Annie Jacobsen on Nuclear War, Intelligence Operations, and Conspiracy Realities

0:04Conversations with Tyler is produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, bridging the gap between academic ideas and real world problems. Learn more at mercatis .org. For a full transcript of every conversation, enhanced with helpful links, visit ConversationsWithT Tyler .com. Hello everyone and welcome back to Conversations with Tyler. Today I'm chatting with Annie Jacobson. Annie started off by studying at Princeton. She now has I think eight books. Most recently and prominently is a favorite of mine. It's called Nuclear War. A scenario was one of my favorite books of last year.

0:47The book is also being turned into a screenplay and will be directed by the Dune Director, Dennis Villanueve. Annie also has co -written three episodes of Tom Plansie's Jack Ryan TV series for Amazon Studios. Annie, welcome. Thank you so much for having me. Now your last book, of course, it focuses on nuclear weapons and nuclear war. Would it actually help if we were more afraid of nuclear weapons and thinking about them more often? What does that just not help at all? I think it certainly helps and you probably gathered that from reading my book. I mean, what I wanted to do, sometimes people say, why did you write such a terrifying book?

1:26And the answer is very simple. I wanted to demonstrate in a polling detail just how horrific nuclear war would be. As a way, perhaps, for people to have precisely the kind of conversation that you and I are having. But say when I was a kid, people thought about nuclear weapons much more. It seemed more dangerous, it actually seemed more thinkable then. If we're just obsessed with nuclear weapons and nuclear war, can't that raise the risks by making it psychologically more salient? I would say certainly not. And also, you know, what we perceive and what we think about is not necessarily what happens.

2:05I doubt many people imagine the pandemic was going to show up and shut down the whole world as it did. So I do think it's valuable to think about things, not in any kind of hyperchondriacal way if that is an exact word, but more about people asking, why is it that I focus on subject A rather than subject B? And maybe even one more degree of that is like, what do I want to think about and what is important to me? If I think about the experts in the immediate post -World War 2 period, you know, there's fun. No, I'm in there, sermon, con. It seems that got most things wrong. So maybe they thought there'd be another nuclear, another World War, a nuclear war quite soon, or they might have favored a first strike on the Soviet Union.

2:52We almost did a first strike against China. Isn't that an example of how expertise can just lead us to go badly wrong? And this more common sense approach, maybe we had it with Ronald Reagan. We actually do better with that. Oh, boy. I mean, it depends how you define expert, I suppose. I think of wisdom more than I think of air quotes expertise. I've met a lot of experts in my day and I've met many people whose wisdom outperforms, again, and just in my opinion, their expertise, which doesn't mean you don't throw out the opinions of the so -called experts, but no one has a crystal ball and can predict anything.

3:36Boy, we could have such an interesting discussion about all of these sort of cold war thinkers from Hermann Kahn on doubt. And you yourself were, if I'm not mistaken, a student of the fascinating Thomas Shelling. Of course. You know, you have like a front row seat with the experts. I think my career has been such that I have a front row seats with the ground operators, if you will. The people, maybe even you say doing the dirty work. Well, let's put aside the Trump administration, which some people would say is anomalous. Say we have a more typical president, and there's a six -minute decision window when deciding whether or not to launch.

4:18Yourself aside, but who is it that you want advising the president? Well, this is the heart of the matter. I don't want anyone to have to make a decision in six minutes, would you? And we get that from Ronald Reagan himself, one of the rare presidents who spoke about this six -minute window on the record in his memoir. I quote him in nuclear wars scenario where he says, this is an irrational concept, which it is that any person let alone one single man, the president of the United States, would make a decision, which we now know from war games would essentially end civilization. And that is, you know, America launching a counter attack.

5:00And so you can't really, I don't think you can say, who would you want? I think more the question is, why would you want? Let me give you a two -part response to that. The first part, even if one agrees with you completely, in the meantime, we do have the system, right? It won't be gone tomorrow. So you get to choose the advisor. You don't want it to be Kanye West, right? So who is it you want?

5:28I can't not laugh at that. I mean, that is funny. And it's not what I expected from you. So bravo. You didn't expect me to be funny or you didn't expect that I like time you were. I just didn't expect the fantastic pop culture reference when we are talking about like, you know, the possible end of the world. You know, I think that I'm going to really insist on saying, no human should have that power or have to make that decision. which is why even though it's a conundrum, a puzzle, you know, a gordian knot, if you will, the sure nuclear weapons aren't going away tomorrow. But the movement toward disarmament makes us all safer.

6:17And if that begins tomorrow or later today, the chances of the six -minute window arising reduces drastically. But as we move toward disarmament, don't either we or some other countries in that process lose second strike capability, and that makes the situation more dangerous? Like I'm very glad Israel has second strike capability now, and they didn't a few decades ago. Yes, yes, and no, no. So we could drill down on second strike and what that means, and we could talk about the submarines, means the hand maidens of the apocalypse as they were referred to when I was interviewing the commander of the nuclear sub -reinforces and others.

7:04I think, and let me just make sure I'm not docking the question. You're saying, are you saying, don't more nuclear weapons make us safe? I'm going to have to question two. I'm raising the question. It's not obvious to me that fewer of them make us safer. Let's put it that way. Okay. Well, then. I get enough World War II without nuclear weapons, right? And we've had relative peace since then. Yes, but if you read nuclear war closely, as I know, it sounds like you did, you perhaps, well, if you're made because I wrote it, you come to the conclusion that this is madness. This is in, you know what?

7:48All right, if I may, I'm gonna take this moment to quote your former professor. Sure. Okay, and I quote him in the notes of my book, and this is perhaps the only regret I have in the entire book that I didn't, that I put this quote from Shelling in the notes, rather than in the text, okay, and it goes like this. And maybe we can, maybe it's more interesting for your listeners if we sort of drill down on this than the big platitudes of, you know, two weapons, make us, more nuclear weapons, make us more safe. So it goes like this. And this was shelling in an interview with WGBH radio in 1986 in Boston.

8:29And he says, the problem with applying game theory to nuclear war is that nuclear war by its very nature does not involve rational men. It can. What sane person would be willing to kill hundreds of millions of people, ruin the earth and end modern civilization in order to make somebody called the enemy doesn't win first. But shelling did favor nuclear weapons. That was his dark sense of humor. I would say. I would, you think what I just read was his sense of humor? I think it was it. I believe it was a man in his elder years coming to the conclusion that nuclear Your war is insane, which is the fundamental premise that I make in the book.

9:21Yes. It is insane, but it might be the better insanity of the ones available to us. Yes. Well, he had his, from my take, he liked so many others that I have interviewed because room, I have for some reason, you know, call it fate and circumstance. I have spent my career interviewing men in their 80s and 90s who are defense officials who spent their entire life making war or preventing war. And I watched them share with me their reflections in that third act of their life, which are decidedly different in their own words than those that they would have made as a younger man. I find that fascinating, and that's my takeaway from the shelling quote, that he came to terms with the fact that intellectualizing game theory, like a van Neumann who never got to his old age, is madness.

10:15Let's say that Russia or China, by mistake, did a full scale launch toward the United States, and they couldn't call the things back, and we're in that six -minute window or whatever it would be with hybrusonics. What do you think is the probability that we would do a full scale launch back. I think the probability is certain. And that is based on all the interviews that I conducted with individuals who literally had the power to make sure that happened. I mean, these are some reviews. Well, I don't know, I don't think it's P equals one. It might be about 50%. But there's some chance that in the actual heat of the moment, with everything at stake.

10:57And speaking to an outsider, and someone who's investigating such as yourself, you don't want to say, I'm not going to do my job, but in fact, I don't know, I would put the probability at 60 % that they launch back 70%. Okay, so then if you follow through that thinking, which is, which I get it as an intellectual exercise, then you're saying it's great we have so many nuclear weapons because if by accident, China launches against us, then you know, at least we'll show morality or at least you're saying a 60 % chance of showing morality in the final moments, all of America will die and all the Chinese will live.

11:36Which would be exactly the premise of for many of the individuals who are four more nuclear weapons in the first place. I would say a 60 to 70 % chance that we retaliate, not that we do nothing, but a decent chance we do nothing. I don't want, you know, who understands really what goes on in a president's mind because it is up to the president as you point out repeatedly. Yes, no, okay. And I mean again, we're sort of intellectualizing here, but doesn't what you are suggesting really underscore this idea that all nuclear weapons are that this is madness to even have these arsenals that are capable of such things.

12:18Now remember, I am not a peace activist, I am not advocating for, that's not my job. My job is as a national security reporter to tell you the story of what would happen, what could happen in nuclear war, a scenario, not nuclear war, the only scenario. But the takeaway, I believe, is that more nuclear weapons make us less safe. And I think you might be saying the same thing. The word madness doesn't have much force with me. My life is a lot of different kinds of madness. I've heard people say marriage is madness. A lot of social conventions seem to me to be madness. The question is getting the least harmful form of madness out there.

13:05And then I'm not convinced that those who wish to disarm have really made their case or certainly saying nuclear war is madness doesn't persuade me. If anything, if enough people think it's madness, we won't get it, and it's fine to have the nuclear weapons. Which is precisely the fundamental, I think, underpinning of deterrence. So there's no question that, and of course you're shelling, schooling is sneaking through here because this is exactly that idea. And again, this is a puzzle because deterrence will hold, deterrence will hold, deterrence will hold. That is what the Defense Department says time and time again.

13:45But if you look deep enough as I did, you find number two at Stratcom saying if it doesn't hold it all unravels. And so we can talk about madness, what is madness, is marriage madness. Certainly, nuclear war unfolding, unraveling. The unraveling of deterrence is madness. It's madness because it ends civilization for what, for why? But keep in mind the alternative to nuclear weapons. It's not sticks and stones or pistols. It could be biological weapons, chemical weapons, many other nasty things. It could be AI as a kind of weapon. So maybe the logic of mutual deterrence we can't escape. We can choose in which physical form we want to manifest it.

14:32We have more experience with nuclear weapons, and that sense they may be safer, right? It's been since 1945 that we've worked with them in some way. Should we trade that all in for mutual assured destruction with biological weapons? I don't see the case for doing that. Different lane biological weapons, I would argue, and we can talk about that. But I think what you've hit upon would be exactly another scary point when you talk about We, the royal we have had these systems and deterrence has held for 75 years since the Russians got the bomb in 1949. Very good point. And you could say that the likelihood of a US Russian full -scale nuclear exchange on purpose is therefore lessened because deterrence has held between these two superpowers.

15:25one must imagine, assume, choose your word, that Putin is schooled in deterrence. He knows, even though he's changed his policy, we can get into the fine points. But, and so we agree in this point that the danger lies in the newcomers to the field, that do not have decades of precedent, that did not grow up, watching and fearing like your point in the very opening of our discussion. And that is why in nuclear war scenario I chose the Mad King scenario, which is North Korea launching because this is a very new and formidable foe, if you will, a nuclear armed superpower with rogue tendencies. And they're not ruled by a committee, right?

16:17I think if committees as more conservative on average that individuals. Well, yes, and that brings us back to the six -minute window that you have to believe, although, I mean, you know, one of the most shocking things for me in reporting the book was learning from at least two former Secretaries of Defense, Bill Perry and Leon Panetta, that in their opinion, most US presidents are not well -learned about nuclear weapons about their role in nuclear war because it's kind of assumed that deterrence will hold. Now, perhaps that is changing. But you could say that this idea of having grown up with this concept would help in the decision -making process.

17:00But to your point, and to my point, I think in the book, when you have North Korea where you have like a myopic lane of vision and one hardly can imagine anyone giving the leader of North Korea advice that is something he might not want to hear. And so then you have a real problem of talk about soul authority. Let's say a single rebellious crazy North Korean general launched a nuclear missile toward Washington DC and it was on its way. But there's only one. What do you think is the probability we would be able to intercept it? And did you say, I just wanted to make sure I caught you, did you say a North Korean and individual.

17:43Yeah. Okay. Which is the premise in my book. That it has more range than maybe today. It can make it to Washington. It's coming in. We get the alert. We think it's a missile. What's the actual chance we can blow it up and stop it? Well, just a couple of technical points to drill down on. North Korea does have missiles that can reach the east coast of the United States presently. And that is the precise scenario I choose in my book because it was actually Richard Garwin who told me that was what he was most afraid of. And he was perhaps, you know, he died last week at 97, the most knowledgeable person on the technical and the theoretical aspects of this, having looked at it since the 50s, and advised presidents since the 50s.

18:26Ken, so now you're asking about Ken our Interceptor Program, shoot down that incoming one single missile and that is a problem that the missile defense agency faces and I write about it specifically. And my answer would be no, right? So there is technically a 50 % chance of one interceptor missile on the U .S. side being able to shoot down one incoming ICBM. But you have to remember those statistics are from a curated test. It's a test that just for listeners, which is like Van and Berg Air Force Base says, oh, we're doing, you know, whispers to the powers that be that they're doing a test and they know it's coming and 50 % of the time, less than 50 % of the time actually.

19:15But you can't have all your probabilities at one or zero. Like, what's your probability? I'd say 20%, but what's your number? You know, I think you mean what is my, what is my mathematical equation for what? Yeah, the betting odds. We are indifferent between taking the better not. Well, I mean, I think 40 % that we gnail it. To, you know, to my eye, it either, it's either all or nothing. And again, I'm not a mathematician. I'm an author and a journalist, but it's all or nothing. And in the scenario I write, it's nothing. We do not hit it with four missiles. I ran that by several former norrad commanders and they did not say any not true.

20:00So they, their odds are unfortunately, even for look with the look shoot, look technology that we have on our interceptor systems would not be capable of shooting down a warhead. Let's give listeners some specs just so that they can understand this is not you know that you can visualize this because that's what helped me. The war had coming in, is traveling at about 14 ,000 miles an hour, 500 to 700 miles above the earth. And the interceptor is trying to shoot it down with essentially like a kinetic, like a giant bowling ball at 20 ,000 miles an hour, 500 to 700 miles above the earth. So, the technology involved is exquisite and it fails time and time again.

20:53And that to me, the poetics of that are more important than, you know, to try and use a defense that we should have more interest because that leads to, well, let's just have, you know, as many interceptor missiles as the other guys have nuclear weapons. Then you're talking about bankrupting the United States. But Israel has done a great job. They don't stop literally everything, but it's quite impressive. I know it's a smaller country, but it can be done along some margins, right? Absolutely not wrong science. The iron dome you're referring to shoots down, short range, and some medium range, including ballistic missiles.

21:35They come from either land -based systems, like the THAAD system, or they come from sea ships, the Egypt system, but they cannot shoot down ICBMs, intercontinental ballistic missiles, traveling, as I just mentioned, 500 miles above the Earth's surface. That is an extraordinary distinction, and people incorrectly mix them because it sounds great and it's quite fantasy hopeful to think, you know, wow, I can just build, you know, a system of an iron dome or a golden dome over the United States over my head and I will be free from nuclear attack. Now, because I have brought the golden dome up, I also must say, you know, having interviewed Charles Towns, for example, who's the Nobel laureate who invented the laser and speech spoke to him a decade ago about whether or not a kind of iron dome type system could work.

22:34And he said unequivocally no. Now we are in a different field of technology that is above my access because I don't have a top secret clearance. And when you're talking about CubeSats and you're talking about space -based interception, none of us that are not inside that golden dome rubric that's happening right now know what's happening. So we don't know about the future, but the past tells us that the iron dome is a different situation. But surely if we spent 5 % of GDP, we could come up with something, it wouldn't be perfect, but it could protect Washington and New York. Right? If nuclear war is so unthinkable, so crazy, so destructive, so possible, then we ought to spend that 5 % of GDP.

23:23I mean, you are welcome, you know, listen, it's a land of ideas here. It is a land of ideas and that if that is yours But it's not my idea. It's a question, right? Like you're the one saying it's so terrible and it's you know Not so impossible. So you ought to be the one charging ahead with this idea Charging ahead with which idea that I would spend spending 5 % of GDP to construct whatever defense of system We need 5 % of GDP is a lot, right? It's very noticeable taxes go up spending goes up interest rates go up We did it with the Manhattan Project. That was a pretty decent sized chunk of GDP.

24:00And that seemed impossible, right? This is something we probably could do. Maybe it's only 4 % of GDP. Well, I mean, seeing as I'm not an advisor on the defense science board, I would no sooner suggest, or even put my brain to think about such things, because fundamentally that is not what the solution is. I would see the only solution I have seen in any of this. If I may, shall I tell you a short story? Sure. Reagan, a nuclear hawk, takes office, and absolutely believes that more nuclear weapons make us more safe. And not only that comes up with the original idea of space -based defense, kind of like what you had alluded to with the 5 % GDP.

24:46This is back in the 80s. and this is his position. And then one night, ABC Television releases a movie called The Day After and Reagan decides to watch it. His chief of staff says, sir, don't watch it, but he does anyways. And he writes in his White House journal that he became greatly depressed, his word, depressed. And as a result, he reached out to the then arch enemy, the USSR. He reached out to Gorbachev, that led to Rechovik, and the two of them together took the world from the dangerous precipice of 70 ,000 nuclear warheads in 1986, 76 ,000 you heard me correctly to the approximately 12 ,300 that we have today.

25:38And that is because disarmament and that is because of communication. Reagan realized that he could no longer treat the nuclear -armed Russia as the enemy that you want to kill. Enemies you kill in defense department. They had to be an adversary. He had to work with them. And that, Tyler, is what that is the only mental pathway, theoretical pathway I can see as a viable solution to this madness. And I own that word. It's madness. But he did start with the big arms build up, right? And higher defense spending and he called them the evil empire. So he was hardly a nuclear pacifist. Yes. You need to be strong first and then you can get the other party to disarm partly.

26:28But absolutely. And a thousand weapons is still enough to create the scenario in your book. I don't really feel safer now. Well, no, but their intention was to go. Their intention was to disarm. I mean, and okay, you don't have to go to nuclear zero. People can have, but their dissent, their, their intention was to continue. And that, that didn't happen. And one note on Reagan, less anybody get upset with themselves and think, oh, no, I thought the iron dome could save us or the go you know less than anyone be sort of feel badly for not being aware of nuclear weapons Let me quote Ronald Reagan himself Didn't even know the capacity the capability of sub -launched ballistic missiles in a press conference He once said incorrectly that sub -launched ballistic missiles could be recalled They can't.

27:18And I think this speaks to the world in which there is so much misinformation about what could happen, what these weapon systems do. And it's really something I tried to demonstrate in my book that no, you can't win. You cannot win. As you know, well, no, there was a recent conflict between Pakistan and India. They're both nuclear armed states. For the moment it's tied down. Pakistan. Pakistan, of course, has inferior conventional forces, a smaller and poorer country. Say Pakistan had, if desperation had launched some nuclear weapons, what happens next? What is the United States, dude? We just sit there and watch.

28:00Do we threaten? Do we tell India, hey, don't retaliate or wills app you? Do we threaten Pakistan? Do we preemptive on Pakistan? What, what's your scenario? You just got yourself a new book. There's your scenario. But you thought about this, right? You read the news and you go, well, you know, in your scenario, what happens? In my scenario, I, and we're literally talking about the book, I wrote, I make something painfully clear. And again, this is from sources. This is from defense department officials. This is from your former professors war game, proud profit. And what we know from proud profit is that no matter how nuclear war begins, whether NATO's, and I'm talking about the United States here and I'll get to Pakistan, India, no matter how nuclear war begins, whether NATO's involved, not involved, China's involved, not no matter how nuclear war begins, if the United States is involved, it ends in total annihilation in Armageddon.

29:04We know that from the declassification. So those people have been wrong about so many things they were wrong about Joe Biden not being seen aisle right my scenario I'm talking about you know what India would retaliate and take out equivalent parts of Pakistan and then China would twist Pakistan's arm and we in Russia would twist India's arm and I think that would be the end of it it would be terrible millions of people would die but I don't think it would escalate beyond that Was that wrong? What I just said was what I am aware of and wrote the book about is what happens if the United States gets involved.

29:42So I would have to really put my mind on that scenario to discern what the outcome would be. I don't know necessarily if America would get involved. It doesn't seem to me that there would be a reason. Now, what I am familiar with is understanding the effects of, let's say, a 200 -weapon exchange, nuclear weapons exchange between those two nuclear -armed countries, and what would happen to the soot that would loft into the atmosphere and block out the sun, impacting all of us. So that's a different conversation. But that's why we would get involved. It's one reason of many, right? Which would be the reason?