Angry Planet - The Pentagon's Scary New Nuclear Plan

Episode Date: November 11, 2022

Today it’s all about the bomb. Nuclear weapons are back in a big way and everything about the Cold War suddenly feels very fresh. Nukes are strange things. They’ve only been used twice and the language and knowledge around them can often feel arcane, almost religious. There’s all these little rituals in nuclear space. We’re gonna talk about one of those rituals today—the Nuclear Posture Review. Once in every U.S. presidential administration, the nuclear curtain is withdrawn and we get a glimpse at what the Pentagon, and critically, the President is thinking. But what is the Nuclear Posture Review? Who writes it? And what does it have to do with the price of gas in an apocalyptic nuclear hellscape.Here to answer some of those questions for us today is Stephen Young. Young is the Senior Washington Representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists, the former Deputy Director of the Coalition to Reduce Nuclear Dangers, and consulted on this most recent review.The Nuclear Posture ReviewNuke Experts Are Horrified by Biden’s New ‘Nuclear Posture Review’Angry Planet has a substack! Join the Information War to get weekly insights into our angry planet and hear more conversations about a world in conflict.https://angryplanet.substack.com/subscribeYou can listen to Angry Planet on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play or follow our RSS directly. Our website is angryplanetpod.com. You can reach us on our Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/angryplanetpodcast/; and on Twitter: @angryplanetpod.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/warcollege. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Love this podcast. Support this show through the ACAST supporter feature. It's up to you how much you give, and there's no regular commitment. Just click the link in the show description to support now. People live in a world with their own making. Frankly, that seems to be the problem. Welcome to Angry Planet. Hello, and welcome to Angry Planet. I'm Matthew Galt. And I'm Jason Fields. Today, it's all about the bomb. Nuclear weapons are back in a big way, and everything about the Cold War suddenly feels very fresh. Nukes are strange. They've only been used twice, and the language and knowledge around them can often feel arcane, almost religious. There's all these little rituals in the nuclear space. Today we're going to talk about one of those rituals, the nuclear posture review.

Once in every presidential administration, the nuclear curtain is withdrawn, and we get a glimpse of what the Pentagon and critically the president is thinking. but what is the nuclear posture review? Who writes it and what does it have to do with the price of gas in an apocalyptic hellscape? Well, here with some answers to some of the questions is Stephen Young. Young is the senior Washington representative for the Union of Concerned Scientists. He is also the former deputy director of the coalition to reduce nuclear dangers. And he consulted on this most recent nuclear posture review. Sir, thank you so much for coming onto the show and walking us through some of this.

I'm happy to be here. So before we get to the NPR, which always messes me up when I say it aloud, because we're talking about the review and not the radio station. But before we get to the review, I'm glad we have you here today because there is some nuclear news, and it seems like it might be positive. Have you seen this, the Russia and the United States talking again under New Start? Can you tell us what's going on there? So Newstart, the last remaining treaty between the U.S. and Russia on nuclear weapons issues limits both countries to about 1,50 deployed nuclear weapons. Every other treaty between the two has been abandoned by the U.S. or cheated on by Russia

and leading to the U.S. abandoning it. But we do have this one three left. However, as a part of the Ukraine war, The U.S., well, because of COVID initially, the U.S. and Russia both stopped doing on-site inspections under the treaty, which are allowed an important part of verifying both conditions were abiding by it, and they both were and seemed to be still are. But those were jointly agreed to be on hold because of COVID. But recently, the U.S. announced they wanted to resume inspections because COVID is mostly in hiatus, more or less. and they decided now is the time to start doing on-site. As they say, boots on the ground in Russia, U.S. military boots on the ground in Russia

looking at Russian weapons systems. It's a very valuable part of the treaty. And Russia said, no, not so much, which is a problem. That's not how treaties are supposed to work. And so they have agreed now to meet, to discuss this and related issues in the treaty of how they can resolve the question of, will they return to unthinkable? inspections. So it's good news indeed. It needs to happen. It is, there's no reason it shouldn't happen. Russia is, of course, in a nightmare in so many ways because of their war in Ukraine,

but that shouldn't stop them from allowing U.S. troops on the ground because they can have Russian troops come here on the ground as well. So it's fair for you, fair for me. So it sounds like that is at least they're talking about that all getting back on track. It's kind of the broad headline, which is good. Indeed. Okay, well, let's switch to our main now we've gotten the news out of the way. What is the nuclear posture review? Excellent question. It is nominally every administration since President Clinton in 1994

has done a nuclear posture review that is that administration's examination of what will be their nuclear policies in terms of how many do we need? What are they for? Why do we have them? When would we use them? Who might use them against? Those are all things considered in nuclear posture review. A couple of them have been mandated by Congress,

but generally each administration has done it of its own volition. The last one done by Biden was of its own volition. They decided to do one because it wanted to affect the policy. They have always been led by the Pentagon. They have, in various states involved, Department of State and Energy and the White House in those processes. But the hours have been led by the Pentagon in a process that takes six months to 18 months, depending on how slow they take it. And they are generally to date totally a failure. they have again and again endorsed the current nuclear policy practice and posture.

There have been some changes for sure. They have led to reductions in the overall stockpile, which is very valuable. But they've led to almost no changes in why we have them, when we would use them, what they're for, or how we posture them. And that is, in my view, a problem. We shouldn't be still in the Cold War frame we were in when we got gotten this whole. mess. What does success mean if this is failure? So in my view, success would mean that we move away from this Cold War lockdown we're in. We still have weapons on hair trigger or prompt launch alert ready to be fired in minutes. There's no need for that. Russia's not going to do a surprise attack

out of the blue to try and destroy us. That would be suicide because we have subs at sea. They can't destroy. Yet we still maintain hundreds and hundreds of weapons on alert, ready to fire in two minutes. President's issues in order, boom, they're gone. Why? There's just no need for that at all. It's senseless risk. Similarly, we still have the president's sole authority. The president himself makes one phone call, and they're gone. Why? There's no need for that. And if you get the power to President Trump, who knows? I mean, it's just the risk is simply too great. in my view, should change it and say no. If you want to launch nukes, you need people to agree with you.

It's a good idea. And in fact, this has been a problem. And we know that under Nixon, when Nixon was drunk and bumbling and upset, the head of his Defense Department said, if he orders an issue in order, please call me first. They didn't, military didn't have to do that. But he asked, please call me first. Happened again with Trump after January 6th. General Millie told the military commanders, if Trump issues an order,

call me first. But again, it was his request. It's not the house system's supposed to work. So it's just, it's just a problem we should change. But these reviews have never done that. They've always endorsed the current system pretty much across the board. Can you take us back to the Clinton administration and tell us about how all this began and how it got co-opted, what we know anyway? Sure. So, 1993, Clinton came to office. The Cold War had ended. The Soviet Union was in collapse and had dissolved. And Russia was struggling to survive. But we knew that they were open to change. And so President Clinton, led by his security defense, Les Aspen, decided now was the time to look at these policies again in great detail. and consider major changes in all the questions I just talked about of why do we have them, what are they for, how many do we need?

Unfortunately, he actually passed away and his leadership in the project failed. Those who were implementing it felt that others in the Pentagon who were the traditional nuclear warriors. And the end document specifically decided, you know, we're all pretty good here. we'll have a hedge policy. We'll make some cuts in the size of the stockpile we have deployed, or we're going to keep the ones we're taking off hedge in reserve. Everything all stays the same.

So no change in how we posture them on how alert they are, who the targets are. We're going to just kick them off alert, we can keep them around just in case as a hedge policy. And that was the major change. And then before it was, oh, we'll just have a hedge, which was a cop out. but that's what the military felt comfortable with.

They like the status quo. So they chose to have a hedge. Is there any way, you've been in this space for decades, how do we push back against, because it's kind of this same story over and over again from my view, and please tell me if I'm wrong, I know you will, there's kind of this entrenched nuclear bureaucracy that's attached to the military that keeps perpetuating,

the status quo, the old Cold War status quo. We keep having these weapons, even though we don't necessarily need them. We certainly don't need, say, like ICBMs anymore. As you said, we've got the submarines, just kind of covers a lot of bases, right? How do we fight back against this? How do politicians fight back against this and when? Great question. And I think the answer is the answer I have right now that I'm trying to

make the case for is that the U.S. should conclude because of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the nuclear threats that Putin issued with that invasion, as well as the decision China has made to greatly increase its nuclear stockpile, which is basically done it for decades. China's been in the business for decades, but it has a very small arsenal up until recently. It is now decided, okay, small isn't good enough anymore. We need a much bigger arsenal. They'll still be smaller than the U.S. in Russian arsenals, but it'll increase significantly from roughly 300 to maybe 1,000 warheads according to the DoD. Nobody knows for sure. Versus how many Americans, how many does America and Russia have? We have 150 deployed another

2,000 or so in reserve. So three times where the Russia, the China might have if they do this full expansion. So we still have far more than China will have. But still, it's a troubling new sign. China has changed its decision on what it requires, particularly to returns purposes. In my view, in that world, it is now simply too risky. We cannot keep relying on a world in which nuclear threat is what is needed for stability and deterrence. The fact that Russia, even if Russia loses the war in Ukraine, they will retain the ability to do the same all over again. Start a conventional war. Issue nuclear threats and do what they want and we will be deterred by them.

It's not a world any of us should want to live in. And so my argument to the military is that the U.S. should conclude, we kind of agree. This threat is no longer in our interests. We have the commissional might required to keep us and our allies safe without nuclear weapons. And we should try to get into that world. It's a very hard case to make. a very hard case to make. It's easy to make the case for Russia. It's harder for China because China is not Russia. China has a massive economy and is building a massive military. But we will not

be able to solve any little problems without China going forward, climate change or anything else without working with China. And so my proposition is that we're better off in a world without nuclear weapons, then we are with one. That is, however, a heavy lift. The military is very wedded to these weapons. There also is the money factor, where we spend tens of billions of dollars every year on nuclear weapons. There's a lot of support in the whole DC blob of contractors,

government officials, politicians, and the like, who are arrested in the system as it is now. So that's the challenge I face right now every day if I actually don't know how can we change this. What's the tipping point for moving away from the system in the long run? For me right now, it is risk. The risk is higher than it's been. It's now too high.

We should move away. But it's not clear that will be enough to make the change we need to make in my view. Would we consider doing this alone? I mean, we're barely thinking of considering this in the first place. But how do you do it? How do you be first? So the proposal that's been made a number of times I think has some benefits is the U.S. wouldn't unilaterally disarm entirely, but just say cut 100 off the top.

We'll just, okay, we have, we're allowed by treaty to have 150 weapons deployed. We will certify. We only have 14 and 50 now. You can come and verify that. Come look. And invite China to come to look as well. China, Russia, come look and see. We have now fewer deployed.

If you do more, we'll do more. You can do this informally, but verify it formally. That system, I think, is one possibility of unilateral many steps. It's feasible. It's doable. It's verifiable, at least with Russia. I think it's worth thinking about. But no, there's no world, which is possible the U.S. is going to say, okay, we're getting rid of all of our nukes.

We don't need them at all. We're just going to drop them entirely. That's just not viable. But the idea of a step-by-step approach to me is at least worth considering. And also sometimes politicians are the problem, right? It's not always the military here. And this is one of the reasons we're talking today is because I wrote something about the nuclear posture review for Vice and I screwed something up. And you called me on it.

And I corrected the piece because the NPR at a surface level is not all bad. We're getting rid of the gravity bomb. we want to get rid of the sea-launched cruise missile, or at least the military does. Can you tell us what the gravity bomb is, why we're getting rid of it, and what is the sea-launched cruise missile? Do we need it? Who wants it? Who doesn't? All that stuff? Sure. So the gravity bomb in question is called the B-83. It is by far the largest, most destructive weapon in the U.S. nuclear stockpile. Its yield is what we call 1.2 megatons of T&T equivalent. So by comparison, the gravity, the bomb dropped on Hiroshima

was about 12 to 15 kilotons of T&T equivalent. So the B83 is roughly 80 times more powerful than the bomb, but on Hiroshima. So imagine a bomb that killed 100,000 people in an hour, It's 80 times larger than that. It's just, it's mathfully destructive. Its only purpose currently for the U.S. is to attempt to attack deeply buried targets, primarily in North Korea, because they're seeing a need for that. The reality is if we drop it on North Korea, it'll fall out on South Korea

and cause havoc across the whole region. So you have weapon you actually don't want to use. You're reserving in case you might want to attack. a buried facility in a country where you can destroy otherwise. It's just nonsense to me. And so the Obama administration had already committed to retiring the BAD3 back in 2012 when it did its nuclear posture review. But the Trump administration reversed that decision and decided to keep it around indefinitely.

And the Biden administration is now again decided an instantly posture review, no, we're going to retire it. and we believe they will do so before they leave office, or at least have a plan to that for the leave office. There's no timeline yet for when this B83 will be retired, but it's firmly in the plan, and there's currently only limited distance from Congress to having that move forward. So I think it's likely it will happen in the next three to five years. The other system that's in the Nuclear Posture Review,

the calls for getting rid of it, is this so-called sea-launched nuclear-armed cruise missile. Again, something that Trump administration proposed. There's a new system. Obama retired, the last version of this. Actually, President Bush I pulled off the Navy ships in the 1990s. We haven't been deployed for decades. Obama actually retired it in his nuclear posture review informally.

And we haven't had it and haven't needed it since that period. the Trump team wanted to rebuild it, because in their view, they want more so-called low-yield or low-yield systems designed basically for nuclear war fighting. That's what this is designed for, is to fight a nuclear war at low levels. Again, a stupid idea. The Biden demonstration said, no, we don't want this. We're going to cancel that program and not move forward with it. However, while the Navy, it reached with that decision, there are some of the military who don't

agree with it. And unfortunately, they testified before Congress in support of this sea-launched cruise missile, even though they had not only had signed off on the posture review calling for to be canceled, they testified to Congress saying, we kind of like the idea still. We think we might want to have it as an option. And as a direct result of that, Democrats who control at present, the House and Senate, got a little nervous and said, well, just to be. sure, let's go ahead and get some money to this program for now. So both the House and Senate have given a small amount of funding for R&D toward developing this cruise missile that the Biden administration itself says it's going to cancel.

So this is actually pretty rare where Congress funds a new system that the administration says it doesn't want. We'll leave all time for planes and things we already building. They build more of those. It's good for my district. It's pork. That happens a lot. But a new system that hasn't been developed at all, this is a new phenomena that I haven't seen before,

and you don't know how it will play out. I'm pretty sure the Biden team, when it puts its budget request in next year, will again ask for no money for this program. The Congress may give it money again, and they'll be forced to spend it somehow. But it's a long fight. It's a long way off from being deployed or to build. So it's going to, I will keep fighting against it. We'll see how it plays out, but it's not decided yet. No, this is not the only new, newish thing.

Well, maybe new as a misnomer. Just going back to the Trump administration in his 2018 nuclear posture review, can you tell us about the W93? So WN3 is one of the two new things, two additional new things, pushed in the Trump nuclear posture review. 73 would be the first all-new nuclear warhead built by the United States since the end of the Cold War. We have been very carefully maintaining and upgrading our existing nuclear weapons over the last decades and spending tens of billions of dollars to do that. But there is now a call for the first time for an all-new warhead to be put on our sub-based missiles. And that proposal is still being supported by the administration. I think it's uncalled for

unnecessary and contributes to the building arm race. And I think it is still a long way off. So it still could be canceled by Congress itself, because it will cost a lot of money to do this. And it will require the U.S. to make new plutonium pits, which is basically the Fissile Corps, of a nuclear weapon. We haven't made those in bulk since the end of the Cold War because we did have needed them. The factory to make them was actually shut down by the FBI in 1989 because it was a terrible environmental catastrophe. The FBI and the EPA literally invaded the factory and shut it down because it was such

an environmental nightmare. And that stopped pit production in the U.S. And we've only made a few handful of pits since then at our weapons last. But now the proposal is to resume that production, in part, to make these new 93 warheads. What's the point of the warheads? Are they bigger? I'll notice you didn't use the words low yield in your explanation.

Yes. So the 93 warhead might be lower yield. It wouldn't be low yield. So actually, just briefly that the brief sidebar, the Trump team actually did deploy very rapidly one new warhead called the W76-2 warhead, which basically was they took an existing warhead and made it a low-yield variant by taking out the secondary of that nuclear bomb. So modern nuclear bombs have two parts, a primary, initiates the explosion, and secondary that makes the big boom go big. And so the initial atomic bombs were only primaries, dropped on Hiroshima,

were only initial one bomb. But new weapons are much more powerful because they have two bombs than one. The 76-2 that the Trump administration proposed, developed, and deployed, has a small yield by actually taking out secondary entirely and just having only the primary bomb go off. So that actually is in stockpile, and the Biden NPR endorses it and says we're keeping it around, at least for now. It's a valuable new tool for basically nuclear war fighting.

The pits that we're talking about are why we have new warheads in general. What they tell you is they want to increase safety and security of the stockpile to have the warwords be safer and more secure, less likely to go off by accident. The reality is they want to improve performance, better targeting ability, better control of when it goes off at altitude, basically more effective as a war fighting tool. they also will add safety security measures as well, but the bottom line is they want to have a more capable weapon in the stockpile. And they will make it more capable in various ways that they think are important. It's interesting to me that you're talking about a more, a better weapon.

When we've always been told or I've always been raised with the idea that nuclear weapons are like horseshoes, hand grenades, and nuclear bombs, right? I mean, get it close enough, let it go. Did not ever think of it as a precision weapon. Should I be thinking of it that way? So that's, in my view, no. I think you're using the correct view. Basically, what the goal of nuclear weapons is to deter nuclear war. You want to stop your possible enemy from doing things they shouldn't be doing, primarily, however, in the nuclear front.

if you use them for deterring conventional attacks, then you risk them deciding, oh, this is a dangerous, I'm going to go nuclear first and start their own nuclear war because they're worried about you growing nuclear on them. That's what I believe the role of nukes should be, but I am not the decision maker. The military has decided, in its infinite wisdom, that we need nukes to deter everything up and down the spectrum,

and we need to have the ability to have small wars or big wars, little nuclear bombs and nuclear bombs. We need to be able to attack quickly or slowly. You need to be able to attack from the sea or from the air or from the land. You need to be able to attack in theater or out of theater. These are all requirements in the current defense posture. But to me, are nonsense. You can deter them by saying, if you do something I don't luck, I will kill you. That's the Nukes 4.

But the theory of the military has is, no, we have to do. deter this and that and this another thing too, because just in case you never know. My mind, that's a mistake, but that's not the current posture. I don't make the decisions right now. All right, Angry Planet listeners, we're going to pause there for a break. We'll be right back after this.

All right, Angry Planet listeners, thank you for sticking around. We are back on with Stephen Young from the Union of Concerned Scientists, talking about the nuclear posture review. I got there. I got there. So you kind of hit on something I really want to dive into here. You called this a terrifying document. I talked to a couple different nuclear experts who also found it very disturbing.

Emaclair Foley, who's been on the show before, really highlighted for me when I talked to her. The idea that there's language in this thing that I wouldn't say directly, they're making plans for the use of battlefield dukes, I guess is the way I would use it. They're making plans for what the world would look like if there is a, quote, unquote, tactical nuclear weapon. Can you talk about what that is? What is a tactical nuclear weapon? Or at least, what does the Pentagon say a tactical nuclear weapon is? And do you think that the stuff that's going on with Russia plays into that fear and how?

Sure. So there's much debate over what a tactical nuclear weapon is. The general rule of thumb is they are generally lower yield and generally designed for battlefield use as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons that are designed for long yield use to attack Russia from the U.S. as opposed to in Europe, in the middle of a war in Ukraine, dropping a bomb on the middle of a battle to try and defeat your military forces. That is generally the role for tactical nuclear weapons, whereas strategic weapons are designed to defeat the enemy all in one go by destroying them. That's sort of the approach. But the reality is a nuke is a nuke is a nuke. And once you have used a tactical nuke,

You've opened that Pandora's box and the possibility of unlimited nuclear warfare just literally blows up. So that is, in my view, again, a mistaken approach. What you need to make very clear to your adversary is that if you use nuclear weapons, you will pay costs you don't want to pay. and that doesn't need to be in the same battlefield, in the same place. It just needs to be clear. You will pay costs you don't want to pay. And that will deter them. The military fear is that, oh, but if they just use a really teeny nuke,

and all we have is big nukes, they wouldn't believe we'll use a big nuke in response to their teeny nuke. to which I say, well, then make them believe you will because you can. But it is, there is a tension there that you can't deny. But the reality in my view is Russia should not be confident they can ever keep a nuclear war limited. And therefore, they shouldn't do it. And nor should the U.S. Because you can't have confidence.

We've never fought a nuclear war. They've been used in war once against a non-nuclear opponent. But no nuclear war has been fought. So no one knows what will happen. So let's just not try it and not find out. I'll ask the question that's on everyone's mind that there are no fair answers to. Do you think, what do you think about Putin's nuclear saber-radling? Do you think he would ever use a battlefield nuke?

I think it's still unlikely, highly unlikely, but that the risk is far higher than we want it to be. It is now the realm of the possible. I would say, again, it's 5% chance maybe. That's still way more than I'd like it to be. And the scenario for me that I worry about is that Putin would say, blow up a small so-called tactical bomb over the Black Sea, kill no one at all, that would be relatively low yield, and then say to NATO, NATO, if you don't stop arming Ukraine, I will do worse. Your choice. And then we're in a bit of a bind. I think the answer is

ignore it and go forward and keeps hoarding Ukraine, but that then pressures Putin to escalate again. Let me switch tracks here just a little bit. You consulted on this, right? You a hazard to say, well, let me, what is the process of working on the posture review like? What's the communication like when you're a consultant for this thing? So I was up at basically the Pentagon for this review had a series of fora in which they invited outside experts to speak and a few more to listen in and ask questions and discuss.

And so I was a discussant in one of those forum. I think they had about four, six of those forum during the posture review. And basically they were getting outside of views from people who were across the full spectrum of review. So basically there were people from the far right and the far left in this room who were listening to experts give their take on some questions that the NPR was looking at. And I was simply invited into that space to be a discussant among one of those hearings. I found it to be pretty unhelpful, frankly.

The discussion was pretty limited. And the views, the NPR was trying to try and to, take on weren't the key questions in my mind, but it was still helpful to be, to have a better sense of what they were looking at and how they were thinking about the issues. For example, one thing I did learn in the process was that they did look very closely at the question of should the U.S. declare a no-first-use nuclear policy, the idea the U.S. would never start nuclear war, which is a policy I support. It's not U.S. policy.

U.S. policy is we can start a nuclear war if we want to, if we meet certain criteria of an extreme threat to the United States from another nuclear armed state, which is the current policy, has been that policy more or less for decades. I think the U.S. should make clear we don't intend to have a first use ever because there's no scenarios that would be helpful to us, but it's not our policy. He looked at that policy in this NPR and decided, no, not going there, not going to do that. Despite the fact President Biden himself has said he wanted to go there, and President Biden himself personally supported that policy, but he cited in the end to not do it and to simply keep the current U.S. policy more or less as it was. They didn't in the NPR, however, look at all at the president's sole authority to launch nuclear strike. There's no consideration of that at all.

Never even crossed their minds to say, let's let's look at this issue. Given President Trump and his nuclear threats and his instabilities that we're all too well aware of, I think it's an issue worth considering. CMPR didn't even bring it up. It wasn't known enough plate at all. And so I worry about things like that of how this is the problem you have when you're asking the zookeepers how they want to run the zoo. I have a question about that single point, the president. One of the pieces that I've read basically said that there's 11 minutes from the launch of nuclear missiles in Russia to decide whether or not to launch our missiles. First of all, is that right?

And second of all, how do you consult with people in that period of time? So, good question. It's not quite right. The reality is after the launch of a Russian or Chinese missile or North Korean missile, it takes a period of five to 10 minutes to confirm that missile is coming in towards us and a few more to realize, okay, we know what the threat is, we have it analyzed enough to give the president a heads up and say, okay, before it goes off, you now have roughly 10 minutes or so before they'll hit the U.S.

do you want to launch before that happens? And that is a scenario where, yeah, it is a terrifying scenario. The current system allows only the president to weigh in in that question, and he, all he so far, would have to decide, do I want to ride it out and wait and see if they actually are coming or not? if this isn't a fault from the radars, which has happened in the past. We've had faulty alerts in the past for sure, more than one occasion.

Or do I want to write it out and see, then respond? I think the, if the president wants to launch before they arrive, they have about 10 minutes to make that order. And once the order is issued, it'll launch them less than 5 minutes. They make a phone call, they give a code, they confirm who the president is, the orders issued out to the silos in the Midwest of the country,

and they're off in less than five minutes. So the system is designed to be very fast to respond to that. There's roughly a half hour from missile launch to muscle impact across the U.S. If you're launching ICBMs from land-based missiles. Both U.S. from Russia have subs. It can actually be closer, though. Those can be as little as 20 minutes. So you can have even less time, but a sub-based launch.

and the U.S. can actually do low, trajectory launches that are very low in the sky and harder to spot. So Russia actually might have very little warning, the U.S. attack, in fact. So it's a very time-compressed system. However, the reason we think we can still add in people to that system to make sure if you do want to have that consultation, we believe we actually know for a fact that FEMA

the federal emergency management agency already tracks the vice president and speaker of the house full time, the same way they tracked the president. Both actually also have their own nuclear satchel, nuclear footballs. You actually see in January 6th attack on the capital, you can see Pence running out

with football falling him behind, being carried by a military officer. So he has it as well. So if it's such already there, he already can be in the loop. They already can have a vice president and Speaker of the House, who also has this actual we believe, in the loop in minutes, the same way you have the president in the loop. So it is the ability to have more people in the room if you wanted to do that.

And it could be a wise choice to do, given the realities we already know. So your Twitter bio says, in audience, I'm so sorry for once again bringing up Twitter. Your Twitter bio says that the length of the nuclear launch code is the same as a tweet. I know that things have been upgraded, the way they print the nuclear launch codes now. Do we know if that is still true? So, yes, so the code for generating nuclear launch codes have been upgraded. Yes, I saw that story as well. And I do not know.

I would assume that the system to generate the codes doesn't impact the system used to launch the missiles, which requires a certain code. but I had not confirmed that question. So I will try and see if I can answer that question. But yes, you are correct. They recently changed the system to generate the codes, launch codes. But to my knowledge, they have not changed system to actually launch the missiles at all. The system has been upgraded over the years, but not recently enough to have the recent change impact that I don't think.

But I will, good question. I will look into that. I have an off-the-wall question because I've watched Dr. Strangelove far too many times. Has anyone ever seriously considered an automated response to a nuclear attack, a la the doomsday weapon? Sure. Russia built one. It's an amazing...

See what I don't know. Yes, a great book called Dead Hand, written by... by Washington Post reporter, David Hoffman. Hoppy, you hush. What are you bucking out? It's basically, it goes into great detail about the system Russia used or installed that was a deadhand system that would allow Russia to, if the system detected a launch by the U.S. So launch some missiles without anybody else issuing an order. Pretty terrifying.

It's not clear how much authority it was given, like was it fully in place, It just happened and nobody was there. People were there, but not dead, but so it could launch. We don't know for a fact. But in some level, the system was installed by Russia and is a very terrifying thing to think about. I think that's the kind of frightening possibility that we like to go out here on Angry Planet. Stephen Young, thank you so much for coming on to Angry Planet and walking us through this. Where can people find your stuff?

I am at the Union Eastern Scientists. Twitter handle is Stephen UCS. And if you just go to the UCS.USA.org website, I'm there as well with all my publications. That's all for this week, Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Galt, Jason Fields, and Kevin O'Dell. It's created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like the show, if you really like us, please kick us $9 a month on Substack.

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