0:07

Hello, and welcome to the Political

0:09

Orphanage, a home for problem

0:12

solvers, people that don't fit on

0:14

the political spectrum, and folks who

0:16

generally don't want to die in a radioactive

0:19

apocalypse falling from the skies

0:21

like the wrath of an angry god.

0:24

I'm your host, Andrew Heaton.

0:28

There is an argument to be made that

0:30

nuclear weapons prevented World War

0:32

III. Were it not for Kraken

0:34

the atom and the incredibly high

0:37

cost of thermonuclear war, Europe

0:40

would have gone on doing what Europe

0:42

always does, which is go to war with

0:44

itself every 15 to 30 years. But

0:48

post-World War II, it would have yet again

0:50

dragged in its buddy America and Russia,

0:53

and World War III would have been, I guess,

0:55

in the 1960s or 1980s or maybe both, and it would

0:59

have been a conventional but utterly

1:01

horrific conflict with

1:04

superior weapons, every bit as

1:07

destructive and bloody and horrible

1:10

as World War I and World War II

1:12

were, perhaps combined.

1:14

But that didn't happen, because

1:18

the leaders who

1:20

would otherwise have inevitably careened

1:22

into that conflict were deterred

1:25

by the threat of mutually assured

1:27

destruction, which

1:29

is kind of weird if

1:31

you think about it, because it means that nuclear

1:33

bombs are the hero

1:36

of the last 50 years,

1:38

that peace has been paid for

1:41

with uranium and rockets and threat

1:43

of death.

1:46

But on the flip side,

1:48

that is a high stakes

1:50

deterrent, ain't it? I

1:52

mean, it works until it

1:54

doesn't, right? What if Nikita Khrushchev

1:57

falls asleep on the big red button drunk,

1:59

or... President Kanye

2:02

West starts mixing NyQuill with DayQuill

2:04

and really goes off the rails. When

2:07

the nukes fly, the range of

2:10

outcomes goes from very,

2:12

very bad to merely the

2:14

end of Western civilization

2:18

to potentially the annihilation

2:20

of the human race. Begging

2:23

the question, how

2:25

many nukes do we

2:27

really want to have? How many nukes do we

2:30

need to have as a deterrent?

2:33

If we don't have any, are we risking

2:36

World War III, World War IV,

2:38

World War V, all those things? If

2:40

we have too many, we're risking

2:42

our very existence as a species. How

2:45

many nukes do we need? If we decide

2:48

we've got too many and we're going to slim down

2:50

our nuclear stockpile, how

2:52

can we trust that the other guy got

2:55

rid of his too? All

2:58

of this factors into the concept

3:00

of nuclear deterrence, which is what we

3:02

are going to explore today. If

3:04

you are new to the political orphanage, I

3:08

highly recommend you check out last

3:10

year's episode, Who Actually Survives

3:13

a Nuclear War? It is one of my

3:15

all-time favorites. It is horrifying,

3:18

but a lot of fun at the same time. We

3:20

get into who gets whisked away

3:23

in a bunker and who gets left on the surface

3:25

to die when the bombs start falling. How long

3:27

you need to stay in a basement for the radioactive

3:29

half-life to die down, nuclear winter,

3:32

all that stuff. You can find a link

3:34

to that episode in today's show notes. My

3:37

guest for today's program is

3:39

a lieutenant colonel in the Air Force, but

3:41

I can't provide any

3:44

further credentials on where

3:46

and what exactly he does for the very

3:48

good reason that the sorts of people who professionally

3:50

and strategically work in the field of nuclear deterrence

3:53

are not allowed to speak on behalf of

3:55

their employer. There are basic restrictions

3:57

that apply to people in military when they

3:59

do media such as this. So, be

4:02

it known, here and wide, the

4:04

interview you are about to hear with

4:07

Lieutenant Colonel Travis Pred Haleman is

4:10

his opinion, and not that of

4:12

the Department of Defense. If anybody asks, hey,

4:14

that thing Travis said, he was speaking on behalf of the Department

4:16

of Defense, right, in an official capacity, you

4:18

should correct them and say, no, he

4:20

was not speaking on behalf

4:23

of any organization that he's a part of, and he certainly

4:26

wasn't speaking on an official capacity.

4:29

Which is too bad, because I

4:31

talked to him off the record, and let me tell

4:33

you, he is very much in the know

4:35

on this issue, and has just about as much

4:38

practical and professional experience in nuclear

4:40

deterrence as anybody can

4:42

have, so far as I can tell shy of being

4:45

in that basement with all the maps in

4:47

Doctor Strangelove. Sound fun?

4:50

Sounds fun to me. I love

4:53

this stuff. Okay. All right,

4:55

let's all do this together, everybody. Climb

4:57

under your desks. It's

4:59

nuclear deterrence day right

5:01

here on The Political Wharfinage.

5:04

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1, 0.

5:16

We are joined today by one of our fellow political

5:18

wharfins, a listener of the program, who

5:21

reached out to me a little after

5:23

the rather epic nuclear war

5:25

episode I did about a year ago now. And

5:29

Travis Hallimann, who will join us momentarily, is

5:31

an expert in deterrence theory. He

5:33

works in deterrence theory.

5:35

We also can't tell you where he works in

5:37

deterrence theory, so we can just say he's

5:40

a deterrence theory expert. Travis Hallimann, great

5:42

to see you. Good afternoon,

5:44

good evening, Andrew, and to all the

5:46

wharfins out there. I appreciate your time. Thank

5:49

you. That was very nearly a Truman Show entrance.

5:51

I like it. I like it very much. What a happy

5:53

intro for such a tense topic. So

5:56

I'll kick it off like this. I imagine everybody's familiar

5:58

with the concept of mutually assured destruction and

6:01

knows the basic idea

6:03

behind avoiding war

6:05

by the threat of nuclear war, which seems

6:08

to have worked to a great extent. We've

6:10

never had World War III, perhaps because we've had nuclear

6:12

weapons. But at the same time, if we

6:14

ever do go to war, Western civilization

6:17

ultimately implodes and is

6:19

destroyed and all sorts of horrible things happen, right?

6:23

So where I'm at, I'm thinking,

6:25

let's just have the minimum necessary

6:28

amount of nuclear weapons to make

6:30

everybody not want to go to war. I'd say 10 would

6:32

be fine. Like if, I

6:34

don't know, I don't know how many North Korea has. My guess

6:37

is about 10, and that's enough for us to not invade them.

6:39

So I'd say like 10 would be enough for

6:41

Russia to give a serious consideration

6:44

about ever going to war with us. But at the

6:46

same time, if there's an exchange of 20 nuclear missiles,

6:48

civilization doesn't end. Like life still

6:50

can go on in France, right? So how

6:53

does this work so far? What do you think about my idea of like a

6:55

minimum threshold for nuclear weapons? Okay,

6:57

so let's start big picture. I always

6:59

like to say, scroll out like Google maps. Let's

7:02

scroll out for a second and let's introduce two

7:05

words for you and that is deterrence by itself.

7:08

With nuclear weapons, there are two terms that we use.

7:11

One is deterrence and the other one is coercion.

7:14

The idea that we can, by using

7:16

nuclear weapons correctly, we can

7:18

deter our adversaries from doing

7:21

certain things or we can coerce

7:23

them into doing what we want them to do. Ultimately,

7:26

at the end of the day, there's an equation we like to go by

7:28

which we call the deterrence equation.

7:31

It's credibility times will

7:34

times communication. Okay.

7:37

Okay. So I'll walk through each one of these and this

7:39

is the, again, this is the equation for deterrence,

7:42

for it to appropriately work. You

7:44

must be credible, meaning

7:46

that you must have nuclear weapons

7:48

and delivery vehicles, maintenance

7:51

and everything that makes whatever your deterrence

7:53

you have credible against any

7:55

defensive capabilities

7:58

or anything that would prevent That

8:00

weapon from getting to where it needs to go So

8:02

theoretically like if Iran has a suitcase

8:05

nuke and they've got no way to get it to the United

8:07

States They're not credible even if they've got a nuclear weapon

8:10

the fact that they'd have to like ship

8:12

it to us via FedEx and hope it managed to Get through

8:15

the system the credibility is so

8:17

low that that that is already broken down Whereas

8:20

us and Russia we know everybody

8:22

knows we've got nukes and we've got rockets

8:24

and we've got subs and our nukes are gonna Get to you.

8:27

Yeah, absolutely So never great thing you

8:29

pile on with that is yeah, you can have the best

8:31

equipment ever But if you don't know how

8:33

to use it, you don't know how to employ it You

8:35

don't

8:35

practice with it

8:37

at the end of the day You now have a question on how credible

8:39

you really are employing

8:41

that weapon. Okay.

8:43

All right, and okay So and then political

8:45

will was that the second? Yeah.

8:47

Yeah political will political will is

8:49

again something outside this is this is the

8:51

politician credibility is a military

8:54

function and The political

8:56

will

8:56

is the political so at the end

8:58

of the day How much is your

9:00

society willing to use

9:03

that nuclear deterrent to get its political

9:05

goals? So like a great example I

9:08

could tell you the big question for those of us in nuclear

9:10

deterrence theory keeps asking one basic

9:12

question When was the last time we use

9:14

a nuclear weapon? We actually

9:17

use nuclear weapons every day

9:19

You have to stop and think less

9:22

about mushroom cloud and think

9:24

about how we position how we Move

9:26

how we do certain things what we message

9:29

which we'll talk about the third piece

9:30

That is using them to

9:32

get

9:33

some sort of political Like

9:35

Clausewitz would say some sort of political

9:37

solution in the end So can I can I pause

9:40

you there because I feel like there's two different things we can we can flush

9:42

out here One the the political will

9:44

this sounds to me like I mentioned in the nuclear

9:46

war episode which listeners I will link to in today's

9:49

description if you've not checked out that episode. I'm very proud

9:51

of it. You should the

9:53

the British have a trident nuclear submarine fleet

9:55

and Every trident

9:57

nuclear submarine in the British fleet has a safe

9:59

that

10:00

the captain can access in the event the chain

10:02

of command is broken down with the United Kingdom. So

10:05

if the captain cannot get a hold of

10:08

the prime minister or the chain of command,

10:10

there is a handwritten note from whoever

10:12

the current prime minister is that explains

10:14

to them what their orders are, assuming everyone

10:17

in London is dead. Could be, hey,

10:19

Britain is gone. Go link up with the

10:21

American allies. I'm putting you under their command. It

10:23

could be, let them loose. Go

10:26

to the Black Sea as quick as you can and just fire

10:29

all your warheads at Moscow. It could

10:31

be,

10:32

dude, it's

10:33

all over. There's no reason to kill anybody

10:35

else. Like Britain's lost, everything else

10:37

is just unnecessary damage. Try to

10:39

find some fine country and get yourself a hammock,

10:41

right? Whenever a prime minister

10:44

leaves the United Kingdom, they will not divulge what they

10:46

did. I think one person

10:48

who ran for, I think maybe

10:50

Corbin, who should never have been prime minister, said what

10:53

he would have done. I think one former

10:55

prime minister said what they would have done. But this is

10:57

part of the calculation, is let's say that

11:00

every prime minister when they left said, yeah,

11:02

I said if Britain gets nukes, do not nuke back.

11:05

I don't want to kill anybody. I don't want any blood on my hands.

11:07

It would be telegraphing to Russia, hey,

11:10

if you nuke Britain, actually Britain will not retaliate

11:12

because they view it as a humanitarian crisis. You want

11:14

to have that really big question mark, what

11:17

Nixon called the madman hypothesis of

11:19

God, maybe they're going to do it, right? I

11:22

think Trump, I'm going to steel

11:24

man Trump for a minute. At the beginning of

11:26

the Trump administration, he wandered

11:28

out loud in a meeting, how can we never

11:31

nuke anybody? That could be

11:33

a political will calculation, even though

11:35

we're very unlikely to ever nuke anybody proactively

11:38

just to kind of put that out in the waters in

11:40

China and other places that we have nuclear weapons

11:42

and maybe we will use them, you don't know, right? That's

11:45

what's going on there is the idea of, no,

11:47

actually we will pull the trigger, don't screw with us. Absolutely

11:50

right. It's a two for the first

11:52

part is exactly what you said. Don't screw

11:55

with us or we're going to do this. And I'm

11:57

going to come back to that in a second. And then the second piece

11:59

goes.

11:59

back to the idea that like

12:02

you said when it comes to the

12:04

political will,

12:06

countries and members of the P5 do

12:08

not like to publicly state

12:10

what they do. So a great example

12:12

because you have to think about it. You want gray

12:15

space. You want things to be chaotic.

12:18

So think about like a red line. When we talk

12:20

about, think of this red line and this red line

12:22

is

12:23

launching nuclear weapons and actually commencing

12:26

World War three day after, oh into the

12:28

world, right? Everything up to that red

12:30

line, we

12:30

kind of know what happens.

12:32

We kind of know because of the missile, Cuban

12:34

Missile Crisis, we know because

12:36

of Ukraine now, we've kind of filled in

12:39

a lot of gaps that get us up to this point.

12:41

But the closer you get to that red line, we kind

12:43

of don't know what happens.

12:45

And then the second you cross that red line,

12:48

it's literally like I like to say it's

12:50

the end of Newtonian physics. We

12:52

have no clue what actually happens

12:55

on the other side of that line. Because besides

12:57

Hiroshima and Nagasaki, we've never used

13:00

nuclear assets. So because of all

13:02

that chaos. When you say

13:05

that, are you referring to everything or are you referring to

13:07

human action? Like one of the things that I researched

13:09

in the Nuclear War episode is how

13:11

severe would nuclear winter be? And

13:13

there's about 15 people in the world

13:16

that have actually worked on this with any amount

13:18

of input. They're all relying on

13:20

each other, which means that it's somewhat difficult and

13:22

that you're, whenever we talk about nuclear winter, we're

13:25

really talking about the work of about 15 people.

13:27

And I'm not exaggerating here. And they

13:29

seem to think it would be really bad. But if one

13:31

of their models was off, then wouldn't be

13:33

that bad. But also could be truly

13:36

horrible. We don't really know because we've never tested

13:38

it.

13:39

Andrew, you're 100% correct. So we

13:41

don't know all of these like small

13:43

little factors. Like you said, all out. We

13:46

have no clue. We actually don't even know what's

13:48

going to happen with

13:48

EMP. There's some really good journal articles

13:50

out there that talk about, hey, in 1962 we stopped public

13:54

testing. We kind of realized some lights flicker

13:56

in Hawaii, but we never put two and two together until

13:58

like five years down the road. So

14:00

you have all these unknowns right dogs sleeping with

14:03

cats gay marriage all these other things right

14:05

on that side That's why you that's a joke with people

14:07

about

14:08

but like because of all that chaos You

14:11

have to think that the political

14:12

will yep, don't don't off with

14:14

us or we're gonna do this well Politicians

14:16

by definition tend to be very conservative

14:19

in their international relations decisions

14:22

So if you for example, I've been

14:24

in a situation where I had friends when Ukraine kicked off.

14:27

They're like, hey Travis Oh my lord are we we're

14:29

gonna get bombed by Russia, right? And I said absolutely

14:31

not because

14:32

that's not how any of this works

14:34

And and what you point out is be you

14:36

want there to be so much chaos

14:38

and that solution set You don't

14:40

want the enemy to know what your red line is.

14:43

We don't know what the Russians redline it They they've

14:45

said this is what we think is same thing with China

14:47

But because of that decision space that

14:49

gray space we will always

14:52

Defer to a conservative solution

14:54

now that that makes sense I mean, I think that

14:56

redline theory is there in general. So like

14:59

bringing up Ukraine I would

15:01

if I were in the decision-making space

15:04

in regards to America funding the war in Ukraine

15:06

I would be very inclined to

15:08

go. Let's have a clear cut

15:11

our cut our losses moment here internally

15:13

of Guys if it's three

15:15

years and they're not making any progress

15:18

They're never gonna make progress and all we're doing is

15:21

funding a proxy war until Ukraine is dead So let's

15:23

leave at that point. However, if I publicly

15:25

state that as the president We're gonna fund this

15:27

unless they can't do it within three years Well

15:30

at that point you've telegraphed to the enemy

15:32

you just have to hold out for three years Arguably this

15:34

happened with a Taliban where we we

15:36

went we're gonna be here tell X and

15:38

they went Oh terrific So we just got out we just got to hang

15:40

out till here So there's this odd thing particularly in democracies

15:43

where the leadership actually cannot state What

15:46

it's its internal red line is because

15:48

if it does that Then the ambiguities

15:50

lost to the enemy and the enemy can now act

15:52

on that as opposed to get them to back

15:55

down

15:56

1 million percent and what and what you're

15:58

describing is the kind of the third

16:00

part of political will

16:02

and that is assurance.

16:04

At the end of the day, we, the United

16:06

States, the UK, France, Russia,

16:09

and China are the P5.

16:10

We extend our nuclear

16:13

deterrent shield to our allies

16:15

who we have agreements with. And again, a

16:17

lot of that is, again, question marks, but

16:19

what assurance is exactly that. So

16:21

let's look at NATO for a second.

16:23

Why NATO is so important is NATO

16:25

is a

16:26

nuclear construct or a nuclear

16:28

alliance that at the end of the day, if

16:30

you screw with this one, if you

16:33

screw with Albania,

16:34

the US will reply

16:36

with strategic options as

16:38

usually the response.

16:40

And in a second, you put a seed of doubt,

16:42

a seed of doubt in that assurance

16:45

piece, the house falls apart.

16:48

Because what happens is, and what we're,

16:50

and you're starting to see in a lot of the IR circles

16:52

now is because of what you

16:55

see with North Korea and what you see with

16:57

China,

16:57

Japan has a lot of, strangely

17:00

enough, a lot of uranium and plutonium

17:02

because

17:02

they do a lot of nuclear reactors just sitting

17:05

around.

17:06

And to be honest, they can really start

17:08

making stuff whenever they want. And as

17:11

part of the assurance, we're doing that counterproliferation.

17:14

We're trying to keep nuclear weapons

17:16

to a minimum instead of letting everyone and their grandmother

17:19

buy their own set. Which is

17:21

a fairly consensus position now, but

17:23

it could have gone the other way. Kissinger at one point was

17:25

like, why don't we just give Taiwan nukes and

17:28

get out of there? Which like, I

17:30

got to say that you give Taiwan 10 nukes,

17:32

we probably could get out of there and never have to worry

17:34

about that again. But also if Taiwan

17:37

gets 10 nukes, then does Laos want

17:39

to get a nuke? Does Thailand

17:41

feel like getting a nuke? On

17:43

the one hand, it sort of releases the American

17:46

big brother global policeman element

17:48

that we feel committed to. But also, if

17:51

Saudi Arabia and Iran have nukes, and

17:53

we're not doing anything over there, the

17:55

likelihood that a nuclear war happens now

17:57

really escalates because every country

17:59

has five to ten nukes. Well, what

18:01

if Iran and Saudi Arabia go to

18:04

a limited nuclear war, but Saudi Arabia is

18:06

also allies with Turkey, and Turkey's

18:08

a NATO member, and then it starts scaling

18:10

up and you get World War I with nukes? A

18:12

million percent. And kind of one of the

18:14

fallacies I don't like about the libertarian

18:17

discussion when it comes to... I love Ron

18:20

Paul. I did. But

18:21

the one thing I don't think he ever understood was,

18:24

if America wants to be a superpower,

18:26

there are

18:26

certain things that we have to do

18:29

to maintain that status or

18:31

to at least maintain

18:33

stability around the world. Because you make

18:35

a good point. You could take a populist perspective

18:38

and say, hey, let's bring everyone home and let's do all

18:40

of this. The second you do that, a

18:42

lot of the things that we take for granted as

18:44

the superpower go away immediately

18:47

overnight. I am. I'm partial

18:49

to that Ron Paul position. So could you flush

18:51

that out a little bit more? Like I like

18:53

the idea of America being a big

18:56

ass Switzerland with cowboy hats. We've got

18:58

some nukes or we've got subs

19:00

on either side of the Atlantic and the

19:02

Pacific, but we're not a Japan

19:04

anymore. We're not a Germany. Absolutely.

19:06

And what's funny, I had a boss one

19:08

time, Andrew, that said, I don't need to throw a turd

19:11

on the table and then would say these

19:13

provocative things. And so I literally

19:15

just did that. I put a turd on the table to make a point.

19:18

And what's funny is, yeah, let's all

19:20

scroll back to what I was just saying here for a quick second. So

19:23

like, for example, if you start looking at like

19:25

the NPT, the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

19:27

Treaty, the Test Ban treaties, all

19:29

those treaties, right? Those are fundamentally

19:33

underpinned by US foreign policy.

19:36

It really is. In the post World War II world,

19:38

it's all underpinned by the US, UK, French,

19:41

and dare I say, the other two P5 members. The

19:43

second the US decides to back out

19:45

of some of those commitments, the question quickly

19:48

becomes, what does the world look

19:50

like? Because let's be honest, right now we're

19:52

seeing, you know, Francis Fukuyama

19:54

is the end of history. We're watching it, history restart,

19:57

because we start talking about escalation

19:59

control, you start talking about because that's what all of

20:01

this is. When you say nukes, it's not just the

20:03

mushroom cloud. It's you buy

20:06

all the ex-girlfriend baggage that comes

20:08

with it to include proliferation,

20:11

the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna,

20:13

and all these other little subtle things that you never

20:16

think about. Why do they go away?

20:18

Is that because there's no enforcement mechanism there? Like

20:20

the enforcement mechanism is America? Absolutely.

20:23

So something I bring whenever it brings up the United

20:25

Nations, I'm always like, hey, that's great.

20:27

You know that the most powerful person at the United Nations is

20:29

the guy that sets prices at the gift shop. That

20:31

is the only thing they actually have control over.

20:34

They have literally no control over anything because

20:36

it's a talk shop that gets all of

20:38

the shower from the composite members who

20:40

don't have to do anything unless they want to. So same

20:42

thing with the International Atomic

20:44

Agency Non-Proliferation Treaty. That's because America

20:47

has a gun pointed at everybody. Pretty much.

20:49

And that's the P5. P5

20:52

doing that. Okay. Well, out of curiosity, if

20:54

we ... I realize we're getting into other territory let's

20:57

say we pull out of the Middle East, which I

20:59

would be in favor of. I take that deal

21:02

tomorrow. Let's get out of the Middle East and like,

21:04

let's wind down. We give

21:06

a referendum in Japan and Germany. Would

21:08

you like us to leave? And if they say yes, we're going to pull out

21:10

in five years. All of this sounds good to me. That

21:12

doesn't mean we have to give up on the Nuclear Non-Proliferation

21:15

Treaty. It doesn't mean we have to defund

21:19

the International Atomic Energy Agency. So

21:21

like, couldn't we become

21:23

a little bit less robust in terms of our

21:26

international deployments while still maintaining

21:28

our nuclear position? Yeah. Those are two separate

21:30

things. And first I'll address deployment 100%.

21:33

I agree with you 100% on that. There are certain ...

21:36

I heard an individual say, a

21:38

senior individual who said roughly

21:40

about two years ago said, quote, you

21:42

know, we got distracted in that whole Middle

21:45

East thing. And now strategic geopolitics

21:47

is back in business.

21:49

People from

21:50

where I come from, you know, I had friends

21:52

who were doing things against terrorists,

21:54

whatever. And then me, I'm sitting there just,

21:56

you know, writing papers on why

21:58

nuclear deterrence is and why we need to do this

22:01

and, ah, ah Travis, you're wasting your time.

22:03

Well, hey, guess what? We all just got distracted

22:06

and now what's important is important again. So,

22:08

but you're right. Yeah, any time we're talking about

22:10

the extinction of civilization, the potential

22:12

extinction of the planet, it never lost its importance.

22:15

It just lost its immediacy, but the importance

22:17

is always better. I'm glad people are working on it.

22:21

Well, if you get a chance, there's two articles I'll recommend

22:23

you to look into. Please do. Yeah, I'll put it in

22:25

the show notes. The Economist published an article, and

22:28

I can send it to you when we're done. In the Economist

22:30

article, what they talked about was they went

22:32

out to RAN, and the

22:33

RAN Corporation

22:34

was the think tank that the DOD,

22:36

or back when it was whatever they called it, but

22:38

the DOD funded as the problem solvers.

22:41

Hey, the Soviets can do this. What can

22:43

we do? And then, you know, you put nerds in a room and

22:45

they come back with, you know, slinkies.

22:47

And in this case, the article

22:49

said, you know, hey, we've noticed since the

22:52

end of the Cold War, you had the peace dividend,

22:54

and at the end of the peace dividend, which is roughly about 2007, you had

22:57

what? 9-11. And

22:59

then, literally for 20 years until when Kabul

23:02

fell, that was what anyone ever talked about.

23:04

It wasn't until

23:06

literally Crimea in 2014, people started

23:08

asking questions again. All the assumptions, you

23:10

know, were out the window. Mr.

23:12

Romney, those are your politics from the 80s. And

23:15

the entire industry was so

23:18

focused on that one thing when

23:20

all of this was going on over here. To be

23:22

completely honest,

23:23

the nuclear deterrence of all,

23:25

like, of the NATO members has always been

23:28

ready, ready to do whatever it takes. But

23:30

it's also the people at the top need to have

23:33

buy-in, I guess you could say, because once

23:35

they understand it all, I mean, when you're too busy looking at

23:37

this one little thing over here, you don't have time to actually see

23:39

the bigger thing. Well, before I lose track of it, I want

23:41

to make sure that we flush out the equation you kicked off with. So

23:43

we've just got out political will, credibility, capability.

23:46

I believe communication was the last thing you mentioned

23:48

there. What is communication?

23:50

Yes. So let's talk about communication. I

23:53

like that I have two master's degrees. I

23:55

love international relations. And my

23:57

theory is that international relations, at the end

23:59

of the day, are the best. is a macro

24:01

or a bigger version of every meeting

24:03

like bad relationship I've had in my life. If

24:07

I can have a bad relationship with my husband

24:09

or like whatever I'm doing wrong with my husband, it's

24:12

probably happening at an international level. So

24:14

if you want to solve problems or how I think

24:16

of it is nuclear weapons

24:19

help us solve conflict,

24:21

conflict resolution at the end of the day.

24:24

So

24:25

that's an argument of communication. So communication

24:27

at the end means how did

24:30

I send a message to you, Andrew,

24:32

and did Andrew receive

24:34

it how I wanted you to receive

24:37

it, and did you reply back

24:39

how I thought you were going to reply to?

24:42

So

24:42

let's reference the Cuban Missile Crisis.

24:45

Why the Cuban Missile Crisis? Everyone

24:47

thought we were going into war, and we probably were,

24:49

because at the end of the day there was no

24:51

A, mechanism for JFK

24:54

to talk directly to Khrushchev telling

24:56

him this is what we're doing.

24:59

But also because of the messaging

25:01

and how everything goes into it. The red phone did

25:03

not exist at that time, I take it, that there was an invention

25:06

of the Cuban Missile Crisis. It did not. Absolutely

25:09

a million percent.

25:11

Right. A million percent. And when diplomatic

25:14

connections break down, we

25:16

look at the board and go, hmm,

25:19

how is adversary A doing,

25:22

or what are they doing today and how are they doing it? Now

25:24

we sit back on our side and go, hmm,

25:26

okay, that looks weird. My girlfriend's

25:29

going to a bingo game every night. Well, that's weird.

25:31

She doesn't like bingo. Hmm, is she cheating on me? It's

25:34

kind of that thing, right? No, you come to find out she was

25:36

going to her mom's house to go bingo

25:38

with her.

25:39

Right? Meaning that when we see actions,

25:41

we have to appropriately interpret

25:44

what the other side is doing. Does that make

25:47

sense?

25:48

Okay, so Wade said this is great. So

25:50

for example, under George W. Bush,

25:53

we pulled out of the anti-ballistic

25:56

missile treaty. And if

25:58

I've got this right. And what we did was

26:01

we set up

26:03

anti-ballistic missiles in Poland

26:06

and pointed them at Russia. And we went,

26:08

hey, this is in case we get attacked

26:11

by Iran. And Russia,

26:14

very understandably, I think went, so

26:16

you're putting anti-ballistic

26:18

missiles, ballistic missiles are the same guy type thing. You just swap

26:21

out the cartridges. So these are ballistic

26:23

missiles you're pointing at within

26:25

striking distance of Moscow and you're putting

26:27

them in Poland in case Iran

26:30

shoots missiles at you. It looks to us,

26:32

the Russians, like you are just rearming

26:34

from the Cold War on our border. And

26:37

so we are going to respond in kind. We're

26:39

going to invade Georgia and we're going to start animating

26:42

ourselves against potentially Ukraine. So

26:44

that's an example of if we're taking George

26:47

W. Bush at face value, that was because

26:49

we wanted to assure our

26:52

central European allies that American

26:54

protection extended to the Middle East and that if

26:56

they were attacked by Iran, we had their back. Whereas Russia

26:59

went, well, that's clearly bullshit. This

27:01

is just an excuse to try to encircle us. One

27:04

million percent. Okay, great. Absolutely.

27:07

Okay, great. So the communication is it's

27:09

not just the ability to talk, it's the ability to

27:11

understand what's happening and

27:14

to accurately assess the situation

27:16

and communicate it. Correct. So

27:18

when we talk about communication, it's context.

27:21

So like a great example, you go back to, let

27:23

me think of another one today, if

27:25

I can, for a second. So like a great

27:27

example, deterrence is a, when we

27:30

talk about the communication game, it's a dance. You

27:32

know how like two bees do the meeee and

27:34

they like

27:35

poke each other and then they have babies. I

27:38

think that's how they do it, right? That's how bees work. That's

27:40

how it was explained to me in Oklahoma public schools was bees

27:43

pierce each other with stickers and that's why you got to be married,

27:45

kids. And there's a stork.

27:47

Exactly. There's a stork that randomly shows up. I don't

27:49

know how he got here. And he's in the corner watching

27:52

all of this. That's not even creepier. Well, but it's a,

27:54

so like a green table, it's a dance. So like a green,

27:56

we do one thing, they do one thing and it's

27:59

kind of this game. escalation, de-escalation,

28:01

back and forth, because again you're trying to feel each other

28:04

out. So

28:05

for example,

28:07

pretty much you will always see the ABC

28:09

News stories talking about American planes

28:11

respond to Russian bombers who are flying

28:14

patrols in the Pacific.

28:15

Okay that's standard, you know how long we've been doing that?

28:18

Since 19, what 49,

28:20

450? Anytime the Russians come out to play we go

28:23

out and respond

28:24

and we call those engagements and it's

28:26

an intercept, they go up and they fly and they talk

28:28

to each other etc. The question becomes

28:30

is with the analysts and everyone, you know the

28:32

people, big head people, come back and go hmm

28:35

what were they trying to do with that?

28:37

And usually with the events what they're

28:39

trying to do is communicate their credibility.

28:43

At the end of the day look what we can do.

28:45

So when you see those things that's what you should be asking

28:47

yourself is what do they try to communicate

28:50

to us? So for example if Ukraine

28:53

is suddenly struck

28:54

with a bunch of missiles

28:56

and they hit a specific town

28:58

the question you should ask yourself is was there

29:00

a something in the town they wanted?

29:02

Was it a Ukrainian holiday or was

29:05

it something that they were trying to deliver

29:08

on? Because again

29:10

we say when it comes to the political

29:14

solutions we use effects,

29:17

E-F-F-E-C-T-S to

29:20

drive the political solution. So weapons

29:23

cause effects and the effects

29:25

drive the political solutions.

29:27

So for example

29:29

if I have a nuclear weapon

29:31

I can do one of many things. I

29:34

can let's say your house your house

29:36

there in Austin okay I'm

29:38

driving along with my food case nuke I can

29:40

do one of

29:41

five things.

29:42

Number one I can detonate

29:45

that nuclear weapon

29:46

so that you know what maybe I just want

29:48

to get rid of Anders power to his house so

29:50

that you know maybe I want to put

29:52

on your smoking

29:53

jacket and pretend to be you for a day right? That's

29:56

what I general wants to do. Okay

29:58

we can do that

29:59

or

29:59

Or we can go to the complete opposite of

30:02

the spectrum and lay waste to it. I

30:04

can make a huge pothole and

30:06

then it's going to be you popping out of the top,

30:08

et cetera, and that's it, right? We do

30:11

not think of weapons and nuclear weapons

30:13

in those, like everyone always thinks nuclear

30:15

weapon, boom, that's what you're trying to do. Absolutely

30:18

not. You said earlier in our conversation that we use them every

30:20

day, and I wanted to follow up on that. I

30:23

get the impression that what you're talking about is, like

30:25

if we're playing a chess game, maybe

30:27

I move the rook over here because I want to

30:29

have a clear line of sight over into my

30:32

opponent's space, their stronghold,

30:34

right? And I want to keep that open. I'm not necessarily

30:36

using the rook to take another piece out.

30:39

It's not engaged in combat, but

30:41

I'm putting it there because I want to set the stage

30:44

strategically to benefit me. And I do the same thing

30:46

with my knight. The knight is here. He can be potentially

30:48

offensive. He can be here defensive. I'm not using

30:50

him to engage. I'm just using him to set

30:53

the stage. So we use nuclear weapons in the same way

30:55

of, obviously, we have not detonated

30:58

them in a combat capacity since Hiroshima

31:01

and Nagasaki, but by putting

31:03

them in nuclear submarines or putting them in

31:05

the Black Sea and so on and so forth, they

31:08

are being used actively for foreign policy

31:10

purposes every day and have been since their instigation. Exactly.

31:13

So, like a great example, you could say

31:15

that Crimson Tide, the movie Crimson

31:18

Tide was a great movie

31:20

that at the end of the day, you call propaganda,

31:22

you call whatever you want, but like it does very

31:24

good at showing communication. It communicates

31:27

why because of an American movie in the

31:30

90s talking about nuclear weapons.

31:32

And yeah, at the end of the day, those how

31:35

we, I always like to think

31:37

of like people who work in think tanks that

31:39

talk about this stuff. At the end of the day,

31:42

what they do is just as important because

31:44

at the end of the day, by them writing those papers saying

31:47

here are some options that we can do, that

31:49

is playing the deterrence game.

31:51

Because it is the day you want to make sure that you're

31:53

ahead of your competitor and you want to make

31:56

sure that you are on the front foot.

31:58

The second you're on the rear foot. Now, you

32:00

have to react to that person.

32:02

You're the one that has to respond. You're

32:05

the one that has to be 100% accurate

32:07

on that communication versus the one

32:09

that can just throw out. It's kind of like negotiation,

32:12

like contracts or whatever. So this brings

32:14

me back to my first question that we kicked off on

32:16

of I like

32:18

the idea of there being a minimal threshold of

32:21

deterrence. So let's scale this down.

32:23

We have two cities that border

32:25

each other and they're

32:27

at threat of going to war, which would be very destructive

32:30

if they went to war. Lots of people would die, lots

32:32

of collateral damage would ruin the economy. All

32:34

the reasons you don't want to go to war. And

32:36

so what they come up with is we're

32:38

going to just point rockets at each other. And

32:41

if we go to war, we're going to blow each other

32:43

up with rockets and everyone in both

32:45

cities will die. Everybody dies. So

32:48

your options are kind of binary. Either we don't go to war

32:51

or everybody dies.

32:53

And what I'm thinking is that works great until it

32:55

doesn't. It works great

32:57

until it doesn't because if something

32:59

goes wrong, where a

33:01

flock of geese wanders through and they're mistaken

33:03

as a biplane or something and someone pulls

33:05

the trigger now everybody dies also.

33:08

So what I'm thinking is how about they have

33:10

three rockets, one at the mayor's house, one

33:12

at the sewage treatment facility plant,

33:15

and one at the power station. And

33:17

the deterrence still works because I don't

33:19

want to die if I'm the mayor and I certainly

33:22

don't want to have no power and sewage. So

33:24

I still don't want to go to war with them. But in the event

33:27

that there is an accident and we do go to war

33:29

with our three rockets, most

33:31

of the population still lives. It sucks,

33:33

but they can still live. So what I'm thinking is

33:35

with nuclear weapons, I would

33:37

scale, like for starters, I would

33:40

scale down to 10% of our current nuclear arsenal.

33:42

I would go to Russia and be like, hey, how about we

33:44

get rid of 90% of our weapons, we fire

33:46

them at the sun just to see what happens, or

33:49

fire them at the moon or something. But

33:51

we're down to 10%, 10% would still

33:53

be enough to make me really think about going

33:55

to war with Russia. I don't remember

33:57

off the top of my head how many nukes there are, you probably do. I want

33:59

to say it's like... 3000 or something like that that

34:01

we've got? Good question.

34:04

Okay.

34:05

Let's, I don't remember, I believe

34:07

it's like 3000, right? Let's say

34:09

we now go from 3000 to 300. 300 nuclear

34:13

weapons is more than enough to deter

34:15

me from invading any other country. You think about like 300

34:18

American cities getting targeted by nuclear weapons,

34:20

that would absolutely cripple the economy. Absolutely 100%

34:23

that would put us back 200 years

34:26

if that happened, right? So like, let's

34:28

go to like 5%. 150 nuclear

34:30

weapons is still more than enough

34:32

to stop me from wanting to invade another country. And

34:35

if we have 150 nuclear weapons pointed at Russia,

34:38

I think that they feel pretty confident about the same

34:40

thing. So I would

34:42

scale down our nuclear arsenal by 90, 95%.

34:46

And I think that the deterrent would still be there. But

34:48

if in a complex system, something goes wrong,

34:51

which tends to happen with complex systems, if

34:53

and when that happens, it doesn't mean doom for

34:55

civilization. Yeah. So let's

34:57

start, what you're really getting into is like the policy

34:59

discussion. So like, as you're describing

35:01

in the 1950s, Eisenhower administration

35:04

came out with the concept of mutually assured

35:06

destruction. Actually, take it back, I think it was Kennedy administration.

35:09

And the idea when everything first started. Yeah,

35:12

Eisenhower for the record, there's this fascinating

35:15

period in, I'm sure you've read about

35:17

this more than me, but there's this fascinating period of nuclear

35:19

weapons theory where it's

35:21

basically being designed by World War One

35:23

veterans. Because you think about the dudes who were running World War

35:25

Two are all World War One veterans. And

35:28

so the people immediately running the Cold War are also

35:30

all World War One veterans or their World

35:32

War Two generals who fought in World War

35:35

One. And so Eisenhower,

35:38

when they're explaining it to Truman, how nukes

35:40

work, he's like, okay, just be very clear

35:42

in this. It doesn't come down as a gas.

35:44

And they're like, no, it's a horrible

35:47

radiation. It's an incredibly

35:49

destructive bomb. And he's like, so it's a really big bomb

35:52

and it melts stuff, but there's no gas. And they're like,

35:54

there's no gas, Mr. President. He's like, great,

35:56

do it, go for it. And they get into Eisenhower

35:59

and Eisenhower's. Eisenhower is

36:01

like, well, here's what we'll do. We'll have a

36:03

trench brigade at the front of every army and they'll dig

36:05

a trench. And then we'll have guys with shoulder

36:08

launched, tiny battlefield nuclear

36:10

missiles that will fire from there and then everybody

36:12

will get in the trench and then they'll

36:14

fire back and that'll- Andrew, do you know what

36:17

those were called? No. What were

36:19

they called? What you're describing, by the way, is what the army had in the

36:21

sixties. They designed it the fifties and they filled it

36:23

in the sixties. It was called the Davy Crockett.

36:25

Jesus. It was the Mark 54 and

36:27

the Mark 54. What a cute name for a

36:30

nuclear rocket launcher. Shoulder

36:32

nuclear rocket launcher.

36:33

I kid you, no, no, no, it wasn't even a shoulder.

36:35

This is what's even good. I got my iPad in front of you.

36:38

It was no kidding twice as high as an iPad.

36:41

And I think if you do a search, you can find some really good

36:43

information on it. It's all, you know, it's out there in the public.

36:46

There's actually one you can go to a museum

36:48

in Albuquerque and see the shape, like

36:50

the outline of it.

36:51

So it's about yea big, two iPads.

36:54

And what it did is it sat on this,

36:56

what they called a recoilless rifle. And

36:58

they would put it on the rifle and there was

37:01

a piston that would push. Like

37:03

a potato gun. Yeah, it's a potato gun. For a

37:05

nuclear missile. And you're not huffing the hairspray

37:07

while you're in here. And then what happens

37:09

is, again, like anything army, it

37:12

makes complete sense. When the

37:14

warhead would actually yield, the guys

37:16

who shot it were actually inside the death

37:18

ring.

37:19

So it was a one way mission, baby.

37:22

But I think I cut you off. I apologize. I'll

37:24

let you. I just wanted to point that off.

37:27

There were these, like, there was a period

37:29

of time where nuclear weapons were presumed to be

37:31

just a very big bang. And they

37:33

were going to be the next phase

37:36

of American military technology that we regularly

37:38

be using on the battlefield as we now use planes.

37:41

And that stopped. And we started developing instead

37:43

mutually assured destruction theory under Eisenhower or

37:45

Kennedy or whatever that happened, which brings us back to

37:47

your point. Yeah.

37:49

You make I get very excited

37:51

about this stuff because I find it so fascinating.

37:53

Like, but what you're describing

37:55

is when we first started, you took

37:57

all these generals. I'm glad you got this up.

37:59

The generals like LeMay who

38:02

firebomb Dresden and firebomb Tokyo,

38:05

they came back and said, well, this is what we'll do with

38:07

nuclear weapons, right? Yeah, it's a bigger thing.

38:10

So they started doing that. Well, what's funny,

38:12

what happens is because of what's going on in

38:14

Europe, Eisenhower comes out and tells

38:17

as president, tells the Defense Department,

38:19

hey, you know what? I'm

38:20

sorry, guys, we're post-war. We're not going to spend

38:22

this money like crazy, you know, typical, you know,

38:25

putting his money in envelopes and the, you know, candy and

38:27

pitching kind of thing.

38:28

And Eisenhower says, hey, you know what we're going to do?

38:30

My policy is going to be we're going to create

38:32

so many goddamn nukes. We're going to put so

38:34

many in Europe. The second the Russians come

38:37

through the past, I can't remember the name

38:39

of it all of a sudden, when they come through, we'll

38:42

open up hell's fire.

38:43

We don't need a hundred

38:45

divisions of troops. All we need

38:47

is 82 divisions, more than that actually, and

38:49

a few nukes. So

38:51

that was the original line. By the way,

38:53

this is what Russia- Wait, so it was mostly just fiscal

38:56

conservatism? It was just

38:58

like, how do we save money on guns?

39:00

I know nukes.

39:01

Absolutely, a million percent.

39:04

So that's what we did. We came back and said, well,

39:06

if we put more nukes, then we'll keep building more

39:08

and building more. Why? Because

39:10

we wanted to not only ensure we hit the first target,

39:12

we wanted to ensure if someone hit our target, we

39:14

could reply with a second and third strike,

39:17

or strike, fifth strike.

39:18

So you get this concept going, right?

39:21

And it worked. And by the way, this is what the Russians

39:23

have been doing to us for the last 20 years,

39:27

meaning that they hook line in secret. They can't

39:29

beat the US military

39:30

in a conventional conflict. So

39:33

what have they done? They've gone and said in the last 15

39:36

years, they have modernized a lot of their

39:38

rockets, they've modernized a lot of their

39:41

nuclear assets, et cetera, to the

39:43

point where they're doubling down on

39:45

that secure investment. Now they've

39:47

got a better shield. That makes a lot of sense. You

39:50

think about Russia is a smaller economy

39:52

than Italy. It is a decrepit narco

39:54

state. There's no way if

39:57

nuclear weapons didn't exist, if they'd

39:59

never been invented. Russia would be

40:01

absolutely screwed if there were any conflict with the United

40:03

States. Russia, historically, their

40:06

great strategy has been just throw corpses

40:08

at it. The one thing Russia always has is a bunch

40:10

of people that they could put into a meat grinder, and

40:12

that's always been what their backup

40:15

strategy has been is just attrition. And

40:18

if they're going to go head to head in terms of

40:20

military industrial capacity, the United States would trounse

40:22

them. The American military budget is half

40:24

of the planet. It's 49% of

40:27

the global defense budget. Granted, that includes

40:29

veterans and tricare and stuff like that, but it's really,

40:31

really big, right? Whereas they don't have

40:33

that. However, they do have more nukes than us, not by a whole

40:35

lot, but they've got more nukes than us.

40:38

They've got, again, I'm going off the top

40:40

of my head. It's either 3,000 or 30,000. I don't

40:42

remember, but it's a lot. And so they don't

40:44

really need to have those troops there. They

40:46

could have an army small enough to

40:48

just maintain those nukes and defend

40:50

the bases, and I wouldn't invade them. A

40:53

firm, and that is literally their strategy, because

40:55

that's a lot of us loop nerds are asking now is,

40:58

where's going to be that Korean War moment

41:00

where, for example, in Korea, Americans

41:03

got pushed back to the bottom of the peninsula, and

41:05

then you had MacArthur out there. When they

41:07

started

41:08

pushing back, the Chinese invaded. What

41:10

did MacArthur do? He came out and said, give me a few tactical

41:12

nukes. We'll take care of all of this. And that's when

41:14

Sherman fired him, everything, et cetera.

41:16

But what all this drives to is that, and again,

41:18

I know we're digressing, I apologize,

41:20

is mutually sure destruction. That's

41:22

really where it starts. And from mutually

41:25

assured destruction, the idea of this, I always

41:27

like to tell young people this example when I describe

41:30

deterrence. All right, Andrew, I see

41:32

you out on the street of Austin. I'm about

41:34

six foot tall. Yeah, I think you're taller than me. And I come

41:36

at you with a knife, and I say,

41:38

hey, you, give me your wallet.

41:40

What are you going to do? Eep.

41:42

And then I'm going to throw the wallet down and run

41:44

away, I think. Something like that.

41:47

All right. Hey, hey, fella. Hey, fella.

41:49

Listen, we hugged this out.

41:51

I just, I don't see any reason we got to do that.

41:53

Well, here's what we're going to do. I'm going

41:55

to give, I got $40. I'm going to give you

41:57

these $40. Can I please keep my credit cards

41:59

as such? Jeff Hassell if I if I have to

42:01

change all the credit cards, you know how it is, right?

42:05

But I'm probably gonna give you the money's the short answer if I

42:07

don't have any other weapons there Absolutely, right.

42:09

I had a guy I asked that to one time He literally

42:11

looked at me a straight face and said sir I'd probably

42:13

turn around and run the other way and I go I think you're

42:15

defeating the purpose here Yeah, but

42:17

you're exactly right You if you have a weapon

42:19

you are gonna create this the standoff at the

42:21

end of the day

42:22

the idea being that I'm going To create

42:24

an environment where I can stand off

42:27

Now with this standoff that the idea

42:29

being that when you think of mutually sure Destruction

42:31

the idea is you either want to do one or two things You

42:34

always want to as I

42:36

think it was a Sean Connery said if

42:38

they bring a knife to

42:39

fight you bring a gun

42:41

Wait, hold on. Can you please do it with the accent

42:43

if you're gonna do your coach Sean Connery? Can you

42:45

please do Sean Connery?

42:47

Okay, this is where my friends and my family

42:48

tell me I'm not allowed to do accidents because they

42:50

all end up like I'm Jamaican I don't know

42:52

how that works Yeah, I I do

42:55

that Mike whenever I try to do it a German

42:57

accent it ends up sounding Indian My

43:00

son's Chinese. I don't know how but it's

43:02

absolutely so yeah, what's what's what's

43:05

if you if you're going to a knife fight Bring a gun

43:07

or don't bring it. What what's the get quote? Yeah, I think in

43:09

the movie It's in the Intouchables he goes uh, he

43:11

told Kevin Costner He's just like, you know if

43:14

they bring a knife to a knife fight you bring a gun

43:16

the idea of like that There's a knife to a knife

43:18

fight you bring a gun If

43:21

they bring a knife, I don't know what my white

43:23

the trick with Sean Connery is he put

43:26

he's got a speech impediment That's the trick doing no one

43:28

ever says this but I've lived in Scotland that he doesn't

43:30

hat like he is a Scottish accent Plus a speech

43:32

impediment and S's or shuz so

43:35

like oh, this is this is the prototypical

43:37

of the Scots and say I apologize for parents Listening here,

43:39

but like instead of sit on my you know what? No,

43:42

that's I'm not gonna do that one But you'd

43:44

like I I'm going to go shoot

43:46

down on the couch I'll shit on the couch like

43:48

that's that's oh my god. Yes, you're gonna have

43:50

a gun in a knife fight to bring it back

43:53

Yeah, exactly when it comes to mutually disturbed

43:55

destruction what you're doing is you're creating.

43:57

I will say you're creating

43:59

a false

44:00

vacuum and

44:02

an environment that hates a vacuum.

44:04

Because if you stop and think about

44:06

nature and think about international relations,

44:08

things want to move by definition.

44:10

There's no inertia. We

44:13

always want to. There's always momentum.

44:15

And the second you place that idea

44:17

of this,

44:18

you know, two trenches and the idea of pointing

44:21

missiles at each other, the idea quickly becomes

44:23

is

44:23

I'm going to get a better weapon than you.

44:26

And not only am I going to beat your

44:28

defenses, I'm going to find a

44:31

way to get through those defenses and

44:33

I'm going to defeat you to the ground. So

44:36

what happens with mutually assured destruction, it's

44:38

always there. That concept is always there. But

44:40

what you start seeing in the 60s and the 70s, 80s, 90s, 2000s, etc., is

44:44

you'll see a word that comes up in discussions

44:47

like NATO nuclear policy. You can go find

44:49

this stuff. It's right out there. They use a

44:51

word like tailored.

44:53

The idea being that how do we

44:55

finesse

44:56

our nuclear deterrent

44:58

to get more pinpointed results?

45:01

Back in the day when the idea

45:03

of being like, hey, Andrew, I'm going to come at you not

45:05

only going to kill you, I'm going to kill your family, kill everyone,

45:07

etc., right? The idea being now, well,

45:09

maybe we don't need to use nukes like that. Maybe

45:12

is there a way I could somehow shoot

45:14

Andrew and his wallet would fall out? And

45:17

then that we got that liberal frame. This is one

45:19

of the things I learned over the course of researching nuclear wars,

45:21

that there's two strategies that the terms elude

45:23

me at the moment. But strategy one

45:25

is just I am going to cripple your country

45:28

economically because I'm going to blow up all of your cities.

45:30

You're not going to be able to prosecute the war effort. Once

45:33

we're out of nuclear weapons, we're still at war with each

45:35

other for some bizarre reason. You are not going

45:37

to be able to prosecute the war effort because I've blown up all your

45:39

factories. So that's option one. Option

45:42

two is I am going to target

45:44

all of your military bases. I don't really care. I

45:46

actually I would prefer to not kill civilians

45:49

if I can, but I'm going to target your military

45:51

bases and I'm going to ruin your military capacity to

45:53

go after me. Option two of

45:56

strategic surgical strikes with

45:58

nuclear weapons where I am targeting. I

46:01

know that Tinker Air Force Base is where you

46:03

do all of the repairs on your jets. I

46:05

know that this location over here is the main

46:07

coaxial cable hub for the internet in your

46:09

country. And if I knock that out, your internet's going to be down

46:11

for half the country, right? I'm doing this very specific,

46:14

precise stuff that's much more expensive because

46:16

you have to have higher calibration. You have to have

46:18

more sophisticated instruments. You have to have better

46:20

training of the people running it. So you could go

46:22

either one. You could either just spray it and go,

46:24

we're going to hit Cincinnati. We don't really

46:27

know where. It's going to be somewhere in Cincinnati

46:29

within five to 10 miles. I guarantee

46:31

you, if a new kit's five miles

46:33

away from Cincinnati, we're going to think about it. Even

46:36

if it doesn't hit the particular factory we were targeting. That's

46:38

if we go with option one, knock out the industrial

46:40

capacity. Option two, we're trying to hit Cincinnati's

46:43

very strategically viable tank

46:46

repair shop or whatever. Chido's gone with

46:48

option one, or excuse me, option two. Chido's

46:50

nuclear stockpile is like 500 nuclear

46:53

weapons. Pardon me. Sorry. I'm

46:55

going to have to sing to ambulances. Is

46:58

that his Sean Connery impersonation?

47:02

Oh my God.

47:05

That is

47:11

impressive

47:12

right there. Okay

47:14

you good bud? I

47:17

mean, I'm just.

47:22

When we

47:22

go, hey buddy,

47:26

it's okay. I

47:27

think he has an opinion on mutually assured

47:29

destruction. He does. He does.

47:32

He's completely anti-duke. Or actually

47:35

maybe he's waiting for zoning restrictions on

47:37

targeting. I don't know. That may be. That's

47:39

the one thing we agree on. And Wallace and

47:42

I go camping. Because

47:44

he, whenever an ambulance goes by, he does that.

47:46

And I'll usually join him. But we go camping and

47:49

there are coyotes and they're howling. I'll start

47:51

howling and he'll put a paw on my knee

47:53

to be like, the fuck are you doing? Stop. Do

47:55

you not understand that they'll come rip us apart? I'm always very

47:58

curious as to what he thinks the ambulances are. Anyway,

48:00

it's deterrence. He's applying deterrence.

48:02

That's the reason he goes with it. It is deterrence. Okay, so

48:04

with China, China's got like, it's

48:06

either 400 or 500 nuclear weapons. And

48:09

they're not particularly sophisticated. They're

48:12

not relying on the surgical strike. They're

48:14

not relying on the, we're going to target

48:16

Annapolis because dot, we're going to target, you

48:19

know, we know that long-stained

48:21

Missouri is where all of the

48:23

widgets that go into stealth bombers, they're not

48:25

doing that. They've got 500 of them. And

48:28

they're like, look, if we ever get in a fight, we're just going

48:30

to point them at your biggest cities and it'll hit

48:32

somewhere in the city and it'll kill a bunch of people. It'll

48:34

knock out your industrial capacity. We don't really know

48:36

if it's going to be the east side or the west side of town,

48:38

but you're going to feel it. And that's more

48:41

than sufficient for me not to ever want to go to war with them.

48:43

They got 500 new. They can just kind of spray

48:45

at us like a sprinkler. They don't even have to be particularly

48:47

well calibrated. And that's what I want. I

48:50

want the heat and sprinkler nuclear

48:52

deterrent. I just want a sprinkler system of 500

48:54

nuclear weapons. That's more than enough. And

48:57

I think it would work. So back to my policy position,

48:59

is there anything wrong with this? Is there any reason that

49:02

losing 95% of our nuclear stockpile

49:04

would be deleterious?

49:06

Well, two things. First, is

49:08

Snuffy's going to sponsor that? And

49:10

then it's not.

49:12

I used to say- What I can

49:14

say, and I can't reveal all of this because I've

49:16

been sworn to secrecy on certain things, but Snuffy's

49:20

took the year 2000, you know, remember the Y2K thing?

49:23

They took that very seriously. Snuffy's

49:26

took Y2K very seriously. And I'm aware

49:28

that there is a strategic Snuffy's reserve

49:31

of various food staples that

49:33

were stockpiled massively

49:35

in the year 1999 and

49:38

are still available. So Snuffy's

49:40

definitely has a, it

49:42

not only has a lot of reserves for

49:45

the event of nuclear war, it actually

49:47

has a chain of command in place in the

49:49

intensity, the odor of

49:51

Snuffy's or the head waitress is knocked out. So

49:53

they'll be fine. They'll be fine if

49:55

anybody is. Yeah. That's what we call survivability.

49:58

Can you survive?

49:59

So when

50:00

you actually make up, I was just in here writing down

50:02

some notes and I want to scroll back out and

50:05

what I want to do is I want to put your policy actually

50:08

in and I'll say the trends. Where are we going

50:10

as a trend?

50:11

And exactly right. We went from mutually assured destruction

50:14

to the two terms. The two terms are counter

50:16

value and counter force. That's

50:19

it counter value, counter force. Thank you. Yep.

50:22

A counter value is the idea of I'm going to take out your economic

50:24

structure, your, and this has to be nuclear

50:26

weapons by the way.

50:27

Another one of the trends is that we

50:30

stopped looking at nuclear weapons per se as

50:32

this god weapon and we started

50:34

looking at it as like, hmm, can we tailor

50:36

this a little bit better? So

50:39

instead of a 15 megaton explosion, can

50:41

I get like a smaller megaton explosion and

50:43

get something? That's what countries are doing, right? And

50:45

it's part of that trend. So counter value. And

50:48

the second one is counter force. The

50:50

idea of like, well, if I take out their offense,

50:52

they can't do anything to me. That is

50:54

kind of the idea of, dare I say, the

50:56

Bush administration's preemptive

50:59

strike. That's what we call it. That's

51:01

right. That was the term we used in politics. So you have

51:03

those two things, counter value, counter force. Now

51:06

the idea, when you start looking at

51:08

targeting, we talked about the god complex or the god

51:11

tool.

51:12

The next thing you have to ask yourself is ask

51:14

yourself a simple question,

51:15

Andrew, is

51:16

using nuclear

51:17

weapons a war crime? I

51:20

think it's an immaterial question for this reason.

51:23

If I am the president and I am the

51:25

one that launches nuclear weapons, there is

51:27

going to be no international war

51:29

tribunal that is convened in the wake of a nuclear

51:32

war. There's going to be no war

51:34

criminal prosecution to come after me. It's

51:38

just a question of how many people are dead. The idea

51:40

that there's some sort of ethical legal

51:42

distinction that's going to have any salience after

51:44

a nuclear war is law. I mean, it's going to be a bunch of cannibals

51:47

running around poking each other with sticks. I'll presumably

51:49

be dead or I'll be stupid. My three

51:51

wives in a bunker. One of those two scenarios. In

51:53

fact, no, you will be living a road life there

51:56

in Texas.

51:56

Why I ask that question is because it actually

51:59

impacts the-

51:59

discussion of counter value, counter force,

52:02

and political norms. So let's

52:04

look at for a second, let's scroll out, and let's

52:06

think of Ukraine for a second. I'm

52:09

Russia and I'm backed into a corner.

52:11

Do I take a nuclear weapon? Do

52:14

I

52:14

lob it into Ukraine?

52:16

Do I lob it at Ukrainian soldiers

52:18

that happen to come into Russia?

52:20

Or do I lob that warhead into the middle

52:23

of the Black Sea? Meaning

52:26

that sometimes maybe I just

52:28

need to use a nuclear weapon to make a

52:30

point. Andrew, you

52:32

better not come on, man. Because if you come

52:34

at me, I'm going to stab you with this knife. And

52:37

a lot of people today are now, what's

52:39

changed a lot, especially in the last 30 years, since

52:42

the end of the Cold War, it's just the discussion

52:44

of using nuclear weapons passes

52:47

what we call the threshold line.

52:49

Meaning that it's clearly

52:52

now we pass into that red space of

52:54

the Newtonian physics are gone. But

52:57

as I just said, is it a war crime? Because

52:59

at the end of the day, that's what a lot of

53:01

people come back to is like, but by

53:03

using nuclear weapons, testing

53:06

nuclear weapons,

53:07

we've all kind of agreed not to test them

53:09

right now. But then if we do demonstration

53:12

shots is what they call them.

53:13

Some people argue now that that is

53:16

the need for a nuclear

53:18

response. So for

53:20

example, if you go back to Gulf War One,

53:23

Desert Storm, I think I was a whopping 12 years

53:25

old. And when I was watching

53:27

Storm and Norman do his thing, what

53:29

happened in the background no one ever talks about

53:32

is,

53:32

is the lead up to Desert Storm, if you remember,

53:34

Secretary of State James Baker

53:37

went to send message traffic

53:39

to Iraq that distinctly

53:41

said that if you use chemical

53:43

weapons, we will respond

53:45

with nuclear weapons. Right?

53:48

That wasn't a nuclear threshold, but we said we would

53:50

use nukes to respond appropriately.

53:53

As part of that, that's what you also see

53:55

now is this idea of all weapons

53:57

of mass destruction are kind of the same. Meaning

54:00

that what was really interesting about the Obama

54:02

thing in 2014, 2013 in Syria, you know,

54:05

remember they were using boring

54:06

gas, I remember, or

54:07

some other things. That was kind of a red

54:09

line. The community was saying, whoa, back up here.

54:11

I think we all agreed we weren't going to do this. And

54:14

kind of one of the scarier side effects of all of

54:16

that is people were starting to discuss again

54:18

about nuclear weapons, about, hey,

54:21

why are we tolerating this?

54:23

Because again, we use those nuclear weapons

54:26

to push the narrative back. So

54:28

if you ever see like the discussion piece

54:31

over here in Europe,

54:32

kind of the thing they talk about over and over again

54:35

is

54:35

what if Russia responds

54:38

to

54:38

action by simply detonating

54:40

a bomb? That is now the question.

54:43

Yeah, they do it in the Black Sea or they do it in Siberia

54:45

or something where they do it like off

54:47

the edge of Vladivostok. Correct. But

54:51

it's visible and they're just saying, remember,

54:53

we've got this flare gun. Correct.

54:56

And it's more

54:57

not necessarily inside their borders, but

54:59

once it's outside their borders, even

55:02

in international water, the idea

55:04

now becomes what norm

55:06

have we broken? Because we've all agreed

55:08

since 1945, we've slowly been pushing down this, we'll call

55:13

it the gap, will allow nuclear weapons

55:15

to use. And eventually you'll see it's kind

55:17

of getting smaller and smaller and smaller.

55:20

Now we're starting to, you have certain

55:22

people and thinkers out there now saying,

55:24

yeah, it's a war crime to use these things. And

55:27

you sit back and go, whoa, okay, that's interesting.

55:29

The world's not all there yet.

55:31

I mean, you have right now the anti-nuclear

55:33

tree, I can't think of it all of a sudden, that

55:36

says zero, going to zero. Nuclear

55:38

zero.

55:39

It's never going to happen. Because at the

55:41

end of the day, just like you said, well, all

55:43

I have to do is just like you said with Afghanistan,

55:45

if I just wait, wait three years

55:47

and I'm going to leave, it's the same

55:49

concept.

55:50

It's nice an idea, but

55:52

I don't see the political, sorry,

55:54

I don't see the policy reality. Yeah,

55:57

if there were a button we could push that would eliminate

55:59

nuclear weapons. I'd push it. Oh, absolutely. If

56:02

there were ... I think the stakes are so, so high. This

56:04

was the idea that Reagan had with SDI

56:07

was we're

56:09

all staring down the barrel of a gun and

56:11

his idea was we're going to build space

56:14

stations that can shoot down nukes with laser

56:17

beams. And that was the idea. It turned out

56:19

to not be technically possible at

56:21

all, but that was the thought process. And his next

56:23

thought process was we will then share that technology with

56:25

the Russians, that this is not something that America will use

56:28

in order to gain technological supremacy

56:30

in the nuclear field, but rather this is something

56:32

that we

56:34

will release the IP on this in order

56:36

to neutralize nuclear weapons. That turns out really

56:39

bad idea in practice because the

56:41

way you get around SDI is you just create

56:43

more nukes. So that if

56:46

we're able to shoot down one or two with a laser,

56:48

which is, by the way, very difficult because

56:51

it's the same thing as saying you're going to shoot down a bullet

56:53

with a laser. It's the exact same thing.

56:55

They're going the same speed. So the idea that you're

56:57

going to be able to pinpoint a bullet from space

56:59

and then shoot it with a laser, really, really

57:02

unlikely you're going to do that to begin with. But

57:04

let's say you knock out one or two. The

57:06

way you get around that is either produce a

57:08

bunch of fake nukes and you release them at the same time,

57:10

or you just produce a lot of nukes. And so rather than

57:12

sending over five, we send over 300 knowing

57:15

that if you knock out 25%, that's

57:17

fine. And so it ended up not working. But that

57:19

was the original idea. If it did work,

57:21

I'd be very much in favor of it. There doesn't

57:24

seem to be any magical button we can push. So

57:26

I don't think we're going to get to the point where countries

57:29

will ever completely divis the cells of nukes. But

57:31

this brings me back to my original central premise, which is

57:33

I don't think we should get rid of all nukes. I

57:35

think we should just reduce the stockpile to the

57:37

minimum level necessary to maintain deterrence,

57:40

but not beyond that for fear that

57:42

if there ever is a nuclear war, it would be completely

57:45

mutually assured destruction. So if

57:48

I'm the president and I go, hey, Travis

57:51

Holloman, I'll just close job. I

57:54

think I'm going to reduce our nuclear stockpile by 95%. I'm

57:56

going to try and get the Russians to go along

57:59

with it.

59:59

France and for cheese and burgers

1:00:02

and our football team. Maybe

1:00:04

we help NATO, but you know, it

1:00:07

varies.

1:00:10

Exactly right. And when you think about that

1:00:12

versus the US deterrent,

1:00:14

and again, I'm speculating here at

1:00:17

the big piece, the US deterrent

1:00:19

is not necessarily, we like all of that question

1:00:22

marks,

1:00:22

those question marks, you know,

1:00:24

that chaos, as I described,

1:00:26

that more of that

1:00:27

nebulous kind of not

1:00:30

sure really what's going to happen. We like

1:00:32

that. If you

1:00:33

stop and think about it, why? Because you're creating,

1:00:35

what do they say in the submarine movies? They're always like,

1:00:38

we have the firing solution, sir. Translate

1:00:41

it, we're gonna blow them out of the water. In order

1:00:43

to get a firing solution, you have to have a check,

1:00:45

check, check, check, check. The second you don't

1:00:48

have those checks, you can't get a solution.

1:00:50

And then back again to the mad,

1:00:52

mutually assured disruption,

1:00:57

you don't

1:00:57

attack unless you have 120% that you

1:00:59

can win. The second you feel that you

1:01:03

can't win, it kind of pokes

1:01:05

a hole in the minimum deterrent. Minimum deterrent

1:01:07

is by definition, I would, and again, this is my two cents,

1:01:10

it by definition, I, it

1:01:12

is definitely more of a defensive

1:01:15

arrangement. Because but as

1:01:18

we describe,

1:01:19

kind of when you talk about deterrence, deterrence is

1:01:21

going to have both a defensive and an inherently

1:01:24

an offensive piece.

1:01:26

We just kind of

1:01:27

tabbed down on the offensive side for

1:01:30

political purposes. Okay,

1:01:32

so if we, if, And I feel like I haven't

1:01:34

answered any of your questions. So I'll go

1:01:36

ahead and end it there. But this has been a delightful conversation.

1:01:38

I feel like I've learned a lot. And I really appreciate

1:01:40

you reaching out. I'm grateful that

1:01:43

you took time out of your day to come on. Now,

1:01:45

Andrew, I've been a, I've been a fellow

1:01:47

patrons since post-blaze days,

1:01:49

I used to love you on the blaze.

1:01:51

Thank you. I think

1:01:52

I was one of the initial 100 patrons and Patreon

1:01:54

guys.

1:01:56

Nice. Okay. And to be honest,

1:01:58

I have loved your show. I recommend.

1:01:59

to so many people and to me,

1:02:02

giving you this two hours is not

1:02:05

only something I love,

1:02:06

but it just tells you how much I love

1:02:08

your concept of your show. Because I really

1:02:11

wish more people would do what you're

1:02:13

doing. So to me, this is an investment into what

1:02:15

you're doing. Thank you. Well, thank you for funding

1:02:17

my Decadent Lifestyle and for the very

1:02:19

kind words and for your time.

1:02:22

Travis Halibut, it's been a pleasure.

1:02:28

Great news, everyone. Travis

1:02:30

and I aren't done hanging out yet and talking

1:02:33

about nukes. He sticks around longer

1:02:35

for this week's bonus episode. If you want

1:02:37

to hear more from Travis about nuclear

1:02:40

deterrence, step up and become

1:02:42

a patron of the show. Go to patreon.com

1:02:45

slash Andrew Heaton. That's patreon.com

1:02:48

slash Andrew Heaton. Yeets. That's

1:02:51

the show. Thank you for listening. Thank

1:02:53

you, Travis Halibut, for coming on. Thank

1:02:55

you, Eric Stite, who edited today's episode.

1:02:58

And thank you, patrons of the show, who

1:03:00

pay for my bomb shelter. Until

1:03:03

next time, I've been Andrew Heaton, and

1:03:05

so have you.