#778 - Annie Jacobsen - Just How Likely Is A Global Nuclear War?

Chris Williamson
Hello, everybody. Welcome back to the show. My guest today is Annie Jacobson. Shes a journalist, investigative reporter and an author. The threat of nuclear war has loomed for over half a century now.

Annie Jacobsen
But the question remains, just how close to nuclear armageddon are we? And what would happen if the world. Did go into a nuclear war? Expect to learn how many nukes there are in the world right now. The most likely steps to an accidental nuclear war.

What happens when a country fires the first nuke? Which cities are the most likely targets of a strike? What are the most powerful bombs in history? How many people would die in a nuclear war between the US and Russia? How likely a nuclear war is in our future?

And much more positive stuff today. Real uplifting one about the potential end of humanity, but pretty important, I think. And Annie sort of takes you through. Step by step, second by second. What would happen if a nuke was released?

Chris Williamson
It could be accidental, it could be on purpose. It's harrowing, apocalyptic and kind of compelling. Very compelling, actually. Yeah. Lots to take away from today.

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Annie Jacobsen
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That's join dot WHOOP.com slash modern wisdom. But now, ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Annie Jacobson.

Chris Williamson
How many nukes are in existence right now? 12,500, approximately. And where does that number come from? How do we know that that's the number? Yeah.

Annie Jacobsen
Well, there are nine nuclear armed nations. And the way we know the specifics of them is thanks to a group here in the United States called the Federation of American Scientists. They have a organization within that called the nuclear notebook group, led by a guy called Hans Christensen. And they do all the counting for us. The one variable would be North Korea, because they don't have any form of transparency.

And so it's guessing when it comes to what we think North Korea has. Who are the nine? The nine are the obvious. Russia, America, UK, France, India, Pakistan.

China, North Korea, Israel, Australia. No. No. Wow.

Chris Williamson
How do we know that countries aren't. Giving a United States organization purposefully underreported numbers to make us think that they've got fewer, that they've gotten rid of it, that they've deescalated, when in fact. They'Ve still got loads? Well, some of the treaties which are, like, being threatened right now, ask for transparency and also inspection. And so, like, for example, people go to Russia on our side and vice versa.

Annie Jacobsen
Things can get held up when there's direct conflicts. Right. Like right now. But it's amazing. You know, in my book, I take.

The readers from nuclear launch to nuclear winter, and I have these little sort of nerdish history breaks where I give you some of the details like this. But mostly I stay out of the policy both behind nuclear non proliferation and also the policies that could lead to nuclear war, because I really want the readers to know, like, this is what happens. And the things you're asking me are super important because they have to do with sort of preventative ideas. You know, this idea that if we are more transparent with one another, and I'm talking about the nuclear armed nations, there's going to be communication on some level. Yeah, it's interesting.

Chris Williamson
I wonder. I wonder if it's true. I wonder if 12,500 is the actual number. You know, it would make complete sense. Cyber subterfuge and hacking of chips and getting it, like the most obvious, like the original psyop conspiracy, lying.

Like, why not just lie about it? Hide them, put them in a place that it's not like treaties. And I don't know, when it comes to nuclear war or the potential destruction of your country, something tells me there's a lot of incentives to not be super transparent. I'll give you an example. North Korea.

Annie Jacobsen
The CIA will tell you that North Korea has 50 nuclear weapons, but some private organizations, some ngo's, non governmental organizations will tell you that number is as high as 130. So that gives you an example of, like, how accurate. That number may or may not be. 70,000 was the number we were at when we peaked. That's right.

1986. Right. What happened to, do you deconstruct a bomb? Do you sell it for parts? Do you keep the depleted uranium core to make a nuclear reactor?

Chris Williamson
What do you do? I mean, what a great question. And what an interesting concept of where does all that nuclear material go? There's a plant in Texas called Pantex, and that's where they do that. It is so profoundly classified, and not a lot of people know about it.

Annie Jacobsen
And it's almost certainly on everybody's nuclear strike target list, because can you imagine the mayhem that would ensue if you struck that? There's just so many precariously dangerous situations. It feels like any sight that has to do with anything that touches a nuclear weapon becomes, you know, radioactive, like, literally and figuratively. Where are most of America's nukes? Are they on land?

Chris Williamson
Are they at sea? Have we got any that are in space? Okay, so I map out the triad. America has what's called the triad. And what a great place to begin, because it's, like, so much of what I try to do in this book is demystify.

Annie Jacobsen
You know, it's often said here in America that the nuclear weapons belong to the. To the nuclear priesthood. The PhD priesthood. Right. And there's kind of an almost.

It seems like a foolhardy attempt to keep the layman out, to keep regular people like you and me from really knowing these things. But interestingly, when you look at them, they're very simple. And because America is a democracy, a lot of our information is transparent. So, for example, the Defense Department puts out a very thick monograph, which almost no one reads. I have read.

You can read, which tells you exactly these numbers, and it explains what is called the nuclear triad. And it's such an interesting place to start. And you realize, actually, things are easier than you think. Nuclear triad. Zero three.

Okay, so we have silos, underground silos. We have a submarine force, and then we have a bomber force. And the silos, there are 400 of them across America. And believe it or not, every single one of them is targetable. Every single one of them you can locate.

It used to be on an old map. Now it's gps. Then the submarines are just crazy to learn about. I mean, they are called the handmaidens of the apocalypse, with good reason. There are 14 of them.

They're nuclear armed, nuclear powered submarines. Satellites. Can't see them. They just cruise around underwater, like, loaded with nuclear weapons. Each one has as many as 90.

And that's enough to take out not a city, not a continent, but arguably civilization. Because 90 nuclear weapons almost certainly sets off nuclear World War III. One does, right? Okay, so then the last part of the triad is the bomber force. We have 66 bombers.

Those are the b two s that are very famous, that looks like a flying wing. And then the old school b, those drop gravity bombs. The interesting spooky thing about that third part of the triad is that it's the only part of the triad, the nuclear triad, that can be recalled. So it's almost certainly what the president sends first. In other words, the ICBM's, the ballistic missiles that launch out of the silos and the sub launched ballistic missiles in the submarines.

Once they are launched, they cannot be redirected or recalled. And so once they launch, that is endgame.

Chris Williamson
Yeah, that's scary. That being said, something tells me that using the b, you've got to ready the pilots. I have to presume that you basically. Have a 24/7 crew of nuclear missile. Carrying plane pilots permanently on base 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

An alarm goes off and they are in the planes. The planes are fueled, they're on the ground, they're ready to go, et cetera, et cetera. I mean, how long is it going. To take a plane to get from wherever it is to Moscow to be able to, because you got to be over the top of the target. If you're using gravity, you've got to.

Be over the top of the target. Well, you're absolutely right. And that's why the bombers get sent first. But they almost will have no role. And I interviewed pilots who fly these aircraft and who have trained for this.

Annie Jacobsen
As you said, constantly through, across all. The decades that they have been in existence, and yet they almost certainly don't play a role because by the time they would get to a target, for example, we keep the b two bomber very close to Pyongyang, right, for this reason. But very close means five hour flight. And when you're talking about nuclear war happening in seconds and minutes, not days, not hours and weeks or hours and days, you know, one pilot said to me, the chances are you would get there after the war has commenced and you would have no way to refuel in air because so many of these aircraft need that capacity. So you're refueling capacity.

Yes, it is. They are all suicides positions. I mean, nuclear war is one big giant suicide. You said, I saw you write about how russian and chinese submarines regularly sneak up to within a couple of hundred miles of the United States coasts. What was that thing about something to do with the grapefruit on the moon?

Right, right. Okay, so Michael Kahn or Admiral Connor, the former commander of America's nuclear submarine force, not somebody who usually goes on the record or talks to Joe journalists. He shared with me this stunning analogy. Which is that it's harder to find a submarine under the sea than it. Is to find a grapefruit sized object in space.

So that's how stealthy submarines are. And, yes, thank you for noticing that detail in the book, because I was shocked to come across in a Defense. Department budget request, of all things, a. Map, a sonar map demonstrating the pathways of soviet, or, sorry, freudian slip there, of russian and chinese submarines coming up along America's coasts, just a few hundred miles out. And that is enough to keep you.

Up at night if all of the. Rest of it isn't. What are the most likely steps to. A mistaken nuclear war, in your opinion? Well, you know.

Right. So there's this famous quote, which I use, whereby the UN secretary general Antonio Guterres, says, we are one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear apocalypse. And so there is a lot of room for error, right, where there's a lot of room for mistakes, but there's also a lot of room for the madman scenario, and that's what I use in the book, whereby a nuclear armed. Nation makes a rogue launch against the. United States for reasons that we never know.

That remains unanswered, because the world ends before anyone gets that answer. But it is, according to sources I. Interviewed, a plausible scenario, you know, a. Nihilistic madman with a nuclear arsenal. So be it a mistake, be it a misunderstanding, be it a madman.

We are really on the brink of. Catastrophe here, which is like, I think. The calling, the sort of clarion call to have all of us talking about this. Thank you for having me on your show, because your show is, you know, listened to by all kinds of people, not just policy wonks and people that seem to be obsessed with the sort of geopolitical maneuvers of everyone. Nuclear war, you know, it's important to all of us.

Chris Williamson
Well, it's not going to discriminate whether you're a policy wonk or a Defense Department person. Everybody's going to feel the impact. Okay, so someone fires a nuke. What happens from there? Take us through the timeline from button of first nuke gets pushed.

Let's say that it's from North Korea, and it's going to be aimed at the US. Yeah. And this is like, this is that second by second telling the ticking clock scenario that, as I was reporting, the book initially wasn't sure how I was going to actually, like, tell the story. And then once I began to really learn the specifics of this, it became only the ticking clock scenario, because, as you say, it just. It's a sequence.

Annie Jacobsen
It just happens. Once nuclear launch happens, it all goes from there. And so the way it begins, interestingly, is in space. And that is because the United States has spent trillions of dollars over the. Past decades being aware of when anyone.

Launches a nuclear missile. When anyone launches a ballistic missile. When anyone launches a missile at all. Hang on, hang on. What's a ballistic missile?

To give me the hierarchy, and it's. A great question, because we hear a lot about strategic weapons versus tactical weapons. Right? So tactical nukes, that's what you hear Vladimir Putin threatening. Now when he's talking about using a tactical nuke, that's a battlefield nuke.

America doesn't even keep them. We did in the cold War, but realized what a ridiculously bad idea it is because it means you might actually use them on the battlefield. You know, you're just going upping the scale. You go from the mother of all bombs to the nuclear tactical weapon. A ballistic missile is a warhead loaded on a rocket that can travel.

It's called an ICBM intercontinental ballistic missile, so that it can travel from one continent to the other. And it uses, you know, gravity in as much that it has three phases. Okay? That's what it takes. 30 minutes.

Three phases. Boost phase, five minutes. Mid course phase, 20 minutes. Terminal phase, 100 seconds. That's from a launch pad in Russia, 26 minutes, 40 seconds.

From Pyongyang, it's 33 minutes. I mean, I geek out on the details and have, like, you know, professors of mathematics at MIT do the math for me, because you want to show how precise this all is, how specific the details are that the Defense Department works on. And so these satellite systems in space, it's called SIBRs. Again, everything's in an acronym. Space based infrared satellite system sibers a.

Constellation of satellites in geosync, meaning it can park above an enemy nation and watch for the hot rocket exhaust on a ballistic missile launch, which it can. See in less than a fraction of a cent of a second. I mean, when you really think about that, this all begins in the first fraction of a second. You understand the depth and scope of what exists behind the veil of the possibility of nuclear warfare. What happened microseconds after the exhaust flares go off, and it's not even left the ground yet.

Chris Williamson
Satellite detects it presumably sends that to the US. What is the sequence of events that occurs from a defense department's presidential perspective? Yep, and it all happens super fast. So literally, within seconds, that data in space goes to the command centers. I was amazed to learn that it goes immediately to three command sisters.

Annie Jacobsen
And again, it becomes very visual when you realize how simple this all is. The data goes to Cheyenne Mountain. We know about this from movies. It's like the nuclear bunker in Colorado beneath the mountain. It's real.

It's one of three. The other one is beneath the Pentagon. It's called the National Military Command center. And the third nuclear bunker is beneath StratCOM, US strategic command. That's in Nebraska.

And the way it was explained to me, that, like, made it really easy to understand. Cheyenne Mountain is like the brain. The Pentagon is the beating heart of nuclear war. And the bunker beneath Omaha, Nebraska, is the muscle. And those three command centers, with their partners in the space force and at various different command centers, begin to interpret this data.

And so it takes only 150 seconds from launch for the machines, people call them AI, I call them, you know, machine learning to start calculating. Is that missile headed toward Moscow or Honolulu? Is the missile headed towards San Francisco? Or is it headed toward the east coast? And 150 seconds later, that information becomes clear.

And by then, can you imagine what has been going on in those three command centers and all the hundreds of thousands of people that are working on this issue? Again, behind the veil? 24 7365. And so it becomes simply a matter of minutes before the president of the United States is notified about all this. And that comes to me directly from two former secretaries of defense here in the US, who are saying, this is how it works, letting the president know that very soon he's going to have to make a decision about counterattack, about how to respond.

And that sets in motion this crazy policy called launch on warning, which requires the president of the United States to launch nuclear weapons in response to a rogue attack. It's called a bolt out of the blue attack. Before nuclear weapons actually hit. The United States said differently, we don't wait to absorb a nuclear blow. We launch.

And that has to do with what we just talked about, the nuclear silos. The theory is that whoever's launching at the United States will try and take. Out the nuclear silos. So we can't respond. So therefore, we must respond, which gets.

You into this sort of orwellian understanding. Of how Orwellian all of this is. And by the way, now I've only taken you for through the first few minutes. Okay. The language that you used there, you said that the president will have to make a decision and that it is kind of the president's duty to do this launch on warning.

Chris Williamson
But all of that stops at the glass floor. That is the president's right finger or him saying yes in the affirmative type thing. It seems to me like there is still a human decision element of this in the US. So it sounds like what you're saying is that you believe that perhaps the president would choose not to launch nuclear weapons. It's not a completely automated system.

Absolutely. Outside of the bounds of human decision, that there is still a point at which, and maybe 999 times out of 1000 the president would hit the button. But that there is still this kind. Of like arbitrary, odd integration of the president into this system. Absolutely.

Annie Jacobsen
I mean, it is not what is called an executive order. The launch on warning is policy. It's not an executive order. And it is the president's decision and only the president's decision. Yeah.

So if you had an incredibly tempered, incredibly peaceful, incredibly fill in the blank president who just simply was unwilling to launch nuclear weapons, you are absolutely right. Interestingly, you're the only person who has, who has posed this. It's the British, it's the totally war cooked Brit in me that doesn't want to have a nuclear winter. So I had a guy called Andrew Bustamante on the show who's ex CIA. His first job was as a nucleus silo operative.

Chris Williamson
Yeah, he was one of the two guys with the keys. I'm going to guess that you have worked out about every hour roundabout on the hour or so, alarm goes off, keys go in, code gets put in. They have no. Can you just run us through it? Because that was one of my favorite stories that he taught me about how like willing dissenters and stuff.

Basically because of the network of the 400 silos and they're linked and you don't know if yours is actually going or not. Can you just explain kind of how. All of that works? I'm sure, I mean, listen, I'm a journalist and the firsthand witness is always better than the secondhand storyteller, which is me. So I'm sure that his account of it is riveting and I will watch it.

Annie Jacobsen
I have spoken to Miss Aleers who describe exactly that. And yes, there are protocols place so that they don't make an error. So that a Miss Lear can't go rogue and decide to do something. But what there isn't in place is a system in between the president and the missileer. So, in other words, once the president says.

Once the president gives the launch order, the sequence begins. There's no dissent. There's no room for dissent. And I asked the Los Alamos classified historian, Glenn McDuff, a variation on your question to me. Like what?

You know, would we, could we see someone refuse? Whether it's anyone below the president, let's say even the stratcom commander, or down to the missile? And he said to me, Annie, I would recommend you'd have better chances winning the Powerball than to have someone in. The nuclear command and control apparatus defy authority. Yeah.

Chris Williamson
So what I learned from Andrew upon issuing of, in fact, before we get. To issuing 400 missile silos ish around. The US, in each of those, at all times, there are two operatives with keys around their neck. They have alarms that go off, firing, alarms that go off where they have to. Keys go in, code gets input.

They press a button that happens about 24 times a day. They have no idea whether that is a false alarm or a real, real world activity. Also, if only one of the 400 puts the code in and turns the key, all of them fire, because they're networked together. So you would need to have 399. And then one more willing dissenters.

You also have the peer pressure of the other person with the key. You also have this sort of trained, almost like a pavlovian response, where we've continued to do this and we've continued to do this, but one day you could get the alarm, come through, another. Day at work, put the code in, turn the key, and then hear and go, oh, fuck. You have no idea what you're aiming at. You have no idea why it's been fired.

You're just there to do that thing and that. To me, this sort of distributed system, if anyone fires, then all of them fire. You only need the code to go in, into one of these silos. So, yeah, I think the Powerball analogy. Probably, probably stands up.

Annie Jacobsen
Those are some pretty incredible details. I'm going to have to drill down on those because I'm not familiar with them, but that is kind of shocking. Okay. Once you launch, you can't recall, is. It possible to intercept a nuke as.

Chris Williamson
It'S coming toward us? I've heard about hypersonic missiles. They sound faster than ICBM's. Can we fire a thing at their thing and knock it out the sky? Interestingly, an ICBM is hypersonic, right?

Annie Jacobsen
So all of this business of hypersonic is just, in my opinion, great advertisement for the military industrial complex to have new weapons. No one I know thinks hypersonic missiles have really much, are going to change much of anything in terms of defense. They're certainly going to spend a lot more money for taxpayers. What is interesting that you pointed out is about the myths behind the interceptor program. I myself was at a dinner party when I was reporting this book, seated next to a very knowledgeable person, who, when I said, you know, I'm writing da da da, he said, oh, Annie, you know, we have an interceptor program for that.

And I didn't want to correct him. There has to be a female version of the mansplaining concept. I haven't figured it out yet, but I didn't want to correct him. I figured I'll just give him a copy of my book, because that is absolutely fantasy. You know, this idea that America's interceptor system is anything like, for example, Israel's Iron dome is just simply not true.

We have 44 interceptor missiles total. Four of them are at Vandenberg Air force Base in Santa Barbara, 40 of them are in Alaska, and they, too, are like ballistic missiles. Okay, so imagine Russia's 16th, 74 deployed nuclear weapons, ready to launch in seconds or minutes, coming at the United States up against 44 interceptor missiles. How's that going? Presumably, the interceptor missiles aren't under the same restriction and jurisdiction that the nuclear disarmament slowly winding down your thing consists of.

Chris Williamson
So if that's the case, why not. Just have, like, a million of them? Are they costly? Is it hard to make? Is it stories?

Annie Jacobsen
You're absolutely right. And inside of them, the vehicle that takes out the nuclear warhead, by the way, is just a kinetic. There's no explosives in it. It's simply hitting. It's an object called an exo atmospheric kill vehicle.

How's that for a mouthful? Okay. And that is just simply going to collide with the nuclear warhead, one hopes. One of them, by the way, is going 14,000 miles an hour. The other one's going 20,000 miles an hour.

This is taking place 500 miles in space. Okay? So even the missile defense agency, the spokesperson there, said, yes. It is like taking out a bullet with a bullet. That's their quote.

Okay? And the success rate is between 40 and 55%. So to answer your question, does it really make sense for anyone to have, you know, thousands of these on ready for launch status to maybe strike incoming war? It's madness, all of it. It's insane.

And there has to be a better solution than more weapons. What do you think would be the most likely targets in the US? Is it take us through triage the. Targets and this you're talking about for. An enemy to attack us, correct?

Well, by all means. The Pentagon is the first and primary target. And almost everyone who I interviewed for the book said to me that it's the bolt out of the blue attack against Washington DC that Washington DC fears most. That has to do with the fact that it's not just that it would decapitate leadership and kill, let's say, 2 million people if you had a one megaton thermonuclear bomb, as I do in my scenario. But then you're setting off a catastrophe.

Of problems having to do with what's. Called continuity of government, this idea that the United States government must continue functioning no matter what, you know, DC being decapitated. And so there's this incredible scramble that I write about in the scenario of, you know, who's in charge and getting the commander in chief out of Washington DC. You know, the targets are everyone. It was said to me this way by Professor Brian Toon, who's one of the original five authors of the nuclear winter theory.

He said, if you live in a. Major city or a minor city, if. You live near an airport, if there's an industrial base in your city, just. About any city in America up to. Let'S say, the top 800 of them, you have a nuclear weapon pointed at.

You and that's enough to keep you up at night. And again, the same goes for anyone. In an enemy or an adversary of. The United States that is also nuclear armed. They too have a nuclear weapon, Toon said, pointed at them.

But of course what he really meant is targetable to them because the nuclear weapons are actually left targeted out at sea in case there was a rogue launch, which I found like one of the only comforting details in all of this. And when those keys get, that's when the codes, the actual coordinates are put into play. What is the protocol? The president is chilling in the White House, answering emails on the phone, Mister President, this missile is coming toward us. Have you got any idea what the.

Chris Williamson
Process from there is? Well, I do, because I interviewed many. People around the president that would be confronted with trying to, you know, make. Decisions about what happens next. So surely you would have his military advisors at us strategic command and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff trying to get a launch order in response from him, the counter attack order, and that is something called jamming the president.

Annie Jacobsen
And that is well known, and that is confirmed by almost all military sources that they are very aware of the launch on warning protocols, the policy, and thats what they need from the president, because the launch order can come from him and only from him. But the most interesting sort of counter argument that that would be the primary event happening came to me from the Secret Service, from the president has a paramilitary team that is with him all the time. This is not very well known. It's called the counter assault team, and they shadow him everywhere. And they are responsible, certainly an event like this, for making sure that he is whisked out of Washington, DC to safety.

That would be on the command of the person in charge of the president's detail, the special agent in charge, also known as the sack. And I interviewed Lou Murletti, who is the head of the Secret Service. Sorry, the director of the Secret service. And before that, he had been the sack for President Clinton. And he explained to me that most certainly the Secret Service would be completely at odds with StratcOm in that moment because they would want to move the president to Raven Rock, which is, again, that sometimes mythical, you know, command bunker outside Washington, DC.

That is very real and is actually called officially the alternate National Military Command center because it is where anyone left living who should have been at the Pentagon would now go in the event of nuclear war. It's about 70 miles outside of DC, and it's a quick helicopter ride if you can get there before the EMP. Pulse takes the helicopter out. Are there any bunkers that can survive modern nuclear warheads? Almost none, and certainly not the ones.

That were built in the 1950s. You know, the Raven rock bunker, the strat bunker. They were like the specs. And again, this is what's transparent. This is what is known on the record.

But they were built to withstand a one megaton thermonuclear weapon, but almost certainly they would be targeted by ten or 100 smaller sized nuclear weapons, which, you know, as I really nerd out in the latter part of the book, where these bunkers get destroyed, you learn that nothing can survive being hit by multiple nuclear bombs because the energy is spread out. So, you know, in such a manner that they just simply can't survive. And we haven't even begun to talk about the problem of losing electricity because people forget that all bunkers run on generators. And eventually, if there's no electricity, there's. No way to pump fuel.

Chris Williamson
Talk to me about the different types. And sizes of bombs that have been developed. You know, Oppenheimer just came out and we got to see this very impressive, very scary explosion. Go on. And yet compared with what we have now, that's like, it's like puny.

It's like a stick of dynamite. Yeah. Atomic bombs are so different than thermonuclear weapons. And again, you know, what a great question because so many people don't know this, the nuclear priesthood has kind of, you know, kept these kind of layman's details, I think, out of public discourse. The bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for example, was 15 kilotons.

Annie Jacobsen
Nagasaki was 20 kilotons. A thermonuclear weapon, like the one thats. On the COVID of my book, that is a photograph of the Ivy Mike. Thermonuclear device, which was the first ever exploded thermonuclear weapon. It was designed by Richard Garwin, who I interviewed for the book.

He was 24 years old when he drew the plans. Hes now 95. That weapon, he explained to me, was 10.4 megatons. It exploded with the power of almost 1000 Hiroshima bombs exploding at the same time from one center point of power. It is so massive, it is 5 miles of fire.

And that says nothing of the blast. And the destruction that pushes out like. A bulldozer in rings. At one point, the Russians had a 50 megaton weapon. Was that car bomba?

Yes, it was. And you can look at those images online and just be absolutely terrified. Is this, what's the difference between an atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear warhead, what's what? I'm so glad you're asking these questions because these are like, what keep people from, you know, wanting to have this discussion. A hydrogen bomb is a synonym for a thermonuclear bomb.

Same thing. Atomic bomb is the, we're the early fission bombs, and the thermonuclear and the hydrogen, same thing, are used, fusion. So the way that Richard Garwin explained it to me, and again, the smartest people in the room can explain things to a child because that's how smart they are and that's how easy it should be. And what Garwin said to me was, Annie, keep in mind that a thermonuclear bomb uses an atomic bomb inside the weapon as a fuse. That gives you an idea of how.

Much power is involved. Yeah, that's the striking pin. The thing that previously was the most destructive bomb ever dropped on a city is the thing that starts, the thing that explodes. You're absolutely right. Okay, so you mentioned about this sort of five mile radius.

Chris Williamson
Let's say that. Oh, actually, that's a question. Are these, whatever they're called, above ground, mid air, do they deploy in the air? Do they hit the ground? So they can deploy either place the.

Annie Jacobsen
Way to kill the most people? And that's a quote from John von. Neumann, who was working on this issue with Oppenheimer when they were deciding the dynamics of where to detonate or explode the bomb, the Hiroshima bomb, the original bomb. Von Neumann, the mathematician, figured out that you would kill the most people if it was 1900ft above the target. Again, what a gruesome and macabre fact.

And interestingly, von Neumann was given the. Medal of Honor, or I might be. Getting the title of the medal wrong, but some extraordinary, prestigious medal from the president himself for having figured that out, which is sort of horrific when you really think about that. But that is a very specific issue about killing people, because, of course, this is a weapon of mass genocide. And if you explode it higher up, the blast will kill more people.

But if a bomb is exploded on the ground, you have a whole different horrific set of consequential deaths. And that has to do with radiation poisoning, because when the bomb explodes on. The ground, think about all the dirt. The earth that is blasted up. All of that is now irradiated, and all of that dirt is going to.

Fall back down to earth irradiated, versus. The detonation that occurs above. The earth will essentially disperse into the. Atmosphere and be taken away by the winds, which is why people can walk around Hiroshima today. It's why you can go to the Nevada test site and walk around.

Chris Williamson
So if the Hiroshima bomb hadn't, I didn't know that it was an above air 1900ft thing. If that had exploded by hitting the. Pavement, Hiroshima would be uninhabitable for 2000 years. Well, not uninhabitable, but it would have a different. The radiation would have a longer shelf life.

Right. Well, like, I've been out to the Nevada test site, where a very famous test was conducted in the sixties, and it left behind what is called the sedan crater. It's such a massive crater that it can be seen from outer space. And I walked around nearby it, and so that was, what, 50 years ago? And it's no longer, you know, you can stay there for a little bit of time, but you're absolutely right that there are these radically different degrees of radiation poisonings of earth and air dependent on atmosphere.

Okay, so a standard megaton thermonuclear warhead. Goes off 1900ft above a city. What happens directly below it? 5 miles out. 25 miles out.

100 miles out. Talk me through that. In the book I use the one megaton thermonuclear bomb on the Pentagon, detonating above, around 1000ft above. The reason why I do that is, again, because I can give the effects to the reader not from Annie Jacobson's imagination, but rather from acting absolute specific details sourced from Defense Department documents called the effects of nuclear weapons, originally called Army Manual 50. Because defense scientists have spent all these decades since the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs, and then through our own atmospheric testing in the Marshall Islands in the fifties, the defense scientists have been documenting with great detail what nuclear weapons do to people and things in blast areas.

Annie Jacobsen
Going out. And so, to begin with, you have this thermonuclear flash of light that is 180 million degrees at its center point. It's almost impossible for the human mind to comprehend that kind of power equivalent to about four times the center of the earth's sun. And so it sets it just in. A flash, sets things alight going 910 miles out.

I mean, the Defense department knows in inches where pine needles will catch on fire versus the upholstery in car seats. And then of course, so you have the initial fireball. A one megaton thermonuclear weapon has 1 mile of fire, pure fire. That's 19 football fields. Everything is dead.

Everything. There is nothing. No cellular life exists. And outside of that, you have, you know, you wish that you were at the center point, because outside in the next ring going out, you have, you know, melted steel, you have streets turning into molten lava, like you have people absorbing into things. You have permanent structures changing shape and collapsing.

Then you have this bulldozer like blast that moves out. You have winds of 200, 300, 400 miles an hour. A hurricane level wind is 90 miles an hour. By the way, everyone's on fire. Third degree burns on people that aren't, buildings collapsing.

I mean, shall I go on and horrify listeners? This is. Okay, so how about this? As it was explained to me by a nuclear engineer who studies this, you also have the issue of that mushroom. You know, when you have seen an atomic explosion, perhaps on YouTube, right from some of the early tests that were done in the fifties, you see the mushroom stem and you see the mushroom cloud.

Well, the mushroom stem creates a sucking. Motion of everything down on the land below it. So you have people, telephone poles, cars. People that have turned into combusting, carbon. Being sucked up in a reverse sucking motion into that stem.

Chris Williamson
And then if you watch the archive footage of a house that they've built out in the Nevada desert or whatever. You see things go and then go. Back the other way. There's sort of this. And presumably that's the sucking motion.

Annie Jacobsen
You're absolutely right. That is exactly what that is. And then the most haunting detail of all is when you look at that mushroom cloud now that you can see on YouTube, you realize inside of that. Would be the remains of people, the remains of civilization. Those bombs were exploded out in the Marshall Islands on atolls with no one around.

But you can imagine what would be. In that cloud stem and the cloud. Cap if it were detonated over a city. Yeah, wow. I mean, that's pretty one.

That's just one. You know, in the scenario that I propose, there's more, 1000 or more that strike the United States when it's endgame 72 minutes in, and the same is over in Russia. And so that begins nuclear winter, which. I'm probably jumping to too fast because. We haven't even tell us about nuclear winter.

Well, you know, and I jump there because you can. It was interesting writing and reporting this book, and it's been interesting. The book has only been out for a few days, but hearing people's reaction, because most people read it in one. Night, I'm told, right, because. Or one day because they can't stop reading.

And it is written that way because. In the most dramatic human storytelling, you. Know, possible manner, I think you are like, what happens? And yet, you know, what happens? But what happens at the end of a nuclear war is nuclear winter.

And that is because after you get. Through the fireballs that we were just. Discussing, the blast, the radiation poisoning, you. Have situations where every single one of those ground zeros becomes a megafire. So because that tremendous x ray flash of light that was 180 million degrees set everything on fire, those fires create more fires.

I mean, just imagine all the electricity, electricity, all the electric lines whipping and that are starting new fires everywhere. It's like thousands of matches, just fire after fire after fire. Each ground zero will be between 100 and 200 sq mi of fire as it continues to burn. And so multiply that by a thousand, by 2000 around the globe. And what happens is you have 330 billion pounds of soot lofted into the troposphere.

And that is, again, not from my imagination. That is from state of the art climate modeling done by Professor Brian Toon, one of the original authors of the nuclear winter theory, along with Carl Sagan. Toon has stayed on this issue all these decades since. And the. The climate modeling today shows us that nuclear winter the predictions from the eighties, when the theory first came to be those were nothing compared to the truth of it.

That the sun will be blocked out by 70% or more from all that soot in the troposphere, and that the sun will be blocked out in that manner for between seven to ten years. Is that globally that doesn't stay locally. Globally, because the wind moves. And so nations that had nothing to do with this nuclear war will be profoundly affected. And what Toon explained to me is.

That around the earth, temperatures will fall as much as 40 degrees fahrenheit. Large bodies of water in the mid latitudes, in places like Iowa and Ukraine, the breadbaskets of the world, the large bodies of water there will be frozen over under sheets of ice for seven or eight or nine years. And so agriculture will fail. And when agriculture fails, people starve to death. And that is why the number is now estimated to be 5 billion people dead after a nuclear exchange.

Chris Williamson
Is that all 12,500 nukes? Is that 2000 of them? What's the number that you need to. Have launched to hit 5 billion in. The scenario, it's just a couple thousand in the scenario.

Annie Jacobsen
I don't involve yet the other nuclear armed nations. And I did that on purpose because I was really trying to demonstrate that after 72 minutes in the scenario, as it was explained to me and sort of fact checked by the sources that I was using and others, once you lose electricity, then you have no ability to record history for the future. And so we never know if the other nuclear armed nations get involved. So, to answer your question, we don't know about the remainder of the nuclear weapons and we don't know about the thousands that were in storage. All it takes is the amount of nuclear weapons that are on ready for launch status right now.

Chris Williamson
5 billion people die in a war. Between the United States and Russia, set. Off by a rogue nuclear nihilistic madman on a bolt out of the blue attack. There's been a number of close calls. In history, some famous ones.

A guy in a submarine foil in the wrong vhs tape being put in. What was the closest that we came. To nuclear war in the past, in your opinion? I believe that it's the nuclear test tape that you refer to and the reason for that. So just for your listeners, it was 1979, and this story came to me from a first, firsthand witness, former secretary of Defense Bill Perry himself.

Annie Jacobsen
He was on the night watch that night, the nuclear night watch. And he received word that the Russians. Had launched ballistic missiles at the United States. Both land launched ICBM's and sub launched slbms. So this looked like a massive first and second strike attack.

And the information came from both the nuclear bunker beneath the Pentagon and the nuclear bunker beneath stratcom. And so that idea which we didn't get into, but I take the readers through in the book that you can have the early warning launch, the early warning of a nuclear launch, and that is when the president gets advised. But then there has to be secondary confirmation, right? So this 1979 error you're talking about was moving towards secondary confirmation because there is already two bunkers confirming when suddenly someone realized that it was actually a. VHS training tape, a war game training.

Tape that had been inserted into one of the machines at one of those bunks. And as Bill Perry said to me, it looked real because it was meant to look real. And so what was particularly shocking to me about that and why I as a journalist, work with sources to help me tell the story and convey the drama is because when Bill Perry was telling me that story, it had been. You know, 40 some odd years since it had happened. And I could hear it in his voice, the terror and the almost trauma.

Of thinking that he was the person. Who was going to have to wake up the president and tell him that he was going to have to launch a nuclear counter attack. Well, who starts one of these wars. Given that it's pretty obvious how it ends? Like who in their right mind?

Chris Williamson
Like, it's not just you. You're a very good journalist and writer. But, you know, there's hundreds of people in every government around the world that's done the war games, that's played out, the 5 billion people and the nuclear winter and the, you know, the pine trees on fire. Why would anyone start this, given what happens? And for that, I looked to my.

Annie Jacobsen
Discussions with Richard Garwin, who designed the Ivy Mike thermonuclear weapon, who has been advising presidents about nuclear weapons since the 1950s, who arguably knows more about nuclear weapons and nuclear policy than anyone on this earth. And it was Garwin who said to me when I was discussing scenarios with. Him, because I made every, I made. It very clear to all of my sources what I was doing. And I asked all of them if I was fear mongering.

And not one of them said I was, you know, former secretary of defense Leon Panetta said, annie, I agree with what you're doing. The people need to know. But it was Garwin who, when I. Asked him what is the most dangerous scenario that you could think of? Kind of like you're asking me you know, what kind of a crazy person would do this?

We have leaders that know, and he said that his fear was one nihilistic madman with a nuclear arsenal is all it takes to start a nuclear war. What does that mean? Who is that? I would think that is the leader of North Korea today. And I believe that's who Garwin was referring to.

And the reason for that is, and. The reason that we're seeing singularling, the. Reason that we're sort of using that individual is because North Korea is the only nuclear armed nation that doesn't play by the rules. I mean, let's put rules in air quotes. Right.

But there are some rules of nuclear war, one of which is you tell people when you're going to launch nuclear weapons, and all of the nine nuclear armed nations do that. And when I say nuclear weapons, I mean when you're going to launch an ICBM test, because you have to test your weapon systems to make sure they work. And so all nations warn one another. This is something I just learned in the book about North Korea, by the way, when I was reporting it, that, for example, during the Ukraine war, Russia didn't. They canceled a pretty, a test that they had already had on the books.

They canceled it. The United States did the same because. No one wants to start a nuclear war by accident, particularly in times of great hostility, as is the world right. Now, because it would be potentially mistaken by another country as, oh, this might be coming for Moscow or this might be coming for Washington. What they don't know is it's going to land in the middle of the North Atlantic and it's just a test.

Absolutely. Right. I mean, we talked about that earlier with 152nd window between, if you're, if you know, or maybe it's going straight up into space to deliver a satellite. So North Korea, I learned from the North Korea experts here in the United States does not announce any of its missile tests. And since January of 22, they have.

Launched 100 missiles unannounced. Now, I have spoken to the individuals who have to run these systems, are in these bunkers. Do you know what? Imagine what must go on in those 1st, 150 seconds every time North Korea launches? That's happened once a week for the last two years.

It's happened 100 times. So I guess since 2022. Right. That is reckless. And that is why, in my scenario.

North Korea launches the bolt out of the blue attack, because they are not playing by the rules. To them, the rules don't exist. I asked one of the experts, why. Do they do that to show that. They have power, to demonstrate that they are outside the norm, to demonstrate that they are menacing and will do what it is they choose to do.

Chris Williamson
It's so infantile. It's so juvenile. You think about North Korea. It's such a stupid, petty, idiotic system, so immature.

It's just as well that the citizens of that country don't know just how stupid the people that are running it are, because if they did, I think they'd be even more ashamed of the country that they live in. But, okay, so moving forward, what do. You want to have happen? Have you considered what a safer world would look like? Is de escalation realistic?

We went from 70,000 to 12,500 reported. Should we continue to dial that down? Is there more policy that needs to be in place? What do you want to have happen in future?

Annie Jacobsen
Well, that's the Reagan reversal that we touched upon a little bit earlier, right? I mean, you think about me as. A high school student watching the day after the ABC miniseries, a fictional story of war between Russia and America, a nuclear war between those two countries. Terrifying, horrifying. 100 million people watched it.

But so did one very important american, Ronald Reagan. And he wrote in his presidential memoirs. That he was greatly depressed after watching that. And he, as a result, because, remember, you're too young to remember, but Ronald Reagan was a hawk. He was pro nuclear weapons.

He was working on SDI, also known as Star wars, to put nuclear weapons in space. He believed in american supremacy through american nuclear power, nuclear might. And after watching the day after, he changed his mind. And that, famously, is known among DC insiders as the Reagan reversal. And that is why the world went from 70,000 nuclear warheads to the 12,500 we have today.

Because he reached out to Gorbachev to communicate. And so that's the answer to your. Question, I believe, is called communication. It's called. It doesn't make any sense to have such animosity, to have such enmity toward, you know, anyone, really, but certainly not your nuclear armed adversaries.

Because what is really the worst case. Scenario as a result of all that well read nuclear war? A scenario. And you will see. And so, sure people may say, oh, Annie, it's pansy ish of you.

It's so naive to think that communication can get us out of the tree. But I believe that to be true. I really believe that.

If a subject. As significant as human existence is discussed openly among people, then ultimately that issue rises to the top and you start having people in positions of power like Gorbachev and Reagan once were to make changes. Is it possible to still watch that. Series that you're talking about? Is that on YouTube or anywhere you.

Can see it on YouTube? Absolutely. The day after. Okay. And by the way, after the Reykjavik summit, the Reagan White House called the filmmakers and said you guys had something to do with this.

Chris Williamson
Wow. Wow. Annie Jacobson, ladies and gentlemen. Annie. It's macabre, apocalyptic, but pretty important.

I think I'm a massive. I have for a very long time, had a big concern about existential risks. And the fact that nuclear war isn't a classic existential risk, permanent, unrecoverable collapse. It's miserable, and no one wants to go through that. And war can be done in a way which is a lot more targeted.

So I really appreciate all of the work that you've done. The book's fantastic. Why should people go? They want to check out more of. The things that you do online.

Annie Jacobsen
My books are sold everywhere, and I read the audio of my audiobooks, which. I'm told makes it a little bit easier. Well, you've got a fantastic voice, so. Yeah, I imagine it does. I really appreciate you.

Chris Williamson
I can't wait to see what you do next. Thank you for joining. Thank you so much for having me.

Get away, get all this.

#778 - Annie Jacobsen - Just How Likely Is A Global Nuclear War?

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1: Introduction to the Threat

2: The Nuclear Triad Explained

3: Scenario of a Nuclear Strike

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