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Speaker 1: On this episode of New World We're going to look

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Speaker 1: at something very sobering. Every generation a journalist has looked

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Speaker 1: deep into the heart of the nuclear military establishment, the technologies,

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Speaker 1: the safeguards, the plans, and the risks. These investigations are

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Speaker 1: vital to how we understand the world we live in,

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Speaker 1: where one nuclear missile will get one in return, and

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Speaker 1: where the choreography of the world's end requires massive decisions

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Speaker 1: made on seconds notice with information that is only as

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Speaker 1: good as the intelligence we have. Pulitzer Prize finalist Anny

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Speaker 1: Jacobson's Nuclear War A Scenario explores this ticking clock scenario

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Speaker 1: based on dozens of exclusive new interviews with military and

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Speaker 1: civilian experts who have built the weapons, have been privy

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Speaker 1: to the response plans, and have been responsible for those

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Speaker 1: decisions should they have needed to be made. Nuclear War

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Speaker 1: Scenario is the handful of minutes after a nuclear missile launch.

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Speaker 1: Here to talk about a new book. I am really

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Speaker 1: pleased to welcome my guest, Annie Jacobson. She is a

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Speaker 1: Pulitzer Prize finalist for The Pentagon's Brain, author of the

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Speaker 1: New York Times bestsellers Area fifty one and Operation paper Clip.

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Speaker 1: She was a contributing editor at the Los Angeles Times magazine. Annie,

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Speaker 1: welcome and thank you for joining me on Newts World.

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Speaker 2: Well, it's a real honor to be here, so thank

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Speaker 2: you for having me.

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Speaker 1: I'll say for a lot of our listeners that the

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Speaker 1: subject of your book is bleak, but I think it's

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Speaker 1: extraordinarily important. We live in a world where there are

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Speaker 1: more and more countries with nuclear weapons. There are very

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Speaker 1: real threats, and somewhere something could really happen in a

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Speaker 1: way that's horrible. You begin your book with a very

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Speaker 1: poignant quote from Winston Churchill who said, quote the story

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Speaker 1: of the human races war. Except for brief and precarious interludes,

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Speaker 1: there has never been peace in the world. And before

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Speaker 1: history began, murderous strife was universal and on ending. That

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Speaker 1: was Churchill's vision of the world. So, if you don't mind,

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Speaker 1: I wanted to really dive right in with chapter three

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Speaker 1: of your book, the build Up nineteen forty five to

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Speaker 1: nineteen ninety, Will you talk about the arms race with

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Speaker 1: the Civic Union.

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Speaker 2: Yes, and you know, thank you for that introduction, and

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Speaker 2: of course what we're about to discuss here, the initial

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Speaker 2: build up the arms race with the Soviet Union. It

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Speaker 2: was a very different world with two nuclear armed superpowers.

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Speaker 2: And as you referenced in your intro, now here in

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Speaker 2: twenty twenty four we have nine nuclear armed nations and

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Speaker 2: threats everywhere and saber rattling. But once upon a time,

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Speaker 2: back in the fifties, when this arms race began, things

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Speaker 2: were at the razor's edge in a different way in

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Speaker 2: that as I demonstrate in the book, the Original Nuclear

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Speaker 2: War Plan, the SIOP, was designed for the United States

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Speaker 2: to be able to fight and win a nuclear war.

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Speaker 2: However crazy that may seem to us now, that is

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Speaker 2: what was at stake, and of course that idea changed

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Speaker 2: and became deterrence, this idea that we must never fight

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Speaker 2: a nuclear war because it cannot be won, and so

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Speaker 2: we have lived with deterrence for all of these decades since.

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Speaker 2: But I think what we're here to talk about today,

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Speaker 2: and what I attempted to demonstrate in nuclear war a scenario,

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Speaker 2: is how quickly it all could change were a nuclear

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Speaker 2: warhead to come toward the United States.

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Speaker 1: With places like North Korea and Iran Pakistan putin under

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Speaker 1: some circumstances, the terrence may not work. And I think

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Speaker 1: what you did is very important in getting us to

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Speaker 1: confront how really serious a problem is.

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Speaker 2: Well, call me the optimist in the room. I'm going

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Speaker 2: to take the position that the reason I wrote the book,

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Speaker 2: which was to demonstrate in appalling detail just how horrific

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Speaker 2: nuclear war would be, was so that we never have

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Speaker 2: a nuclear war. I don't believe that there really is

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Speaker 2: survival after a nuclear war, and that is certainly a

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Speaker 2: conclusion that I came to after interviewing people who were

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Speaker 2: familiar with the plans should a nuclear war happen, including

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Speaker 2: former FEMA director Craig Fugate, who told me that after

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Speaker 2: a nuclear war there would be no protection planning because

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Speaker 2: an actual quote from him, everyone would be dead. So

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Speaker 2: I'm of the position what I learned, which is terrifying,

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Speaker 2: is that there's no such thing as a small nuclear war.

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Speaker 1: Eisenhower said one time that the world after nuclear would

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Speaker 1: be so horrifying he wouldn't want to be one of

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Speaker 1: the survivors.

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Speaker 2: That's absolutely right, echoed by Khrush Jeff who said the

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Speaker 2: survivors would envy the dead, which.

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Speaker 1: Is I think part of why Reagan really was trying

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Speaker 1: to find a way to get away from nuclear war.

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Speaker 2: Well, you're absolutely right. And you know, amidst all this

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Speaker 2: horror that I describe in the book, and for readers

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Speaker 2: to understand this idea that it all happens so fast,

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Speaker 2: is so troubling and also hopeful thanks to what I

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Speaker 2: call the Reagan reversal, because in Reagan it's my understanding,

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Speaker 2: and perhaps you can correct me, because you might know

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Speaker 2: better if I'm wrong at any points. Of this is

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Speaker 2: that when President Reagan saw the fictional ABCTV mini series

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Speaker 2: or mini movie called The Day After, and that he

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Speaker 2: had a private screening at Camp David in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 2: that he became, as he wrote in his Presidential Journal,

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Speaker 2: greatly depressed. And it was that that caused him to

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Speaker 2: reach out to Gorbachev, which then led to the Rekovic Summit,

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Speaker 2: which led from the reduction in nuclear warheads from seventy

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Speaker 2: thousand in nineteen eighty six to the twelve thousand, five

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Speaker 2: hundred that we have today. And so it was that

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Speaker 2: Reagan reversal, that idea that the President of the United States,

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Speaker 2: dates arguably the most powerful person on earth, could be

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Speaker 2: so impacted by a hypothetical concept of the possible future

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Speaker 2: that he would actually radically impact the safety and security

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Speaker 2: of the world moving forward.

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Speaker 1: I think it's been helpful for our listeners for you

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Speaker 1: to talk about why the reality of a nuclear war

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Speaker 1: is so horrifyingly, what are the actual effects that occur.

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Speaker 2: I describe in the book a one megaton thermonuclear weapon

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Speaker 2: striking the Pentagon, and the reason I chose that target

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Speaker 2: is because it was said to me repeatedly that a

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Speaker 2: bolt out of the blue attack against Washington, DC is

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Speaker 2: what everyone in Washington, DC fears most. And I describe

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Speaker 2: in horrific detail everything from the flash of light turning

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Speaker 2: humans in the inner ring into combusted carbon, knocking over

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Speaker 2: all structures, incinerating all forms of life down to a

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Speaker 2: cellular level. And we're talking about five thousand, seven hundred

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Speaker 2: square feet in diameter a little over a mile. And

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Speaker 2: then I describe what happens in the cocentric rings moving

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Speaker 2: out the bulldozer type blast wave of one hundred mile

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Speaker 2: an hour winds, knocking over buildings, setting new things on fire.

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Speaker 2: And then I describe what happens rings out after that,

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Speaker 2: where you have people asphyxiating, people being impaled by flying objects,

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Speaker 2: people being sucked up into the nuclear mushroom cloud it's

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Speaker 2: really remarkable. When you close your eyes, you imagine that

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Speaker 2: mushroom cloud that many people have seen either in movies

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Speaker 2: or in the actual footage from the atomic test, in

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Speaker 2: the stem of the mushroom cloud, in the cap of

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Speaker 2: the mushroom cloud of a bomb that exploded on a city,

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Speaker 2: there would be debris of human beings. That is what

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Speaker 2: that cloud would be made of. And so these details

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Speaker 2: and so many others that I convey to the reader

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Speaker 2: gives you exactly that sense that you referenced earlier that

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Speaker 2: you would perhaps rather be one of the lucky ones

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Speaker 2: who died instantly.

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Speaker 1: Well, and in this case, you're describing one hydrogen weapon

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Speaker 1: in a world in which there are thousands.

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Speaker 2: The basic fact that I think is great for readers

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Speaker 2: to just sink their teeth into the United States has

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Speaker 2: one thousand, seven hundred and seventy nuclear weapons today on

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Speaker 2: their forward deployed meaning they're on ready for launch status.

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Speaker 2: Russia has approximately the same. They have one thousand, six

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Speaker 2: hundred and seventy four. Of course, the numbers change a

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Speaker 2: little bit every year. That gives you an idea, these

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Speaker 2: are weapons ready to go. And so as you say,

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Speaker 2: and as I describe in nuclear war scenario, it's not

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Speaker 2: just one nuclear weapon that gets launched, it's thousands, because

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Speaker 2: there are thousands in reserve. And then you have a

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Speaker 2: situation where you have essentially the continental United States on

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Speaker 2: fire because every one megaton thermonuclear bomb creates a mega

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Speaker 2: fire that is one hundred two hundred three hundred square

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Speaker 2: miles burning. Imagine that times one thousand or more.

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Speaker 1: You emphasized the US in Russia. I mean, I think

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Speaker 1: part of what has made me more concerned and reduced

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Speaker 1: my sort of sense of being totally avoidable is when

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Speaker 1: you see a regime that is as hard to understand

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Speaker 1: as North Korea, which is annually acquiring more and more

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Speaker 1: weapons and acquiring delivery systems that could reach the United States.

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Speaker 1: I'm not totally sure that they can be deterred.

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Speaker 2: I am totally sure they cannot be deterred, and that's

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Speaker 2: based on interviews. You know. I begin my scenario with

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Speaker 2: the bolt out of the blue attack by North Korea.

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Speaker 2: Russia gets involved because of technical problems and miscommunications that

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Speaker 2: were conveyed to me by people like former secretaries of

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Speaker 2: Defense That can and could likely have happen. But the

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Speaker 2: reason I chose North Korea, and I think we agree

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Speaker 2: on the danger that North Korea. The existential danger that

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Speaker 2: North Korea brings into the mix in this present moment

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Speaker 2: is because of a series of interviews I did with

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Speaker 2: Richard Garwin, who I'm sure you're familiar with most listeners, aren't.

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Speaker 2: Richard Garwin drew the plans to the first thermonuclear bomb

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Speaker 2: ever exploded. It's on the cover of the book. It

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Speaker 2: was called Ivy Mike. And so many people think that

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Speaker 2: Edward Teller was the progenitor of the thermonuclear weapon, which

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Speaker 2: he was, but theoretically those plans needed to be drawn.

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Speaker 2: Teller couldn't figure out how to explode the bomb, and

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Speaker 2: so he looked to a then twenty three year old

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Speaker 2: Richard Garwin to solve that puzzle. And it was Garwin

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Speaker 2: who said to me in our interviews, when I asked

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Speaker 2: him what he thought the biggest existential threat it was,

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Speaker 2: he shared a concept that he'd been thinking about called

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Speaker 2: the mad king logic. And it's this idea that, as

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Speaker 2: Garwin explained me, that all it takes is one mad

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Speaker 2: king with a nuclear arsenal.

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Speaker 1: Which is why you sort of start with North Korea

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Speaker 1: just because we don't actually understand them.

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Speaker 2: That's exactly right, and I wanted to present a puzzle

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Speaker 2: to the reader. We never know in the book why

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Speaker 2: North Korea started a nuclear war, why they lobbed one

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Speaker 2: nuclear missile and then a second at the United States.

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Speaker 2: What we do know, and I talk about is what

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Speaker 2: mad king logic is, as it was explained to me

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Speaker 2: by Garwin. And the best way he had of summing

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Speaker 2: it up is the French phrase a prey mois le deluge,

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Speaker 2: attributed to a number of sort of French crazy kings

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Speaker 2: and leaders. That idea, after me the flood, the idea

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Speaker 2: that some madman with an arsenal would feel as if

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Speaker 2: the world didn't matter if he couldn't be in it.

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Speaker 1: In that sense, as you watch countries like North Korea

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Speaker 1: not just have a hey nuclear weapon, but have a program.

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Speaker 1: I think by the end of the decade we estimate

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Speaker 1: they'll have three hundred nuclear weapons. And you don't know

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Speaker 1: what they're thinking is there's a pattern with dogs called

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Speaker 1: fear biting, where a dog will bite you because it's

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Speaker 1: afraid of you. It's a preemptive attack if you will

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Speaker 1: and you can imagine in some ways the Omkipper War

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Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy three had a similar experience in that

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Speaker 1: the Soviets deliberately misinformed the Egyptians and the Syrians convinced

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Speaker 1: them that the Israelis were about to attack, and so

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Speaker 1: they decided they had to launch a preemptive attack to

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Speaker 1: stop the Israeli attack, which actually wasn't going to occur.

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Speaker 1: And so I think you can imagine a circums sense

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Speaker 1: where somebody, whether it's the Iranians who have a theological

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Speaker 1: guarantee that if they swapp Tehran for Tel Aviv, at

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Speaker 1: least the people in Tehran will go to heaven, or

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Speaker 1: the North Koreans, who we really don't understand very much

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Speaker 1: at all, and the South Grans don't understand them either.

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Speaker 1: So it's a really complicated problem. But you also have

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Speaker 1: this question which i'd be curious to get your reaction to.

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Speaker 1: Every once in a while, Putin implies that he would

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Speaker 1: at least use tactical nuclear weapons, and they run exercises

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Speaker 1: to remind us that they have a very large nuclear capability.

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Speaker 1: In your judgment with the people you talked to when

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Speaker 1: you interviewed, do you think it is likely that Putin,

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Speaker 1: faced with defeat, would in fact go nuclear.

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Speaker 2: I purposely do not get into politics in the book,

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Speaker 2: but I can share with you my discussions on background

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Speaker 2: this because that was a very important question of like

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Speaker 2: how would tactical nuclear weapons play a role? For listeners,

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Speaker 2: Let's just give a quick reminder, A tactical nuclear weapon

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Speaker 2: is a battlefield weapon, a short range weapon. And what

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Speaker 2: we are talking about in nuclear warfare and the big

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Speaker 2: picture of deterrence has to do with what's called strategic

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Speaker 2: nuclear weapons, really long range ballistic missiles, intercontinental missiles, submarine

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Speaker 2: launched missiles. But this idea that Putin is talking about

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Speaker 2: using a tactical nuclear weapon, I can tell you in

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Speaker 2: my conversation with sources, felt extremely threatening to them because

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Speaker 2: the fundamental premise that I learned in reporting this book

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Speaker 2: is that all of the cold warriors close to the president,

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Speaker 2: close to the nuclear command and control apparatus, conveyed to

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Speaker 2: me that from war gaming out these situations for decades,

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Speaker 2: we know, and we know from Reagan's declassified nuclear war

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Speaker 2: game Proud Profit, that no matter how nuclear war begins,

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Speaker 2: it ends in nuclear armageddon. And so to answer your question,

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Speaker 2: how would it work with a tactical nuclear weapon on

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Speaker 2: the battlefield precisely that way, it's almost impossible to think

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Speaker 2: that it could not escalate to a position where strategic

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Speaker 2: nuclear weapons become part of the war.

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Speaker 1: So in that sense, you go from attacking an enemy

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Speaker 1: military formation to attacking cities or to attacking each other's

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Speaker 1: nuclear capability.

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Speaker 2: Absolutely, you're crossing that red line that has kept us

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Speaker 2: all alive for seventy nine years. So, in other words,

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Speaker 2: the fundamental premise of Stratcom's Strategic Command, who is the

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Speaker 2: combatant command in the United States that controls the nuclear

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Speaker 2: weapons that will talk directly to the President in the

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Speaker 2: event of a nuclear launch order, Strategic Command says all

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Speaker 2: security is predicated onto deterrence, and the deputy commander of Stratcom,

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Speaker 2: Lieutenant General Busier, recently said, if deterrence fails, it all unravels.

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Speaker 2: And so that unraveling is where we wind up in

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Speaker 2: nuclear armageddon. And that is why I take the reader

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Speaker 2: from nuclear launch to nuclear winter in seventy two minutes.

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Speaker 2: If you had a tactical nuclear weapon involved, perhaps there's

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Speaker 2: a little bit of a longer build up, but once

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Speaker 2: the war begins, it ends in seventy two minutes.

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Speaker 1: And is that because the danger of losing your weapons

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Speaker 1: as such that you feel almost compelled to go to

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Speaker 1: a total launch just to be sure that you have them.

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Speaker 2: Well, I think it has to do with that image

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Speaker 2: you just conveyed to me, which I had never heard of,

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Speaker 2: and I will never be the same sense, which is

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Speaker 2: fear biting from the dog right, that idea of preemptive

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Speaker 2: action is so tied into war fighting as a concept,

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Speaker 2: and that it is tied into deterrence because all of

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Speaker 2: our triad is built so that if somebody considers a

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Speaker 2: preemptive nuclear strike, their generals will tell them the enemy

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Speaker 2: has a first strike capability, a second strike capability, get

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Speaker 2: the silos, their submarines will come after you. So there's

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Speaker 2: this inherent idea that you cannot make a preemptive move.

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Speaker 2: And so in a way, I would perceive the use

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Speaker 2: of a tactical nuclear weapon as setting off a chain

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Speaker 2: of possible preemptive nuclear strikes, and then you just have

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Speaker 2: game on.

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Speaker 1: One of the points you make is that if you

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Speaker 1: think about a spasm war in which there are multiple

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Speaker 1: hydrogen weapons, that the impact on the environment, the impact

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Speaker 1: on climate, even countries that were totally outside the threat

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Speaker 1: of the war would in fact, be radically impacted by

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Speaker 1: the degree to which you would have, first of all,

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Speaker 1: a huge amount of material up in the atmosphere, much

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Speaker 1: like the asteroid that ended the dinosaurs. In nuclear winter

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Speaker 1: in that sense, is a real threat. So if you're

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Speaker 1: India or your Nigeria and you think, well, at least

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Speaker 1: I'm not in the direct lane of getting hit, you

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Speaker 1: nonetheless could have your civilization deeply shaken by events that

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Speaker 1: are overwhelming in the natural.

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Speaker 2: World, which is exactly why nuclear winter is really something

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Speaker 2: that everybody should consider, I believe. Interestingly, in nineteen eighty three,

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Speaker 2: when it was first written about, it was written off

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Speaker 2: by the Defense Department as Soviet propaganda, and yet in

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Speaker 2: declassified documents I located, you can see a real fear

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Speaker 2: from the Defense Department knowing that nuclear winter was real.

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Speaker 2: It is a real concept. As you said, the three

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Speaker 2: hundred and thirty billion pounds of soot that would be

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Speaker 2: lofted into the air from the nuclear megafires burning. After all,

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Speaker 2: the nuclear blasts would blot out seventy percent of the sun.

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Speaker 2: And so the new climate models that have looked at

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Speaker 2: nuclear winter from a very technical, computerized point of view,

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Speaker 2: with today's modern equipment suggest that all the freshwater bodies

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Speaker 2: in the mid latitudes we're talking about from Iowa to

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Speaker 2: Ukraine would be covered in sheets of ice. You're talking

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Speaker 2: about a temperature drop around the globe from between twenty

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Speaker 2: seven degrees fahrenheit and forty degrees fahrenheit. Parts of the

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Speaker 2: world would freeze over and with that the death of agriculture,

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Speaker 2: and with the death of agriculture comes the death of

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Speaker 2: an estimated five billion people. And so the takeaway I

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Speaker 2: believe from the book is precisely what we learned at

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Speaker 2: the Recavic Summit from Reagan and Gorbachev when they issued

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Speaker 2: that magnificent joint statement which is so impactful nuclear war

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Speaker 2: cannot be one and must never be fought.

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Speaker 1: I would just point out that if you look on

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Speaker 1: a minor scale at the impact of the explosion of

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Speaker 1: Krakataol in the eighteen eighties, it led to three years

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Speaker 1: of cooler temperatures worldwide just from one volcano. We do

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Speaker 1: have practical, real knowledge of some of these impacts, and

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Speaker 1: we do know that they can have an extraordinary impact

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Speaker 1: on agriculture. And frankly, when you had talked about the

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Speaker 1: number of dead, you described like five billion. That then

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Speaker 1: leads to a whole range of biological problems as disease

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Speaker 1: occurs and as people are further impacted by just another

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Speaker 1: wave of horror, which truly would be, for all practical purposes,

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Speaker 1: the end of our civilization as we've known it over

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Speaker 1: the last three or four thousand years. So, given that,

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Speaker 1: I agree generally with your concern, and I think that

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Speaker 1: it's pretty horrifying.

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Speaker 2: Therefore we look to President Reagan's powerful reversal of position,

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Speaker 2: his movement from someone who was considering the SDI program

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Speaker 2: that perhaps the way to keep America safer was to

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Speaker 2: build a ballistic missile defense system his idea and being

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Speaker 2: in space so that you could sort of stop the

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Speaker 2: incoming missiles. So I really see President Reagan as someone

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Speaker 2: who went from looking to modern technology to solve the

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Speaker 2: problem of nuclear weapons with more weapons systems, to someone

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Speaker 2: who realized that there is no technological solve because the

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Speaker 2: more nuclear weapons we have, the more dangerous the threat

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Speaker 2: of nuclear use becomes. And so his movement toward reduction

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Speaker 2: I see as a powerful indicator of change. I'm not

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Speaker 2: being a Pollyanna and saying, you know, get rid of

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Speaker 2: all nuclear weapons. I'm also not an activist. I'm an

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Speaker 2: investigative reporter and a storyteller. So I gave you this

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Speaker 2: story for you to read, for you to think about.

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Speaker 2: But what I do know is many of the Cold Warriors,

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Speaker 2: like yourself, while I was interviewing them, said to me

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Speaker 2: that their position changed from perhaps being someone who felt

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Speaker 2: we have this covered and then when the wall went down, saying, wow,

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Speaker 2: the threat of nuclear weapons is behind us, to being

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Speaker 2: elder statesmen who can look at the modern world with

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Speaker 2: the lens of history, with a wisdom and a knowledge

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Speaker 2: and realize that the pathway forward is not continuing along

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Speaker 2: as we have been by all means not letting more

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Speaker 2: nuclear armed nations join the four, but rather reducing this,

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Speaker 2: essentially making nuclear weapons taboo. I believe the same way

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Speaker 2: that biological weapons used to be part of America's arsenal,

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Speaker 2: and then Nixon began the change out of that, no

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Speaker 2: one says, now, well, we have a biological arsenal of

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Speaker 2: bubonic plague weapons, and so if you launch yours at us,

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Speaker 2: we'll launch ours at you. It has become taboo. And

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Speaker 2: I think that the movement toward reducing nuclear weapons to

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Speaker 2: a much smaller number would be a step in the

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Speaker 2: right direction.

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Speaker 1: You're clearly very, very smart, and you do amazing research

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Speaker 1: and the range of people you've interviewed is astonishing. I'm

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Speaker 1: going to go out on a limb here for a minute.

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Speaker 1: I think this is the book which sets up the

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Speaker 1: threat and the problem, and we need you now to

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Speaker 1: go back out and do another round of interviewing and

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Speaker 1: start showing us. In a world where you've got North Korea, Pakistan, Iran, Israel, India, Russia, Britain, France,

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Speaker 1: United States all have nuclear weapons and they're going to spread,

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Speaker 1: how do you come up with a path which is

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Speaker 1: implementable that somebody like Kim Jong un or Putin, or

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Speaker 1: even at a more rational level, Jijen Peng decides, you know,

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Speaker 1: for the survival of our entire civilization, this is a

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Speaker 1: road I need to go on, or for that matter

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Speaker 1: of the Eyetolaha may need. I am totally with you

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Speaker 1: on how dangerous this is. And it's something which I

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Speaker 1: guess since I was fifteen or sixteen, has been a

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Speaker 1: part of my life every single day, and I think

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Speaker 1: that it would be horrifying on a scale that is

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Speaker 1: literally indescribable, and a good friend of mine took one

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Speaker 1: tiny example of it with electromagnetic pulse, wrote a brilliant

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Speaker 1: book called One Second after which I recommend to people,

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Speaker 1: which is life in a small town in North Carolina

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Speaker 1: after electromagnetic pulse destroys all the electricity capabilities. And you

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Speaker 1: read it and you realize that's one version of a

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Speaker 1: terrible future. What you described as an instantaneous version of

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Speaker 1: a terrible future. But as somebody who's worked this issue

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Speaker 1: now for my entire lifetime, I don't understand how to

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Speaker 1: build a regime where Kim Jong Un and I told

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Speaker 1: a Hamoni decide that a non nuclear future is better

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Speaker 1: not putting in a spot today. But I want to

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Speaker 1: raise the idea.

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Speaker 2: You want another book.

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Speaker 1: We need a second book which says nuclear war the solution.

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Speaker 2: Ah. That book would make me happy, But the question

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00:29:24,960 --> 00:29:26,200
Speaker 2: is can I write it.

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Speaker 1: It'd be interesting, though, if you went back out to

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Speaker 1: a lot of these very smart people who already know

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Speaker 1: how good you are, and you said to them, all right,

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Speaker 1: so what's the solution in the real world. The solution

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00:29:36,440 --> 00:29:40,200
Speaker 1: has to fit the reality of Hamas and the reality

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Speaker 1: of hamone, and the reality of Kim Jong un, and

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Speaker 1: the reality of putin otherwise, it's not a solution, it's

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Speaker 1: a fantasy. You would just starting that conversation. You would

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Speaker 1: do an enormous service to the people of the entire planet.

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Speaker 2: You have given me my new assignment. Thank you.

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Speaker 1: This has been a very interest We're saying fascinating and

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Speaker 1: terrifying interview, but I want to thank you Annie. You're

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00:30:06,640 --> 00:30:11,400
Speaker 1: very smart. You do your research at the most sophisticated level.

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Speaker 1: This is an incredibly sobering book, and I would encourage

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Speaker 1: anybody who has any doubt about how important it is

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Speaker 1: for us to solve this problem to just read Nuclear

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Speaker 1: War A Scenario and realize that it's real and that

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Speaker 1: we have to find a way out of the trap.

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Speaker 2: Thank you so much for having me.

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Speaker 1: Thank you to my guest Danny Jacobson. You can get

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Speaker 1: a link to buy her new book, Nuclear War A

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00:30:38,160 --> 00:30:42,040
Speaker 1: Scenario on our show page at neutworld dot com. Newt

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Speaker 1: World is produced by Gingrash three sixty and iHeartMedia. Our

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00:30:46,000 --> 00:30:50,720
Speaker 1: executive producer is Guarnsey Sloan. Our researcher is Rachel Peterson.

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Speaker 1: The artwork for the show was created by Steve Penley.

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00:30:55,520 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 1: Special thanks to the team at Gingrish three sixty. If

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00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,880
Speaker 1: you've been enjoying Neutuorld, I hope you'll go to Apple

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00:31:01,960 --> 00:31:05,200
Speaker 1: Podcast and both rate us with five stars and give

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00:31:05,280 --> 00:31:07,520
Speaker 1: us a review so others can learn what it's all about.

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00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:11,600
Speaker 1: Right now, listeners of Newtsworld can sign up for my

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Speaker 1: three freeweekly columns at Gingrishtree sixty dot com slash newsletter.

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Speaker 1: I'm Newt Gingrich. This is Neutsworld