This is The Way the World Ends. Nuclear War, with Annie Jacobsen
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Published 2024-07-10
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A note from Lawrence:
Many of you will have been waiting for this podcast after my brief review of Annie Jacobsen’s new book Nuclear War: A Scenario on Critical Mass. I took advantage of our discussion to flesh out some of the harrowing details of her remarkable fictional account of a plausible 72 minutes which began with the launch of a single nuclear missile from North Korea and concludes effectively with the end of modern civilization on the planet. As I indicated in my review, as former Chair of the Board of Sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists for over a decade, the horrors of nuclear war were well-known to me, but the realization of how quickly a scenario such as Jacobsen envisages might actually play out was something I had never really imagined.
Jacobsen is no stranger to thinking about defense issues and has penned numerous books on defense-related issues, including a history of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in history. She is also a seasoned fiction writer for television, penning three episodes of Tom Clancy’s Jack Ryan. Her new book combines her interest in nuclear war related issues, and interviews with a host of military officials involved in nuclear war planning over the past five decades, with her skill in framing a tense dramatic narrative. The result is compelling.
I know from experience that most people would rather avoid thinking about the threat of nuclear war. But it is only by confronting it directly that the public might have a possibility of at least slowing the military juggernaut, powered by a combination of a huge bureaucracy that works effectively to maintain its existence, and a cold war mentality the drives efforts to continue to grow and modernize our nuclear weapons establishment—all the while in spite of the fact that everyone who has seriously thought about nuclear war knows it is unwinnable. As Einstein, who helped found the Bulletin’s Board of Sponsors said over 60 years ago, with the creation of Nuclear Weapons “Everything has changed, save the way we think”. My hope is that discussions like this one may help us change even that.
All Comments (21)
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Let me bring an optimistic point of view. For those of us who looking to buy our first house, I bet property values will go down.
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Lawrence, you always talk 80% of the time during your interviews.
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I have listened to a number of interviews of the great Annie Jacobsen, and as always she shined here. However, she was barely given any time to speak on this particular podcast episode as the interviewer dominated the interview with his perspectives. He should learn how to conduct a proper interview from great podcast hosts like Lex Fridman. His three hour episode featuring Annie Jacobsen is the gold standard of interviewing!
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As nuclear weapons become more avalaible to more countries around the world, nuclear war is just a matter of time.
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One of the very "best" podcasts thanks to The Origins Podcast. Bravo!
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As a species, we need to grow up and do away with violence and warfare.
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“ The nuclear arms race is like two sworn enemies standing waist deep in gasoline, one with three matches, the other with five.” -Carl Sagan.
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Why do you have a guest?
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LK: "yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak." ... "Maybe you can talk about this a little bit as well."
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"A plan is useless. Planning is everything". ~ Dwight D Isenhower This quote speaks volumes on flexibility to me. It is my favorite. I often see remarks on the internet some trying to explain it away by referencing it's context as though afraid... as if he was saying, "Don't plan". The quote needs no context.
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Had to order her book after running out of free audiobook time on Spotify.
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One wonders, as I have often wondered and been frustratingly puzzled by is why in this world, in this existence and place in time, the voices of people with knowledge, intellegence and wisdom such as we are hearing here are drowned out, relagated to the sidelines, ignored etc., and those in of lesser mind (even childish mentalities as we are now experiencing) in positions of power who ignore, sideline and denegrate these important voices, instead hold sway and influence in media and among the populace of so many countries. We are truly living in an upside down world.
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"Ive narrowed them down to 5 unthinkable options" "Number 3" "You dont wanna read them first?" "I was elected to lead not to read, number 3!" If you know you know
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That is why I always wear clean underwear. Just in case.
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Thank you, Lawrence Krauss, for having author and journalist with this discourse of nuclear war and the Doomsday scnernario . Congratulations on your new book, Annie. The only suggestion I may offer is Iian McGilchrist's books and lectures, " The Emissary and His Master, " The Divided Brain and the Making of the Western World," The Matter With Things," Our Brains, Our Delusions and the Unmaking of the World," 2 volumes (2010) In these books , Dr. Iian McGilchrist shares with other scholars in various fields of philosophy, sciences, history, literature, and art in how th change course the direction we have created over centuries of wars and divisions, be it philosophical, religious, or how the left and right side of our brains works. With the deepest appreciation and respect to both of you for keeping the awareness of the destruction, our powers of greed have got it terribly wrong. Human life and nature may we listen together and grow with empathy and joy for everyone. "Nature loves to hide." Heraclitus 🙏❤️🌍🌏🌎🌿🕊🎵🎶🎵💫✨️💫✨️
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Important to note the world wont end, the human race will. Our planet was here before and will be long after we've gone.
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fyi.. Somewhat sophisticated, city-leveling nuclear device is no bigger than a public school classroom fire extinguisher. Very difficult to detect. I lived with 48 of them inside missile tubes and never got a click on my side of the launch tube. Using DOD grade beta/gamma and neutron detectors.
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Lawrence, this episode was quite frustrating. WHY did you even invite Annie Jacobsen? You talked for 15 minutes straight, then gave her a minute to speak before interrupting and taking over again. This wasn't a podcast conversation with an esteemed guest; it was you monologuing with Annie as a prop to back you up. You could have simply talked about her book yourself and had her introduce it separately, then stitched the two parts together. I like the channel and enjoy listening to you while I'm editing, so you talking isn't the issue. You talking 80% while your guest talks 20% is!
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Thank you very much for the great podcast.
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According to a Chinese academic, detonating around 400 atomic bombs could wipe out humanity. This estimate is based on calculations that assume the same effect as the atomic bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which could destroy around 2 billion lives. So why do we need any more than say 20 nuclear weapons or 30 or 10? Because if we launch and Russia launches and Israel, launches and Pakistan launches and United Kingdom and France launches The entire planet is annihilated So what’s the point of 1700 or 1600 nuclear weapons with an arsenal of another 2000 sitting in a warehouse ? It’s freaking pointless. There is no winner in nuclear war so having more weapons is a pointless path to follow Everybody on the planet, even those who have no aggression towards anybody fall victim If any president in the future has the balls to say, I’m dropping our nuclear arsenal down to 50 weapons Who knows what the results might be globally. Because even at 50 American weapons, the entire planet would be destroyed
