‘ZOMBIE APOCALYPSE!” Prof Jiang on Biggest Threat To Humanity | Dog Beats Blues With Support Duck

0:00Plague as a weapon in the lungs that is airborne that can be transmitted between people. There is no homeland defense against a biological attack. Civilization falls apart in essentially six days. I'm very concerned about the zombie apocalypse. We go to Skid Row in the evening and it is really the zombie apocalypse. The outbreak in the United States of America first occurs in Skid Row. I'm most worried about nuclear weapons. the number of other states become nuclear-powered. In the future, AI will control a swarm of drones. It's not AI. This is real.

0:40Piers Morgan:I've never seen anything quite like this. They genuinely look like inseparable best friends. Not since the iciest peak of the Cold War has Armageddon been such a major subject of discussion, imagination, and debate. The doomsday clock is closer to its symbolic midnight strike than it's ever been before. Millions will line up the next Avengers movie titled Doomsday, just as they did for the biopic on Oppenheimer's fears that he might cause it. All of this renewed fascination is not without basis. Putin's Russia walked away from a key nuclear safety treaty, conflicts royal Europe and the Middle East, where the US president glibly threatens to end civilisation and launch the biggest attack since Hiroshima.

1:25Piers Morgan:The US Vice President talks about nuclear suicide vests in US supermarkets. Chemical weapons are advancing at the fastest rate in human history. And the people who make AI keep trying to tell us that AI is extremely dangerous. After a comfortable generation of steady growth in prosperity and relative peace, suddenly populations everywhere are fed up and hooked on content about what is now the highest number of military conflicts since the end of the Second World War. Well, my guests and I each have fascinating insights and predictions about this cheerful subject of global catastrophe and what could cause it.

2:04Piers Morgan:Annie Jacobson is an esteemed journalist and author of the new book, Biological War, A Scenario. Philip O 'Brien is Professor of Strategic Studies at the University of St Andrews. His latest book is called War and Power, Who Wins Wars and Why. He's also the author of one of the most popular international substacks, Philip's Newsletter. And Zhang Suixin is the game theorist turned online YouTube superstar, Professor Zhang. Well, I couldn't think of three better people to discuss Armageddon and whether any of us will still be here this time next year to do another panel than you three. So let's go through this.

2:44Piers Morgan:I mean, Annie Jacobson, great to have you back on Uncensored. Biological war, a scenario. So there are many ways the world could end, I guess. The nuclear one, obviously, we can come to. Many people think the pandemic was a precursor to a nefarious power getting its hands on some deadly biological warfare tool. Others think it's AI. So there are lots of ways the world might end. There are many ways the world may survive and thrive. But let's talk about biological war, given that's the subject of your new book. I mean, to me, the pandemic taught many lessons, but one of the key ones was we got lucky, that actually it could have been a lot worse.

3:31Piers Morgan:I was told by one of the professors in Oxford who did the AstraZeneca vaccine rollout, that if it had been, say, a new version of the Black Death, then with a 30%, 40 % casualty rate, death rate, including children, obviously it would have been immeasurably worse. So we kind of got lucky, even if it didn't feel like it. But obviously, we don't quite know the genesis of COVID-19. It's the subject of fevered speculation. But let's assume for a moment bad people get their hands on a bad biological warfare of some kind. What would that look like? How likely is this to be happening in our lifetime?

4:12Well, the introduction that you just relayed is essentially precisely the scenario I lay out in Biological War, a scenario. including the use of plague as a weapon. You mentioned there was a 30 % death rate on bubonic plague, which is true. That Black Death, the plague of the 14th century, killed a third to a half of Europe. But plague also has a really dark sort of uncle, and that's called pneumonic plague. That is plague in the lungs that is airborne, that can be transmitted between people. And that is the scenario I write about. And it's not science fiction. This is science fact. I tie everything in my book to historical incidents or war game planning.

4:59And we know that during the very end of the Cold War, after signing the Biological Weapons Treaty, which made having an arsenal of biological weapons illegal, this was in 1972, the Soviets began developing a super plague weapon, genetically modified to be more transmissible, to be more virulent, hard to be more virulent than 100 % death rate of pneumonic plague. But they did that by tweaking the ability of antibiotics to kill plague. And that's exactly the scenario I lay out in my book. And you see in no uncertain terms precisely how civilization falls apart in essentially six days. Right.

5:48Piers Morgan:And, you know, how easy is this scenario in terms of, you know, Could you see somebody trying to do this in a way that could get out of control and kill everybody? Well, maybe never mind my opinion, the journalist. Rather, let's look at the opinion of the subject matter experts who work on these issues at the Defence Department, presidential advisers, pandemic planners, all of whom I interviewed for the book. And what I learned, whereas nuclear weapons are at the far end of the threat spectrum, spectrum. This is an unclassified Defense Department document. Everyone knows nuclear weapons are the most destructive.

6:30Biological weapons present the greatest overall threat in Defense Department planning, precisely because of what you mentioned, that there is an extremely low bar for entry. Unlike nuclear weapons that are controlled by a nation's command and control system you have to have an icbm a submarine a b2 bomber essentially with a biological weapon in today's world of ai enabled computer systems and bio you can have a nefarious actor making a biological weapon in essentially their basement fascinating and terrifying professor o 'brien

7:08Piers Morgan:welcome to uncensored um first your reaction to what you've just heard well i mean i think we have to take certain things very seriously. The one that I'm most worried about actually is nuclear weapons, because the way the world has worked in the last four years is we basically incentivize countries to develop their own nuclear weapons. That there had been, up until, say, the Russian full-scale invasion of Ukraine, an assumption that nuclear threats would not be used to expand. And what we have actually seen in the last few years is that there has been regular attempts by Russia to use nuclear threats to expand the country into another one.

7:47And that means that the old system is dying. The old system that nuclear powers used to say is, you don't need nuclear weapons because we'll never use them to expand and attack you. We'll only use nuclear weapons to defend themselves. And that's gone. That world is gone because these threats are now being used to justify expansion. And moreover, the other thing that's broken down is the United States has sort of lost its mind. And the United States was a country that provided a great deal of stability, and I think only now do we understand how much stability the United States provided over the last 80 years.

8:22That's no longer the case. The United States is not a reliable partner. Europe, for instance, is not a continent that is really being protected by the U.S. nuclear umbrella anymore. And so what we will probably see in the coming years, five or ten years, is a number of other states become nuclear powers. And that also, by the way, is what we're going to see in Iran, because the Trump administration is basically giving up on Iran. And so we're more likely to see that the Iranians are going to press ahead with their nuclear weapons program. So we'll go from a small number of states having nuclear weapons, and it still is a relatively small number when you look at it, to two or three times that number of states having nuclear weapons, probably in the next five to ten years.

9:07Piers Morgan:Most people think they can type quickly. I thought I did too, honed by many years of editing a newspaper. Then I started using Whisper Flow. It's a groundbreaking next-generation voice-to-text tool which works in literally every app you already use. It allows me to send a full follow-up email, names, next steps, technical details, all just by talking. Instead of taking 15 minutes, it now takes me less than 30 seconds. Fully formatted. Filler words gone, it even spelled the names correctly the first time. Now watch what Siri does with the exact same thing. That is the difference. And it's not just on my laptop, it works on my phone too.

9:45Piers Morgan:Walking, commuting, jogging, wherever. Whisperflow is free to use. With my link in the description, you get one free month of Whisperflow Pro with totally unlimited words and usage. Use promo code PIERS, P-I-E-R-S, in your settings on desktop. And thanks to Whisperflow for sponsoring today's show. Right, and the problem is that you can see, like, Ukraine, if they hadn't been compelled in the mid-90s to give up the nuclear capability that was on their land, albeit it was Russian, but if they hadn't been compelled to give it up, then it's highly unlikely, I think, that Russia would have invaded several years ago.

10:26Piers Morgan:Similarly, you know, if Iran had a nuclear weapon, I'm sure this is their calculus now, it's highly unlikely the Americans in Israel would have attacked them five months ago. So, you know, people have worked out, they've gamed the system and realised the best security blanket you can possibly have is your own nuclear weapon. But I would say also, Professor O 'Brien, it's interesting to me that Ukraine, who've been far more indomitable perhaps in this war than many thought they would be, they are now striking with some impunity into the heart of Russia, you know, using drones to get into Moscow and so on.

11:03Piers Morgan:And yet at the moment, there's been no sense that Russia will deploy any kind of nuclear weapon. Now, is it wishful thinking to think that this is kind of called Putin's bluff, that he would never do that because of the, you know, immediate sense that he'd be vaporised, which is what prevents the big powers using them on each other? Or is it just, on my part, wishful thinking that he still might contemplate it? perhaps thinking, even if I do, no one's going to want to launch a nuclear war. Well, that's, I think, a very astute point. What was interesting is the United States believed in 2022, 2023, that Russia might go nuclear and really adjusted its policy.

11:45Did not help Ukraine that much in the way that it could have because it was afraid of triggering a Russian nuclear response. The Ukrainians never believed the Russians would go nuclear. So the Ukrainians have always been like, no, this is ridiculous. they can't afford to go nuclear for a number of reasons that I don't know how technical you want me to get but basically the risks of going nuclear don't justify any strategic advantage and so the Ukrainians have pressed ahead and done what they wanted but everybody else was saying no no no you must react to the threat of Russia nuclear ones but what we've seen is the new world shows if you have those weapons you get advantages and that's the part that will be unable to walk back.

12:25Russia has had massive advantages over the last four to five years because it's had nuclear weapons. And that, you know, from a European point of view, this is going to open up an astonishing discussion as the US goes home. Is there going to be a European nuclear deterrent? Is Poland going to have its own nuclear weapons? Are Scandinavian countries going to have their own nuclear weapons? Who is going to actually protect Europe from Russia? Yeah.

12:49Piers Morgan:Professor Zhang, welcome back to Uncensored. Always a very popular guest with our viewers um what do you think about these two things the threat of a biological war of some kind of the kind that annie jacobson laid out or the threat of as you see a proliferation of nuclear weapons that presumably the possibility of a nuclear war also proliferates um i think both possibilities are low right now I'm very concerned about the zombie apocalypse so for the past 20 years in China I have been criticizing China as the most corrupt the most unequal the most materialistic study on the planet planet I've been in LA for the past three days and I need to go back to China and initial apology to the Chinese people being LA for the past three days It really is like setting foot on a Hollywood thriller that is a sci-fi dystopia.

13:52I was in the Pacific Palisades last night for a dinner party, and the houses there are like fortresses, these huge mansions that are guarded by private security, and which are just beautiful. I was in a$20 million mansion, and then I looked up the hill. There's a$20 million mansion. none of these people, Steven Spielberg, Adam Sandler, our neighbors, none of these people know each other. They're all in their own like self-contained universes. At the dinner party, I'm sitting next to Max Blumenfall. He says to me, hey, maybe we should go visit Skid Row. And I think that's the best suggestion everyone has ever asked me.

14:32So we get in the car, we go to Skid Row in the evening. And it is really the zombie apocalypse. You've got like blocks and blocks of homeless people there's this black woman who's naked rolling around the streets a lot of them were were on drugs and it just seems to me absurd that in the wealthiest country in the in the history of humanity you could have this desperate form of poverty the same time what's happening is that rather than focus on internal issues on internal corruption inequality the Americans choose to fight these silly, pointless wars overseas. So I'm much more worried about internal tension, internal decay, than I am about nuclear warfare or biological warfare.

15:19I'm sitting at a hotel in Santa Monica. It's a luxurious hotel. I'm literally living with real-life Ken and Barbie dolls, just beautiful people. In the evening, I go out, and it's all just homeless people. and outside my hotel room, there's this man who is homeless, who is mentally ill, and he's just shouting and cursing the entire night. Thankfully, the hotel gave us earbuds, but this is the world we're living in where society suffers from internal decay, and rather than confront the issue, we just put on our earbuds and put our hand in the sand and live in our fortresses. But the reality is that this eternal decay will just spread and spread, And that's a real threat to humanity today.

16:04Piers Morgan:What is the difference then? Because I'm in L.A. as well. I wouldn't see it as quite as stark as you do, but I get your point. But what is the difference between, say, what you're seeing here and China at the moment? Well, I would say just extreme individualism of the Western world. Whereas in China, we focus on family, we focus on community. So we don't really have much of a homeless problem because we think that, you know, if a brother is suffering issues we welcome the brother into our household and um accommodate him until he gets well but here in the united states everyone is left to fend for himself so um if you make one mistake you know maybe you're doing well but um you know you get sick and uh the health care bill overwhelms you you go bankrupt you're you're on the streets it is atrocious uh to think that in the welfare society in the world, people, millions of people are just being left behind.

17:01Half the country can't even afford like a$20,$50 emergency. I'd love to comment on that, if I may.

17:06Piers Morgan:As an American on the panel, what do you feel about this? I mean, look, if anyone's looking for a debate, they are not going to get it from me because I completely agree with what Professor Zhang just said. And I live in Los Angeles and I want to walk my book over to your hotel because in essence, you just took a major thread of my book and relayed it because I address the outbreak in Los Angeles. The outbreak in the United States of America first occurs in Skid Row, precisely for the reasons that you pointed out that I wanted to point out, which is what underpins my narrative on top of being sort of a national security cautionary tale, is the fact that America today is like schizophrenic about its own reality of what is happening within its own borders.

17:56One of the shocking things that was said to me by a Defense Department official who used to war game these scenarios at the Office of Net Assessment under the very famous Andy Marshall, he said, there is no homeland defense against a biological attack or incident, which is an accident, only something you can do to mitigate extermination. And when you think of that coupled with the scenario, the reality that Professor Jang just painted about my own city, then you realize America has a really big problem that is only going to explode elsewhere. Precisely what your other guest said, like drawing back from its partnerships around the world.

18:39I believe this all has to do with the fact that there is this complete disconnect between reality and fantasy here in the United States. It needs to be addressed or we're circling the drain.

18:51Piers Morgan:If I might say something? Professor, yes, you can. I was going to bring you in, actually. I was just going to ask you, Professor O 'Brien, before you respond. Well, respond first of all, then I'll put my point to you here. Sure. I mean, Professor Zhang, I mean, I find that was a very romantic picture of China. China is an oppressive dictatorship. and to somehow present China as that rose-colored society vis-a-vis a very messy western society and the United States is a messy western society I think completely distorts the reality of between the two I mean China we don't know the of what's actually going on in a lot of China because it is quite a dictatorial controlled society so I I would think that we need to step back and have a little perspective on that I think the real problem in the West is the growth of authoritarian figures.

19:37It's because it's becoming more like China politically, with sort of real strong men trying to put in place their individual visions. And we don't have checks and balances like we used to. We don't have the more liberal system that we used to have. So in many ways, we're becoming more like China. And that's not a good thing.

19:58Piers Morgan:Yeah, I mean, the question I was going to put to you was, as somebody who obviously knows his history, you know, history is littered with seemingly unbeatable empires, Rome being a classic example, which everybody assumed would just go on, bestriding the globe like this colossus. But they all end, right? And the big question, I think, for the United States is, yes, it's the greatest superpower we've seen in history, arguably, but I saw the latest debt numbers today, for example, over$40 trillion in debt, United States. These are baffling numbers to anybody who understands basic economy. How sustainable is the American business model, do you think?

20:41Piers Morgan:I mean, could America be the modern-day Rome and just effectively one day we wake up and it's no longer the superpower we thought it was? America would dream to be in Rome's financial situation. That's actually a much greater fear to me than this idea that the society will break down because the American debt, as indeed the debt in many countries around the world, including in China when you look at the real estate debt, is basically unpayable now. We can't pay back the massive amounts of money that are owed. For the United States, the debt problem is structurally it's just going to get larger.

21:18So there's no way to reduce the debt unless you completely remake government, and it's hard to see how that will happen. And you've got this structural debt that's going to grow every year, and interest rates are going up. So now they've crept up for a number of years. They're getting up to 20-year highs, what the United States is going to pay. So soon, actually right now, but increasingly, a massive part of the debt will simply be to pay the old debt. And that is going to set off a chain reaction that I am very worried about.

21:49Piers Morgan:Professor Zhang, I mean, obviously China still owns a large chunk of American debt, which most people don't focus on. I don't think nearly enough. But in answer to Professor O 'Brien's critique that China's not the, I wouldn't say you described it as utopia because you don't, but he was pretty critical of the very oppressive dictatorship that China really is. Would you concur with that description? Yeah, I mean, I think China is very much an authoritarian nation. And I did preface my discussion of Los Angeles by saying that for the past 20 years, I've been very critical of the corruption, inequality, and the materialism, the authoritarianism in China.

22:31I am the world's foremost critic of the Chinese school system. I've been doing so for the past 20 years, being interviewed by major publications like New York Times and Wall Street Journal and going to education conferences pointing out the deficiencies in China's schooling system. So I'm very much aware of the deficiencies in Chinese society. But then I go to a place like the United States and I go to Skid Row, and never before have I seen such an apocalyptic image where, you know, you have thousands of citizens of the world's most prosperous society, and they are just being left to their own devices.

23:08The state has abandoned them. And as Annie Jacobson has pointed out, this will be point zero, ground zero for any epidemic because these places are rife with contagious diseases. And so contagious diseases, biological warfare happens not when society develops a biological superweapon. It happens when society neglects basic sanitation. That's what's happening in American society today. Just because I point out basic problems in American society does not mean I am a communist. And also when you say that the real problem is authoritarian figures, let's remember back in 2016 how Donald Trump came into power in the first place.

23:51It was because in 2008, Barack Obama was brought in power with the slogan of hope and change. At this point, the Wall Street bankers had criminally bankrupted the American financial system. And millions of homeowners were about to lose their houses. And Barack Obama was brought in because people believed that this would be a revolution. Instead, Barack Obama appointed government tax executives, people such as Larry Summers, Tim Geithner, and Bob Rubin, and they bailed out their friends on Wall Street. Surprise, surprise. And millions of homeowners were bankrupted. So everything that's happening today is because of Barack Obama's policies, not because of Donald Trump.

24:35Donald Trump was brought into power as a response to people's frustration with the meritocracy, with the elite, with the callousness of the American elite.

24:45Piers Morgan:Annie Jacobson, there are lots of different... First of all, respond to that if you want, and then I'll ask you a question. Well, I just think it's important to lay down a few facts here because I think the problem for me as a narrative storyteller is that if you can't deal with the problems that are happening, if your own house is not in order, the United States of America, how can you project authority overseas? It's essentially sort of hollow. It's hypocritical. Facts and figures on the homeless issue in Los Angeles and why it's so dangerous to something like a biological incident. That would be a lab leak or an attack.

25:22There are 4 ,000 people that Professor Zhang described running around down there on Skid Row. 4 ,000. All of them are either mentally ill, physically ill, or a combination of both. I interviewed epidemiologists who work there have told me that the homeless population in America is an extraordinary national security problem. Here's why. There are 800 ,000 homeless people in the United States for reasons of economics, for reasons of, you know, sanity of like treat your neighbor well. All those reasons are extremely important and of their own. But from a biological sort of warfare standpoint, what's interesting is that the government and this is a metaphor.