Modern WisdomA Comprehensive Breakdown Of Nuclear War Threats - Annie Jacobsen
EVERY SPOKEN WORD
95 min read · 18,933 words- 0:00 – 4:42
How Many Nukes Exist?
- CWChris Williamson
How many nukes are in existence right now?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
12,500 approximately.
- CWChris Williamson
And where does that number come from? How do we know...
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... that that's the number?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah. 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 Kristensen, 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Who are the nine?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
The nine are the obvious Russia, America, UK, France, India, Pakistan, China, North Korea, Israel.
- CWChris Williamson
Australia, no?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Nope.
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. How do we know that countries aren't giving a United States organization purposefully under-reported numbers to make us-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm.
- CWChris Williamson
... think that they've got fewer, that they've gotten rid of it, that they've de-escalated, uh, when in fact they've still got loads?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah. Well, some of the treaties, uh, which are, like, being threatened right now, ask for, uh, transparency and also inspection. And so, like, for example, people go to Russia on our side and vice versa. S- things can get held up when there's direct conflicts right n- like right now. But it's amazing, you know, in my book I, 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 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 gonna be communication on some level.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder, I wonder if it's true. I wonder if 12,500-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... is the actual number. Um, you know.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Right.
- CWChris Williamson
It would make complete sense. Who would, who would cyber subterfuge and, and, and hacking of chips and getting i-... Like, the most obvious-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... l- like, the original PSYOP conspiracy, lying. Like, why not just lie about it?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh...
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... hide them, put them in a place that it's not... Like treaties and, I don't know, uh, uh, when it comes to nuclear war or the potential destruction of your, of your country, something tells me there's a lot of incentives to not be super transparent.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
I'll give you an example. North Korea, the CIA will tell you that North Korea has 50 nuclear weapons, but some private organizations, some NGOs, non-governmental organizations, will tell you that number is as high as 130. So that gives you an example of, like, how, how accurate that number may or may not be.
- CWChris Williamson
70,000 was the number we were at when we peaked.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
That's right, 1986.
- CWChris Williamson
Right? What happened to... Do y- do you deconstruct-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- 4:42 – 9:33
Where America’s Nukes Are
- CWChris Williamson
Where are most of America's nukes? Are they on land? Are they at sea?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Have we got any that are in space?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm. 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. You know, it's often said here in America that the, the nuclear weapons belong to the, to the nuclear priesthood, the PhD priesthood, right? And there's kind of a, an almost, s- 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. Um, and because America is a democracy, a lot of ours information is transparent. So for example, d- 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, oh, 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. Um, 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, like, not a city, like, 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-2s that are very famous, that looks like a flying wing, and then the old school B-52s, and 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 ICBMs, 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 sh- they launch, that is endgame.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, that's scary. That being said, something tells me that using the B-52s and, and the B-2s, uh, you've got to ready the pilots. I, I, I have to presume that you basically have a 24/7 crew of nuclear missile carrying plane pilots-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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 gonna take a, a, a plane to get from wherever it is to, to Moscow to be able to... 'Cause you've gotta be over the top of the target. If you're using gravity, you've gotta be over the top of the target.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 are, who, you know, fly these aircraft and who have trained for this, 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 B- the B-2 bomber, um, very close to Pyongyang, right, for this reason. But very close means a five-hour flight. And w- 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, 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, your refueling-"
- CWChris Williamson
That's a suicide mission.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
"... capacity." Yes, it is. They are all suicides, which, I mean, nuclear war is one big, giant suicide.
- 9:33 – 12:40
Russian & Chinese Submarines Near America
- CWChris Williamson
You said, uh, I, I, 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 a grapefruit on the moon?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Right, right, right.
- CWChris Williamson
Or something.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Okay, so the c- uh, Michael Connor, Admiral Connor, the, the former commander of America's nuclear submarine force, not somebody who usually goes on the record or talks to 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 coast 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.
- CWChris Williamson
What are the most likely steps to a mistaken nuclear war in your opinion?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Well, you know, mist- Right, so there's this famous quote which I use, um, whereby the UN Secretary General António Guterres says, "We are one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear apocalypse." And so y- there are, there is a lot of room for error, right, where you're, you know, there's a lot of room for mistakes. But there's also a lot of room for the madman scenario, um, 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. Um, 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, an, 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, you know, the- 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, uh, people that seem to be obsessed with the sort of geopolitical maneuvers of everyone. Nuclear war, i- you know, it's important to all of us.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, it's not going to discriminate whether you're a policy wonk, or a-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a Defense Department person, everybody's going to feel the impact. Okay.
- 12:40 – 21:24
What Happens When a Nuke is Fired?
- CWChris Williamson
So-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... someone fires a nuke. What happens from there? Take us through-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... 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.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah. And this is, like, this is that second-by-second telling, the t- the- the ticking clock scenario that, as I was reporting the book initially, wasn't sure how I was gonna actually, like, tell the story. And then once I began to really learn the specifics of this, it became only the t- the ticking clock scenario, because as you say, it just, it's a sequence, 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 miss- when anyone launches a ballistic missile, when anyone launches a missile at all.
- CWChris Williamson
What... Hang on, hang on.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
What's- what's a ballistic missile? What's- what's a... W- wa- give me- t- give me the hierarchy.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. So, and it's a great question, because, you know, 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- 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- upping the scale. You go from the mother of all bombs to the nuclear tactical weapon. A ballistic missile is a weap- 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 wh- it takes 30 minutes. Three phases. Boost phase, five minutes. Mid-course phase, 20 minutes. Terminal phase, 100 seconds. That's from a launchpad 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 ma- mathematics at, uh, 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 SBIRS, again, and now, you know, everything's in an acronym, Space-based Infrared Satellite system, SBIRS. 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 ce- of a second. I mean, th- 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.
- CWChris Williamson
What hap- So, uh, m- microseconds after the exhaust flares go off, and it's not even left the ground yet, satellite detects it, presumably sends that-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... to the US. What is the sequence of events-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... that occurs from a Defense Department presidential perspective?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah. 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, and it- and again, it- it becomes, like, very visual when you realize how simple this all is. The data goes to, you know, Cheyenne Mountain. We know about this from movies. It's in, you know, it's like the- 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 c- really easy to understand, Cheyenne Mountain is like the brain, the Pentagon is the beating heart of nuclear war, and the bunker beneath N- Omaha, Nebraska is the muscle. And those three command centers with their partners in the Space Force and at various different command cest- 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 toward San Francisco, or is it headed toward the East Coast? In 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 24/7, 365. 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, in the US who are saying, "This is how it works." Mm, 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 understa- understanding of how Orwellian all of this is. And by the way, now I've only taken you for- through the first few minutes.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay. The- 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. But all of that stops at the glass floor that is the president's right finger, or- or- or him saying, "Yes," or- or in the- in the affirmative type thing. It seems to me like there is still a human decision element of this in the US.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
So it sounds like what you're saying is that you believe that perhaps the president would choose not to launch nuclear weapons.
- CWChris Williamson
N- no, because it, uh, uh, i- uh, the, it's not a- a completely automated system absolutely outside of the bounds of- of human decision, that there is still a point at which... And maybe 999 times out of 1,000, the president would hit the button, um-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... but that there is still this kind of like arbitrary, odd integration of the president into this system.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
A- absolu- I mean, it is not what is called an executive order. The Launch on Warning is policy, it's not an executive order. And s- and it is the president's decision and only the president's decision. Yeah. So, if you had an incredibly tempered, incredibly peaceful, uh, 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.
- CWChris Williamson
It's the Brit.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Um-
- CWChris Williamson
It's the, it's the-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
It's the Brit in you?
- CWChris Williamson
... totally war-cucked Brit in me that doesn't want to have a-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... a nuclear winter.
- 21:24 – 25:12
How American Nuclear Silos Work
- CWChris Williamson
So I had-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... a guy called Andrew Bustamante on the show who's ex-CIA. His first job was as a nuclear silo operative.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah, a missileer.
- CWChris Williamson
So he was-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
He was one of the two guys with the keys.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Um, I'm gonna guess that you have worked out about-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... every hour, roundabout on the hour or so, a- alarm goes off, keys go in, code gets put in, they have no... Can you just run us through, 'cause that was one of my favorite stories that he taught me about how, uh, like willing dissenters and, and, 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.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Can you just explain kind of how-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
... all of that works?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Well, I'm sure, I mean, g- 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. I have spoken to missileers who describe exactly that. And yes, there are protocols in place so that they don't make an error, so that a missileer can- can't go rogue and decide to do something.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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- the sequence begins. There is no dissent, there's no room for dissent. And I asked the, uh, 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 e- anyone below the president, let's say even the STRATCOM commander or down to the missileer. And he said to me, "Annie, I would recommend you'd have better chances winning the Powerball-"
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
"... than to have someone in the nuclear command and control apparatus defy authority."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. So what I learned from Andrew, uh, upon issuing, uh, in fact, before we get to issuing, 400, uh, 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, f- uh, uh, 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.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
They have no idea whether that is a false alarm or a real, uh, w- real world, um, uh, d- like, uh, activity.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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 need, you would need to have 399, and then one more, willing dissenters.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
You also have the peer pressure of the other person with the key. You also have this sort of trained, almost like a, 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, you know, another day at work, put the code in, turn the key, and then hear (imitates machine whirring) 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.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
And that, that to me, this sort of distributed system, if any one fires, then all of them fire. You only need the code to go in into one of these silos. So yeah, I think the, the Powerball analogy probably, probably stands up.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Those are some pretty incredible details. I'm gonna have to drill down on those, because I'm not familiar with them.
- 25:12 – 28:38
Can We Intercept All Kinds of Missiles?
- CWChris Williamson
you launch, you can't recall. Is it possible, uh, to intercept a nuke as it's coming toward us? I've heard about hypersonic missiles. They sound faster than ICBMs. Can we fire a thing at their thing and knock it out the sky?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Interestingly, a, an ICBM is hypersonic, right? So, all of this business of hypersonic is just, in my opinion, great, uh, advertisement for the military industrial complex to have new weapons. Um, no one I know thinks hypersonic missiles have really much to, are gonna change much of anything in terms of defense. They're certainly gonna 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 wanna correct him. Um, there has to be a female version of the mansplaining concept. I haven't figured it out yet, but I didn't wanna correct him. I figured I'll just give him a copy of my book. Because that is absolute 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?
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
So, imagine Russia's 1,674...
- CWChris Williamson
Hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... deployed nuclear weapons ready to launch in seconds or minutes, coming at the United States, up against 44 interceptor missiles. How's that gonna work out?
- CWChris Williamson
Let's see, I mean like, uh, wha- y- presumably, the interceptor missiles aren't under the same, um, restriction and jurisdiction that the nuclear disarmament slowly winding down your thing consists of. So if that's the case, why not just have, like, a million of them? Is it, are they costly? Is it hard to make?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Well-
- CWChris Williamson
Is it storage?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... you're, you're absolutely right. And inside of the, the vehicle that takes out the nuclear warhead, by the way, is just a kinetic, it, there's no, there's no explosives in it. It's simply hitting, it's an i, it's an object called an exoatmospheric kill vehicle. How's that for a mouthful, okay?
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs) Wow.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Okay? So, even the Missile Defense Agency, the, the spokesperson there said, "Yes, it is like taking out a bullet with a bullet."
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 wa... It's madness, all of it. It's insane.
- CWChris Williamson
(laughs)
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
And there has to be a better solution than more weapons.
- 28:38 – 34:55
Most Likely American Targets
- CWChris Williamson
What do you think would be the most likely targets in the US? Is it, uh, take us through.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
Uh, triage the, the, the targets.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm. And this, you're talking about for an enemy to attack us?
- CWChris Williamson
Correct.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 two 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 s- problems having to do with what's called continuity of government, this idea that the United States government must continue functioning, no matter what. Imagine Nu- you know, DC being decapitated. And so there's this incredible scramble that I write about in, in the scenario of, you know, who's in charge and getting the commander in chief out of Washington DC. Th- you know, the targets are everyone. It was said to me this way by Professor Brian Toon, who's one of the original five auth- 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, an, uh, 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, uh, targeted out at sea in case there was a rogue launch-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... which I found like one of the only comforting details in all of this, and when those T- keys get turned, that's when the codes-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... the, the, the actual, you know, coordinates, um, are put into play.
- CWChris Williamson
What is the protocol? The, the, the, the president is chilling in the White House answering E-mails, on the phone, "Mr. President, this missile is coming toward us." Have you got any idea what the process from there is?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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, uh, U.S. Strategic Command and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff trying to get a launch order in response from him, the counterattack order. And that is something called "jamming the president." And that is well-known, and that is confirmed by almost all military sources, that they are very aware of the launch-on-warning, um, protocols, the policy, and that's what they need from the president because the launch order can come from him and only from him. But, the most interesting sort of counterargument to that that would be the primary event happening came to me from the Secret Service, from... The S- the president has a, uh, 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, um, certainly an event like this, for making sure that he's whisked out of Washington, DC to safety. That would be on the command of the, um, of the person in charge of the president's detail, uh, the Special Agent in Charge, also known as the SAC. And I interviewed Lew Merletti, who is the head of the Secre- S- Secret Service, the, sorry, the Director of the Secret Service, and before that he had been the SAC 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've 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Are there any bunkers that can survive modern nuclear warheads?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Almost none, and certainly not the ones that were built in the 1950s. You know, the, the Raven Rock bunker, the STRATCOM 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 they, n- nothing can survive mult- 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.
- 34:55 – 41:20
The Different Types of Bombs Today
- CWChris Williamson
Talk to me about the different types and sizes of bombs that have been developed. You know, Oppenheimer just came out, and, you know, we got to see this very impressive, very scary explosion go on, and yet, compared with what we have now, that's like-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... it's like puny. It's like a stick of dynamite.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 th- kept these kind of layman's details, I think, out of public discourse. Uh, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima, for example, was 15 kilotons. Nagasaki was 20 kilotons. A thermonuclear weapon like the one that's on the cover 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. He's now 95. That weapon, he explained to me, was 10.4 megatons.It exploded with the power of almost 1,000 Hiroshima bombs, exploding at the same time, from one center point of power. It is so massive, it is five 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. It was called-
- CWChris Williamson
Was that the Tsar Bomba?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yes, it was. And you can look at those images online and just be absolutely terrified.
- CWChris Williamson
Is this... What's the difference between an atomic bomb, hydrogen bomb, thermonuclear warhead? What- what's what?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I'm so glad you're asking these questions, because these are, like, what people, 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 ear- ear- were the early fission bombs, and the thermonuclear and the hydrogen, same thing, are- are- use 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.
- CWChris Williamson
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.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
You're absolutely right.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so you mentioned about this sort of five-mile radius, let's say that... Oh, actually, that's a question. Are these, uh, whatever they're called, above ground, uh, uh, mid-air? Are they, do they deploy in the air-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yep, detonations, yes.
- CWChris Williamson
... did they hit the ground?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Um, so, they can deploy either place. Um, the way to kill the most people, and that's a quote from John von Neumann, who des, who deci- was working on this issue, uh, with Oppenheimer, when they were deciding the d- 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 1,900 feet 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 n- 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. Um, 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 dis- 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-
- CWChris Williamson
Oh, wow.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... and walk around, right?
- CWChris Williamson
So if- if- if the Hiroshima bomb hadn't... I didn't know that it was an above earth, 1,900 feet thing.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah.
- CWChris Williamson
If that had exploded by hitting the pavement-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... Hiroshima would be uninhabitable for 2,000 years.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Well, not uninhabitable, but it would have a different... The- the radiation would have a longer shelf life, right?
- CWChris Williamson
Right.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
So like, like, I've been out to the Nevada Test Site where a very famous, uh, test was conducted in the '60s, um, and it ha- 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 ar- walked around nearby it, and so that was, what, 50 years ago, and it's no longer, you know... You- 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.
- 41:20 – 51:23
What Happens When Thermo-Nuclear Bombs Drop?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
- CWChris Williamson
Okay, so a standard megaton thermonuclear warhead goes off 1,900 feet above a city. What happens directly below it, five miles out, 25 miles out, 100 miles out? Talk me through that.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
In the book, I use the one megaton thermonuclear bomb on the Pentagon detonating above, you know, around athou- 1,000 feet above. And the reason why I do that is, again, because I can give the effects to the reader not from Annie Jacobsen's imagination, but rather from ac- 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 '50s, the defense scientists have been documenting, with great detail, what nuclear weapons do to people and things in blast areas 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. It's 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 nine, 10 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 one 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 w- 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 lave-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. Um, everyone's on fire. Third-degree burns on people that aren't. Buildings collapsing. I mean, shall I go on and horrify listeners?
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 mush- You know when you have seen a- an atomic explosion, perhaps on YouTube, right? From some of the early tests that were done in the 50s. You see the mushroom stem and you see the mushroom cloud. Well, the mushroom stem crea- it creates a sucking motion of everything on the, on its, down on th- 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-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... stem. And then-
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you've seen a, if- if you watch the archive footage of- of, you know, a house that they've built out in the Nevada desert or whatever, you see things go whoosh, and then go back the other way, this sort of, this-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
That is-
- CWChris Williamson
And presumably that's the sucking motion.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
You're absolutely right. That is exactly what that is. And so... 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Yeah. Wow. I mean, that's pretty apocalyptic.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
And that's just one. That's just one. You know, in the scenario that I propose, there's a mor- 1,000 or more that strike the United States when it's end game, 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 gotten to-
- CWChris Williamson
Tell us about nuclear winter.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Well, you know, and I jump there because you can... It- it was interesting writ- 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 ha- 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 mega fire. 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, all the electric lines whipping and conne- 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 square miles of fire as it continues to burn. And so multiply that by 1,000, by 2,000, 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 s- and the, the climate modeling today shows us that nuclear winter, the predictions from the '80s 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 10 years.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that globally? That doesn't stay locally?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Globally. Because the, the atmos- th- 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 five billion people dead after a nuclear exchange.
- CWChris Williamson
Is that all 12,500 nukes? Is that 2,000 of them? What's the number that you need to have-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... launched to hit five billion?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
I- in the scenario, it's just a couple thousand. In the scenario, 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, you know, fact-checked by the sources that I was using and others, you, uh, 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-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... the thousands that were in storage. All it takes is the amount of nuclear weapons that are on ready for launch status right now.
- CWChris Williamson
Five billion people die in a war between the United States and Russia.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Set off by a rogue nuclear nihilistic madman on a bolt-out-of-the-blue attack.
- 51:23 – 59:08
The Closest We Ever Came to Nuclear War
- CWChris Williamson
There's been a number of close calls in history, some famous ones, a guy in a submarine, foil in the air, uh, the wrong VHS tape being put in. What was the closest that we came to nuclear war in the past, in your opinion?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 firsthand witness, former Secretary of Defense Bill Perry himself. 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 ICBMs and sub-launched SLBMs. So this looked like a massive, you know, 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 toward secondary confirmation, because there was 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 bunkers. 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, 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 counterattack.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, who starts one of these wars, given that it's pretty obvious how it ends? Like, who in their right mind... 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 five billion people and the nuclear winter and the, you know, the pine trees on s- on fire.Wh- why would anyone start this, given what happens?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
And for that, I looked to my 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 we, I was discussing scenarios with him, um, 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 fearmongering, 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- 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.
- CWChris Williamson
What does that mean? Who is that?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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 sing- singularly sing- 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 the, and all of the nine nuclear-armed nations do that. And when I'm saying 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 s- didn't, they- they canceled a pre, a pre, 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Because it would be potentially mistaken by, uh, another country as, "Oh, this might be coming for Moscow," or, "This might be coming for Washington." Uh, what they don't know is it's gonna land in the middle of the North Atlantic, and it's just a test.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Absolutely right. I mean, we talked about that earlier with 150-second 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, um... Uh, i- imagine what must go on in those first 150 seconds every time North Korea launches weapon.
- CWChris Williamson
And that's happened, that's happened once a week for the last two years.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
It's happened 100 times, so I guess since 2022, right? (laughs) Um, that is reckless, and that is why North Kore- in my scenario-
- CWChris Williamson
Mm-hmm.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
... North Korea launches the bolt-out-of-the-blue attack, because they are not playing by the rules. They, 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Mm, it's so infantile. It's so juvenile. You think about North Korea, it's such a, like, stupid, petty, like, idiotic system. It's so immature. Uh, uh, I mean, (laughs) yeah, it's- it's just as well that the, uh, 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, o- okay, so moving forward,
- 59:08 – 1:02:35
Is De-Escalation a Realistic Goal?
- CWChris Williamson
what do you want to have happen? Have you, have you considered what a safer world would look like? Is deescalation realistic? We went from 70,000 to 112,500 reported. Should we continue to dial that down? Is there more policy that needs to be in place? What, uh, what do you-
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
... want to have happen in future?
- AJAnnie 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, um, w- 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 remem- uh, 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. Um...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 Scenario, and you will see. And so, sure, people may say, "Oh, Annie, it's pansy-ish of you. It's 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, if a, if a subject as significant as, you know, 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.
- CWChris Williamson
Is it possible to still watch that series that you're talking about? Is that on YouTube anywhere?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Yeah. You can see it on YouTube, absolutely.
- CWChris Williamson
What's it called?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
The Day After.
- CWChris Williamson
Okay.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
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."
- CWChris Williamson
Wow. Wow. Annie
- 1:02:35 – 1:03:37
Where to Find Annie
- CWChris Williamson
Jacobsen, ladies and gentlemen. Annie, it's, uh, macabre, apocalyptic, uh, but pretty important, I think. I'm a massive, uh, I- I have for a very long time had a big concern about existential risks.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Mm-hmm.
- CWChris Williamson
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 is, uh, it 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. Where should people go if they wanna check out more of the things that you do online?
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
My books are sold everywhere. And I read the audio of my audiobooks, which I'm told makes it a little bit easier.
- CWChris Williamson
Well, you've got a fantastic voice. So, yeah, I, uh, I imagine it does. I really appreciate you. I can't wait to see what you do next. Thank you for joining me.
- AJAnnie Jacobsen
Thank you so much for having me.
- CWChris Williamson
If you enjoyed that episode, you will love a selection of the best clips from the podcast over the last couple of months, and it's available right here. Go on, give them a watch.
Episode duration: 1:03:37
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