Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420

The United States has 1,770 nuclear weapons deployed. Meaning, those weapons could launch in as little as 60 seconds, and up to a couple minutes. Some of them on the bombers might take an hour or so. Russia has 1,674 deployed nuclear weapons. Same scenario, their weapon systems are on-par with ours. That's not to mention the 12,500 nuclear weapons amongst the nine nuclear-armed nations. The sucking up into the nuclear stem, 300 mile an hour winds. You're talking about people miles out getting sucked up into that stem. When you see the mushroom cloud, Lex, that would be people, 30, 40 mile wide mushroom cloud, blocking out the sun. And that speaks nothing of the radiation poisoning that follows. In addition to the launch on warning concept, there's this other insane concept called sole presidential authority. And you might think, in a democracy that's impossible, right? You can't just start a war. Well, you can just start a nuclear war if you are the commander-in-chief, the president of the United States. In fact, you're the only one who can do that. We are one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear Armageddon. No matter how nuclear war starts, it ends with everyone dead.

The following is a conversation with Annie Jacobsen, an investigative journalist, Pulitzer Prize finalist, and author of several amazing books on war, weapons, government secrecy, and national security, including the books titled Area 51, Operation Paperclip, The Pentagon's Brain, Phenomena, Surprise, Kill, Vanish, and her new book, Nuclear War. This is a Lex Fridman podcast. To support it, please check out our sponsors in the description. And now, dear friends, here's Annie Jacobsen. Let's start with, uh, an immensely dark topic, nuclear war. How many people would a nuclear war between the United States and Russia kill?

So, I'm coming back at you with a very dark answer, and a very big number, and that number is five billion people.

You go second-by-second, minute-by-minute, hour-by-hour what would happen if the nuclear war started. So, uh, there's a lot of angles from which I would love to talk to you about this. At... First, how would the deaths happen-

Mm-hmm.

... in the short-term, in the long-term?

So, to start off, the reason I wrote the book is so that readers like you could see in appalling detail just how horrific nuclear war would be, and as you said, second-by-second, minute-by-wi- minute. The book covers nuclear launch to nuclear winter. I purposely don't get into the politics that lead up to that or the national security maneuvers or the posturing or any of that. I just want people to know nuclear war is insane. And every source I interviewed for this book, from Secretary of Defense, you know, all retired, nuclear sub force commander, STRATCOM commander, FEMA director, et ceter- on and on and on, nuclear weapons engineers, they all shared with me the common denominator that nuclear war is insane. You know, first millions then tens of millions then hundreds of millions of people will die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war. And then comes nuclear win- winter where the billions happen from starvation. And so the shock power of all of this is meant for each and every one of us to say, "Wait, what?" This actually exists behind the veil of national security. And I don't know if... You know, most people do not think about nuclear war on a daily basis, and yet hundreds of thousands of people in the nuclear command and control are at the ready in the event it happens.