how guess what
(00:48:10)
the number was at the all-time high
(00:48:12)
which was in
(00:48:17)
1986 10,000 70,000
(00:48:22)
70,000,000
(00:48:25)
wow and so the the setup of the book
(00:48:28)
it's like 5050 Pages or something it's
(00:48:30)
like how we got here I
(00:48:32)
explain how
(00:48:36)
America sort of had this insane buildup
(00:48:40)
of nuclear weapons during the 1950s
(00:48:42)
there was one point in
(00:48:44)
1957 this bomb went off in 1952 and the
(00:48:48)
military-industrial complex just went
(00:48:50)
baa boom all right at one point we were
(00:48:53)
building on average five nuclear weapons
(00:48:57)
a day a
(00:49:01)
day and then you're building the weapon
(00:49:04)
that's just the bombs the WarHeads
(00:49:06)
You're Building weapon systems because
(00:49:08)
we have a Triad we don't just have the
(00:49:10)
icbms in the silos in the ground we have
(00:49:13)
nuclear armed nuclear powerered
(00:49:17)
submarines outfitted with submarine
(00:49:20)
launched ballistic
(00:49:22)
missiles and then we also have the
(00:49:24)
bombers so we have a Triad
(00:49:28)
but during the Cold War we had you know
(00:49:31)
we were shooting tactical nuclear
(00:49:32)
weapons out of cannons Billy wall was
(00:49:35)
Halo jumping a hand carried portable
(00:49:39)
nuclear weapon out of an airplane in
(00:49:43)
case we needed to use it on the
(00:49:44)
battlefield how do you I mean I know you
(00:49:46)
don't like to give your opinion and if
(00:49:47)
you don't want to that's okay how do you
(00:49:49)
feel about having like 1 what did you
(00:49:52)
say 1,16 7 1,770 US 1 77 how do you do
(00:49:58)
you think we need that I mean that's an
(00:50:01)
opinion I think that that I own which is
(00:50:04)
absolutely not I mean look my Lane is as
(00:50:09)
an investigative journalist relaying you
(00:50:12)
know reporting the facts doing the
(00:50:14)
interviews and setting them down on the
(00:50:15)
record but of course you get to have an
(00:50:17)
opinion at some point M certainly when
(00:50:20)
time like times have changed we are back
(00:50:23)
in the original buildup it was us and
(00:50:26)
Russia and then China in the early 60s
(00:50:29)
now there are nine nuclear armed Nations
(00:50:32)
many of which are in direct conflict
(00:50:33)
with one another all of the new
(00:50:36)
technology artificial intelligence you
(00:50:38)
know this is crazy it's like the United
(00:50:42)
Nations Secretary
(00:50:43)
General recently said We Are One
(00:50:47)
misunderstanding one
(00:50:49)
miscalculation away from nuclear
(00:50:52)
Armageddon mhm and he said we must
(00:50:55)
reverse course and we must so I was in
(00:50:59)
Brussels talking about my book because
(00:51:02)
people were interested in it what I
(00:51:03)
learned is because they said to me and
(00:51:05)
these are disarmament groups right that
(00:51:08)
they and they said to me your book
(00:51:10)
condenses in a really dramatic
(00:51:12)
terrifying way what we have been trying
(00:51:15)
to convey to world
(00:51:17)
leaders um for decades with a lot of
(00:51:20)
information you
(00:51:22)
just and what we're trying to convey is
(00:51:24)
this is
(00:51:25)
madness so so the progress is that we've
(00:51:28)
gone from 70,000 nuclear warheads to
(00:51:32)
there are a total of approximately
(00:51:34)
12,500 today amongst the nuclear nine
(00:51:37)
nuclear armed Nation the disarmament
(00:51:40)
people will tell you that's 12,500 to
(00:51:43)
many MH the United Nations recently
(00:51:46)
created a uh a treaty called I'm going
(00:51:49)
to mess this up the internation the I
(00:51:53)
PT NW the international treaty on the
(00:51:56)
prohibition of nuclear
(00:51:58)
weapons and their idea is that
(00:52:02)
gradually Nations should begin to reduce
(00:52:06)
their arsenals down to zero
(00:52:11)
gradually and so the opinion I would
(00:52:14)
have which seems like a responsible
(00:52:17)
journalist op that sounds like a really
(00:52:19)
good idea and the word gradual is
(00:52:22)
important
(00:52:24)
because Okay so we've been talking about
(00:52:27)
the horrors of nuclear war but you can
(00:52:28)
also talk to proponents of
(00:52:31)
deterrence as I do who will tell you we
(00:52:34)
must have a nuclear Arsenal because the
(00:52:36)
bad guys do
(00:52:39)
mhm that's where I would
(00:52:42)
fall right and by the way that's the
(00:52:47)
easier it really is the easier quicker
(00:52:51)
conclusion I mean I feel
(00:52:53)
like I it would be great if there were
(00:52:56)
no nuclear weapons however you know we
(00:52:59)
don't play nicely with one another right
(00:53:02)
and so I think the I mean how I'm just
(00:53:06)
going to go off on a tangent here and
(00:53:07)
say that the only way look if I were
(00:53:10)
president
(00:53:12)
or in charge of this country the only
(00:53:15)
way I would even
(00:53:17)
consider eliminating our nuclear weapons
(00:53:19)
is if we had a defense capability that
(00:53:21)
was able to eliminate a nuclear any
(00:53:24)
nuclear weapon on the way here
(00:53:27)
so well yes the idea is absolutely that
(00:53:29)
the disarmament idea isn't oh we should
(00:53:32)
give up all of our nuclear weapons and
(00:53:33)
then just believe that North Korea and
(00:53:36)
Russia and China and Iran or you know
(00:53:38)
Iran doesn't have the weapon yet all of
(00:53:39)
these other countries will just give up
(00:53:41)
their capability that would be Madness
(00:53:44)
but the disarmament that when we went
(00:53:46)
from 70,000 down to 12,500 Russia
(00:53:49)
reduced their
(00:53:51)
Arsenal you know alongside of
(00:53:54)
us so r did we really reduce did we
(00:53:59)
really reduce the Arsenal though or have
(00:54:01)
we developed better Maybe not maybe
(00:54:04)
better is the wrong word have we
(00:54:06)
developed more powerful and more
(00:54:09)
devastating nuclear missiles to where we
(00:54:12)
don't need 70,000 maybe maybe I'm I'm
(00:54:17)
pulling numbers out of nowhere right now
(00:54:19)
but just for example maybe maybe one of
(00:54:22)
today's nuclear warheads is equivalent
(00:54:25)
to
(00:54:27)
a 100 MH back in
(00:54:32)
1950s uh except for that's not the way
(00:54:35)
it is okay which is so interesting
(00:54:38)
because you and I both know the weapon
(00:54:41)
systems that are you know the kinetic
(00:54:43)
weapon systems that are used by the
(00:54:46)
military in ground Wars or air wars have
(00:54:50)
been advancing like nobody's business as
(00:54:53)
technology has been advancing the
(00:54:55)
nuclear weapons are are essentially the
(00:54:59)
same there not much has changed we
(00:55:02)
haven't built any new nuclear weapons
(00:55:05)
since Clinton was President because he
(00:55:08)
signed a treaty prohibiting that and
(00:55:12)
Russia complied so allegedly we do not
(00:55:16)
build any new nuclear weapons it would
(00:55:18)
be a massive violation of a treaty all
(00:55:20)
of our our nuclear weapons are decades
(00:55:22)
old which is a whole other debate
(00:55:24)
because now the defense department has
(00:55:26)
just asked as for I don't I think it's
(00:55:28)
$900 billion to upgrade the Arsenal
(00:55:32)
because it is old and the icbms are old
(00:55:36)
so this is a it's like a you're suddenly
(00:55:39)
down the rabbit hole and going wait a
(00:55:42)
minute how did I wind up here but the
(00:55:45)
number of nuclear
(00:55:48)
warheads is simply the number of nuclear
(00:55:50)
warheads what's what's another
(00:55:54)
Grim consideration is that
(00:55:58)
dismantling a nuclear warhead is also a
(00:56:01)
dirty process and there's a plant in
(00:56:05)
Texas that does this which itself is
(00:56:08)
like a major Target because it has all
(00:56:10)
the dismantled plutonium and uranium
(00:56:15)
course so the eyes can glaze over with
(00:56:18)
like isn't it just easier to have an
(00:56:21)
arsenal of nuclear weapons that's on
(00:56:23)
that's the same size as ours which is
(00:56:25)
why I point to
(00:56:27)
the people like I can like the Arms
(00:56:30)
Control Association who actively work on
(00:56:33)
these disarmament issues with the United
(00:56:37)
Nations and the point of a book like
(00:56:40)
mine is
(00:56:43)
to make it digestible for the average
(00:56:46)
person to understand that like this many
(00:56:49)
nuclear weapons is madness an accident
(00:56:53)
or a miscalculation could lead to a
(00:56:54)
nuclear war and it's only going to end
(00:56:57)
one way almost no one disagrees with
(00:56:59)
that once nuclear war starts it ends in
(00:57:03)
Armageddon and I the scenario takes you
(00:57:06)
through what happens and then the
(00:57:08)
mistakes that happen because of
(00:57:09)
Technology
(00:57:13)
holes what has been upgraded must be the
(00:57:15)
transportation of the Warhead that has
(00:57:18)
to have been upgraded by this point no
(00:57:21)
really I mean a ballistic missile is
(00:57:23)
okay so here's how a ballistic missile
(00:57:25)
Works ready cuz this helped me to
(00:57:27)
understand it shall I give you the like
(00:57:28)
30 second version oh let's do it okay
(00:57:31)
so it happens in you can just imagine it
(00:57:34)
going from like there over the to that
(00:57:37)
continent to that continent and there's
(00:57:39)
a little diagram in the book um by the
(00:57:41)
way the way I know this is because the
(00:57:44)
first director of DARPA are you familiar
(00:57:48)
with DARPA I am
(00:57:50)
okay darpa's created in 1957-58 I can't
(00:57:53)
remember what it stands for but
(00:57:55)
basically DARPA is our Advanced weapons
(00:57:58)
it's our advanced technology weapons
(00:58:00)
correct defense Advanced research
(00:58:03)
projects there we go agency another
(00:58:06)
mouthful DARPA okay it began in 1957
(00:58:10)
after the Russians launched
(00:58:12)
sputnick uh we got caught by scientific
(00:58:15)
military surprise that was like a bad
(00:58:18)
thing herb York becomes its first
(00:58:21)
science director and he wanted to know
(00:58:24)
cuz the reason Sputnik was the the
(00:58:26)
reason Sputnik was so threatening it was
(00:58:28)
a satellite the Russian satellite the
(00:58:31)
first one orbiting Earth the reason it
(00:58:33)
was threatening was because it takes a
(00:58:35)
rocket to get a satellite into space and
(00:58:38)
if you can put a rock if you can put a
(00:58:39)
satellite in space pretty soon you can
(00:58:41)
put a nuclear warhead on that rocket and
(00:58:43)
hit the United States that was 1957
(00:58:46)
that's where everything changed and so
(00:58:49)
herb
(00:58:50)
York um wanted to know in seconds and
(00:58:54)
minutes how long it took for that ice
(00:58:56)
CBM to get to the United States so he
(00:58:58)
hired this really the smartest guys in
(00:59:01)
the room the Jason scientists about
(00:59:03)
which there are extraodinary many
(00:59:05)
conspiracy
(00:59:06)
theories I interviewed a number of them
(00:59:08)
including its founder for the DARPA book
(00:59:12)
so York and I learned this because I
(00:59:15)
went and looked in the archives at a
(00:59:18)
library in San
(00:59:19)
Diego cuz I couldn't get the defense
(00:59:21)
department to tell me the answer go to
(00:59:24)
York's papers where a lot of you know if
(00:59:26)
you go to the scientists papers you find
(00:59:28)
a lot of
(00:59:29)
Secrets and sure enough there's this you
(00:59:32)
know process yor asking the Jason
(00:59:35)
scientist there's all these incredibly
(00:59:37)
cool documents about it figure out tell
(00:59:39)
me how many seconds and minutes it takes
(00:59:42)
cuz you forget that people don't know
(00:59:45)
until they know you know you can be the
(00:59:47)
smartest guy in the room and you don't
(00:59:48)
know how ballistic missile works until
(00:59:51)
someone tells you mhm okay so they tell
(00:59:54)
York here's how it works three three
(00:59:56)
phases boost phase the rocket ignites
(01:00:00)
you can imagine that fire missile goes
(01:00:03)
up 5
(01:00:04)
minutes 5 minutes of fire launching the
(01:00:08)
missile that's when the satellite can
(01:00:10)
see it the satellite sees the
(01:00:14)
fire okay then it burns
(01:00:17)
out then it has a 20
(01:00:20)
minute midcourse phase where it's just
(01:00:23)
moving with the rotation of the Earth
(01:00:27)
500 miles above the
(01:00:29)
Earth and then it has 100 seconds of
(01:00:32)
terminal phase a good term for it
(01:00:36)
terminal phase is the last 100 seconds
(01:00:38)
the Warhead which has been traveling
(01:00:40)
because everything else Burns away the
(01:00:43)
nuclear warhead or plural Warheads
(01:00:45)
because there might be multiple of them
(01:00:47)
is now going to re-enter the atmosphere
(01:00:50)
in a 100 seconds and detonate On Target
(01:00:54)
that's it
(01:00:56)
that's it it's so simple and once you
(01:00:58)
understand that certainly for me as a
(01:01:00)
reporter then you can kind of understand
(01:01:03)
oh that's how an ICBM work so there's no
(01:01:05)
upgrading to
(01:01:07)
do right you can maybe make the rocket
(01:01:10)
motor more
(01:01:12)
powerful but that's I guess that's kind
(01:01:15)
of what I'm getting at I mean we just I
(01:01:17)
can't remember who developed it but we
(01:01:19)
just saw the new maybe it was in within
(01:01:22)
the past year the Hypersonic missile who
(01:01:25)
do you remember who
(01:01:27)
it's probably Lo's Falcon program I
(01:01:29)
thought it was yeah I thought it was
(01:01:31)
another country but um that's kind of
(01:01:33)
what I was what I was leaning towards is
(01:01:36)
you know maybe a little more stealthy
(01:01:38)
faster less than 30 minutes I don't know
(01:01:42)
this isn't you know I mean but again
(01:01:44)
that my job as a reporter is EXA is
(01:01:46)
exactly to take those
(01:01:48)
questions demystify them right and
(01:01:53)
definitely not take the approach of like
(01:01:55)
you know you don't know which so many so
(01:02:00)
much of society kind of I think
(01:02:02)
functions that way and prohibits people
(01:02:04)
from asking really basic questions yeah
(01:02:07)
there's no such thing as a dumb question
(01:02:09)
yeah I okay because then once you know
(01:02:11)
it you know it but but like Hypersonic
(01:02:14)
people talk about hyper we have
(01:02:15)
hypersonics well a Hypersonic goes
(01:02:17)
approximately mach five okay ballistic
(01:02:21)
missiles go mock 20 okay okay so the
(01:02:24)
ballistic missile is such a G it's such
(01:02:27)
like ending it's such a Doomsday
(01:02:30)
Machine you can have hypersonics this is
(01:02:34)
you know this is like Warfare that is
(01:02:38)
non-nuclear nuclear war is in a case by
(01:02:41)
itself which is why we're at this
(01:02:44)
incredibly threatening moment right now
(01:02:46)
because nuclear war is coming out of the
(01:02:50)
or nuclear weapons the use of nuclear
(01:02:52)
weapons is coming out of the mouth of
(01:02:54)
world leaders
(01:02:56)
and the nuclear war used to be the Red
(01:02:58)
Line in the
(01:03:01)
Sand and yes if someone decides to marry
(01:03:04)
a nuclear warhead onto a
(01:03:07)
Hypersonic
(01:03:09)
missile you know Hypersonic missile will
(01:03:11)
take an hour where a ICBM will take 30
(01:03:14)
minutes but it's mixing as soon as
(01:03:17)
you're talking about tactical nuclear
(01:03:19)
weapons it's
(01:03:21)
just the worst possible scenario because
(01:03:25)
I know I can tell you from looking at
(01:03:27)
one of the only Declassified nuclear war
(01:03:30)
games called proud
(01:03:32)
profit and I write about it in the book
(01:03:34)
and I show you what a Declassified look
(01:03:37)
paper looks
(01:03:38)
like no matter that war game showed us
(01:03:41)
two weeks in
(01:03:43)
1983 ordered by President Reagan it
(01:03:46)
showed us that no matter how nuclear war
(01:03:49)
begins it ends in nuclear
(01:03:53)
Armageddon everybody in nuclear command
(01:03:57)
and control knows that everyone knows
(01:04:00)
that there is no such thing as a limited
(01:04:03)
nuclear
(01:04:06)
war that's
(01:04:10)
terrifying it can sometimes feel like
(01:04:14)
TMI
(01:04:15)
right that it's almost
(01:04:18)
easier to just not
(01:04:21)
know and also like a lot of the war
(01:04:23)
fighting Concepts you have on these
(01:04:26)
walls right which involve humans are so
(01:04:30)
much easier in a way to think about to
(01:04:33)
talk about to discuss to wonder about
(01:04:37)
nuclear weapons are so abstract there's
(01:04:40)
no battle for Chicago battle for New
(01:04:42)
York it's
(01:04:44)
just it's just literally push button
(01:04:47)
Warfare mhm why do we why do why is that
(01:04:53)
okay I mean I don't think it's uh
(01:04:57)
I don't think it's okay I think mean I
(01:05:01)
personally feel like it's a necessity
(01:05:03)
that we have to have it
(01:05:06)
because our adversaries have it unless
(01:05:09)
we have some type of defense system that
(01:05:12)
can disarm destroy whatever nuclear
(01:05:16)
warhead has headed our way before it
(01:05:18)
reaches destination mhm do we have that
(01:05:22)
capability so now it gets really
(01:05:25)
depressing when I tell you about the
(01:05:27)
interceptor missile capability because
(01:05:29)
you will hear people say uh oh we we we
(01:05:33)
have like a Iron Dome you know we read
(01:05:36)
we both read the news and we saw what
(01:05:38)
happened when Iran lobbed missiles
(01:05:40)
including ballistic missiles at Israel
(01:05:44)
and they were intercepted right those
(01:05:46)
are short range and medium range
(01:05:50)
missiles totally different story than
(01:05:54)
trying to shoot down a long range
(01:05:57)
ballistic missile also called a
(01:05:59)
strategic missile that what I told you
(01:06:00)
about that 30 minute Arc 500 miles up in
(01:06:05)
space you're trying to shoot that down
(01:06:07)
that's where Interceptor phase happens
(01:06:10)
don't we have some sort of space weapon
(01:06:13)
that could initiate that instead of
(01:06:15)
shooting up at it we do not we have
(01:06:20)
44
(01:06:22)
landbased Interceptor missiles 44
(01:06:26)
people have asked me like maybe we have
(01:06:28)
secret a secret arsenal we do not we
(01:06:31)
have how can you be so
(01:06:35)
sure you know maybe secretary Panetta is
(01:06:38)
lying to me he hey I don't think so we
(01:06:42)
have for I mean we have
(01:06:44)
44 Interceptor missiles Russia has
(01:06:48)
1,670 on it doesn't even make sense it
(01:06:52)
doesn't even make sense why we would
(01:06:53)
only have 44 when the when the
(01:06:56)
adversary's arsenals are so much bigger
(01:06:58)
than 44 well it might have to do with
(01:07:00)
this okay when you can look at the
(01:07:02)
numbers and the cost of the of the
(01:07:04)
program which I tell you about the
(01:07:06)
Interceptor missiles
(01:07:08)
now the success rate on those
(01:07:10)
Interceptor missiles of which we have 44
(01:07:13)
is between 40 and
(01:07:17)
55% the success rate and right now that
(01:07:20)
program is on strategic pause which is a
(01:07:23)
euphemism for oh so we could take
(01:07:27)
22 if because inside the war scenario
(01:07:30)
best caseen inside the Warhead is almost
(01:07:32)
certainly
(01:07:33)
decoys that are meant to confuse so
(01:07:36)
here's how the Interceptor system works
(01:07:39)
it's basically a mini version of that
(01:07:41)
giant rocket that is the ICBM and it
(01:07:45)
inside of its nose cone it has the apply
(01:07:49)
named EXO atmospheric kill vehicle
(01:07:53)
that's what it's called it's 40
(01:07:58)
lb it's not a warhead because it doesn't
(01:08:01)
have any explosives in it it's just an
(01:08:03)
object 140lb object that is going so the
(01:08:07)
the interceptor missile fires up it's
(01:08:10)
communicating with its ground with its
(01:08:12)
sensor systems that's guiding it and
(01:08:14)
it's going to now try and hit the
(01:08:18)
missile the Warhead moving through midc
(01:08:22)
phase at 14,000 miles an hour 500 miles
(01:08:27)
up in
(01:08:28)
space it's going to try to hit
(01:08:33)
it that the EXO atmospheric kill vehicle
(01:08:37)
is going at 20,000 mph the missile
(01:08:40)
defense agency spokesperson says yes
(01:08:44)
it's like hitting a bullet with a
(01:08:46)
bullet wow damn near
(01:08:52)
impossible and there's no spatial
(01:08:54)
technology
(01:08:57)
wow it's illegal to put nuclear weapons
(01:09:00)
in space as per the treaties as it
(01:09:03)
should
(01:09:06)
be and I'm not this's one spoiler alert
(01:09:09)
I'm not going to give away but um in the
(01:09:12)
third Act of the book North Korea
(01:09:16)
unleashes a nuclear warhead it has
(01:09:20)
flying in space already in space
(01:09:22)
disguises a
(01:09:24)
satellite a techn ology that is actually
(01:09:27)
capable and that North Korea has
(01:09:28)
expressed intention of having whether it
(01:09:31)
really has it we don't
(01:09:33)
know and
(01:09:35)
that unleashes a new kind of Mayhem I'm
(01:09:39)
going to make you read the book to learn
(01:09:40)
about but just when you thought it was
(01:09:42)
bad it gets really bad so you definitely
(01:09:45)
don't want nuclear weapons in space
(01:09:47)
perfect I didn't necessarily mean
(01:09:50)
nuclear weapons I meant something to
(01:09:52)
disable a nuclear weapon that is in
(01:09:55)
mid-flight in space like maybe a laser
(01:09:57)
or something some sort of some sort of
(01:10:00)
new technology that we don't know yet
(01:10:03)
but in this you know back to the you
(01:10:05)
mentioned a war game uh I think that the
(01:10:08)
rean administration had put together so
(01:10:10)
just for the uh I want to dive into that
(01:10:12)
and so just for the audience a war game
(01:10:14)
is
(01:10:15)
basically a madeup scenario but a
(01:10:19)
realistic scenario that they put and it
(01:10:21)
kind of shows the probability of what
(01:10:22)
the outcom would look like and so they
(01:10:25)
do this with all a lot of countries do
(01:10:28)
this and and this we do this with a
(01:10:32)
multitude of scenarios cyber attacks
(01:10:34)
nuclear warfare and I mean regular
(01:10:37)
regular Warfare so what did the ad what
(01:10:40)
did the Reagan Administration uncover
(01:10:42)
with that war game The Proud
(01:10:45)
Prophet so also they do hundreds of
(01:10:48)
these a year like if you read stratcom
(01:10:51)
you know discussions with Congress as I
(01:10:54)
do you can interpret how many of these
(01:10:57)
nuclear war game how many of these war
(01:10:59)
games are going on
(01:11:01)
um nuclear war games because stratcom
(01:11:04)
wouldn't be doing other
(01:11:06)
operations so there's there's a they're
(01:11:08)
happening all the time and they they're
(01:11:10)
incredibly classified meaning we just
(01:11:12)
they don't get Declassified but this one
(01:11:16)
proud profit 83 war game got declass
(01:11:19)
nuclear war game got Declassified and I
(01:11:21)
show you in the book it's literally all
(01:11:23)
blacked out it's redacted you've seen
(01:11:25)
docents like that it's just all black
(01:11:27)
there's maybe like one word you know
(01:11:29)
aftermath or you know buildup everything
(01:11:33)
else and so you might say well what's
(01:11:36)
the point of releasing this how can we
(01:11:38)
get any information it's all
(01:11:42)
redacted we get the information from a
(01:11:46)
civilian
(01:11:48)
scientist Professor who was on that war
(01:11:50)
game named Paul Bracken he's a professor
(01:11:52)
at Yale now okay and once it was
(01:11:56)
Declassified like 10 years ago it
(01:11:58)
allowed Bracken to speak about it
(01:12:00)
generally before that he couldn't say
(01:12:03)
anything you know about you know your
(01:12:05)
your the classification
(01:12:07)
requirements but then suddenly because
(01:12:09)
it was Declassified he could speak about
(01:12:11)
it in a general Manner and he wrote in
(01:12:14)
his own
(01:12:16)
book what I just conveyed to you that no
(01:12:19)
matter how nuclear war so they there it
(01:12:23)
was a two- we long program the SE SE
(01:12:25)
like the highest ranking people in
(01:12:27)
military nuclear command and control got
(01:12:30)
together and gained out these different
(01:12:32)
scenarios according to Professor Bracken
(01:12:35)
they you know NATO was involved NATO
(01:12:37)
wasn't involved tactical weapons are
(01:12:39)
involved tactical weapons not inv China
(01:12:41)
gets involved and what Bracken said was
(01:12:44)
no matter
(01:12:45)
how nuclear war
(01:12:48)
begins it only ends in nuclear
(01:12:52)
Armageddon M and his exact words was
(01:12:55)
that everyone left the war game very
(01:12:59)
depressed and so I think I pull the veil
(01:13:03)
back on some of this that and it's
(01:13:06)
almost like a little bit of our
(01:13:07)
experience communicate the nuclear war
(01:13:10)
conundrum is so complex and tightly
(01:13:14)
wound it was it began with the generals
(01:13:18)
and the Admirals at the Pentagon in the
(01:13:19)
1950s working from an idea that nuclear
(01:13:22)
war could be fought and won
(01:13:26)
which it itself is insane the original
(01:13:29)
nuclear war plan against the Soviet
(01:13:31)
Union that I write about in the book was
(01:13:33)
going to kill 600 million people wow 600
(01:13:39)
million
(01:13:40)
people how can you have a plan like that
(01:13:43)
and not call it Mass
(01:13:46)
extermination that's how it began that
(01:13:48)
was a long time ago the Soviets were the
(01:13:51)
big bad threat no one's doubting that
(01:13:53)
it's different it's a different world
(01:13:56)
that we live in now mhm why do we
(01:14:00)
have why have we not
(01:14:03)
acknowledged that what began as
(01:14:07)
Madness will likely end in Madness
(01:14:11)
unless all of these issues are
(01:14:17)
addressed
(01:14:19)
money you mean there's more money to
(01:14:21)
build more
(01:14:22)
weapons mhm I think we're
(01:14:27)
I think we're at a new
(01:14:31)
Crossroads that's completely different
(01:14:33)
but maybe has some similarities with AI
(01:14:36)
okay do
(01:14:38)
you keep going I'm interested what you
(01:14:41)
have to say well I mean there's a lot of
(01:14:42)
fear of what AI could develop into and
(01:14:44)
basically you know gets to the point
(01:14:46)
where it makes Humanity completely
(01:14:49)
irrelevant and
(01:14:52)
so it's it's it's it's a dangerous game
(01:14:55)
we're playing I don't think anybody
(01:14:56)
really knows the extent of what we might
(01:15:00)
experience if this keeps keeps on you
(01:15:02)
know with the brain chips with with
(01:15:04)
everything and so it's another
(01:15:09)
it's once it's out of the bag it's not
(01:15:12)
going back in and I feel like that's
(01:15:13)
where we're at with AI is where we were
(01:15:16)
with nuclear war it's the Pandora's Box
(01:15:19)
idea yes which kind of begs the
(01:15:24)
question okay so how about doing
(01:15:26)
something about it and I know we all
(01:15:28)
have busy lives and that is part of the
(01:15:32)
you know no one can stop what they're
(01:15:33)
doing and suddenly uh become an expert
(01:15:36)
on existential threats per se so we talk
(01:15:40)
about it and
(01:15:42)
we you know pontificate what can be done
(01:15:46)
but we should remember that there are
(01:15:50)
powers that be that are paid to deal
(01:15:52)
with these issues in our own government
(01:15:54)
MH and so the days are over where you
(01:15:57)
could just
(01:15:59)
trust the
(01:16:02)
government to be
(01:16:04)
doing the how do I say that right yeah I
(01:16:09)
know where you're going we should be
(01:16:11)
able to trust the government to have our
(01:16:13)
to be doing things in our best interest
(01:16:15)
yeah right like if you watch the
(01:16:17)
propaganda films of the 50s having to do
(01:16:19)
with nuclear war right I
(01:16:21)
mean and you see like a housewife with a
(01:16:24)
tiny waist and you know curers maybe
(01:16:27)
even making pancakes and then like a
(01:16:29)
siren goes off and then Jimmy come quick
(01:16:32)
and they they Duck and Cover and that's
(01:16:34)
going to protect you against a nuclear
(01:16:36)
bomb and everybody went okay I mean
(01:16:39)
those days are
(01:16:42)
over but then you kind of I think the
(01:16:45)
point you're raising is what kind of
(01:16:49)
like version of that are we dealing with
(01:16:53)
today I I think it's AI I mean it's
(01:16:56)
happening right now you
(01:16:58)
know xiin ping in China says the first
(01:17:02)
the first country that
(01:17:04)
Masters AI will achieve global
(01:17:08)
domination and so now you have now you
(01:17:12)
have all these people over here that are
(01:17:14)
worried about I mean I'm conflicted what
(01:17:17)
do you do China's not going to stop
(01:17:19)
right they're not going to stop
(01:17:22)
and so if we stop then we put put
(01:17:25)
ourselves at a disadvantage but if none
(01:17:28)
of us stop we put the entire human
(01:17:31)
species at a at a at the risk of
(01:17:34)
becoming irrelevant you know and and
(01:17:38)
does that make sense of course it makes
(01:17:40)
sense and it's absolutely on point and
(01:17:42)
you know you can also throw into that
(01:17:45)
mix
(01:17:48)
biology
(01:17:50)
because okay so here's how I would tie
(01:17:52)
that together right because you have
(01:17:54)
biological warfare Fair
(01:17:56)
threats that
(01:17:59)
become more threatening more
(01:18:02)
existentially threatening with the
(01:18:03)
introduction of AI I believe perhaps
(01:18:06)
more so than with the nuclear weapons
(01:18:08)
right one of the areas I'm going to try
(01:18:11)
to hold this thought together but it it
(01:18:14)
ties
(01:18:15)
so you might say you might say nuclear
(01:18:19)
weapons could you know AI could get hold
(01:18:22)
of nuclear
(01:18:24)
weapons well well maybe and this is
(01:18:26)
where I'm
(01:18:28)
either informed or inaccurate I don't
(01:18:32)
know
(01:18:34)
okay what I do know is that from from
(01:18:37)
interviewing people in cyber command is
(01:18:39)
that our nuclear weapons are
(01:18:42)
surprisingly
(01:18:43)
analog meaning they are not
(01:18:46)
digital okay so for example I learned in
(01:18:50)
reporting the book that our subl
(01:18:52)
ballistic missiles Guide to the targets
(01:18:55)
by star sighting Sean a little panel
(01:19:00)
opens and they use the Stars to guide to
(01:19:03)
the Target there are other systems in
(01:19:04)
place and this stuff is very classified
(01:19:06)
but what is leading is like this ancient
(01:19:10)
technology that like our hunter gatherer
(01:19:12)
ancestors used okay um so nuclear
(01:19:18)
weapons because they happened before the
(01:19:20)
Advent of the digital age there has been
(01:19:22)
a concerted effort to make sure they
(01:19:27)
remain analog so that they can't be
(01:19:30)
hacked okay okay and these are
(01:19:32)
assurances that I have gotten from cyber
(01:19:35)
command you're just taking somebody at
(01:19:36)
your at their word at that point because
(01:19:38)
the documentation is not
(01:19:41)
Declassified so hold that thought then
(01:19:45)
you have this idea
(01:19:49)
that biological weapons used to exist we
(01:19:52)
used to have we had a program about
(01:19:54)
biological weapons I wrote about it we
(01:19:55)
hired the Nazi scientists they built up
(01:19:58)
our biological warfare program and we
(01:20:01)
used to have an
(01:20:03)
Arsenal and then Nixon made them illegal
(01:20:07)
so all of the biological weapons were
(01:20:10)
destroyed we found out Russia was
(01:20:12)
cheating and they I mean Rat Hole upon
(01:20:14)
Rat Hole
(01:20:17)
um so biological weapons are no more
(01:20:20)
which exist sort of that's the reason
(01:20:22)
that nuclear disarmament people say we
(01:20:24)
don't need nuclear Arsenal to keep us
(01:20:28)
safe because we we were able to say we
(01:20:30)
don't need biological weapons to keep us
(01:20:32)
safe biological weapons have become
(01:20:35)
taboo we need so the disarm people will
(01:20:38)
say nuclear weapons should be taboo now
(01:20:41)
you take AI okay what you're saying
(01:20:44)
which is really significant to think
(01:20:46)
about is how does AI fit into the
(01:20:49)
mix if there is indeed a giant gap on
(01:20:53)
purpose between AI being able to access
(01:20:56)
nuclear weapons because it has grown up
(01:21:01)
with
(01:21:02)
that that is one lane of security shall
(01:21:07)
we say but with the biological
(01:21:10)
issues that is far more dangerous to my
(01:21:12)
eye because they didn't grow up together
(01:21:16)
and AI has the capacity to make
(01:21:20)
biological weapons and chemical
(01:21:23)
weapons on paper
(01:21:27)
does that make sense M because a lot of
(01:21:31)
AI is pulling from information in the
(01:21:35)
public
(01:21:35)
domain and so far
(01:21:40)
no student in a basement that we know of
(01:21:43)
has made a nuclear weapon think about
(01:21:45)
that mhm no it remains this jealously
(01:21:51)
guarded recipe
(01:21:56)
Pakistan got the bomb because they stole
(01:21:59)
the most people get the bomb because
(01:22:01)
they steal
(01:22:02)
it but Biol biology we have
(01:22:06)
biological um synthetic biological
(01:22:09)
situations being made by you know
(01:22:12)
students in high school because of AI
(01:22:15)
because what you can program AI make me
(01:22:18)
a chemical weapon that to me is a
(01:22:24)
majorly exist existential threat but
(01:22:26)
again we don't have the language yet
(01:22:29)
just as Layman or with a little bit of
(01:22:31)
knowledge to understand what AI is
(01:22:34)
really capable of and so you're bringing
(01:22:36)
up the question should we trust the same
(01:22:38)
people that said like Duck and Cover and
(01:22:40)
you'll be safe should that's what you're
(01:22:42)
saying and that's a very important
(01:22:45)
question I would say probably not we
(01:22:48)
should probably not trust them um I mean
(01:22:51)
I don't you know I don't know once again
(01:22:55)
this is like the disarming of the nukes
(01:22:56)
I mean what do what do we do we do we I
(01:23:00)
mean what is your opinion what do we do
(01:23:03)
about the nukes or about AI with
(01:23:06)
AI I mean I always start by looking at
(01:23:11)
the
(01:23:12)
opinions
(01:23:13)
of people I respect MH and then I start
(01:23:17)
to kind
(01:23:19)
of gather more information like why did
(01:23:22)
they wind up with their opinion
(01:23:25)
and so one person that comes to mind
(01:23:28)
when I was St when I was looking at
(01:23:29)
early AI because a lot of the early AI
(01:23:32)
comes from
(01:23:33)
DARPA
(01:23:35)
and they have DARPA has always had this
(01:23:40)
idea so also I think it's important to
(01:23:43)
make a distinction at least to my eye
(01:23:46)
between or I do when I think about it AI
(01:23:50)
artificial intelligence and machine
(01:23:52)
learning if you're machine learning is
(01:23:55)
making computers a lot smarter
(01:23:57)
artificial intelligence is
(01:23:59)
actually trying to figure out how to
(01:24:01)
make a machine
(01:24:03)
think for that I visited I went to Los
(01:24:06)
Alamos when I was reporting the
(01:24:08)
pentagon's brain and visited a Dara
(01:24:11)
scientist who had a grant to try and
(01:24:12)
create you know a brain in essence and
(01:24:17)
he was using the computer that used to
(01:24:18)
have all the nuclear codes on it it was
(01:24:20)
really interesting but he explained to
(01:24:22)
me his name was Dr carrot Garrett Kenyon
(01:24:25)
and he gave me this analogy where he
(01:24:27)
said we're so far out from brain from
(01:24:29)
computers being able to think and I said
(01:24:32)
try and just give me a average Jane or
(01:24:34)
Joe way to understand this and he
(01:24:37)
said okay think about the the facial
(01:24:40)
recognition software on your
(01:24:42)
iPhone right mhm very basic thing you
(01:24:45)
and I that is machine
(01:24:48)
learning so he said have your iPhone
(01:24:52)
look at you and then try to have it look
(01:24:54)
get you further away and with a baseball
(01:24:57)
cap or with
(01:25:00)
sunglasses right so you're kind of
(01:25:02)
making it harder for the machine to know
(01:25:05)
it's
(01:25:05)
you now this interview we did by the way
(01:25:08)
was like eight years ago and things have
(01:25:10)
changed a lot in a frightening
(01:25:12)
manner then he said to
(01:25:14)
me the iPhone could definitely not
(01:25:18)
recognize me across a football field
(01:25:20)
walking with a baseball cap
(01:25:23)
on he said my daughter on the other hand
(01:25:26)
who was I think something like 8 years
(01:25:28)
old at the time he said my daughter
(01:25:30)
knows who I
(01:25:31)
am across a football field walking with
(01:25:34)
a baseball capat good and begins running
(01:25:37)
toward
(01:25:38)
me that is human
(01:25:43)
intelligence I mean do you think I I
(01:25:46)
think I think we've I mean look now
(01:25:49)
China supposedly
(01:25:52)
has camera systems
(01:25:55)
I don't know what you call them I guess
(01:25:56)
they wouldn't be facial recognition they
(01:25:59)
would just be they are facial
(01:26:01)
recognition yes well I guess what I'm
(01:26:03)
saying is it can pick up how you walk
(01:26:05)
gate recognition and so people are
(01:26:08)
putting rocks in their shoes so that
(01:26:11)
they walk different wow did you know you
(01:26:15)
I did not know the the the way to spoof
(01:26:18)
that they're putting rocks in their
(01:26:20)
shoes so that they walk different so
(01:26:22)
that the the the technology doesn't pick
(01:26:25)
up how they actually walk
(01:26:27)
Y and they can
(01:26:31)
now have systems that can read your
(01:26:33)
heartbeat I didn't know
(01:26:36)
that so this gets into tricky my opinion
(01:26:41)
on this or rather my lots of facts you
(01:26:44)
know opinion gets into a tricky area
(01:26:48)
here
(01:26:49)
because I speak often about the
(01:26:51)
military-industrial complex not in and I
(01:26:53)
want to preface this what I'm about to
(01:26:55)
say about China and all that right which
(01:26:57)
is
(01:26:58)
not in a what might be called a
(01:27:00)
conspiratorial way per se like the
(01:27:03)
military industrial complex literally as
(01:27:06)
a fact-based
(01:27:08)
military industrial
(01:27:11)
complex and it is real and it is also
(01:27:17)
provides a lot of jobs for a lot of
(01:27:19)
people I often think about this so the
(01:27:22)
military-industrial complex as a term
(01:27:24)
from Eisenhower's farewell speech okay
(01:27:27)
and that's very welln but less
(01:27:31)
known is what Eisenhower said as a
(01:27:34)
follow-up to that in that same speech
(01:27:37)
which is interestingly something I you I
(01:27:38)
tell my sources as a principal I work
(01:27:41)
from would they let me interview them
(01:27:44)
and most of them say yes on that on
(01:27:46)
those grounds which is this
(01:27:49)
that the way in
(01:27:51)
which America can function as a sort of
(01:27:54)
peaceful nation and a democratic nation
(01:27:58)
and a nation that is strong that has a
(01:28:00)
strong
(01:28:02)
defense is through an alert and
(01:28:05)
knowledgeable
(01:28:07)
citizenry which is exactly what we've
(01:28:09)
been talking about this whole time which
(01:28:11)
is in a way the question for the
(01:28:13)
original listener asked right how so
(01:28:17)
what Eisenhower was saying to us is be
(01:28:20)
alert and be
(01:28:22)
knowledgeable and so I I think it's
(01:28:24)
always good to
(01:28:26)
temper that like if you say I'm being
(01:28:28)
alert and I'm being knowledgeable in
(01:28:29)
sort of like a nerdy way then you can I
(01:28:33)
can differentiate my I like my
(01:28:35)
pontificating about what does that mean
(01:28:37)
and I can see my sort of more paranoid
(01:28:40)
brain thinking thing right and it just
(01:28:42)
is it it balances things out but on the
(01:28:46)
concept of the military-industrial
(01:28:47)
complex specifically in China
(01:28:48)
surveillance I want to say this which is
(01:28:51)
that one way of looking at that which I
(01:28:55)
would look at because I've done quite a
(01:28:56)
bit of reporting on it is that it's that
(01:28:59)
problem of the chicken or egg scenario
(01:29:01)
that that when the United States creates
(01:29:04)
a radical new technology that it's using
(01:29:07)
for its own defense China follow suit
(01:29:10)
Russia follow suits and nowhere is that
(01:29:13)
more specific and more obvious if you
(01:29:17)
really think about it then what the
(01:29:20)
United States did during the war on
(01:29:22)
terror what the government did during
(01:29:24)
the war war on terror and that is create
(01:29:26)
these these biometric surveillance
(01:29:28)
systems which you know to go after bad
(01:29:31)
guys in Iraq in Afghanistan fingerprint
(01:29:34)
technology find the bomber not the bomb
(01:29:38)
a great idea if you you're just going to
(01:29:41)
take out you if you're going to go after
(01:29:43)
the the bomb you're just going to be
(01:29:46)
think about that's what your teams were
(01:29:48)
doing mhm but as soon as you can go
(01:29:50)
after the bomber you're cutting off the
(01:29:52)
head of the
(01:29:53)
snake but the biometric surveillance
(01:29:55)
system got out of control before you
(01:29:57)
knew it perhaps because of the military
(01:29:59)
industrial
(01:30:00)
complex the Pentagon had decided Well
(01:30:04)
let's just get Biometrics on everybody
(01:30:06)
so it went from do you know about this a
(01:30:09)
little bit it went I'll do I'll keep it
(01:30:11)
short because it can be like too much of
(01:30:12)
a rabbit hole but it went from finding
(01:30:14)
the fingerprints on the bomber to let's
(01:30:16)
get fingerprints on every single person
(01:30:18)
in Iraq 85% of the population was the
(01:30:21)
goal and then they did that in
(01:30:22)
Afghanistan these are facts mm this is
(01:30:24)
like David Petraeus fact
(01:30:27)
okay and
(01:30:29)
so the idea was we're going to have this
(01:30:32)
colossal database of
(01:30:34)
everybody which used to be considered an
(01:30:37)
FBI criminal concept MH we're just going
(01:30:40)
to have this on everybody and then that
(01:30:41)
way we're going to know if you're a bad
(01:30:42)
guy or a good guy and it got totally out
(01:30:45)
of control and it happened too fast and
(01:30:46)
there was so much money being made that
(01:30:48)
it just became a
(01:30:50)
deluge of systems and China copied that
(01:30:54)
China did not have that system of
(01:30:56)
systems until we introduced it to them
(01:30:58)
and because China is great at stealing
(01:31:01)
our intellectual property that is
(01:31:03)
precisely what happened and then China
(01:31:06)
because it's a communist country and it
(01:31:08)
does not have any of the same rules to
(01:31:10)
abide by just went berserk with it and
(01:31:12)
said we're going to now do they have a
(01:31:15)
system called physicals for all
(01:31:17)
physicals for all what a great euphemism
(01:31:20)
what it means is we're going to get your
(01:31:22)
DNA and that's what they are in the
(01:31:24)
process of
(01:31:26)
doing having DNA fingerprints Iris
(01:31:30)
scans gate monitor of
(01:31:33)
everybody so it's it's becoming a
(01:31:36)
massive police state if it wasn't
(01:31:39)
already it is now it's a Technology
(01:31:41)
based police state but remember my point
(01:31:45)
in that would be the defense
(01:31:47)
department set that
(01:31:49)
up you could say to happen
(01:31:56)
or is that military-industrial
(01:31:58)
complex it's a good point I've not
(01:32:00)
thought
(01:32:01)
of it's a great
(01:32:05)
Point what do you
(01:32:07)
think I think it's the Eisenhower quote
(01:32:11)
like an alert and knowledgeable
(01:32:12)
citizenry right and and also a little
(01:32:15)
bit if you pick your battles because you
(01:32:18)
could you can become subsumed with this
(01:32:21)
is just a horrible you know you could
(01:32:23)
really
(01:32:25)
um and you want to enjoy your life and
(01:32:27)
be a good parent and write your books or
(01:32:29)
do your
(01:32:30)
podcast so and then I look to history to
(01:32:33)
say okay oh that's right this has always
(01:32:35)
been going
(01:32:38)
on I do believe money money needs to be
(01:32:42)
spent to keep the economy going but
(01:32:45)
there could be a restructuring of the
(01:32:47)
military industrial
(01:32:51)
complex in a manner that
(01:32:56)
suits the
(01:32:59)
livelihood and the future yeah I agree
(01:33:02)
with you on that let's um let's take a
(01:33:05)
quick break when we come back I'd like
(01:33:08)
to see what it looks like here in the us
(01:33:13)
if we do endure a nuclear
(01:33:16)
[Music]
(01:33:17)
attack it's not
(01:33:21)
pretty when I first started this whole
(01:33:23)
podcast thing an online store was about
(01:33:26)
as far from my mind as you can get and
(01:33:28)
now most of you already know this but
(01:33:30)
I'm selling vigilence Elite gummy bears
(01:33:33)
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(01:33:35)
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userfriendly and that's Shopify Shopify
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helps you sell at every stage of your
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business what I really like about
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that you want to do with your web store
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like connect your social media accounts
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write blog posts just have a Blog in
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(01:36:10)
from the break we're getting ready to
(01:36:12)
dive into what it would look like if we
(01:36:14)
do get hit I just I just looked uh back
(01:36:17)
at my notes though and I just want to
(01:36:19)
cover one more thing back to the back to
(01:36:22)
the 6 minutes for the president to make
(01:36:24)
a
(01:36:28)
decision don't you if you talked how do
(01:36:31)
I put this I would think that a lot of
(01:36:34)
these decisions have already been
(01:36:36)
predetermined if there's only nine
(01:36:38)
Nations us included so eight other ones
(01:36:43)
and then I can't remember how many are
(01:36:45)
our allies I know Russia China Korea is
(01:36:48)
there another one that's Pakistan
(01:36:50)
Pakistan questionable yeah okay
(01:36:53)
definitely questionable but um you moved
(01:36:56)
in there right yeah
(01:37:00)
so so I would think we would definitely
(01:37:02)
have a lot of
(01:37:05)
predetermined decisions made if one of
(01:37:08)
those four countries launched towards us
(01:37:11)
so so the reason I'm bringing this up is
(01:37:14)
for the audience more to to at least I I
(01:37:18)
would think that there would be
(01:37:20)
contingency plan after contingency plan
(01:37:22)
after contingency plan plan on what were
(01:37:25)
to happen if one of those countries
(01:37:28)
launched a nuclear weapon towards us and
(01:37:31)
so that I I think it's important to know
(01:37:34)
that the president isn't just making a
(01:37:37)
going through a a raw decision process
(01:37:40)
from from beginning to end in 6 minutes
(01:37:44)
on what he's going to do would you agree
(01:37:46)
with that absolutely okay great so let's
(01:37:48)
talk about the football okay because
(01:37:51)
there is not time you're AB abolutely
(01:37:54)
right for the seaf to say okay sir we
(01:37:56)
think there's no time for that you're
(01:37:58)
talking about a six-minute window I mean
(01:38:02)
that's like making a pot of coffee okay
(01:38:05)
that is a tiny amount of time and so the
(01:38:08)
football do you know what the football
(01:38:10)
is I do okay which you want to describe
(01:38:13)
it the football is the Emer also known
(01:38:15)
as the emergency Satchel it's this
(01:38:16)
leather bag that is always with the
(01:38:19)
president any photograph you look at the
(01:38:21)
president if you can see around him or
(01:38:23)
you will see the mill Aid the military
(01:38:25)
aid who is the person assigned to carry
(01:38:29)
the
(01:38:30)
football 247 365 with the president it
(01:38:34)
is always with the president Lum mer
(01:38:36)
letti the former director of The Secret
(01:38:38)
Service told me a great story about the
(01:38:40)
football when I said is it really always
(01:38:42)
with the president he said it is always
(01:38:44)
with the president he was before he was
(01:38:46)
director of Secret Service he was um the
(01:38:49)
head of President Clinton's detail and
(01:38:52)
he told me about going going to Syria
(01:38:55)
with Clinton to see President Assad the
(01:38:58)
current president's father and that they
(01:39:01)
got into the
(01:39:02)
elevator and you know one of Assad's
(01:39:05)
guys was like no right like about the M
(01:39:08)
Aid and Lou said it was like a
(01:39:10)
standoff there was no way they were
(01:39:13)
going to let the president ride in the
(01:39:14)
elevator without the football that's how
(01:39:18)
significant it is it is with him on all
(01:39:21)
time inside the football are two key
(01:39:25)
items one is an ability for the
(01:39:29)
president's identity to be
(01:39:32)
confirmed with and by those in the
(01:39:36)
nuclear bunker beneath the Pentagon
(01:39:38)
which is called the National military
(01:39:39)
command center so the president has like
(01:39:42)
a a a card a laminated card inside his
(01:39:46)
wallet known as the biscuit it has
(01:39:48)
information on it which matches up to
(01:39:51)
the information in the football that
(01:39:54)
that is a literally a call and response
(01:39:57)
it is a verbal call and response this is
(01:39:59)
not digital this is not
(01:40:01)
biometric it's old school and the other
(01:40:04)
important item in the football is the
(01:40:07)
black
(01:40:08)
book that's not its official name but
(01:40:11)
that's what it's called and the
(01:40:14)
classified historian at Los Alamos told
(01:40:16)
me that the reason it's called the black
(01:40:18)
book is it is because it involves so
(01:40:21)
Much Death
(01:40:24)
the black
(01:40:26)
book is another jealously guarded secret
(01:40:30)
what is in the black book almost no one
(01:40:33)
has that has seen the contents of it has
(01:40:35)
spoken of it once aill Aid referred to
(01:40:41)
the cont in an interview with
(01:40:42)
Smithsonian Magazine described the
(01:40:45)
contents of the black book and he
(01:40:47)
described it like a Denny's menu which
(01:40:50)
gets us to how does the president choose
(01:40:52)
his targets
(01:40:54)
so the countries that are perceived as
(01:40:57)
enemies nuclear armed enemies who might
(01:41:00)
launch at us are broken down into this
(01:41:04)
Denny menu type
(01:41:06)
document with options for the president
(01:41:09)
to choose from in that six-minute window
(01:41:12)
really
(01:41:14)
fast I interviewed for the book one
(01:41:17)
person who had has actually seen the
(01:41:20)
contents of the black book his name is
(01:41:22)
Ted postal
(01:41:24)
and he's the one with Richard Garwin who
(01:41:26)
drew the map for me about the launch and
(01:41:28)
the missile and Postal in the 80s was
(01:41:32)
the chief advisor to the Navy about
(01:41:36)
nuclear
(01:41:37)
missiles that was his job in
(01:41:40)
the80s and so he worked on some of the
(01:41:44)
statistics the the information about
(01:41:48)
potential
(01:41:50)
targets but what he told me was this
(01:41:52)
very frightening story about the black
(01:41:53)
book which is he which gets to your
(01:41:55)
question about like the president making
(01:41:57)
a decision he said they would work on
(01:42:00)
all these different scenarios kind of
(01:42:02)
let's consider the 82 missile scenario
(01:42:05)
we're talking about why you would get to
(01:42:06)
that how you would get to that how you
(01:42:08)
would determine where the CIA thinks
(01:42:12)
North Korea's nuclear command and
(01:42:13)
control centers may be operative word
(01:42:16)
thinks we have no real Intelligence on
(01:42:19)
them and then postal told me and of
(01:42:22)
course North Korea wasn't involved in
(01:42:24)
the ' 80s CU they didn't have nuclear
(01:42:25)
weapons yet but postal told me that he
(01:42:27)
had another experience which was another
(01:42:30)
day he was at the
(01:42:31)
pentagon look and he and he became privy
(01:42:34)
to the black book kind of like by
(01:42:36)
accident it was out and he looked at it
(01:42:40)
and what freaked him out his
(01:42:44)
words was that he said the difference
(01:42:46)
between what they had been working on
(01:42:49)
with these very precise
(01:42:51)
calculations about why different targets
(01:42:54)
should be chosen and what
(01:42:58)
resulted were almost not
(01:43:01)
[Music]
(01:43:02)
recognizable and he couldn't can you say
(01:43:04)
that again I'm sorry yeah okay so like
(01:43:07)
they nerded out like you can imagine
(01:43:09)
guys with pencils and rulers and going
(01:43:11)
what are the Targets in said enemy
(01:43:14)
Nation what are the where are their
(01:43:17)
nuclear command and control facilities
(01:43:19)
that we would want to take out in a
(01:43:20)
nuclear strike that's what the you know
(01:43:23)
they big
(01:43:24)
industries that their bunkers their
(01:43:27)
version of the stratcom bunker their
(01:43:29)
version of the Pentagon they had they
(01:43:31)
kind of nerd out around all the details
(01:43:33)
to get down pair down what the targets
(01:43:37)
are and how many bombs you're going to
(01:43:39)
put on a Target because you never put
(01:43:41)
just
(01:43:43)
one you know this from ground Warfare
(01:43:46)
right so but what postal said is when he
(01:43:49)
went over to the Pentagon and was
(01:43:50)
looking at the black book The Denny's
(01:43:53)
menu if you
(01:43:54)
will that he was shocked he actually
(01:43:57)
said he was freaked
(01:43:59)
out at the disconnect between them in
(01:44:02)
other words they had just been reduced
(01:44:05)
to option A and A you know there was not
(01:44:10)
information the the president wouldn't
(01:44:12)
realize you're striking a city that's
(01:44:15)
going to kill 15 million people it's a
(01:44:21)
Playbook and I got the sense it's
(01:44:24)
numerical or Alpha numerical again
(01:44:27)
that's classified information but that's
(01:44:30)
the sense I got it's like a 324b I'm
(01:44:34)
using that kind of as an analogy but
(01:44:35)
maybe even literally so in other words
(01:44:38)
that is what they're not the president
(01:44:41)
doesn't go okay I'm going to hit and
(01:44:43)
they're not cities with
(01:44:46)
humans it's a look I don't know anything
(01:44:49)
about nuclear warfare that's I'm a
(01:44:51)
ground guy mhm that's it it I don't do
(01:44:54)
nuclear strategy or anything like that
(01:44:56)
but I will say
(01:45:00)
that combat planning
(01:45:04)
strategy
(01:45:05)
contingencies is very much like a
(01:45:08)
football game you call a
(01:45:12)
play and no nobody that has not been
(01:45:16)
briefed understands what that play is so
(01:45:18)
if it's a if it's a a
(01:45:22)
a did you say and numeric or or alpha
(01:45:25)
numeric so so if it's Alpha
(01:45:29)
52 then they go to the everybody
(01:45:33)
everybody who is read in knows what
(01:45:35)
Alpha 52 is in that scenario that that
(01:45:39)
scenario plays out and and absolutely
(01:45:42)
does that make sense absolutely I agree
(01:45:45)
with I think that's the best analogy
(01:45:47)
I've heard from what I
(01:45:50)
understand now I could be wrong because
(01:45:53)
I haven't had anyone who's seen the
(01:45:56)
contents of the black book tell me
(01:45:58)
precisely they've only spoken in
(01:46:01)
metaphor because they can't and very
(01:46:05)
very few people have seen it yeah so it
(01:46:07)
would be I mean I would imagine it would
(01:46:10)
be very similar to a to to a quarterback
(01:46:13)
when he calls a play everybody on that
(01:46:16)
team knows exactly what's going to
(01:46:19)
happen where they're going to go what
(01:46:20)
they're going to do what route they're
(01:46:21)
going to run where the ball's going to
(01:46:23)
land you know and that's and so in the
(01:46:26)
black book on the Denny's menu if he
(01:46:28)
calls you know Alpha
(01:46:31)
26 all the key players know what's going
(01:46:34)
to be struck what's you know where
(01:46:36)
they're going to be how long it's going
(01:46:38)
to take to get there what countries are
(01:46:40)
going to all of that is already it's
(01:46:42)
already been predetermined it's a
(01:46:43)
predetermined Playbook
(01:46:47)
of of possible scenarios and and you're
(01:46:51)
exactly probably right right and so then
(01:46:55)
imagine this the President says well
(01:46:59)
what is Alpha 52 you whatever the thing
(01:47:01)
and now you the six-minute window the
(01:47:04)
clock is ticking inside
(01:47:07)
stratcom the bunker beneath off at Air
(01:47:11)
Force Base which is one of three of the
(01:47:14)
three nuclear bunkers that are Central
(01:47:15)
to this in this moment in time as this
(01:47:17)
is happening there's one in Cheyenne
(01:47:19)
Mountain there's one beneath off at out
(01:47:21)
air Fort base and there's one at the
(01:47:23)
Pentagon and the president wherever he
(01:47:26)
may be is trying to discern this black
(01:47:29)
book mhm and he's being advised so at
(01:47:33)
stratcom there is an identical black
(01:47:35)
book it's in a safe it gets the safe
(01:47:39)
gets open the black book gets taken out
(01:47:42)
they're identical so that they know
(01:47:43)
exactly they're talking about the same
(01:47:44)
thing there is a target officer who will
(01:47:47)
who's prepared to brief if the president
(01:47:49)
has any questions and there's also a
(01:47:51)
weather officer that's going to tell him
(01:47:54)
how many people are going to die maybe
(01:47:55)
if there's time and if he ask that
(01:47:58)
question from the radioactive fallout in
(01:48:01)
Centric circles going out from Ground
(01:48:02)
Zero each Ground Zero but again how much
(01:48:06)
time do you have in a six-minute window
(01:48:09)
and imagine what's going through the
(01:48:10)
president's mind in the scenario that I
(01:48:12)
write I have the president ask a number
(01:48:15)
of key
(01:48:16)
questions um which were which I learned
(01:48:20)
questions I learned from interviewing
(01:48:22)
people that they are worried the
(01:48:24)
president or that they think the
(01:48:26)
president might ask like I'll give you
(01:48:27)
an example of a key question the
(01:48:30)
president in my scenario
(01:48:32)
ask how do we know there's a nuclear
(01:48:36)
warhead in the nose coming in that
(01:48:38)
ballistic missal and you know what the
(01:48:40)
answer is they
(01:48:44)
don't and then the next answer is you
(01:48:48)
know where where the president might
(01:48:50)
then Wonder perhaps someone is you know
(01:48:53)
tricking me into starting a nuclear war
(01:48:55)
and the answer is no one sends a
(01:48:57)
ballistic missile unless they know we
(01:49:00)
are going to send the motherload in
(01:49:02)
response yeah which is brings us back to
(01:49:04)
the Paradox or The Catch 22 of
(01:49:09)
deterrence so you could use this as an
(01:49:12)
argument which is why no one would be
(01:49:13)
insane enough to ever launch a nuclear
(01:49:16)
missile at the United States because
(01:49:18)
they would be
(01:49:20)
obliterated or you can use the argument
(01:49:23)
that that's ridiculous how can more
(01:49:26)
nuclear weapons make us more safe I mean
(01:49:29)
we shouldn't be so we shouldn't put so
(01:49:32)
much weight on that I mean we just going
(01:49:34)
down to a lower level I mean look at
(01:49:35)
suicide
(01:49:36)
bombers they're they had no problem
(01:49:39)
recruiting suicide bombers you know in
(01:49:41)
the global war on terrorism and so all
(01:49:44)
you would need is somebody with that
(01:49:46)
mindset
(01:49:48)
to get into government and become a
(01:49:51)
world leader I mean
(01:49:55)
not an easy task but not impossible not
(01:49:58)
impossible and in
(01:50:00)
2024 certainly more likely than in 1952
(01:50:05)
mhm on top of that going back to the the
(01:50:08)
decision-making of the president I'm
(01:50:10)
sure he would
(01:50:12)
have if it happened I'm sure he would
(01:50:15)
have advisors that would say something
(01:50:17)
along the lines of this is what this is
(01:50:19)
what's happening right now these are our
(01:50:21)
top three these are our top three
(01:50:25)
actions that we would recommend that you
(01:50:27)
take here they are you know and that is
(01:50:29)
the job of the advisor which one would
(01:50:30)
you like us to do you know and uh so
(01:50:33)
he's not he's not reading the whole
(01:50:36)
Denny's
(01:50:38)
menu you're absolutely right and and and
(01:50:41)
so you also have to imagine what would
(01:50:44)
be going through the president's mind
(01:50:45)
who from what I understand has not
(01:50:48)
thought this through has not been part
(01:50:50)
of the these you know war games
(01:50:53)
scenarios has been concerned with other
(01:50:56)
issues both domestic and abroad suddenly
(01:50:59)
new to this you know asking questions
(01:51:02)
like is this a test and his advisors
(01:51:06)
knowing it is not a test and his advisor
(01:51:09)
being much more aware of how this is
(01:51:12)
going to end
(01:51:14)
meaning you know having war gamed these
(01:51:18)
situations out but then you can learn
(01:51:20)
about a concept as I did which is
(01:51:23)
something called jamming the president
(01:51:25)
which is what is understood would happen
(01:51:27)
at A Moment Like This whereby the
(01:51:30)
military
(01:51:31)
advisers almost universally would be
(01:51:34)
advising him to escalate to deescalate
(01:51:39)
to hit them with an extraordinary amount
(01:51:42)
of
(01:51:43)
force and that is a natural military
(01:51:47)
mindset particularly if you are attacked
(01:51:50)
you know this right and so in the
(01:51:53)
scenario that I report that's where
(01:51:55)
things go Ary because of some
(01:51:58)
technological holes in the system and
(01:52:00)
that is why Russia gets involved
(01:52:02)
interesting well let's get into this
(01:52:05)
scenario M what does it look like if
(01:52:07)
we're
(01:52:10)
hit a nuclear
(01:52:13)
bomb
(01:52:14)
explodes with a flash of light of X-ray
(01:52:19)
light that is
(01:52:21)
so powerful and
(01:52:24)
and hot it is impossible to comprehend
(01:52:28)
it is
(01:52:29)
180 million
(01:52:32)
de that's the temperature at the center
(01:52:35)
of the Sun Time
(01:52:37)
5 really times
(01:52:41)
five and so the thermonuclear flash sets
(01:52:47)
everything on
(01:52:50)
fire depending on the size of the bomb
(01:52:53)
in the scenario that I write it's 3 mil
(01:52:55)
out is that a fact is that the biggest
(01:52:59)
yes that's not the biggest bomb but that
(01:53:00)
is a fact and so by the way like when I
(01:53:03)
write about these horrific details about
(01:53:05)
what happens to people in third degree
(01:53:07)
burns and wind ripping skin off people's
(01:53:10)
faces you know 9 miles out um limbs
(01:53:13)
being ripped off you know the sucking
(01:53:15)
motion that happens the the blast wave
(01:53:18)
that's like a bulldozzer the buildings
(01:53:20)
that come down the when I write all
(01:53:22)
those details those are not out of Annie
(01:53:24)
Jacobson's imagination those are sourced
(01:53:26)
from a primary document called the
(01:53:29)
effects of nuclear weapons which is a
(01:53:32)
600 and some odd page book it's also
(01:53:35)
called Army pamphlet number
(01:53:38)
50-9 if I'm remembering correctly and
(01:53:42)
that began with the Hiroshima and
(01:53:44)
Nagasaki bombings the effects of nuclear
(01:53:48)
weapons on buildings and people and as
(01:53:51)
the tests were done
(01:53:53)
we conducted atmospheric tests in the
(01:53:56)
Pacific and also in Nevada at the test
(01:53:58)
site as the tests were done defense
(01:54:01)
scientists were constantly
(01:54:04)
measuring the effects that nuclear
(01:54:06)
weapons have on things and
(01:54:09)
people and the people substitutes were
(01:54:13)
animals and they measured these with a
(01:54:18)
specificity that's just
(01:54:20)
stunning and that's a polite word for
(01:54:25)
Gruesome and I use those details in the
(01:54:27)
book and I Source them again in notes so
(01:54:30)
you know then you get to learn as a
(01:54:32)
reader oh wait a minute how does the
(01:54:35)
Pentagon know that a pine needle will
(01:54:38)
catch on fire six miles out from Ground
(01:54:41)
Zero you know spontaneously combust and
(01:54:44)
start more fires oh because these have
(01:54:47)
been studied 6 miles out so what so does
(01:54:50)
that mean the the blast radius
(01:54:53)
of The Flash can can be up to 6 miles
(01:54:56)
the BL the people can go blind up to 50
(01:55:00)
mil out if they're looking in the
(01:55:01)
direction of the bomb 50 miles 5 and the
(01:55:05)
way we know you know the defense
(01:55:06)
department would put rabbits and cages
(01:55:08)
and fly them you know 50 Mi out from
(01:55:11)
this bomb and put their you know it's
(01:55:13)
very Clockwork Orange mhm to determine
(01:55:16)
the effects on the
(01:55:17)
retina um a one Megaton bomb that I have
(01:55:21)
hit the Pentagon and I I use the
(01:55:23)
Pentagon as a Target by the way again
(01:55:25)
that's not just because it's my
(01:55:27)
imagination but because many people that
(01:55:30)
I interviewed told me that a bolt out of
(01:55:32)
the blue attack against Washington is
(01:55:35)
what Washington fears
(01:55:36)
most and so a one Megaton bomb that
(01:55:40)
detonates over the Pentagon creates a
(01:55:43)
ball of fire pure fire that is
(01:55:49)
5,700 fet in diameter that's a little
(01:55:51)
over a mile again like the specificity
(01:55:54)
of these numbers are from defense
(01:55:56)
scientists a ball of fire so nothing
(01:56:00)
Remains Not a cricket not a no no
(01:56:05)
cellular life in
(01:56:07)
that and then you have this blast Wave
(01:56:12)
It's called a steeply fronted blast wave
(01:56:15)
and it pushes out and it bulldozes down
(01:56:19)
metaphoric every all physical Bridges go
(01:56:22)
down down you know um Stone splits apart
(01:56:28)
steel lead
(01:56:30)
melts 10 miles out streets become like
(01:56:35)
molten lava so if you survived you're
(01:56:38)
suddenly you know sucked
(01:56:41)
into a lava
(01:56:43)
Street um thirdd degree burns on
(01:56:47)
everyone anyone in a Subway is going to
(01:56:50)
do if they are you know 10 miles out
(01:56:52)
they're going to die of
(01:56:54)
asphixiation so 10 m would 10 miles be
(01:56:59)
the let's talk immediate death
(01:57:02)
mhm 10 miles well there's there's ra
(01:57:06)
there's like three rings that I write
(01:57:08)
about mhm specifically you know in their
(01:57:10)
diameters and they go out up to the
(01:57:12)
Washington DC zoo is kind of the edge
(01:57:15)
where all the animals you know have
(01:57:17)
their skin hanging off of them sorry
(01:57:19)
it's dark it's true um
(01:57:23)
and so then you have to think about you
(01:57:28)
know you have all these people dead all
(01:57:29)
these people now with that are far out
(01:57:32)
as far as 10 miles out with third degree
(01:57:34)
burns fourth degree burns did you even
(01:57:36)
know there was such a thing as a fourth
(01:57:37)
degree burns third degree burns require
(01:57:41)
a specialized
(01:57:43)
bed there are like 10 in Washington then
(01:57:46)
they've now all been obliterated in this
(01:57:48)
scenario people die of you know blood
(01:57:51)
loss imagine the projectiles from this
(01:57:54)
there are several hundred mile an hour
(01:57:56)
winds accompanying that steeply fronted
(01:57:59)
blast
(01:58:00)
wave um the buildings topple over and
(01:58:04)
become
(01:58:05)
Rubble we haven't even spoken to the
(01:58:08)
back that no first responder can go in
(01:58:10)
there for 72 hours by then the world's
(01:58:13)
over the situation I write an appalling
(01:58:16)
detail because I want you to see how
(01:58:19)
horrific you would hope you were in
(01:58:22)
inside the fireball because the further
(01:58:25)
out you are the worse it is when you
(01:58:28)
think about this the mushroom cloud that
(01:58:30)
we've all seen
(01:58:32)
right that mushroom stem and the cloud
(01:58:35)
is made
(01:58:37)
up of the remnants of people who have
(01:58:40)
turned into combusting
(01:58:42)
carbon that is the detrius of
(01:58:48)
civilization that's just one nuclear
(01:58:51)
bomb
(01:58:54)
so people get to see that every nuclear
(01:59:01)
weapon is really a mass extinction
(01:59:04)
weapon
(01:59:06)
because when you consider the black you
(01:59:10)
know we're talking about the ring out 10
(01:59:12)
shall we say 10 10 miles
(01:59:15)
out what will then because all these
(01:59:18)
fires have started now from The Flash
(01:59:21)
the situation comes a mesocyclone of
(01:59:25)
fire is how it's described they're in a
(01:59:28)
matter of minutes or hours there will be
(01:59:32)
a 100 mile radius of fire burning
(01:59:37)
because there's no First
(01:59:40)
Responders in a
(01:59:42)
nuclear attack I learned this from
(01:59:46)
Obama's FEMA
(01:59:48)
director a guy called Craig Fugate who
(01:59:51)
did all these on the record interviews
(01:59:53)
with me and described to
(01:59:57)
me how horrific a nuclear war he was so
(02:00:00)
candid I went back are you sure you said
(02:00:03)
this this this and this it's quoted in
(02:00:05)
the book you know that he said the FEMA
(02:00:09)
does something called population
(02:00:12)
protection planning so earthquakes
(02:00:15)
floods hurricanes when these happen FEMA
(02:00:18)
at the ready to help the people
(02:00:20)
population protection planning and
(02:00:22)
Fugate said to me after a nuclear strike
(02:00:25)
there is no population protection
(02:00:27)
planning because everyone will be
(02:00:29)
dead you're on your own I said what do
(02:00:32)
you suggest people do and he said hope
(02:00:35)
that you stocked Pedialite and don't
(02:00:38)
forget your
(02:00:41)
morals that kind of
(02:00:43)
cander
(02:00:45)
from that level of a of an
(02:00:49)
individual made me realize people people
(02:00:52)
leave
(02:00:53)
office and become civilians again become
(02:00:57)
parents again and grandparents and
(02:00:59)
estimate and they suddenly realize like
(02:01:02)
nuclear war is
(02:01:04)
insane we cannot have a nuclear war mhm
(02:01:09)
mhm what do you have you talked to any
(02:01:12)
of your sources about likely targets
(02:01:14)
other than
(02:01:16)
DC
(02:01:17)
every every city in America is is a
(02:01:22)
target every airport in America is a
(02:01:26)
target every industrial base in America
(02:01:29)
is a
(02:01:30)
target maybe not for the Rogue launch
(02:01:32)
that happens in my scenario in the
(02:01:34)
beginning but as I describe in the book
(02:01:38)
a series of events happen should I jump
(02:01:40)
forward to like what really goes wrong
(02:01:42)
sure okay
(02:01:45)
so we have a really great satellite
(02:01:48)
system Russia does not they pretend they
(02:01:52)
do
(02:01:53)
there's is called Tundra I told you ours
(02:01:56)
can measure you know
(02:02:01)
inches from 22,000 miles up theirs
(02:02:05)
pretends to their system is so flawed
(02:02:07)
that it
(02:02:08)
sees clouds and
(02:02:12)
sunlight as exhaust as fire sometimes
(02:02:17)
now I sourced this not just from
(02:02:19)
American
(02:02:20)
experts but from from people who
(02:02:24)
are experts on Russian nuclear command
(02:02:28)
and control including a guy called Pavo
(02:02:31)
podvig who's who studied in Moscow who's
(02:02:33)
the liaison to the UN for Russian
(02:02:36)
nuclear forces so he know he would be
(02:02:39)
prone to giving you a different opinion
(02:02:41)
maybe than and he even conceded that the
(02:02:44)
tundra system is deeply
(02:02:46)
flawed and so Russia can't see Russia
(02:02:50)
could easily misinterpret
(02:02:52)
what it's what it is seeing happening
(02:02:55)
we're talking about once the missiles
(02:02:57)
start flying once America the American
(02:03:00)
president learns that he has to make a
(02:03:04)
Counterattack and our our missiles are
(02:03:07)
now flying and as Leon Panetta said to
(02:03:09)
me you're right no one thinks about mad
(02:03:12)
chemistry Mutual assured destruction
(02:03:14)
chemistry once the missiles are flying
(02:03:16)
and that's where the mistakes happen so
(02:03:18)
in the scenario a very serious
(02:03:22)
flaw arises which is that us icbms do
(02:03:28)
not have enough
(02:03:29)
range if we are sending icbms at North
(02:03:33)
Korea they have to fly over
(02:03:35)
Russia an actual fact confirmed by
(02:03:38)
Panetta by the
(02:03:40)
way they have to fly over Russia think
(02:03:44)
about the State of Affairs between
(02:03:46)
Russia in the United States right now I
(02:03:48)
don't believe the two presidents have
(02:03:50)
spoken in years
(02:03:54)
during the War General Millie couldn't
(02:03:56)
get his in the early days of the war
(02:03:59)
chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
(02:04:00)
General Millie couldn't get his Russian
(02:04:02)
counterpart on the phone when there was
(02:04:04)
an
(02:04:05)
errant erroneously reported missile
(02:04:07)
attack against
(02:04:09)
Poland couldn't get him on the phone
(02:04:12)
imagine a scenario where nuclear
(02:04:14)
missiles are flying and Russia sees
(02:04:18)
missiles
(02:04:19)
coming it would interpret at themselves
(02:04:23)
not even if you could get the president
(02:04:26)
on the phone and say trust us they're
(02:04:28)
going to go over you not at
(02:04:30)
you and so Russia makes a decision to
(02:04:34)
launch and when Russia launches it sends
(02:04:38)
a thousand nuclear weapons does that
(02:04:40)
mean North Korea's nuclear weapons would
(02:04:43)
also have to fly over
(02:04:45)
Russia North Korea's nuclear weapons fly
(02:04:48)
over Russia and China but they do not
(02:04:51)
have the same
(02:04:53)
technology that we have according to my
(02:04:56)
understanding of the technology to see
(02:04:59)
neither China nor Russia to see in real
(02:05:03)
time the way that we see in real
(02:05:08)
time any ballistic missile launch
(02:05:11)
anywhere on the globe only reason I'm
(02:05:13)
bringing that up is context yeah
(02:05:19)
because if they do have somewhat of a
(02:05:21)
capability
(02:05:22)
and North Korea launches a nuke at the
(02:05:27)
us and it does have to fly over China
(02:05:29)
and Russia at least in our response they
(02:05:32)
would have some context and they could
(02:05:34)
go okay we did just see one we just saw
(02:05:38)
one fly this way now we're going to see
(02:05:41)
one head West you know and and so it
(02:05:44)
wouldn't be 100% in the
(02:05:48)
blind which is a could that is a that is
(02:05:52)
a possibility now with that being said
(02:05:54)
you're also you know there would have to
(02:05:55)
be some type of communications and if we
(02:05:57)
don't have communications and we can't
(02:06:00)
we can't even get our counterpart uh on
(02:06:03)
the
(02:06:04)
phone
(02:06:06)
then and here's the fundamental problem
(02:06:09)
with that in terms of long thinking
(02:06:12)
which is that America's first nuclear
(02:06:15)
war plan
(02:06:16)
against Russia was a preemptive Nuclear
(02:06:20)
Strike okay a preemptive Nuclear Strike
(02:06:24)
Russia has been paranoid ever since
(02:06:26)
maybe with good reason because this is
(02:06:28)
how an origin story that we would do a
(02:06:32)
preemptive Nuclear
(02:06:34)
Strike um I have heard some leading
(02:06:40)
experts on Putin including Fiona Hill
(02:06:43)
who
(02:06:44)
advised multiple presidents so she's
(02:06:46)
completely
(02:06:47)
nonpartisan talk about
(02:06:50)
how the invasion of
(02:06:53)
Iraq profoundly impacted Putin's
(02:06:56)
thinking about the United States about
(02:06:59)
regime
(02:07:00)
change about a preemptive attack and how
(02:07:04)
dangerous that
(02:07:06)
is um so it's not just long history that
(02:07:10)
someone might be thinking of it's short
(02:07:11)
history more immediate history and
(02:07:16)
so another example of how paranoid
(02:07:19)
Russia has been for decad
(02:07:23)
decades is its system that it created
(02:07:26)
called the Dead Hand okay it's the the
(02:07:30)
the lit the literal name of it is
(02:07:32)
perimeter it was or this perimeter
(02:07:34)
system Dead Hand was originally reported
(02:07:36)
by a Washington Post reporter named
(02:07:38)
David Hoffman um like in 1999 when he
(02:07:41)
first learned about it right after the
(02:07:43)
wall had gone down before we were back
(02:07:45)
to this nuclear threat posturing but the
(02:07:48)
way the Dead Hand Works is like this
(02:07:50)
Russia was so par paranoid that the
(02:07:53)
United States was going to launch a
(02:07:54)
preemptive nuclear attack against it
(02:07:57)
during the Cold War that it created a
(02:07:59)
dead hand system what is that it's kind
(02:08:01)
of like it sounds they created a system
(02:08:04)
whereby ground
(02:08:06)
sensors would be able to
(02:08:10)
determine nuclear weapons hitting
(02:08:13)
nuclear bombs hitting the Russian soil
(02:08:16)
and if they weren't hearing from the
(02:08:18)
nuclear command and
(02:08:20)
control so the idea being that the
(02:08:23)
nuclear command and control had been
(02:08:24)
taken out in this preemptive nuclear
(02:08:27)
strike the Dead Hand
(02:08:30)
system would launch all of Russia's
(02:08:34)
remaining nuclear weapons were like
(02:08:35)
which were like 30,000 at the time okay
(02:08:38)
would launch all of them without even
(02:08:41)
needing a hand to push the button hence
(02:08:43)
the name the dead
(02:08:44)
hand so it set up a system
(02:08:49)
to launch no matter what even if we're
(02:08:52)
all
(02:08:53)
dead and the idea behind it
(02:08:58)
is kind of part of deterrence like don't
(02:09:01)
you dare launch at us or even our own
(02:09:04)
Dead Hand will get you and so when you
(02:09:07)
think about
(02:09:09)
that you realize there's a long history
(02:09:12)
of Suspicion in Russia and even more
(02:09:16)
terrifying is I have heard in defense
(02:09:18)
circles and I haven't been able to
(02:09:19)
confirm it but I have heard that even
(02:09:22)
now the US defense department is
(02:09:25)
thinking of creating some kind of a dead
(02:09:27)
hand equivalent because allegedly Russia
(02:09:30)
never got rid of that
(02:09:32)
system that's where AI would become a
(02:09:35)
real problem yeah that's a great point
(02:09:38)
that is a great point the dead AI
(02:09:42)
hand wow that's a great Point let's
(02:09:46)
let's keep with the let's go back into
(02:09:49)
what life looks like okay so we
(02:09:53)
it sounds like excuse me if I'm mistaken
(02:09:55)
it sounds like immediate Devastation is
(02:09:58)
about 10 mile radius 100 miles you're
(02:10:02)
going to feel effects
(02:10:07)
mhm what happens after
(02:10:10)
that so in the
(02:10:12)
scenario I have the president making
(02:10:16)
this
(02:10:18)
decision the BL you know the six-minute
(02:10:21)
window is upon him they're waiting for
(02:10:24)
minute 89 to have the secondary ground
(02:10:26)
confirmation from the from the ground
(02:10:29)
radar systems that happens sir it's
(02:10:31)
confirmed the ICBM is coming to
(02:10:33)
Washington then I
(02:10:35)
have a situation unfold between the
(02:10:38)
Secret Service and nuclear command and
(02:10:41)
control based on interviews I did with
(02:10:42)
Secret Service once I realized wait a
(02:10:45)
minute the secret service's job is to
(02:10:48)
protect the president as soon as the
(02:10:50)
Secret Service learns the the special
(02:10:52)
agent in charge the sack in charge of
(02:10:54)
the president learns that there's a
(02:10:56)
missile coming at Washington he's moving
(02:10:58)
the
(02:10:59)
president period
(02:11:02)
non-negotiable the secret service has a
(02:11:04)
element a a cat team counter assault
(02:11:07)
team they're kind of like the
(02:11:10)
president's version of ground branch in
(02:11:12)
essence a lot of guys go back and forth
(02:11:15)
so the counter assault team gets called
(02:11:17)
in by the
(02:11:19)
sack within the counter assault team
(02:11:21)
there's an even tinier group called The
(02:11:24)
Element an element is a three-man team a
(02:11:28)
three-man team is now going to move the
(02:11:29)
president on Air Force One out of the
(02:11:31)
White Hall out of the White House back
(02:11:34)
off right so it's a standoff who do you
(02:11:37)
think is going to win who has better
(02:11:39)
equipment we
(02:11:41)
do the the cat team wins they move the
(02:11:45)
president much to the Chagrin of the
(02:11:47)
stratcom commander and everybody else
(02:11:48)
who wants that order while they are
(02:11:51)
moving the president and there's a
(02:11:53)
problem because I learned
(02:11:56)
that getting a little into the weeds
(02:11:58)
here but I'm going
(02:12:00)
the there's an EMP which will happen
(02:12:03)
with any nuclear you're familiar with
(02:12:05)
that Marine one is EMP proof for
(02:12:08)
listeners it's an electromagnetic pulse
(02:12:10)
that could very easily fry the
(02:12:13)
electronic system on Marine one causing
(02:12:15)
it to crash so the sack needs to make
(02:12:17)
sure there are parachutes that they can
(02:12:19)
tandem jump the
(02:12:22)
president they're not in Bine one a
(02:12:25)
detail I learned they probably are now
(02:12:27)
but they weren't then so the element has
(02:12:30)
to swing by the White House Office grab
(02:12:32)
the parachutes they need one for the
(02:12:34)
mill Aid one for the guy who's going to
(02:12:36)
jump the president and one for the
(02:12:39)
sack they get them they get into Marine
(02:12:42)
one it's a while that is happening I
(02:12:45)
have in the scenario a second ballistic
(02:12:49)
missile strikes a nuclear power plant in
(02:12:55)
California a sub launched ballistic
(02:12:58)
missile now I had Ted postol I'm
(02:13:01)
pointing to this and Richard Garwin
(02:13:04)
discuss with me whether or not it was
(02:13:06)
plausible whether or not North Korea can
(02:13:09)
actually get a submarine up to the west
(02:13:13)
coast of the United States because we
(02:13:14)
know China and Russia can that's a fact
(02:13:16)
you learn that later in the
(02:13:18)
book Ken North Korea Ted postal believes
(02:13:23)
that they can Garwin says he doesn't
(02:13:25)
think they can yet I wanted to have that
(02:13:28)
kind of a debate available for
(02:13:32)
readers to think about M you just don't
(02:13:35)
know until you know I take you through
(02:13:38)
the technology of why postal thinks it's
(02:13:40)
possible they La the North
(02:13:43)
Korean sub launch ballistic missile
(02:13:47)
fires from a couple hundred miles off
(02:13:49)
the West Coast that takes less than 10
(02:13:52)
minutes it's like 6 minutes or
(02:13:55)
something while the president is
(02:13:57)
deciding whether or not he's going to
(02:13:59)
give this counter launch and the secret
(02:14:03)
service is moving
(02:14:05)
him the power plant is hit
(02:14:09)
and when the nuclear the reason I chose
(02:14:11)
the nuclear power plant to be hit is
(02:14:13)
because it's the it's What's called the
(02:14:15)
devil's
(02:14:17)
scenario it's worst it's the worst of
(02:14:19)
the worst worst case scenario
(02:14:22)
and I won't get too into the read into
(02:14:24)
the Weeds about what happens why
(02:14:29)
not I want you to read the book okay but
(02:14:32)
no and I I shouldn't say it like that I
(02:14:34)
say what I mean
(02:14:37)
is the details you you if you're me you
(02:14:40)
almost can't like tell the details in
(02:14:42)
like a 30- second version because it's
(02:14:44)
so profound what happens and it's so
(02:14:47)
terrifying and people would say that
(02:14:50)
they would never do that well there
(02:14:51)
there's actually a rule it's called Rule
(02:14:54)
42 in the international committee for
(02:14:57)
the Red Cross that says you will not you
(02:14:59)
must never
(02:15:01)
Strike a n a nuclear power plant that's
(02:15:04)
even with Kinetic weapons we're not
(02:15:06)
talking about nuclear weapons and so
(02:15:07)
when I was doing this scenario people
(02:15:09)
you know that were sort of mentors are
(02:15:11)
you sure you want to do that I mean
(02:15:12)
that's against the rules it was like
(02:15:14)
well that's the point it there are no
(02:15:17)
rules if you're going to play nuclear
(02:15:18)
war and then this is before
(02:15:22)
the Ukraine war unfolded and so when
(02:15:24)
Russia Russia has now exploded
(02:15:29)
weapons around the zapara nuclear power
(02:15:32)
plant in Ukraine eight or nine times
(02:15:34)
they have been on backup generator
(02:15:36)
that's one step away from losing power
(02:15:38)
that's one step away from a nuclear core
(02:15:41)
materials meltdown if you strike a
(02:15:43)
nuclear power plant directly with a
(02:15:45)
nuclear weapon you will have a nuclear
(02:15:47)
core materials meltdown the land will be
(02:15:50)
unin inhabited all the way to
(02:15:54)
Colorado are you
(02:15:56)
serious fact checked with Los Alamos wow
(02:16:00)
that's why I don't want to give it away
(02:16:02)
I want you to have that experience Sean
(02:16:03)
where you read it and you're just like
(02:16:06)
how is this possible and hopefully the
(02:16:07)
only reason you're stopping to read is
(02:16:09)
to go back into the notes to check is
(02:16:12)
this really true so that's like a third
(02:16:14)
of the
(02:16:16)
country rendered
(02:16:20)
uninhabitable and so that's why the
(02:16:22)
president agrees in the logic of this
(02:16:25)
scenario to the
(02:16:27)
82 nuclear warhead
(02:16:30)
Counterattack because he learns from his
(02:16:33)
SEF we just got hit in a nuclear power
(02:16:36)
plant in California he's going to send
(02:16:38)
the motherload and that's what he
(02:16:41)
does and that is why
(02:16:46)
things go arise that decision to send 82
(02:16:50)
so perhaps the only way the scenario
(02:16:54)
might have unfolded differently and I
(02:16:56)
did this discussion with former
(02:16:57)
Secretary of Defense Bill Perry because
(02:16:59)
we talked about this a lot because he
(02:17:01)
thinks about this a lot he's now in his
(02:17:03)
90s and he stopped doing interviews but
(02:17:05)
during covid he and I did a number of
(02:17:07)
zooms going through these scenarios and
(02:17:11)
he he shared with me that you know
(02:17:14)
perhaps a certain kind of President
(02:17:18)
might
(02:17:19)
wait to see the
(02:17:24)
outcome after might not instill the
(02:17:27)
launch on morning policy might
(02:17:30)
way but once you
(02:17:32)
see a catastrophic attack you just the
(02:17:36)
emotions take over and it's
(02:17:43)
Revenge what is the middle of the
(02:17:45)
country look
(02:17:47)
like when so 50 some odd men minutes
(02:17:51)
later when Russia launches okay so
(02:17:54)
because the president makes the decision
(02:17:57)
to launch the 82 as the weapons fly he
(02:18:01)
launches 50 icbms and 32
(02:18:04)
slbms the the 50 can be launched
(02:18:08)
in 60 seconds that's how long it takes
(02:18:11)
to launch an ICBM once the president
(02:18:12)
gives the command the joke is the the
(02:18:15)
those missiles are called Minutemen
(02:18:17)
because of the Revolutionary War but the
(02:18:18)
joke in Washington is they don't call
(02:18:20)
them Minutemen for nothing cuz they take
(02:18:22)
60 seconds to launch mhm sub launched
(02:18:25)
ballistic missiles take 14 minutes from
(02:18:28)
the time the commander and chief gives
(02:18:31)
that order the sub has to get into
(02:18:33)
position it's a little bit more
(02:18:35)
complicated 14 minutes and so as the
(02:18:40)
clock is
(02:18:42)
ticking Russian early Warning Systems
(02:18:46)
now move into place and the Russian
(02:18:48)
early Warning Systems see the ballistic
(02:18:52)
missiles
(02:18:54)
coming over the pole and interpret them
(02:18:58)
as coming for thems for them and then
(02:19:01)
there other you know and I went through
(02:19:03)
experts that are know all about the
(02:19:05)
Russian early Warning Systems to take
(02:19:07)
the reader through how this
(02:19:10)
happens and then you go into the command
(02:19:13)
bunker where the Pres the Russian
(02:19:14)
president is with his advisers who are
(02:19:18)
all almost certainly Hawks who are are
(02:19:21)
all almost certainly extremely
(02:19:24)
suspicious of the United
(02:19:27)
States and they advise
(02:19:29)
him and so a
(02:19:32)
thousand nuclear warheads get get
(02:19:35)
launched at the United States so when
(02:19:36)
you ask what happens to the middle of
(02:19:37)
the country think of a thousand targets
(02:19:41)
I have a map drawn based on defense
(02:19:43)
department targets doe you know
(02:19:46)
different documents that have been
(02:19:47)
released over the years leaked
(02:19:51)
um guesstimated the whole country is
(02:19:55)
obliterated and then you have a 100 to
(02:19:58)
300 square
(02:20:00)
mile Ring of
(02:20:02)
Fire a mega fire that's now producing
(02:20:05)
its own weather you have a thousand of
(02:20:09)
them people die from rad you know
(02:20:14)
blast they die
(02:20:16)
from uh you know objects flying through
(02:20:19)
the air they die from immediate
(02:20:22)
radiation
(02:20:23)
poisoning um and they die from fire a
(02:20:27)
thousand
(02:20:28)
times and then in we talk about the
(02:20:31)
survivors have you looked at what
(02:20:32)
immediate radiation poisoning looks
(02:20:34)
like for that I tell the story of and
(02:20:38)
again this stuff is
(02:20:40)
like okay how do you get how do you
(02:20:43)
where is that information well I found
(02:20:45)
that information there was a guy called
(02:20:48)
Lou
(02:20:49)
sloten Who was an original man Manhattan
(02:20:51)
Project
(02:20:52)
member and his death was Declassified by
(02:20:56)
Los Alamos the doctor's report on his
(02:20:59)
death after he died of radiation
(02:21:01)
poisoning and I I source that precisely
(02:21:04)
throughout the book as the you know it's
(02:21:07)
a ticking time clock scenario but I stop
(02:21:09)
and give you little history lessons at
(02:21:11)
moments where you might ask like you
(02:21:13)
just asked me that question I give the
(02:21:15)
reader what does radiation poisoning
(02:21:17)
look like and I tell the story of Louis
(02:21:19)
loton he was he was a member of the
(02:21:21)
Manhattan Project and after the war was
(02:21:23)
over he was like I don't want to keep
(02:21:25)
making nuclear bombs I'm out and they
(02:21:27)
were like okay that's fine but you have
(02:21:29)
to train the next guy and so at Los
(02:21:32)
Alamos they went out into this little
(02:21:35)
site kind of outside of the lab in the
(02:21:37)
forest the building's still there it's a
(02:21:40)
historical building now and um sloon was
(02:21:43)
training the next guy how to like work
(02:21:45)
with the with the plutonium core uranium
(02:21:47)
core like this is the center of the bomb
(02:21:50)
and they were doing this experiment that
(02:21:52)
was so dangerous it was called tickling
(02:21:54)
the dragon's
(02:21:56)
tail and sloon is working on this and
(02:22:00)
and it it
(02:22:01)
drops and the so everybody takes off
(02:22:07)
and sloten what happens to him is like
(02:22:11)
documented in seconds he dies eight or
(02:22:15)
nine days later um this had been
(02:22:17)
classified for a very long time but it's
(02:22:19)
been Declassified and you can you just
(02:22:21)
learn what happens to his body I mean
(02:22:24)
you know where the the the hands blow up
(02:22:28)
the skin you know essentially peels off
(02:22:30)
I mean it just is so grotesque you
(02:22:32)
really want me to describe it yeah
(02:22:35)
absolutely I mean they tried everything
(02:22:39)
like blood transfusions and you know his
(02:22:42)
your body swells up um they're put
(02:22:46)
they're debriding his hands they're
(02:22:48)
putting Vaseline on them his
(02:22:52)
insides begin to the radiation ruins the
(02:22:57)
lining on your organs and so you
(02:23:00)
essentially just
(02:23:01)
become like it almost reminded me of I
(02:23:05)
read a description once of what happens
(02:23:06)
to an a Bola
(02:23:08)
patient it's like that like your the
(02:23:11)
lining SS away and so your organs start
(02:23:14)
to merge and you just have sepsis and
(02:23:17)
then you get gang green and then you die
(02:23:21)
and when they cut you open you're just
(02:23:22)
like soup inside it's like a
(02:23:29)
blender it's a horrific way to die
(02:23:32)
that's acute radiation poisoning the
(02:23:35)
really Sinister thing about radiation
(02:23:38)
poisoning is how first of all it's
(02:23:41)
invisible you know um it's not like a
(02:23:44)
burn and the degrees of radiation
(02:23:48)
poisoning are not necessarily dependent
(02:23:51)
on proximity to the
(02:23:53)
bomb and of course the if you're really
(02:23:55)
close you know cyanara but you can have
(02:24:01)
acute radiation poisoning far away from
(02:24:04)
one of the things about the nuclear
(02:24:05)
power plant exploding that's just so
(02:24:07)
crazy is that um it's not just the
(02:24:10)
nuclear core materials meltdown of the
(02:24:12)
actual nuclear reactor it's that every
(02:24:15)
nuclear facility has spent fuel rods
(02:24:19)
those are the rods that you to power the
(02:24:22)
the the nuclear generator they're in
(02:24:24)
cooling pools right
(02:24:27)
nearby and they're incredibly
(02:24:29)
radioactive and when those blast apart
(02:24:32)
the pieces of the spent fuel rods become
(02:24:35)
entrained in the cloud so in that
(02:24:39)
mushroom stem you have all this
(02:24:42)
radioactive material that's like the
(02:24:44)
size of a marble or a pencil that's how
(02:24:45)
it was described to me and it goes up in
(02:24:47)
the cloud and then it moves and then
(02:24:49)
it's dropped
(02:24:52)
one of those drops near
(02:24:56)
you you have Louis loton type poisoning
(02:25:00)
man
(02:25:02)
man where would the survivors
(02:25:05)
be so are you familiar at all with the
(02:25:08)
nuclear winter Theory no okay so nuclear
(02:25:11)
winter theory was
(02:25:14)
originally written in 1983 do you know
(02:25:17)
have you heard of Carl
(02:25:18)
San no okay Carl San was an
(02:25:21)
astrophysicist who like became very
(02:25:24)
famous in the 80 70s and ' 80s and then
(02:25:26)
he died tragically of cancer but he he
(02:25:30)
became a real proponent an anti-nuclear
(02:25:33)
weapons
(02:25:34)
proponent um and he and his Stu and and
(02:25:39)
a number of people wrote this Theory
(02:25:41)
called nuclear winter where they climb
(02:25:43)
they modeled out what would
(02:25:45)
happen after the
(02:25:49)
fires stopped St burning so you have all
(02:25:53)
these fires and again we're just talking
(02:25:55)
about the thousand in the United States
(02:25:56)
the US launched in my scenario a
(02:25:59)
thousand at Russia because we don't just
(02:26:01)
go you know
(02:26:03)
okay we're going to we're all going to
(02:26:05)
die so we're just going to let all of
(02:26:07)
you guys live we launch and for reasons
(02:26:10)
why I take you through that so you have
(02:26:13)
you know 2,000 3,000 nuclear weapons
(02:26:15)
that have gone off and the modeling on
(02:26:18)
that suggests that after all the fires
(02:26:21)
sto burning this is state-of-the-art
(02:26:24)
climate modeling updated since the 1983
(02:26:27)
nuclear winter Theory so this is still
(02:26:29)
the nuclear winter Theory but now with
(02:26:31)
the
(02:26:32)
technology instead of scientists like
(02:26:34)
doing you know calculations on paper
(02:26:36)
with old computers these are
(02:26:39)
like really Advanced Computer Systems
(02:26:41)
confirming all of this the fires will
(02:26:44)
Loft into the air
(02:26:48)
330 billion
(02:26:50)
pounds of
(02:26:53)
soot goes up into the troposphere and
(02:26:56)
blocks out the sun 70% of the sun's
(02:27:01)
Rays
(02:27:03)
disappear and so hence nuclear winter
(02:27:09)
suddenly in places like across the mid
(02:27:12)
latitudes of the globe you
(02:27:15)
have all bodies become all bodies of
(02:27:18)
water fresh water bodies become ice
(02:27:21)
the ice at the Arctic Circle
(02:27:23)
doubles um you have a temperature drop
(02:27:27)
around the earth between 27 and
(02:27:30)
40° w wow places like Iowa and Ukraine
(02:27:35)
bread baskets of the world they become
(02:27:38)
Frozen for 8 9 10
(02:27:40)
years agriculture
(02:27:43)
fails so now you have people any
(02:27:47)
survivors who are you know malnourished
(02:27:51)
suffering from radiation poisoning
(02:27:54)
everyone who they know is
(02:27:56)
dead fighting over a tiny amount of
(02:28:03)
resources when the sun
(02:28:06)
returns you think the sun's back out but
(02:28:10)
the ozone layer has been destroyed so
(02:28:12)
the sun will give you radiation
(02:28:15)
poisoning so people have to live
(02:28:18)
underground and this interesting detail
(02:28:21)
I
(02:28:23)
found was that was shared with me was
(02:28:25)
that like the small bodied animals the
(02:28:28)
sort of insects they can bounce back
(02:28:31)
faster and they will reproduce faster
(02:28:33)
than hum than large-bodied animals like
(02:28:36)
you and me and so you have pathogens you
(02:28:39)
have plague you have like all these
(02:28:41)
horrific you know plagues that come with
(02:28:44)
insects and abundance of index never
(02:28:47)
mind all the that the five billion
(02:28:49)
people who died
(02:28:51)
I mean at some point their bodies Tha
(02:28:53)
out think about that that's like dark
(02:28:57)
Beyond
(02:28:59)
dark um one of the original authors of
(02:29:01)
the nuclear winter theory is a guy
(02:29:03)
called Professor Brian tun and I
(02:29:05)
interviewed him for the book he's been
(02:29:07)
on this issue since he was Carl Sean's
(02:29:10)
student in the in 1983 when he when he
(02:29:13)
was one of the original five authors and
(02:29:15)
he took me through all of this you know
(02:29:17)
and he said to me Annie 66 million years
(02:29:21)
ago an
(02:29:22)
asteroid struck the planet killed the
(02:29:26)
dinosaurs and
(02:29:28)
70% of the species that we know of he
(02:29:31)
said nuclear war would not be unlike
(02:29:35)
that so you have to ask yourself you
(02:29:38)
know there's nothing we can do about an
(02:29:40)
asteroid strike but there is something
(02:29:42)
we can do
(02:29:44)
about nuclear war
(02:29:52)
this isn't a nation ending event this is
(02:29:55)
a it's a civilization ending event
(02:29:58)
civilization meaning civilized
(02:30:02)
man civilized
(02:30:04)
man Einstein was
(02:30:08)
asked if he had like about what weapons
(02:30:11)
he thought World War III would be fought
(02:30:14)
with and his response is said to have
(02:30:16)
been I know not with what weapons World
(02:30:20)
War II will be fought but World War 4
(02:30:23)
will be fought with sticks and
(02:30:28)
stones so after a nuclear war man
(02:30:32)
returns to his hunter gatherer
(02:30:36)
State and the philosophical question I
(02:30:38)
find so interesting to think about is
(02:30:41)
like here we
(02:30:43)
are humans who have moved in the past
(02:30:46)
12,000 years from hunter gatherers
(02:30:51)
to like look at us podcasts
(02:30:55)
microphones I flew here there's a probe
(02:30:59)
on
(02:31:00)
Mars do you
(02:31:03)
think I'm going to go down a rabbit hole
(02:31:07)
and you can entertain it or not but um
(02:31:10)
have you looked at any of the have you
(02:31:13)
looked at anybody
(02:31:17)
like I don't want to mention any names
(02:31:19)
if you looked at anybody or looked into
(02:31:22)
kind of the cataclysm type stuff and and
(02:31:26)
how civilization just restarts over and
(02:31:29)
over and over again you have what do you
(02:31:31)
think of that yeah I mean we started out
(02:31:33)
this conference I'll read I read all
(02:31:35)
things do you think that this has
(02:31:37)
happened before I mean I don't know but
(02:31:41)
sometimes I try to counter what could be
(02:31:44)
perceived as
(02:31:46)
conspiracy conspiratorial thinking shall
(02:31:48)
we say with maybe a more
(02:31:53)
bookish you know concept which is
(02:31:55)
actually the same thing right so let me
(02:31:57)
go back at you with this that there's
(02:32:00)
there was a paper written by like two
(02:32:03)
nerds and I say that love like two guys
(02:32:05)
with probably they probably have like
(02:32:07)
five phds and you can Google it it's
(02:32:09)
called the
(02:32:10)
saluran concept and I think they took
(02:32:13)
the name off of a doctor who character
(02:32:17)
if I'm not mistaken and an interesting
(02:32:19)
thing to think about in my experience
(02:32:21)
digressing for a second before a lot of
(02:32:24)
times like super intelligent PhD people
(02:32:27)
Nobel laurates science Geniuses they
(02:32:31)
read science fiction they like to think
(02:32:34)
about the very Concepts that you just
(02:32:38)
suggested and when you think about it
(02:32:40)
that's where a lot of DARPA Concepts
(02:32:42)
come from you know you could say Jules
(02:32:45)
ver you know thought about the submarine
(02:32:49)
before right mhm um so the curan concept
(02:32:53)
where these
(02:32:54)
two PhD
(02:32:57)
people imagining if this if what you
(02:33:00)
propose is true that there had been
(02:33:03)
Advanced civilizations before how would
(02:33:06)
we present day man see it in the
(02:33:10)
geological record which is actually a
(02:33:13)
really brilliant thought not talking
(02:33:15)
about like ancient archaeology that's
(02:33:18)
like that you're talking about
(02:33:20)
you know 12,000 years ago they're
(02:33:23)
talking about a million years ago 2
(02:33:25)
million years ago or
(02:33:28)
Beyond um and their the only way to to
(02:33:32)
know about that would be to look in the
(02:33:35)
geological record and I think that is
(02:33:39)
really interesting to think about two
(02:33:40)
things one that like that's where it
(02:33:42)
would be and two that all kinds of
(02:33:47)
people wonder that and why wouldn't you
(02:33:49)
wonder that it's a little bit like
(02:33:52)
wondering are we alone mhm I sometimes
(02:33:55)
think of geology and as you know I
(02:33:59)
people look up to the cosmos and get
(02:34:01)
really inspired I often look I look at
(02:34:03)
the ground I can drive and through the
(02:34:07)
Sierra Nevadas and look at the mountains
(02:34:09)
and have that same thought like what was
(02:34:13)
here
(02:34:14)
before like a long time
(02:34:16)
before reason I'm asking is you if you I
(02:34:20)
think it's turkey if you there's all
(02:34:22)
these
(02:34:23)
[Music]
(02:34:25)
underground they're like underground
(02:34:27)
cities you know and I I believe it's
(02:34:30)
turkey they
(02:34:31)
have I wish I had more facts on this I
(02:34:34)
don't think we were going to go here but
(02:34:35)
um I mean it seems like hundreds of
(02:34:38)
thousands of people could could live in
(02:34:42)
these underground cities they never end
(02:34:44)
they never find the end of them
(02:34:47)
and nobody knows why they were built
(02:34:50)
and then you're saying the only way you
(02:34:52)
could survive is
(02:34:54)
underground yes I I know
(02:34:57)
that site I mean it's very very
(02:35:00)
interesting and I love thinking
(02:35:03)
about those exact questions that you
(02:35:05)
raise in in the end of nuclear war
(02:35:08)
scenario I take the reader to a
(02:35:11)
different ancient site in Turkey CU
(02:35:14)
turkeyy is like super interesting they
(02:35:15)
seem to have these incredibly old sites
(02:35:19)
that are almost now newly becoming not
(02:35:22)
necessarily discovered but becoming sort
(02:35:24)
of more people are aware of them um and
(02:35:27)
I learned that that has to do with a
(02:35:29)
bias from the archaeological world that
(02:35:31)
used to look down on Turkey like Greece
(02:35:33)
and Rome or everything but turkey it's a
(02:35:35)
Backwater ignore it so I write about go
(02:35:38)
Beckle tap which is a
(02:35:42)
site in turkey that is the oldest known
(02:35:49)
civilization to date like the old before
(02:35:53)
it was found in the mid90s by an
(02:35:57)
archaeologist named CLA Schmidt and I
(02:35:59)
interviewed the young student who was
(02:36:01)
with him Schmidt died but I interviewed
(02:36:03)
Michael morsh about finding this site
(02:36:06)
okay because before this site was found
(02:36:09)
there was the archaeologists all had one
(02:36:11)
idea about man they had this idea that
(02:36:16)
about civilization rather that man were
(02:36:18)
hunter gatherers Primitives and then
(02:36:22)
suddenly uh man figured out how to
(02:36:24)
domesticate animals and
(02:36:27)
agriculture evolved and led to
(02:36:31)
Civilization by civilization that means
(02:36:35)
groups of people doing things
(02:36:37)
together a team mhm well gockley Tey was
(02:36:42)
Unearthed and there's I have pictures of
(02:36:45)
it in the book it's it was a
(02:36:48)
site with it's like Centric circles
(02:36:52)
almost like a stadium an ancient Stadium
(02:36:55)
massive with giant 20 foot
(02:37:00)
tall carved Stone
(02:37:03)
pillars covered with non-domesticated
(02:37:06)
animals by the way cranes ebis
(02:37:11)
foxes they were hunter gatherers they
(02:37:14)
had not domesticated animals yet as far
(02:37:16)
as we can tell certainly given the age
(02:37:18)
of everything there but they they were
(02:37:20)
smart enough to create architectural
(02:37:23)
plans you can't build something like
(02:37:25)
that with like a group of you know
(02:37:28)
hunter gatherers you have to really have
(02:37:30)
a team so it's
(02:37:34)
upended the way that archaeologists get
(02:37:36)
to think about man and about the birth
(02:37:38)
of
(02:37:40)
civilization and it's super interesting
(02:37:43)
and what interests me in terms of this
(02:37:44)
book is exactly on the question that
(02:37:47)
you're interested in and so am I which
(02:37:49)
is like
(02:37:50)
well it's like a two-fold question one
(02:37:53)
what was going on before okay and
(02:37:57)
two why is it that we the Royal we a
(02:38:00)
group of people like get to decide this
(02:38:03)
is what it was and this is how it is
(02:38:05)
it's just going to be that way because
(02:38:07)
we tell you so mhm and you have to
(02:38:09)
balance that out with like some crazy
(02:38:12)
idea that I might have you know out on a
(02:38:15)
hike um but it is worth thinking about
(02:38:20)
and I think that it opens the mind
(02:38:24)
up to a lot more wonder and also a lot
(02:38:27)
more
(02:38:30)
flexibility it makes you think makes it
(02:38:33)
definitely makes you think and you know
(02:38:36)
it's
(02:38:39)
it's we're kind of off on a tangent now
(02:38:42)
but I mean I just how was how how were
(02:38:45)
we not aware of this stuff
(02:38:48)
before the exist of these incredible
(02:38:51)
sites in Turkey yeah I mean or any of
(02:38:54)
them any during Co I went down
(02:38:57)
archaological rabbit hole because right
(02:39:00)
and like I bought a bunch of books on
(02:39:02)
eBay cuz here's the thing if you read
(02:39:06)
the original books or rather you you go
(02:39:09)
back in time and you read books that
(02:39:11)
were printed then you can get a really
(02:39:13)
interesting different Sense on what
(02:39:15)
historians say about
(02:39:17)
it and so I read all these books
(02:39:21)
archaeology only really began in sort of
(02:39:24)
the late
(02:39:26)
1800s and I and I have these books like
(02:39:29)
what people were actually saying at the
(02:39:31)
time about the sites they were
(02:39:33)
uncovering the goods which they stole
(02:39:35)
which are now you know in the Lou and
(02:39:37)
the British Museum and everywhere and it
(02:39:39)
was that's where I got that I kind of
(02:39:41)
figured out that it had to do with a
(02:39:45)
group of people at the time who were the
(02:39:47)
leading experts the British and the
(02:39:50)
French
(02:39:52)
deciding this is important we're going
(02:39:54)
to study this and we're going to ignore
(02:39:56)
the rest of it and that's why turkey got
(02:39:58)
ignored for a long
(02:40:00)
time up until like the
(02:40:04)
1950s
(02:40:06)
wow interesting interesting stuff you
(02:40:09)
know it's it's I i' never really I've
(02:40:13)
watched a couple documentaries on
(02:40:16)
it and you know the the the the
(02:40:20)
commonality between all of them is what
(02:40:22)
what were these people hiding from why
(02:40:23)
were they going underground I mean
(02:40:26)
thousands and it could hold thousands
(02:40:28)
and thousands of people and if I
(02:40:31)
remember correctly I mean there's
(02:40:34)
there's I don't know if Plumbing is the
(02:40:37)
right word but I mean they have Plumbing
(02:40:39)
they
(02:40:40)
have they had everything you know it was
(02:40:43)
it was capable of holding and I never it
(02:40:47)
never occurred to me to think that it
(02:40:49)
could
(02:40:50)
be
(02:40:52)
possibly excuse
(02:40:54)
me some type of nuclear fallout
(02:40:58)
shter and it's I mean almost certainly
(02:41:01)
it had to do with
(02:41:03)
Warfare that you would create I think
(02:41:06)
it's called Darian Kirk is that right
(02:41:08)
Darian man I don't know I don't know I
(02:41:11)
mean almost certainly it has to do with
(02:41:16)
defense but to create that much of a
(02:41:20)
system
(02:41:25)
underground begs many many many
(02:41:27)
questions
(02:41:30)
and I think that that's also like
(02:41:33)
why that idea of Science
(02:41:37)
Fiction is so interesting here's a quote
(02:41:41)
from
(02:41:41)
DARPA that the DARPA director said when
(02:41:45)
I was reporting that book which is here
(02:41:47)
at DARPA we're where science fiction
(02:41:50)
becomes science
(02:41:53)
fact right so you're making me
(02:41:58)
think that site is like a perfect place
(02:42:01)
for like a science fiction
(02:42:03)
novel or dot dot
(02:42:06)
dot because then when you begin to look
(02:42:08)
at it and archaeologists are studying it
(02:42:10)
you realize there is scientific fact
(02:42:12)
here and how do you reverse
(02:42:15)
engineer the truth about that what it is
(02:42:18)
yeah I think only with people having
(02:42:20)
eyes on it which is why I think you and
(02:42:23)
I both appreciate all these different uh
(02:42:28)
ideas that people bring to the table you
(02:42:30)
don't have to agree with all of them but
(02:42:32)
they certainly anything that gets my
(02:42:34)
mind going I I consider a value me too
(02:42:37)
me too it kind of uh it kind of I don't
(02:42:41)
understand people that just shut it off
(02:42:43)
you know it's like we were talking about
(02:42:45)
at the beginning they're they're they
(02:42:50)
people get too
(02:42:53)
into political figures their side of
(02:42:56)
things it's it's it's people are just
(02:42:59)
too one-sided and uh I don't know I
(02:43:03)
don't know why there are not more
(02:43:04)
critical
(02:43:05)
thinkers but um but uh man I love
(02:43:10)
talking to you about this stuff by the
(02:43:12)
way this is great conversation you know
(02:43:14)
this is what it makes me think about and
(02:43:16)
and I'm really going to go on a tangent
(02:43:17)
here it makes me think about what Hill
(02:43:19)
do you want to die on right so so can I
(02:43:23)
tangent here can I absolutely
(02:43:26)
so I personally think the
(02:43:29)
more different kinds of people you can
(02:43:32)
talk to the more interesting
(02:43:35)
ideas you can hold in your brain the
(02:43:39)
more flexible you can be in your
(02:43:40)
thinking and
(02:43:43)
then the
(02:43:45)
more amicable you are right so the more
(02:43:48)
the more more well in you are to
(02:43:50)
different kinds of people and so you
(02:43:52)
just said like what hill what hill are
(02:43:54)
you going to die on right what why do
(02:43:55)
people get so set in their ways and I'm
(02:43:57)
just jumping tangent here
(02:43:59)
but at the hotel where I'm staying here
(02:44:02)
I am in Tennessee I haven't been here
(02:44:04)
since I was 20 years old and I'm I look
(02:44:08)
at the geology a lot of places and
(02:44:10)
outside the window of the hotel there's
(02:44:13)
like I didn't realize Tennessee had so
(02:44:15)
many
(02:44:15)
Hills okay and
(02:44:20)
that concept I immediately had this
(02:44:22)
flashback to Billy wall okay because the
(02:44:26)
concept of what Hiller you're going to
(02:44:27)
die on comes from Vietnam at least
(02:44:30)
according to W did you know this I
(02:44:32)
didn't okay and I didn't either until he
(02:44:34)
told me but I went with Billy W back to
(02:44:38)
Vietnam we were going to go to Kayon I
(02:44:40)
wanted do you know about keson I don't
(02:44:43)
okay Quon is like it's like the
(02:44:45)
equivalent of fujia okay in the Vietnam
(02:44:47)
War I mean it was
(02:44:50)
it was the it was the the fight for
(02:44:53)
keson as a Marine base was
(02:44:57)
just it's astounding how important that
(02:45:00)
place was because it was the closest to
(02:45:02)
North Vietnam and what happened there
(02:45:06)
and the books that have it's just so
(02:45:08)
tragic to me that it's like completely
(02:45:09)
lost to history but it was this
(02:45:11)
incredibly important base all kinds of
(02:45:13)
Americans died there Billy W and I went
(02:45:16)
back there because that's where his he
(02:45:19)
was with unit called MC V SOG which is
(02:45:21)
kind of the precursor to ground Branch
(02:45:23)
really to it was special activities
(02:45:25)
Division and they had a base underground
(02:45:28)
a base beneath the base surrounded by
(02:45:30)
concertino wild that's how classified
(02:45:33)
MCV SG missions were because they were
(02:45:35)
the cross border missions into T
(02:45:38)
LA
(02:45:40)
and we go back to keson and we were in a
(02:45:43)
little hotel just like like not that far
(02:45:46)
from the hotel I'm staying in and there
(02:45:47)
I am standing with Billy wall looking
(02:45:49)
out the window at these Hills not unlike
(02:45:52)
the hills in
(02:45:54)
Tennessee and that's when he explained
(02:45:57)
to me you know where the expression what
(02:45:59)
hill are you going to die on comes
(02:46:01)
from
(02:46:03)
okay wow and he tell I'm like no tell me
(02:46:08)
and that hill and now if you look up
(02:46:11)
anything about Vietnam and for your
(02:46:13)
older listeners they're sitting there
(02:46:14)
going uh-huh uh-huh I mean the
(02:46:18)
expression let's take that hill and it's
(02:46:22)
so powerful and so important and so
(02:46:25)
tragic at the same time because that is
(02:46:28)
what was being done all these American
(02:46:31)
boys these young soldiers Billy was an
(02:46:33)
old Soldier I mean by then he was Billy
(02:46:35)
was different he was the guy who raised
(02:46:37)
his hand and said send me you know but
(02:46:40)
so many of these young kids that were
(02:46:43)
sent to war died taking the hill it was
(02:46:47)
like the defense department was like we
(02:46:48)
need that hill and in quesan you could
(02:46:51)
see them out the window that you could
(02:46:53)
just see the
(02:46:54)
hills and it makes and and then I when I
(02:46:58)
was studying the war on terror and
(02:46:59)
writing about it you know and I think
(02:47:01)
about that with like the people I've
(02:47:03)
interviewed who so many of their friends
(02:47:05)
died you know essentially taking a hill
(02:47:07)
not a hill but fig you know figuratively
(02:47:10)
MH and then here we are talking about
(02:47:13)
the same idea which is like what hill
(02:47:15)
are you going to die on you know why is
(02:47:18)
it so important to be
(02:47:20)
right about an idea which you only know
(02:47:24)
some of
(02:47:26)
yeah yeah that's a great
(02:47:29)
Point let's take another break uh when
(02:47:32)
we come back I'd like to talk a little
(02:47:35)
bit about global strategy with uh
(02:47:39)
nuclear warfare sound good yeah anything
(02:47:42)
you
(02:47:45)
want those of you that have been around
(02:47:47)
SRS for a while know that we take mental
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heal Health very seriously here so
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seriously that in almost every episode
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you'll find a segment where we discuss
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part of improving your mental health is
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put this in your tea or coffee and most
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just happen to have layered superfoods
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guessed it functional mushrooms that
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exclusively available on vigilance Elite
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patreon the behind the-scenes footage is
(02:49:59)
raw and uncut this is as close to the
(02:50:02)
set as you can possibly get you can
(02:50:04)
expect anything from off-topic
(02:50:06)
conversations Studio tours the final
(02:50:09)
moments before the interview starts and
(02:50:11)
everything in between the behind the
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scenes content is constantly evolving
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and will continue to bring you more as
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patreon all right Annie we're back from
(02:50:29)
the break we're going to get into some
(02:50:32)
World strategy when it comes to nuclear
(02:50:35)
warfare so we've kind of talked about if
(02:50:39)
North Korea sends nuclear warheads to
(02:50:42)
the US US returns they have to fly over
(02:50:45)
Russia Russia fires on us pretty much
(02:50:48)
automatically it sounds
(02:50:50)
like what about the other what Six
(02:50:53)
Nations that have this type of
(02:50:56)
capability what what are they going to
(02:50:59)
do so the scenario I write takes place
(02:51:02)
in 72
(02:51:04)
minutes when the EMP nuclear weapon goes
(02:51:09)
off earlier than that that was there all
(02:51:12)
along launched into space by North Korea
(02:51:15)
disguised as as a radio satellite it
(02:51:18)
takes out the entire grid that's what an
(02:51:22)
EMP exploded 300 miles over the center
(02:51:26)
of the country would
(02:51:28)
do it's just a massive failure of it's a
(02:51:32)
colossal failure of everything
(02:51:35)
electric and so in essence the ability
(02:51:39)
to understand what anyone is doing
(02:51:41)
outside what you can physically see
(02:51:45)
disappears so for that reason
(02:51:49)
we that's where the scenario ends other
(02:51:52)
than nuclear winter meaning what did
(02:51:54)
China do what did India and Pakistan
(02:51:59)
do I don't know but it was done
(02:52:02)
specifically for that idea that
(02:52:05)
continues to interest me is how did man
(02:52:08)
become civilized mhm how did we go from
(02:52:13)
how did we figure out how to
(02:52:15)
write you know we only know so much
(02:52:18)
about history
(02:52:19)
back to where people started writing it
(02:52:21)
down it's just guesswork before then
(02:52:24)
archaeological
(02:52:26)
interpretation so man you know 5,000 BC
(02:52:30)
figures out how to
(02:52:31)
write that wasn't that long so we've had
(02:52:34)
a 7,000 year run of
(02:52:37)
history and once All Electronics cease
(02:52:42)
in the world in which we live today just
(02:52:44)
the information
(02:52:46)
goes all everything on your computer is
(02:52:49)
gone MH who writes lonand anymore
(02:52:53)
besides me and a couple of others not
(02:52:56)
very many people not very many
(02:52:58)
people um so it's the end of
(02:53:01)
civilization it's the end of History
(02:53:04)
meaning the ability to report what
(02:53:08)
happened that's for that same reason I
(02:53:10)
don't get into the geopolitics in my
(02:53:12)
book in the scenario of why it happens
(02:53:17)
many books have been written about that
(02:53:19)
the geopolitical maneuvering China the
(02:53:22)
long game the you know the great Powers
(02:53:25)
all of that that's been written by many
(02:53:26)
people and it's very interesting to
(02:53:28)
think about but it's not part of this
(02:53:30)
book this book is here's what
(02:53:32)
happens once the missile launches okay
(02:53:37)
did any of your
(02:53:38)
sources start to tangent into that by
(02:53:42)
chance interestingly not interestingly
(02:53:45)
not no I mean we just kept the focus you
(02:53:47)
only have so much time with the Source
(02:53:49)
you know and you might want to just pull
(02:53:51)
them back in there were there were
(02:53:53)
reasons to think about that in terms of
(02:53:56)
um my other books for sure usually it's
(02:53:59)
about how did we
(02:54:02)
deter the Soviet Union right the whole
(02:54:04)
the cia's
(02:54:06)
paramilitary which you know about from
(02:54:09)
direct personal experience was set up to
(02:54:12)
counter The Vicious activities of the
(02:54:16)
Soviet Union as if they were trying what
(02:54:18)
whatever they were doing it was trying
(02:54:20)
to weaken the United States and then
(02:54:23)
attack us with nuclear weapons so I've
(02:54:25)
I've looked at it from all these
(02:54:26)
different angles but in in this book
(02:54:28)
it's just game on then what happens okay
(02:54:33)
and you you picked you picked North
(02:54:37)
Korea
(02:54:39)
because cuz gar Canon made me think
(02:54:44)
about this idea of a Mad King the sort
(02:54:48)
of madman with a nuclear Arsenal
(02:54:51)
which I mean I think your reference to
(02:54:54)
suicide bombers is and it's a reason why
(02:54:59)
most people in the west would tell you
(02:55:01)
that Iran should not never have a
(02:55:04)
nuclear bomb I mean the fundamentals of
(02:55:08)
their of their governance is re you know
(02:55:13)
religion-based and their ideas about the
(02:55:18)
the end of the world world are
(02:55:20)
frightening I mean they are a very
(02:55:23)
apocalyptic um they are very apocalyptic
(02:55:26)
in their thinking like the apocalypse is
(02:55:29)
fine that's not someone you want with a
(02:55:31)
nuclear Arsenal yeah yeah no
(02:55:36)
kidding um do you know how
(02:55:39)
many how many nuclear warheads the the
(02:55:42)
other six countries have how many does
(02:55:44)
India have and and also just to just to
(02:55:48)
like shout out to anyone who wants to
(02:55:50)
nerd out on this is that there's an
(02:55:53)
organization led by a guy called Hans
(02:55:56)
Christensen he writes the nuclear
(02:55:59)
notebook with a team of people Matt
(02:56:02)
Corda Ilana
(02:56:03)
Reynolds and that's at inside the
(02:56:08)
Federation of American
(02:56:10)
scientists and they keep track of the
(02:56:13)
nuclear warheads to the best of their
(02:56:17)
ability based on what is transparent
(02:56:20)
that's why they change every year so
(02:56:22)
they write these long monographs which
(02:56:25)
are profoundly important to people like
(02:56:28)
me who has what where what we know about
(02:56:31)
them and why really important to
(02:56:36)
understand the system of systems we're
(02:56:38)
up against so my information comes from
(02:56:42)
them and so
(02:56:45)
China last year was reported to have 4
(02:56:48)
400 nuclear weapons this year they have
(02:56:52)
500 that is deeply concerning the
(02:56:55)
defense department believes that in the
(02:56:57)
next 10 years China will have
(02:57:02)
1,500 that's deeply concerning Russia is
(02:57:05)
not building new nuclear weapons
(02:57:07)
allegedly neither are we India and
(02:57:11)
Pakistan are said to have or understood
(02:57:13)
to have
(02:57:15)
about 165 I think it is each okay when
(02:57:18)
you really drill down on it you realize
(02:57:22)
that we don't really know the report the
(02:57:25)
transparency from
(02:57:27)
them is limited and how much
(02:57:30)
intelligence the agency has on it is
(02:57:34)
anyone's
(02:57:35)
guess what about our allies what about
(02:57:37)
UK and
(02:57:39)
France uh UK I believe has about 200 and
(02:57:44)
I'm forgetting the exact number of
(02:57:45)
France right now but the UK is
(02:57:47)
interesting because they have reduced
(02:57:50)
their weapon
(02:57:52)
systems down to only
(02:57:56)
submarines which is really interesting a
(02:57:59)
lot of disarmament Advocates believe
(02:58:01)
that the United States for Safety and
(02:58:04)
Security reasons should get rid of the
(02:58:06)
icbms that they're just too dangerous
(02:58:09)
that the nuclear armed nuclear powerered
(02:58:13)
submarines they have enough capacity to
(02:58:16)
end civilization in a single Le
(02:58:18)
submarine we have 14 of
(02:58:21)
them so why do you need all of the other
(02:58:25)
equipment well you can get into that
(02:58:27)
whole like sort of deterrent spin but
(02:58:30)
that is a legitimate point that the
(02:58:33)
icbms are dangerous the icbms are the
(02:58:35)
one also also that could be
(02:58:38)
misinterpreted as coming over the pole
(02:58:41)
you know the sub launched ballistic
(02:58:43)
missiles can land on a Target in under
(02:58:45)
10 minutes there's a document that I
(02:58:48)
located in a budget request from the
(02:58:51)
Pentagon um asking for more money from
(02:58:54)
Congress and one of the re one of the
(02:58:57)
reasons they ask for more money has to
(02:58:59)
do with the threats from the
(02:59:02)
submarines that are owned by China and
(02:59:05)
Russia and I had never seen this map
(02:59:08)
before I reprint it in the book so that
(02:59:10)
people do not take my word for it
(02:59:11)
they're like can say holy
(02:59:14)
wow you can't tell where a submarine is
(02:59:18)
moving moving in real time they're
(02:59:20)
stealthy as Admiral Connor told me he
(02:59:23)
was the former commander of the nuclear
(02:59:25)
sub forces for the United States he said
(02:59:27)
to me Annie it's easier to find a
(02:59:32)
grapefruit sized object in space than it
(02:59:36)
is to find a nuclear submarine Under the
(02:59:40)
Sea are you serious how stealth that's
(02:59:44)
from the man who ran the program Okay so
(02:59:49)
these are not called handmaidens of the
(02:59:52)
Apocalypse for
(02:59:54)
nothing they can really do everything
(02:59:56)
that you would never want to have happen
(02:59:59)
so why do we need the icbms why do we
(03:00:03)
need the bombers the bombers aren't even
(03:00:05)
going to get to The Targets in time I
(03:00:07)
learned from the bomber Pilots they have
(03:00:10)
a multi-hour trip the the whole scenario
(03:00:14)
ends in 72
(03:00:17)
minutes that you could say has to do
(03:00:19)
with posturing has to do with the
(03:00:21)
perception of deterrence and has to do
(03:00:23)
with the N the military-industrial
(03:00:27)
complex which is I'm not talking about
(03:00:28)
fighter jets for conventional Warfare
(03:00:30)
I'm just talking about the B-52s and the
(03:00:33)
b2s that carry our 66 nuclear capable
(03:00:38)
bombers and they're very threatening you
(03:00:40)
know whenever we want North Korea to
(03:00:43)
know we mean business we do like drills
(03:00:46)
over the Korean peninsula
(03:00:49)
I mean is that agitating or is
(03:00:53)
it I don't
(03:00:59)
know I think it just it lets them know
(03:01:01)
we're watching and we've got our eye on
(03:01:05)
them could be taken as a threat
(03:01:08)
but and it probably is but I I don't I
(03:01:14)
mean the leader of North Korea recently
(03:01:17)
said America has a Sinister intention to
(03:01:20)
provoke nuclear
(03:01:22)
war when I hear or read that and then I
(03:01:26)
think about the UN Secretary General
(03:01:28)
saying we're one misunderstanding one
(03:01:31)
miscalculation away from nuclear arm
(03:01:34)
again it's the word miscalculation that
(03:01:36)
troubles meh that's what the scenario is
(03:01:39)
built upon because the
(03:01:42)
miscalculation can't be undone in the
(03:01:44)
same way that the ballistic missile
(03:01:46)
can't be recalled
(03:01:48)
once it
(03:01:49)
Sparks it's fire and dry
(03:01:52)
grass
(03:01:56)
yeah man it's
(03:01:58)
uh I would love to dive into it I don't
(03:02:01)
know how it would go but I would love to
(03:02:03)
I mean especially with with bricks are
(03:02:07)
you familiar with
(03:02:08)
bricks Brazil Russia India China South
(03:02:13)
Africa it's a it's basically it's like
(03:02:16)
the counterpart to Nato mhm
(03:02:21)
and India Russia
(03:02:26)
China they're all in there you know and
(03:02:28)
and
(03:02:31)
uh I feel like a nuclear attack would
(03:02:41)
be could turn into an alliance against
(03:02:45)
us instead of just one country and then
(03:02:48)
a misunderstanding you know I feel like
(03:02:51)
China would probably be in there as
(03:02:54)
well one of the and Pakistan one of the
(03:02:59)
more sort of keeps you up at night
(03:03:04)
things to consider is
(03:03:05)
that and again this is just from
(03:03:07)
interviews I did where we did kind of
(03:03:09)
discuss the geopolitical ideas about
(03:03:12)
things is that Russia has thought about
(03:03:16)
nuclear weapons for a long time their
(03:03:18)
command and control has been in place
(03:03:21)
since 1949 when they got the bomb the
(03:03:25)
countries that have newer nuclear
(03:03:27)
weapons do not have that
(03:03:31)
same long lens of
(03:03:33)
history
(03:03:35)
and if you also consider what I was told
(03:03:40)
about the knowledge depth of the
(03:03:42)
American president president on nuclear
(03:03:45)
war should it happen and you consider if
(03:03:49)
that's the same for the leaders of some
(03:03:51)
of these other nuclear armed Nations
(03:03:54)
that are you know not reliable then you
(03:03:59)
have another problem where you have
(03:04:01)
somebody actually thinking like you just
(03:04:03)
said like a nuclear war a nuclear strike
(03:04:06)
could dot dot dot instead of realizing
(03:04:09)
you can't ever have a nuclear war
(03:04:12)
because it would end in Armageddon now
(03:04:15)
before the Ukraine war I would have told
(03:04:17)
you that the president of Russia knew
(03:04:20)
that and would never threaten that way
(03:04:24)
so the nuclear threats coming from Putin
(03:04:27)
are so alarming to someone like
(03:04:30)
me but they but then again they began
(03:04:33)
with the US president former president
(03:04:35)
Trump talking that way with North so
(03:04:38)
we're into a dangerous rhetoric that
(03:04:41)
didn't
(03:04:44)
exist 10 years ago so the US set the
(03:04:47)
president
(03:04:48)
to bring up nuclear war I believe so and
(03:04:51)
now now it's spreading now it's
(03:04:53)
spreading and nuclear
(03:04:56)
threats nuclear saber rattling is so
(03:05:00)
dangerous because it somehow
(03:05:03)
minimizes um or rather it
(03:05:07)
maximizes the possibility
(03:05:11)
that right and and and that people are
(03:05:13)
talking about tactical nuclear
(03:05:16)
weapons I mean shall I like give you
(03:05:19)
like the do you know the difference
(03:05:20)
between tactical and strategic nuclear
(03:05:22)
weapons to listeners does go ahead
(03:05:25)
should I I mean in a nutshell a tactical
(03:05:29)
nuclear weapon is a battlefield
(03:05:31)
weapon it's just a bigger bomb and but
(03:05:34)
not just because it's nuclear we in the
(03:05:38)
in the Cold War we were building
(03:05:40)
tactical weapons like they were going
(03:05:41)
out of style and we've pulled back
(03:05:44)
entirely from that to only having this
(03:05:48)
leading concept of strategic n strategic
(03:05:52)
nuclear weapons is like a euphemism for
(03:05:54)
ballistic missiles and then our bombers
(03:05:56)
carry you know gravity bombs but the
(03:06:00)
tactical nuclear weapons that Putin
(03:06:02)
keeps threatening potential use of or
(03:06:06)
that he moved into bellarus recently
(03:06:08)
that's like such a that's like moving
(03:06:10)
the Red Line in the
(03:06:12)
Sand to a dramatic new position which is
(03:06:16)
saying this could be a Poss
(03:06:18)
ibility and I can only
(03:06:21)
imagine what the National Security
(03:06:24)
Council must be going the
(03:06:26)
gymnastics they must be doing to try to
(03:06:29)
figure out how
(03:06:31)
to position themselves against this kind
(03:06:35)
of
(03:06:35)
rhetoric scary scary stuff scary stuff
(03:06:40)
another tangent yeah why do you think
(03:06:44)
why do you
(03:06:45)
think we are seeing so much UFO activity
(03:06:49)
around nuclear
(03:06:51)
sites well I was going to
(03:06:55)
say what I was going to say is we're on
(03:06:57)
such a dark topic maybe we should talk
(03:06:59)
about
(03:07:00)
UFOs right which is which may answer
(03:07:04)
that question I
(03:07:09)
mean how do I answer this in a in in an
(03:07:12)
interesting informative way
(03:07:15)
um I mean I love narrative I love story
(03:07:18)
stories I love storytelling I love
(03:07:22)
talking um it's Comm it's how people
(03:07:25)
tell each other's stories to communicate
(03:07:28)
you have to have an interesting story to
(03:07:30)
be able to grab somebody's attention and
(03:07:32)
talk about them and UFOs are so
(03:07:35)
interesting the idea that these
(03:07:37)
spaceships would carry people from outer
(03:07:41)
space to us what could be more
(03:07:45)
interesting than that
(03:07:48)
so the idea of UFOs to my eye has been
(03:07:53)
around forever as long as man has been
(03:07:57)
writing history or before he was writing
(03:07:59)
history uh when I was writing the book
(03:08:01)
phenomena I interviewed jacqu Val who is
(03:08:03)
the sort of perhaps the world's leading
(03:08:06)
eup
(03:08:08)
ethologist and he he wrote this amazing
(03:08:11)
book which I have a copy of like a hard
(03:08:13)
cover book with beautiful illustrations
(03:08:16)
in it
(03:08:18)
that takes the reader through some of
(03:08:22)
the oldest images in art
(03:08:25)
history and jacqu has curated them all
(03:08:28)
to show
(03:08:31)
UFOs the idea of UFOs throughout
(03:08:35)
recorded history MH it's always been
(03:08:38)
there the nuclear thing is interesting I
(03:08:41)
do know that a theory has developed a
(03:08:45)
narrative around this idea that
(03:08:49)
you know aliens or people from outer
(03:08:51)
space Were Somehow concerned that we
(03:08:55)
invented this weapon that could end
(03:08:58)
civilization and they therefore came to
(03:09:01)
Aid or help or make themselves noticed I
(03:09:05)
mean it's an interesting
(03:09:07)
narrative it is an interesting
(03:09:10)
narrative all different kinds of people
(03:09:13)
have
(03:09:14)
different things to add to that
(03:09:16)
narrative including jacqu valet
(03:09:19)
including Hal put off including a lot of
(03:09:20)
these people who are leaders in that in
(03:09:24)
the field my lens of
(03:09:27)
UFOs comes from very specifically from
(03:09:30)
sources I have worked with who have a
(03:09:34)
different take on that who who see that
(03:09:37)
as part of a strategic deception
(03:09:41)
campaign should I give you a little more
(03:09:43)
detail yes please so the early book I
(03:09:46)
wrote the first book I wrote ER
(03:09:48)
51 um is about a CIA base in the middle
(03:09:52)
of the Nevada desert inside the Nevada
(03:09:56)
test and training range where we set off
(03:09:58)
nuclear weapons did you know this I did
(03:10:01)
okay a lot I mean people know that now
(03:10:02)
and it's great and then that base is
(03:10:04)
inside an even bigger test and training
(03:10:07)
range where pilots fly out of
(03:10:10)
Nellis um but in the 50s Area 51 was
(03:10:14)
specifically set up by the CIA to
(03:10:16)
develop the U2 spy plan
(03:10:18)
which was this highflying aircraft
(03:10:22)
70,000 ft up it
(03:10:24)
flew I mean in 1950 that is just nothing
(03:10:28)
short of a miracle it was out of the
(03:10:30)
range of Russian surface to air
(03:10:33)
missiles for Area 51 I got to interview
(03:10:36)
the guys who built that airplane from
(03:10:39)
scratch literally it did not come with
(03:10:41)
the manual they built it I interviewed
(03:10:44)
the pilots who flew it flew it over the
(03:10:47)
Soviet Union flew it over you know all
(03:10:51)
kinds of
(03:10:52)
places and it was so secret that
(03:10:57)
Eisenhower knew about it the director of
(03:10:59)
the CIA and the guys at Area 51 working
(03:11:02)
that's it that's it it was like as
(03:11:05)
because it needed to be secret because
(03:11:06)
if the Russians knew about it they'd
(03:11:09)
shoot it down which they ended up doing
(03:11:11)
with Gary Powers in 1960 so the CIA knew
(03:11:15)
it was inevitable that it would get shot
(03:11:16)
down but they were just playing with
(03:11:18)
fire until it did and but the point of
(03:11:21)
all this is when when that was flying it
(03:11:24)
was
(03:11:25)
mistaken for a UFO think about something
(03:11:28)
flying 70,000 ft up people didn't know
(03:11:32)
airplanes fly at 25,000 ft
(03:11:35)
is imagine you're somebody that looks up
(03:11:38)
and also the U2 has these incredibly
(03:11:40)
long wings so it just looks like a
(03:11:43)
flying
(03:11:44)
cross and the reflection of it
(03:11:48)
um it looks like a UFO because it's not
(03:11:50)
where it's supposed to be yeah I mean
(03:11:52)
could you even see it's 70,000 feet you
(03:11:55)
could tell was a cross well it just they
(03:11:58)
didn't know what it was yeah but the CIA
(03:12:03)
learned about that and it was like an oh
(03:12:04)
moment you know our project's going
(03:12:06)
to become busted open the Public's going
(03:12:09)
to know about it and people started
(03:12:12)
writing to their Congressman I have seen
(03:12:13)
these letters Declassified from the CIA
(03:12:16)
you know um
(03:12:18)
we're really concerned there's a UFO
(03:12:20)
over their state and then the CIA
(03:12:24)
decided to use this as part of a
(03:12:25)
strategic deception campaign well let's
(03:12:27)
Goose this idea that there are
(03:12:30)
UFOs because it's going to hide its
(03:12:32)
cover for the for the actual U2 does
(03:12:35)
that mean that every UFO or every UFO
(03:12:38)
sighting is a U2 of course not but when
(03:12:41)
you look at that as a fact it becomes
(03:12:43)
interesting in the in the narrative when
(03:12:46)
the C when the CIA built the follow-on
(03:12:48)
plane which was called the a12 oxcart so
(03:12:52)
did you ever see any of the X-Men movies
(03:12:54)
oh yeah okay so you know that plane they
(03:12:56)
fly I do right so that's the
(03:12:58)
SR71 okay that's the Air Force version
(03:13:01)
of it it's a two-seater the CIA
(03:13:03)
precursor plane which was totally secret
(03:13:06)
not Declassified till I don't know 20 15
(03:13:09)
years ago 20 years ago um it was a
(03:13:12)
one-seater it had a CIA pilot in it they
(03:13:15)
flew it out at Area 51
(03:13:17)
uh it went mock 3 something in
(03:13:21)
1960 2,300 mil hour at 90,000
(03:13:27)
ft okay in 1960 think of what a
(03:13:30)
refrigerator looked like in
(03:13:31)
1960 okay so this was like technology
(03:13:34)
that no one could even comprehend and
(03:13:36)
they had to keep it secret and in my
(03:13:38)
interviews with Colonel Slater who was
(03:13:40)
in charge of the whole program he took
(03:13:42)
me through the exact details of like
(03:13:44)
people seeing the plane even in an an an
(03:13:47)
commercial air the example he gave me
(03:13:49)
was a group of people in a I think it
(03:13:51)
was an American Airlines flight saw the
(03:13:54)
oxcart as it was coming down from 90,000
(03:13:56)
ft to try to land at Area
(03:13:59)
51 and they and they they saw it and
(03:14:04)
they all thought they saw
(03:14:05)
UFOs and Slater told me the story and
(03:14:08)
showed me some documentation of the FBI
(03:14:10)
meeting the
(03:14:11)
plane in Los Angeles when it landed
(03:14:14)
saying
(03:14:15)
like you did not see a UFO you must sign
(03:14:19)
this disclosure paper saying you will
(03:14:22)
never share that you saw a
(03:14:24)
UFO so it built this Mystique in I mean
(03:14:28)
if you if if the FBI shows up and said
(03:14:31)
you did not see that
(03:14:33)
UFO who are they doing this to the
(03:14:36)
civilians on the American
(03:14:38)
Airline they have them all so the point
(03:14:41)
of this is the CIA would
(03:14:43)
use the sort of Mythology of a UFO in
(03:14:47)
its
(03:14:48)
to help cover the programs that it's
(03:14:51)
trying to hide so was the FBI in on it
(03:14:55)
the FBI was only the FBI did not know
(03:14:58)
good question the FBI did not know about
(03:14:59)
the a12 oxcart the FBI was told make all
(03:15:03)
those people sign those non-disclosures
(03:15:05)
and tell them they you didn't see a
(03:15:08)
UFO so then you have all these FBI
(03:15:11)
agents now who are prone to thinking
(03:15:14)
that was a
(03:15:15)
UFO again does it mean all
(03:15:18)
UFO sightings are the a12 oxcart which
(03:15:20)
doesn't fly anymore of course not yeah
(03:15:22)
but if you have that information I think
(03:15:24)
you can think more on
(03:15:25)
balance for
(03:15:28)
me but yeah and the deception that the
(03:15:30)
government's capable of and does and and
(03:15:33)
also when you're talking about aircraft
(03:15:36)
and
(03:15:37)
airspace it's very difficult for me to
(03:15:40)
accept that
(03:15:42)
our sacredly guarded Aerospace is
(03:15:46)
regularly
(03:15:47)
intruded by Craft that somebody at the
(03:15:50)
defense department doesn't know what it
(03:15:52)
is I just have trouble believing that
(03:15:55)
knowing having written the books that
(03:15:57)
I've written about high performance
(03:16:01)
aircraft but I don't even bother getting
(03:16:04)
into this argument with it's not an
(03:16:06)
argument but this discussion with the
(03:16:09)
people who really
(03:16:12)
believe you know that these
(03:16:15)
are UA piece the new term which I'm
(03:16:19)
fascinated by have you have you looked
(03:16:21)
into Skinwalker Ranch at all by chance I
(03:16:24)
mean I've interviewed all the guys who
(03:16:25)
are at
(03:16:26)
Skinwalker not all of them but many of
(03:16:28)
them this is before not the current
(03:16:30)
situation but this is
(03:16:33)
when owned it and the original original
(03:16:37)
team that was there that claimed to have
(03:16:39)
seen the portals and the werewolves and
(03:16:41)
the and by the way these are phds with
(03:16:44)
DARPA contracts telling me all this
(03:16:48)
it's just hard for my
(03:16:49)
brain
(03:16:52)
to conceptualize that other than their
(03:16:57)
perception which is what we were talking
(03:16:58)
about at break yeah yep yep yep with
(03:17:01)
that being said now you know now they
(03:17:05)
see all these radiation spikes right as
(03:17:08)
these uaps UFOs these phenomenons happen
(03:17:12)
have you looked into that at
(03:17:14)
all well I haven't because I would say
(03:17:17)
first thing would be like who's they and
(03:17:19)
where are these radiation Spike
(03:17:21)
documents coming from so when I in other
(03:17:24)
words when I worked with all the big low
(03:17:25)
the people that were at the Skinwalker
(03:17:27)
Ranch when it was Bigalow it was always
(03:17:29)
an internal situation and it was the
(03:17:32)
documents are Bigalow and you can't look
(03:17:33)
at them CU they're in his possession so
(03:17:36)
it seemed like a closed loop MH but I do
(03:17:40)
want to say and we were talking about
(03:17:41)
this a break the the analogy that I
(03:17:43)
think of that of all of this so that
(03:17:46)
it's clear that I'm not not just
(03:17:48)
dismissively self-righteous which I
(03:17:50)
would never want to be I'm much more
(03:17:53)
Curious than that but the analogy I used
(03:17:56)
was what I told you about hearing things
(03:17:58)
right like because I believe this is a
(03:18:00)
issue of
(03:18:01)
perception what you can see you know you
(03:18:04)
think of some people being
(03:18:06)
colorblind what I see is so different
(03:18:09)
than what they see then I think of as I
(03:18:14)
told you before like sometimes you know
(03:18:16)
we you you have like you hear a high
(03:18:18)
pitch frequency and maybe it's because
(03:18:20)
you were listening to your ear pods too
(03:18:22)
long or you were you know in an
(03:18:25)
airplane and so you suddenly say to
(03:18:27)
someone do you hear that because it's
(03:18:29)
you know you hear you actually hear
(03:18:31)
something is that in your brain is that
(03:18:33)
in your perception is that in the
(03:18:35)
environment perhaps when people
(03:18:39)
see uaps they are seeing them and others
(03:18:44)
aren't for me that's my current position
(03:18:48)
on how I think about
(03:18:53)
that so are you are you saying it
(03:18:57)
originates in the
(03:18:59)
mind I don't I do not have the answer
(03:19:03)
I'm
(03:19:04)
just
(03:19:06)
curious about what it might be because
(03:19:09)
and I'm also the reason why it's really
(03:19:11)
interesting is millions of people are
(03:19:13)
interested in this you we talked about
(03:19:15)
this before it's I mean who wants to
(03:19:18)
talk about nuclear Holocaust when you
(03:19:21)
can talk about possible aliens Among
(03:19:24)
Us right yeah
(03:19:28)
yeah but they don't have to cancel one
(03:19:30)
another out I mean it's an it's interest
(03:19:33)
what I'm I mean it's interesting because
(03:19:35)
now even a lot of what astrophysicists
(03:19:38)
are starting to say that the you know
(03:19:40)
the expansive universe
(03:19:43)
and the no matter how far out we look
(03:19:51)
something will be there mhm and and I
(03:19:55)
think what they're alluding to is that
(03:19:57)
our minds are creating the unseeable
(03:20:01)
universe yeah I mean you had said when
(03:20:06)
we were discussing earlier like is it
(03:20:07)
also have something to do
(03:20:10)
with people's perception of religion or
(03:20:14)
spirituality and what comes to mind on
(03:20:16)
that is one of my favorite thinker is
(03:20:17)
Carl Yung have you ever read any Yung I
(03:20:20)
haven't oh my goodness I mean he was
(03:20:22)
just uh he was so interested in
(03:20:26)
Consciousness and and in he's almost the
(03:20:29)
cre like the I don't want to say the
(03:20:31)
inventor but he did a lot of work on
(03:20:34)
archetypes what archetypes mean you know
(03:20:37)
the wizard the priest the king the Queen
(03:20:41)
the witch archetypes of humans and
(03:20:45)
symbols and
(03:20:47)
he wrote all about this he wrote a book
(03:20:50)
on UFOs and that they that UFOs were the
(03:20:54)
product the modern-day UFOs were the
(03:20:56)
product of people's fear of nuclear
(03:21:01)
Annihilation very interesting book but
(03:21:03)
Yung and po all a Nobel laureat I'm
(03:21:07)
forgetting his first name they were
(03:21:10)
friends and they would have a lot of
(03:21:12)
discussions about the phenomena of UFOs
(03:21:16)
and I write about this in my phenomena
(03:21:18)
book because POI had this
(03:21:21)
crazy quality about him that he
(03:21:26)
would go walk into places and somehow
(03:21:30)
disturb the
(03:21:33)
electronics okay so he was like a Nobel
(03:21:35)
laurat physicist wow but like cameras
(03:21:38)
would shut off things would fall over
(03:21:42)
this is documented are you serious re
(03:21:44)
read the book you'll love this part of
(03:21:46)
it and and he couldn't explain
(03:21:49)
why but it was known and
(03:21:53)
notable and so he had some kind of
(03:21:55)
different energy going on or however you
(03:21:57)
want to interpret it um but this led to
(03:22:00)
these discussions between Yung and
(03:22:01)
Paulie about whether or not ESP was real
(03:22:06)
because of course ESP extra sensory
(03:22:08)
perception and UFOs often get linked
(03:22:11)
together mhm and their their takeaway
(03:22:15)
one of their takeaways was that
(03:22:17)
what whenever you're talking about it or
(03:22:20)
thinking about it you have to think
(03:22:22)
about the
(03:22:23)
age that you are in when you are
(03:22:26)
thinking about it having to do with
(03:22:28)
technology so again diluting that down
(03:22:31)
it's almost like my takeaways they were
(03:22:33)
saying there's The Narrative of it and
(03:22:36)
then there's the technology that exists
(03:22:38)
in the present day and
(03:22:41)
then you can begin
(03:22:43)
to maybe think more deeply about the
(03:22:46)
whole
(03:22:49)
issue without getting the answer
(03:22:52)
yeah fascinating stuff let's let's get
(03:22:56)
back to nukes mhm so when you went to
(03:22:59)
Brussels I would like to talk about your
(03:23:02)
discussions there and and how you came
(03:23:05)
up how you came up on their radar mhm
(03:23:09)
actually let me let's go
(03:23:11)
further who were you who what was this
(03:23:15)
event that you were speaking at
(03:23:17)
it was a nuclear
(03:23:20)
Expo put together in Brussels the host
(03:23:23)
was the icrc the international committee
(03:23:26)
for the Red Cross the Norwegian Red
(03:23:30)
Cross the Belgian Red Cross and the
(03:23:33)
Norwegian people's AIDS there was many
(03:23:37)
doctors Physicians who were there as
(03:23:39)
well because the emphasis of the
(03:23:42)
Symposium was on what nuclear weapons do
(03:23:46)
to the human
(03:23:48)
body how horrific of a weapon it is not
(03:23:53)
just to Warf
(03:23:54)
fighters who are you know sign up for
(03:23:58)
war or are drafted into war who are
(03:24:01)
fighting a war hopefully away from the
(03:24:04)
civilian population but rather that
(03:24:07)
nuclear
(03:24:08)
weapons kill millions of civilians
(03:24:12)
indiscriminately and their job these
(03:24:15)
organizations these Aid or organizations
(03:24:17)
is to put the emphasis on that so that
(03:24:19)
they can have more people interested and
(03:24:21)
kind of open the open the pathway to why
(03:24:25)
regular people like you and me should be
(03:24:27)
thinking about nuclear weapons and it
(03:24:29)
shouldn't just be left to the military
(03:24:31)
or the geopolitical
(03:24:33)
thinkers and and and because it's in
(03:24:35)
Brussel the members of the European
(03:24:37)
Parliament
(03:24:38)
were were there were invited and I took
(03:24:41)
questions from some of them some of us
(03:24:43)
many of us did so these organizations
(03:24:47)
have been hard at work for decades on
(03:24:49)
this issue and they don't want it to go
(03:24:52)
away what were some of the most relevant
(03:24:54)
questions in your opinion that you were
(03:24:57)
asked I mean it was a day long you know
(03:25:00)
there were panels there were um I was
(03:25:04)
the keynote speaker was incredible honor
(03:25:07)
the other main speaker was a 80-year-old
(03:25:10)
woman who was a hakua I'm I'm not saying
(03:25:14)
the word right but that is a survivor of
(03:25:17)
if you're a survivor of the Nagasaki or
(03:25:19)
the Hiroshima bombing wow she was 80
(03:25:21)
years old and she was one year and 10
(03:25:25)
months old when Nagasaki destroyed her
(03:25:28)
City and she survived wow so that gives
(03:25:31)
you some context of who I was with um
(03:25:35)
but back up for a second because you
(03:25:36)
asked me how I wound up there because
(03:25:38)
this might be interesting I was the book
(03:25:41)
published in the end of March and I was
(03:25:44)
doing a book event at a bookstore
(03:25:47)
in Washington DC called politics and
(03:25:49)
pros and normally authors just sign
(03:25:52)
books and you maybe give a little talk
(03:25:54)
but for this event I had asked two
(03:25:57)
colleagues to participate one was John
(03:26:00)
wolfa who was the a national security
(03:26:03)
adviser to President Obama and the other
(03:26:06)
was Lieutenant General Charles Moore who
(03:26:08)
just retired as the deputy commander of
(03:26:11)
cyber command and before that he was uh
(03:26:15)
in the Pentagon that running the j3
(03:26:17)
maybe it was the J2 um beneath you know
(03:26:20)
so reporting directly to the Joint
(03:26:22)
Chiefs and before that he was running
(03:26:26)
nuclear war scenarios for
(03:26:28)
norat and so you could say that Obama's
(03:26:32)
you know dis uh National Security
(03:26:34)
adviser was on the side of kind of
(03:26:36)
disarmament and you could say that
(03:26:38)
General Moore was on the side of
(03:26:41)
military nuclear command and control
(03:26:43)
because that's the truth so these are
(03:26:45)
maybe even two people people that don't
(03:26:48)
normally have a conversation with one
(03:26:50)
another yeah they might consider
(03:26:52)
themselves on different sides of the
(03:26:55)
aisle but again one of my great
(03:26:58)
hopefully the good kind of pride of my
(03:27:00)
reporting is that I talk to both I talk
(03:27:03)
to everybody and in fact want them at my
(03:27:06)
book signings to have a conversation and
(03:27:08)
we had this profound conversation it was
(03:27:11)
so
(03:27:13)
excellent It's on tape and there the
(03:27:16)
audience was filled I mean there was
(03:27:18)
standing room only and there were two
(03:27:21)
really interesting people in that
(03:27:22)
audience I mean everybody was
(03:27:23)
interesting all the questions were
(03:27:25)
interesting but the director of Los
(03:27:27)
Alamos nuclear laboratory was in the
(03:27:29)
current director was in the audience no
(03:27:32)
kidding and he came up to me as
(03:27:34)
afterwards and asked me if I would speak
(03:27:36)
at the
(03:27:37)
lab and I said of course and he said
(03:27:40)
many people at the lab designing the you
(03:27:43)
know nuclear future
(03:27:46)
don't know what's in my book they're
(03:27:50)
under fiveyear employees at the lab I
(03:27:53)
mean that's
(03:27:54)
astonishing super grateful for his
(03:27:56)
cander about that and another person um
(03:28:00)
that was in the audience was with NTI
(03:28:02)
which is a disarmament group that is
(03:28:05)
affiliated with the nuke Expo and I
(03:28:07)
think between the two of them that's how
(03:28:08)
I wound up at the nuke Expo so you never
(03:28:11)
you just show up and do your book
(03:28:13)
signings and you never know what can of
(03:28:16)
it wow wow when are you going to speak
(03:28:20)
it Los it hasn't been arranged yet but
(03:28:22)
I'm really intrigued by that and you
(03:28:25)
know here's another thing I know you're
(03:28:27)
not a big fan of Hollywood necessarily
(03:28:30)
right I will convert you
(03:28:34)
yet um I know you trained keano shooting
(03:28:38)
for John Wick so that's another story
(03:28:41)
then we roll reversal and I ask you
(03:28:43)
questions but so films Hollywood uh
(03:28:46)
Oppenheimer movie which you may or may
(03:28:48)
not have seen it was such a billion
(03:28:51)
dooll success around the world and from
(03:28:54)
what I understand from my sources at Los
(03:28:57)
Alamos it profoundly imp impacted Los
(03:29:00)
Alamos
(03:29:02)
meaning I've been reporting on nuclear
(03:29:04)
weapons for what 15 years now and Los
(03:29:07)
Alamos has always been like this with me
(03:29:09)
I've been there I've been to their
(03:29:10)
Library their archives but there they'
(03:29:13)
always been like this as if the
(03:29:15)
journalist is somehow the
(03:29:20)
opponent as if Joe or Jane publ is
(03:29:23)
somehow the opponent mhm and Oppenheimer
(03:29:27)
seems to have shifted that suddenly Los
(03:29:31)
Alamos at least the historian there
(03:29:33)
Glenn mcdu shared with me has gotten
(03:29:36)
like softer they've been in they were
(03:29:38)
inundated with questions about the lab
(03:29:41)
after the Oppenheimer film by regular
(03:29:44)
people wanting to know things
(03:29:47)
and they responded with a kind of
(03:29:49)
openness and transparency that if you're
(03:29:51)
a journalist you think is a great thing
(03:29:54)
and I think that effect may have also
(03:29:56)
carried up to the top and that's why the
(03:29:58)
director was at my book
(03:30:00)
signing as opposed to I'm excited for
(03:30:04)
you that's going to be really cool we're
(03:30:08)
kind of all on the same page when you
(03:30:09)
really think about it like no one should
(03:30:12)
be for nuclear war yeah the question is
(03:30:16)
should no one be for nuclear
(03:30:24)
weapons what are some questions I should
(03:30:27)
be asking you that I haven't asked
(03:30:32)
yet I mean I think it's just so
(03:30:35)
interesting that we get to have a
(03:30:36)
conversation when we kind of go back and
(03:30:38)
forth and down the rabbit holes
(03:30:41)
because I think that's where the more
(03:30:44)
interesting
(03:30:46)
thoughts happen you know and also the
(03:30:48)
takeaways you know sometimes you go away
(03:30:51)
from a
(03:30:52)
conversation a little bit changed about
(03:30:56)
an idea or excited to explore a new idea
(03:31:00)
you know also think it's interesting
(03:31:02)
that we have probably a number of
(03:31:05)
colleagues in common but since those
(03:31:09)
worlds are
(03:31:11)
classified I only know their code names
(03:31:13)
and you only know their code names
(03:31:15)
different code names
(03:31:17)
you might know their real name I might
(03:31:18)
know the code name I might know the real
(03:31:20)
name the code name and uh yeah that's a
(03:31:24)
that's just a part of living in that
(03:31:26)
world you know it's um it gets a little
(03:31:30)
confusing but how do you this is back to
(03:31:33)
the Eisenhower question I mean what is
(03:31:35)
your take on how you
(03:31:37)
balance you know
(03:31:39)
Liberty and defense and if you parse out
(03:31:43)
Liberty you want secur
(03:31:47)
you want times of Peace you don't want
(03:31:49)
war you know I often think about the
(03:31:52)
president's options you know he has
(03:31:54)
diplomacy that's his first option he has
(03:31:57)
war and then the third option is covert
(03:32:01)
action which you were involved in which
(03:32:03)
I've written about so the idea would
(03:32:08)
be you know to be living in a permanent
(03:32:11)
state of
(03:32:13)
diplomacy but that's not practical h M
(03:32:17)
how do how do you think one
(03:32:19)
balances Liberty and
(03:32:24)
security wow that's a tough tough
(03:32:28)
question
(03:32:30)
but I mean I think it's
(03:32:34)
definitely constantly has
(03:32:37)
to evolve because we gain enemies we
(03:32:42)
lose enemies we gain allies we lose
(03:32:44)
allies we I mean we just as America we
(03:32:49)
have so many Targets on our back and we
(03:32:55)
have so many enemies throughout the
(03:32:58)
world which
(03:33:03)
which with a lot of them I can't I can't
(03:33:05)
even blame them you know
(03:33:09)
I on the show we you know i' talked to
(03:33:13)
you this morning and we told you how
(03:33:17)
this podcast kind of started and it was
(03:33:18)
all former colleagues and and we dissect
(03:33:22)
I'm getting off on a tangent here but we
(03:33:24)
dissect you know the are we the bad guys
(03:33:26)
in some of these
(03:33:28)
scenarios and you know after after 20
(03:33:32)
plus years of you know this generation's
(03:33:34)
war the
(03:33:35)
gwad should we have been in Iraq how
(03:33:39)
would we have acted if if if we were
(03:33:43)
invaded by a country
(03:33:46)
would we have fought against the
(03:33:50)
invading country and and and you know it
(03:33:53)
opens up a
(03:33:55)
really interesting discussion because a
(03:33:58)
lot of people think that you maybe maybe
(03:34:02)
we're not the good guys in all of these
(03:34:04)
conflicts and um
(03:34:06)
but back to your question security
(03:34:11)
diplomacy I mean you you in my opinion
(03:34:15)
we you have to take into to account that
(03:34:16)
we have a lot of enemies whether we
(03:34:19)
created them whether they just hate us
(03:34:21)
and that that doesn't that's another
(03:34:24)
discussion
(03:34:27)
but with as much as we have going on we
(03:34:30)
have the world currency we I mean we we
(03:34:33)
we we are the
(03:34:36)
superpower
(03:34:38)
and I
(03:34:42)
don't as much as I would
(03:34:44)
love to say yep we should all we should
(03:34:48)
get rid of our nuclear
(03:34:50)
warheads strive more towards peace I
(03:34:53)
just I don't think that's a viable
(03:34:55)
option
(03:34:56)
because we're the world's superpower we
(03:34:59)
have a lot of targets on our back and
(03:35:01)
and and we have
(03:35:04)
to we have to be able to show Force we
(03:35:07)
have to have people know you know
(03:35:10)
somewhat what our capabilities might be
(03:35:13)
uh and that there will be repercussion
(03:35:16)
if if they launch anything at us and
(03:35:21)
um as far as balancing that man it's uh
(03:35:27)
I don't know I haven't thought about
(03:35:31)
that I it's in when you say we have a
(03:35:34)
lot of targets on our back you know it
(03:35:37)
sends like a shiver up the spine because
(03:35:39)
it's absolutely true and when just when
(03:35:42)
you're thinking diplomacy is everything
(03:35:46)
you must always couple that with we are
(03:35:49)
a Target and there are enemies out there
(03:35:53)
I
(03:35:55)
wonder perhaps more than any other book
(03:35:58)
I've written this book has made me
(03:36:01)
wonder
(03:36:02)
about pus as a concept not political not
(03:36:08)
him or him as a concept the president of
(03:36:11)
the United States because an interesting
(03:36:15)
thing happens
(03:36:18)
when many presidents this is this speaks
(03:36:21)
to your point of like could we ever get
(03:36:23)
rid of nukes I don't know and then we
(03:36:25)
think of the deterrence con many
(03:36:28)
presidents go into office and I mean
(03:36:30)
many like almost all the modern off the
(03:36:32)
modern presidents learning a little bit
(03:36:35)
about nuclear weapons before their
(03:36:37)
debrief their presidential debrief and
(03:36:39)
then you hear them say things like I'm
(03:36:41)
going to get rid of the launch on
(03:36:43)
warning policy it's inexcusably Danger
(03:36:46)
ous so you they hear things as a as a
(03:36:51)
civilian and then a mysterious thing
(03:36:54)
happens they get into
(03:36:57)
office and they learn
(03:37:00)
something that then you never hear from
(03:37:02)
that you never hear talk of that again
(03:37:06)
and I want to know what it
(03:37:09)
is they hear
(03:37:13)
H that's a great point I mean
(03:37:19)
I sometimes feel like it's a metaphor
(03:37:22)
for that has to do with the immigration
(03:37:24)
crisis right and again not to politicize
(03:37:26)
it but
(03:37:28)
like I mean let's just say a baseline
(03:37:31)
that everyone could agree that illegal
(03:37:33)
immigration is a bad thing because it's
(03:37:35)
illegal and we are a nation of laws and
(03:37:38)
you want to have rule of law so that's
(03:37:42)
all that right but as a concept you hear
(03:37:45)
the same thing you hear presidents have
(03:37:46)
really big ideas about
(03:37:49)
immigration and then and they say
(03:37:52)
certain things they espouse certain
(03:37:54)
things I mean president-elect or you
(03:37:55)
know running for office candidates and
(03:37:57)
then they learn
(03:38:00)
something and you never hear from it
(03:38:02)
again and I know that that has changed a
(03:38:04)
little bit in in the past few years
(03:38:06)
because immigration has become a
(03:38:07)
different issue but you get the analogy
(03:38:11)
like what is it that
(03:38:13)
podus learns
(03:38:16)
that we the
(03:38:19)
people don't get to
(03:38:21)
know about these issues on completely
(03:38:24)
opposite sides of the existential threat
(03:38:27)
margin maybe or May right but kind of
(03:38:32)
exist as equal
(03:38:37)
threats what do they learn and why can't
(03:38:40)
we know that yeah what information are
(03:38:42)
they getting that that that changes
(03:38:44)
their mind maybe it's not information
(03:38:47)
maybe it's
(03:38:50)
money and I have that same thought
(03:38:52)
meaning whatever information they're giv
(03:38:55)
they're getting is perhaps a moneyed
(03:38:59)
piece of
(03:39:00)
information meaning a lot of money has
(03:39:03)
gone
(03:39:04)
into telling the president that whatever
(03:39:07)
that is I mean back to sorry yeah I got
(03:39:12)
the security versus diplomacy running
(03:39:13)
through my mind I mean I I think we kind
(03:39:15)
of
(03:39:16)
I kind of talked about it a little bit
(03:39:18)
at the beginning and I I think if you
(03:39:21)
want
(03:39:22)
to because essentially we're talking
(03:39:24)
about no nukes worldwide mhm starting
(03:39:29)
here
(03:39:31)
mhm I I think
(03:39:36)
the the only way I could see that
(03:39:39)
happening is by influencing the
(03:39:44)
military-industrial complex companies
(03:39:46)
with money to develop better defense
(03:39:49)
systems to develop the Next Generation
(03:39:53)
weapon maybe that is AI I don't know but
(03:39:57)
but you have to have something that
(03:40:00)
defeats nuclear
(03:40:03)
capabilities and or something that's
(03:40:06)
more powerful than a nuke to add to your
(03:40:10)
Arsenal that doesn't necessarily need to
(03:40:12)
be mass destruction maybe it's I mean
(03:40:15)
it's it's it's I don't know what's
(03:40:17)
possible and I'm not a physicist and I'm
(03:40:19)
not an inventor maybe we could get our
(03:40:21)
buddy Chris Beck on here and he'll tell
(03:40:23)
us but uh but you know maybe it's maybe
(03:40:25)
it's some type of a laser weapon from
(03:40:27)
space maybe who knows you know but I I
(03:40:31)
think that's the only
(03:40:33)
viable way that we could we
(03:40:36)
could essentially get rid of our nuclear
(03:40:39)
program is is by better better defense
(03:40:43)
systems that's that that that is Pro
(03:40:46)
to work and a more capable weapon system
(03:40:50)
that is that that you know that and so
(03:40:54)
what's interesting and problematic is at
(03:40:58)
the end of that statement which you just
(03:41:01)
when you're thinking that sounds then
(03:41:02)
you realize wait a minute now I'm caught
(03:41:04)
in the nuclear deter now I'm caught in
(03:41:06)
the military-industrial complex Loop and
(03:41:08)
the deterrence Loop which seems to be a
(03:41:10)
moneyed again a a loop that's of an an
(03:41:15)
Empire of money an Empire of Industry
(03:41:19)
wants to exist as a paradox the directed
(03:41:23)
The the laser weapons by the way are a
(03:41:25)
massive program at the defense
(03:41:26)
department they're called directed
(03:41:28)
energy
(03:41:29)
weapons and when I was asking about that
(03:41:34)
like why what makes them more
(03:41:38)
powerful and I got a great answer so I'm
(03:41:40)
just going to share it with you cuz it's
(03:41:41)
like it seems so hard to comprehend
(03:41:43)
sometimes like laser weapons but but it
(03:41:45)
was the inventor of the laser who shared
(03:41:47)
this with me Charles towns who died at
(03:41:49)
the age of 99 and gave me his last
(03:41:51)
interview at like age
(03:41:53)
97 still clear as AEL and
(03:41:57)
speed so a laser moves at the speed of
(03:42:02)
light mhm so that even shortens the 33
(03:42:05)
minute ballistic
(03:42:07)
window you could have a laser weapon on
(03:42:09)
the
(03:42:11)
moon and you're talking about less than
(03:42:14)
a second mhm
(03:42:16)
so but then you have the problem Oh
(03:42:18)
laser weapons aren't any kind of
(03:42:20)
solution for anything having to do with
(03:42:22)
no nukes it's just a whole different set
(03:42:25)
of weapons for the military industrial
(03:42:28)
complex to promote and build
(03:42:31)
and then watch the other side promote
(03:42:34)
and build and so you have to have new
(03:42:35)
systems it's the self-licking ice cream
(03:42:37)
cone as they call it at DARPA yeah so
(03:42:41)
the no nukes idea I really do think
(03:42:46)
exists and I'll end with you know and I
(03:42:49)
want to get this in because I was
(03:42:51)
influenced by the the nuke Expo I was
(03:42:54)
influenced by meeting the Physicians
(03:42:57)
against nuclear weapons by meeting
(03:42:59)
people who survived an atomic bomb and
(03:43:03)
by hearing them talk about how this is
(03:43:06)
possible to reduce nuclear weapons and
(03:43:09)
they use the word taboo and they and and
(03:43:12)
I thought that was interesting me who
(03:43:14)
loves narrative it just a the simple oh
(03:43:17)
right
(03:43:19)
biological weapons have become taboo no
(03:43:23)
one sits around and says like our
(03:43:25)
arsenal of Bubonic plague weapons is
(03:43:27)
better than Your
(03:43:29)
Arsenal and we need some more and we
(03:43:31)
need to update them and we need better
(03:43:33)
Delivery Systems and faster no one says
(03:43:36)
that they say my God a Bubonic plague
(03:43:39)
weapon are you
(03:43:41)
insane and what the
(03:43:43)
doctors and the humanitarians
(03:43:46)
are attempting to do which is a very
(03:43:48)
Noble effort is put
(03:43:51)
taboo on nuclear weapons demonstrate
(03:43:56)
how horrific they are to
(03:43:59)
people and then begin the reduction from
(03:44:04)
all the
(03:44:06)
nations and they can say ideally to zero
(03:44:09)
perhaps the pragmatist would say at some
(03:44:12)
point you okay maybe everybody keeps a
(03:44:15)
few is the world going to end with a few
(03:44:18)
nuclear weapons well certainly not with
(03:44:21)
the same assurity than with thousands of
(03:44:24)
them how do you do that how do you put
(03:44:27)
how do you label
(03:44:29)
them how do you label them taboo yeah
(03:44:32)
how do you start that I mean listen it
(03:44:35)
was a great honor to have some of these
(03:44:38)
people say to
(03:44:40)
me great job thank you for writing the
(03:44:42)
book you just condensed down and made
(03:44:45)
our our job a little bit easier which is
(03:44:47)
not what I intended me who was worried
(03:44:50)
about fear mongering in airor quotes why
(03:44:52)
I asked all of my sources I mean this
(03:44:55)
book is frightening people read it the
(03:44:57)
Amazon reviews are like oh my God I read
(03:45:01)
it in one sitting because I had to know
(03:45:04)
how it end how it
(03:45:06)
ended but
(03:45:09)
then on this idea of taboo and so at the
(03:45:13)
at the convention I met a doctor named
(03:45:15)
Dr Carlos
(03:45:17)
umana and he is part of the intern he's
(03:45:20)
a part of a group of Physicians that are
(03:45:23)
working to get rid of nuclear weapons
(03:45:25)
and he himself was a recipient of the
(03:45:28)
Nobel Peace Prize in
(03:45:32)
2017 and he said to me that he and his
(03:45:34)
colleagues were going to meet the pope
(03:45:38)
on May
(03:45:39)
10th and he asked me if I would inscribe
(03:45:44)
a copy of nuclear wor a
(03:45:46)
scenario for the
(03:45:49)
pope as a gift so the pope could read it
(03:45:53)
and in a condensed
(03:45:55)
manner understand what nuclear weapons
(03:45:58)
do to
(03:46:00)
people and writing that out was pretty
(03:46:02)
cool that is that's
(03:46:06)
incredible so you don't know what will
(03:46:08)
happen on your journey in life if you
(03:46:11)
just keep showing up yeah no
(03:46:13)
kidding well wow
(03:46:15)
wow is it has that happened May 10th
(03:46:19)
they meet with him but I did write the
(03:46:22)
inscription you know to his Holiness
(03:46:26)
comma Pope
(03:46:28)
Francis oh man that is so cool
(03:46:32)
congratulations that's you know I had to
(03:46:35)
Google that yeah what do you how do
(03:46:39)
you right you can't know everything I
(03:46:41)
didn't know how to address the pope yeah
(03:46:45)
yeah wow that is uh that's really cool
(03:46:49)
that is that is uh that's something
(03:46:52)
congratulations that
(03:46:54)
is very
(03:46:57)
cool well
(03:46:59)
Annie this is uh this has been a
(03:47:03)
fascinating discussion and um we were
(03:47:06)
going to dive into some more topics but
(03:47:08)
off camera uh I had expressed how much I
(03:47:12)
love talking to you and how much I'm
(03:47:14)
have how how I love this conversation
(03:47:16)
and I don't think it would do this
(03:47:18)
interview Justice
(03:47:20)
to try to compile some of your other
(03:47:24)
work into this episode and so we'll keep
(03:47:26)
it at nuclear war with with a little bit
(03:47:29)
of UFO stuff and um and I can't wait to
(03:47:34)
have you back thank so much looking
(03:47:36)
forward to that so it was an honor to
(03:47:38)
have you here it was an honor to be here
(03:47:40)
thank you what a show you have and
(03:47:42)
congratulations to you on the m
(03:47:46)
massive viewership
(03:47:48)
listenership getting the word out
(03:47:51)
helping people to realize we're all so
(03:47:54)
much more alike than different thank you
(03:47:56)
that means a lot and so I can't wait to
(03:48:00)
see you again your book all your social
(03:48:03)
everything will be linked in the
(03:48:04)
description so everybody go by nuclear
(03:48:06)
war a scenario and uh Annie I love this
(03:48:11)
conversation I love talking to you and
(03:48:13)
uh I can't wait to see you again thank
(03:48:14)
you
(03:48:24)
[Music]
(03:48:28)
much history economics the great works
(03:48:31)
of literature the meaning of the US
(03:48:34)
Constitution did you study these things
(03:48:36)
in school probably not or even if you
(03:48:38)
did maybe it's time for a refresher time
(03:48:41)
and Technology have changed a lot and
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that's why it's important to learn the
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fundamentals that's why I'm excited that
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Hillsdale College is offering more than
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meaning of the US Constitution the rise
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and fall of the Roman Republic or the
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history of the ancient Christian church
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with Hillsdale College's online courses
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you're watching Shan Ryan Show from if
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(03:49:45)
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(03:49:48)
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(03:49:50)
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(03:49:54)
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