Angry Planet - Will There Be a Nuclear War?

Episode Date: April 28, 2022

When it comes to U.S.-Russia relations, everything old is new again. Russia and the West are separating. Fast. For those of us who were alive in the 1980s, it all feels bracingly familiar. That includes, especially, nuclear saber rattling. Putin, the Duman, and Russian TV feel like they’ve gone out of their way to remind the rest of the world: hey, we’ve got nukes.But how likely is the possibility of nuclear war, really? And what are Russia’s nuclear capabilities exactly?Here to help us answer those questions is Emma Claire Foley. Foley is an Associate Partner for Research & Policy at Global Zero, an organization working to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons.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.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 and 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. And when it comes to U.S. Russia relations, everything old is new again. Russia and the West are separating fast. For those of us who are alive in the 1980s, it all feels bracingly familiar. That includes especially nuclear saber-rattling. Putin, the Duma, and Russia TV feel like they've gone out of their way to remind the rest of the world, hey, we've got nukes.

But how likely is the possibility of nuclear war really? and what are Russia's nuclear capabilities exactly? Here to help us answer those questions is Emaclair Foley. Foley is an associate partner for research and policy at Global Zero, an organization working to reduce the likelihood of nuclear war and ultimately eliminate nuclear weapons. Emma Claire, thank you so much for coming onto the show. Thanks for having me.

All right, so 1 to 10, how scared are you that we are on the precipice of a nuclear war? So I would say if one is not at all scared, nuclear weapons don't exist, this is not an issue. And 10 is there's like a confirmed report of an incoming nuclear attack. I'm like maybe, maybe a four, maybe three, maybe four. And I've gone as high as eight at different times during this crisis. But I can kind of break this down. In a recent interview, I think for current affairs, Noam Tromsky said that this for him is the high point of the risk of nuclear war in his in his lifetime. And, you know, he's someone who I,

whose opinions I take pretty seriously. And I think that I am feeling a similar way, although I don't have the same benefit of experience, right? But just looking at the situation and just, and having the background in nuclear weapons and nuclear risk issues, I think there's a lot to be justly worried about right now. I would say basically, the two scenarios that you're looking at, and this is reflected in the media, as well as expert opinion and the official statements from, you know, the relevant governments are, you know, the kind of traditional scenario of the U.S., Russia nuclear exchange, which follows somehow from political escalation or so kind of impasse, and that would be, you know, an attack on each other's

territory, possibly engaging the intercontinental ballistic missile forces of each country. And then the other scenario you're hearing a lot about is this so-called tactical nuclear weapon use that could be Russia using a so-called smaller nuclear weapon on the territory of Ukraine or in the vicinity in some way. The theory being that could de-escalate the conflict or create a situation where, you know, the Ukrainians and the Western allies who are providing material to them and support to them are not comfortable going any further. and so that brings an end to the war. I'm not like, I do spend a lot of time thinking about which one of these is likely or more likely, but I don't really have a precise schema for that. But I think there have been different moments at, like, during this crisis where one or another of those has become more or less, come to seem more or less likely.

The other distinction I'll throw in here is that we think a lot in both of these scenarios about intentional nuclear use, you know, like even though it's a disastrous decision, and one where, you know, in my opinion, the consequences always outweigh the benefits. We think of it as, you know, someone's really, someone's thinking rationally with all the information they need to make this decision. The one exception, there is this sort of madman theory where people talk about President Putin as, you know, not thinking rationally. But I think that falls within the same overall class, the same type of scenario.

The other scenario that I think gets less attention in the press is that accidental scenario which would be in a moment of heightened tension, a misinterpretation available by one party of the other or the other because the decision times around nuclear strikes are so short by design. And this has happened before in history that, you know, you've seen a near miss where something has been misinterpreted. And, you know, there's almost a launch, almost a decision to, to conduct a nuclear attack until something stops it. So that's kind of what worries me more in this situation. It's that in this moment where everything's so tense where communication channels are sort of dwindling, that there might be a misinterpretation that could cause an accidental first strike.

I think it's kind of interesting that we don't focus on that accidental thing in the press because, as you said, we've been in that place pretty frequently over since 1945, right? And we've been extremely lucky that typically there's always someone in the chain that says, you know what, let's hold off. Let's maybe not follow these orders and push that button. I bet it was something wrong with the radar. And that's usually what ends up happening. But on a long enough timeline, you know, we can't be lucky forever.

When were you at an eight? I think I was at an eight. Yeah, I remember very clearly being in the IKEA in Red Hooker. of Brooklyn when I heard that, I think it was the first rapid military aid to Ukraine. And I was just, you know, pretty worried about a moment where a Europe or the U.S. would choose to get engaged militarily on any level. We've, you know, reached a weird, very unstable status quo within this conflict where it's like, you know, this is happening, you know, like there's a massive military aid being sent to Ukraine,

which has not provoked like any sort of direct confrontation with between the U.S. and Russia. But I just, yeah, I mean, I remember being in this, like, massive warehouse of, you know, all the things you need for, like, a comfortable life. looking out at the skyline of New York City and just feeling this intense anxiety at a level that I kind of had not felt since I started this job about four years ago, that, you know, all of that everything around me and just sort of this great city and just everything we had ever known might disappear in the span of an hour if, you know, such the move that had just been announced was taken as a as an escalation or a direct escalation against Russia. So I think that went away after a day or so, and it's kind of, you know, it's come back every so often.

I think you get used to this to living in a state of heightened, you know, awareness and anxiety about this pretty quickly. But that moment really sticks on my mind as a, as one where I was, I was, you know, really afraid that this might spin out of control. That's interesting because I've similar, it wasn't that exact moment, but I actually had one today where I have these moments where, it's usually when I'm looking at the bigger picture and taking in like big data streams, I start to get a little scared and start to think that this thing is going to escalate in ways that we're not quite prepared for. And I was looking at Moldova and some of the alleged arsons that are happening within Russia that we don't know that much about. I'm getting kind of worried today. So I understand.

But let's setting that aside, can I get you to react to? You know, there's been so many weird little bits of rhetoric in escalation that have happened over the past few months regarding nuclear weapons. The most recent one, I think the most recent one, is Lavrov on Russian State TV. I'm going to read the quote here. And this is translated, of course. So it's, you know, things are going to be lost. He's on television. He's talking about a nuclear exchange with the U.S.

Quote, the danger is serious, real. It cannot be underestimated. During the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were not many written rules, but the rules of conduct were clear enough. Moscow understood how Washington was behaving. Washington understood how Moscow was behaving. Now there are a few rules left. What do you make of that? Do you think there are a few rules left that this is less, this is more scary than the Cuban Missile Crisis? I mean, I think there are a lot of valid comparisons to the Cuban Missile Crisis that we can make as observers. and one of the ones that comes to mind that's already flowing from the conversation we've had has been the fact that, you know, the Cuban Missile Crisis wasn't just a moment.

It was kind of a long period. It was a relatively long period with a few moments of more intense risk within it. And that, I think, is a good way of understanding the nuclear dimension of this moment. And I think of, you know, how nuclear weapons play into all kinds of conflicts in general. I think the thing to focus on here is, that this is coming from the chief diplomat of the country that is actively pursuing the invasion that precipitated this moment of risk, right? So it's like, and you're seeing similar language from the United States. We saw just very recently U.S. military leaders meeting with allies striking a very similar that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a death blow to the international order.

The same idea of like the rules, right? And the great power competition, this is the, the, the line that just put for is, is not my interpretation, is now the ascendant political, geopolitical paradigm. So this is something that we've heard a lot about in the last few years, right, like great power, this and that, that the U.S., China, and Russia are sort of like balancing their interests and thus determining the path of geopolitics rather than, you know, some sort of rules-based order that is mostly used in these situations, I think, rhetorically, to justify a movement away from, you know, abiding by existing agreements, right? Because I think we have to ask ourselves,

who makes these rules. It's not like there's a higher legal authority that either of these countries is reliably respecting or appealing to, right? The U.S. and Russia have both decided, and even, you can even think of this decision as collaborative in some way, right? Like it has occurred through dialogue between these two countries that together possess about 90% of the U.S., of the world's starting nuclear weapons. They both decided that the rule, as they stand are less valuable than the advantage they can get from what they see as, you know, activities that stretch these rules until they break. But it's interesting to hear LeBrov say this sort of thing because it's like if he's, you know, he's describing the Cuban Missile Crisis as a time when there

were, you know, understood norms rather than rules, right? But if that can be taken to mean anything concrete, I think what he might be referring to is crisis communications, which still do, exist between the U.S. and Russia to some degree, right? That was kind of at a low, at a recent low during the later years of the Trump administration, which, you know, made a really concerted effort to kind of cut off all these channels of communication and of collaboration and diplomatic work between the U.S. and Russia. And some of the repair work for those sort of lower level diplomatic ties that went on in the early Biden administration is still in place. And I think that's something that's really valuable when you're thinking about this like accidental.

nuclear use scenario, right? There is, you know, maybe not a big red telephone, but there's something that allows both sides to kind of compare notes and check against information that might lead to an accidental first strike. I was talking with someone a few weeks ago, a retired general who was talking about protocols. Like, so, you know, what exactly the tit is for the tat, so to speak. Like if Russia used a tactical nuke in Ukraine, he was saying that it's a secret what it is that the United States would do. Is that true? And why is it a secret? Wouldn't it be safer for everyone to know?

Yeah. I mean, it would definitely be definitely safer to have a clear and comprehensive declaratory policy, which is what we call that. And, you know, the Biden administration is, in the coming months going to release its nuclear posture review, which is released by every new presidential administration in the United States and details the scenarios when the U.S. would use a nuclear weapon. We got kind of a sneak peek of that a couple weeks ago. And one of the highlights of that, it also sort of details the use or like intention to get rid of various weapons systems, things like that. It's a full overview of how the U.S. intends to, how the administration and tends to manage and use or not use its nuclear capabilities. And so one of the things that came out of that was this phrasing that the fundamental purpose,

that was the phrase of U.S. nuclear weapons was this comes out of a very long and delicate strategic conversation about whether the United States would be willing to adopt what's called a no first use policy, which would say that the U.S. will not use nuclear weapons first in any circumstance. The goal of this and the reason I bring this now is because of that that transparency aspect, right? There's a widespread belief that I think filters down through the media into more popular opinion that ambiguity is really useful, right, in situations involving nuclear weapons, because in theory, you know, Russia doesn't know what the U.S. will do if it uses a, you know, a nuclear weapon in any circumstance, maybe a tactical nuclear weapon, as we're saying now. And so

it, you know, the idea is that that affects its risk calculus, that it doesn't want to risk, like, you know, and any unacceptable consequence for its own actions. You know, the other side of this and the one that I tend to agree with more is that if you rely on ambiguity, you for, you make it more likely that you're going to get one of these situations that we've already discussed, right, where it's like you're not sure what the other side is doing. You're in a moment where you're risking, you know, if you do nothing and there is an incoming strike, so you risk maybe losing your ability to do a retaliatory strike or something like that, right? And it's really, that's the risk calculation that you're looking at in a moment when ambiguity is like a strategy, right?

So if you're really serious about avoiding nuclear use, which I am, I think erring on the side of transparency is better. But with the issue of what to do, if Russia uses a tax, nuclear weapon in Ukraine or in the context of its invasion of Ukraine. For me, I think it's really tempting to kind of speculate on what the appropriate response to that would be. But for me, I think thinking in terms of the vast majority of people's interests and their ability to affect or inability to affect nuclear weapons policy, the best course of action is simply to do everything you can to support the elimination of nuclear weapons, including tactical nuclear weapons, right? Because fundamentally, you can't undo a nuclear strike, right?

You can't, there's like very little you can do in response that's going to like come anywhere close. You know, the situation can only get worse. And the only way to effectively prevent that kind of situation is to, you know, make sure we don't have weapons that can cause the kind of damage that attack the nuclear weapon would. Can we talk about Russian nuclear capabilities? What do we know that is concrete about what they have? Do we know how many ICBMs they have? And what's the deal with this, this Sarmat that has been,

everyone got excised about last, I think it was last week. Yeah. So we have pretty precise information about what Russia's nuclear capabilities are. I would say the best openly available source of information for that is regularly published in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists. It's called a nuclear notebook. And researchers regularly publish an inventory of existing nuclear weapons from all nuclear weapons states drawn from open source research. So that's usually what I go to when I want precise information about how many weapons a given country has.

With Russia, you have about 300 ICBM launchers currently and about 1,200 total warheads. That's in comparison to the U.S. is 400 launchers and 8.000. 800 total warheads. With the Sarmat, you got this kind of, you got a lot of alarm, obviously, when the test occurred last week. And I think that's really understandable. The dynamics of nuclear testing since the beginning of the Ukraine crisis have shown what, you know, has always been true that any action taken with nuclear weapons, even if it's ostensibly, you know, non-aggressive, like a test or something like that, can't, will always play into the larger political dynamics and nuclear weapons. And so there was a widely publicized decision by the United States to not test

in ICBM several weeks. And that, you know, in the same way was sort of played as a, as an indication of like responsibility and restraint, whereas the messaging around the Sarmat test, which incidentally had been planned for a very long time and sort of duly announced in the Western press, would was was played off as like kind of a, as a part of the rhetoric of like potential nuclear escalation as a threat, right, and a sign of what Russia might be willing to do if pressed. I think that you have to think about the ICBM forces of each country. You have to think about the nuclear dynamics of between the U.S. and Russia as, you know, ongoing and more determined by this longer term push towards modernization that both countries are undertaking rather than like a short-term

kind of way of using the nuclear forces as a threat or as a sort of political tool, right? But it's very easy if you have these weapons to kind of take those opportunities as they come. Yeah, I want to throw some context in here. As I think, like, obviously the moment that we're in right now matters quite a bit. However, like that specific launch and also just the Sarmat in general is not, you know, like as you said, the launch had been planned for a while. this stuff is not out of the ordinary. I would say especially given the last like 10 years.

And I think like that that push towards modernization, which is driving a lot of the investments in both the West and in Russia into nuclear weapons developing new kinds of nuclear weapons, even a push from Britain to acquire new weapons a couple of years ago. But I'm reminded of 2016 when I think when Putin announced the Sarmat, he also announced the nuclear-powered cruise missile, which we didn't talk about in a second, and I think a new kind of,

a new kind of submarine-based, if I recall correctly. And in that press conference in 2016, showed CGI footage of them launching the Sarmat at Mar-a-Lago. So in the grand scheme of nuclear rhetoric, like, this stuff we're seeing now is not completely out of the ordinary, right? It's just the fact that there's the war going on

that I think adds to the anxiety. Oh, yeah, absolutely not out of the ordinary. I think, you know, as I said, I've been in this field for four years and it's truly never a dull moment, even before I started working on nuclear disarmament. But yeah, I mean, I think that on the longer term, you know, that shouldn't necessarily be taken as comforting. Again, I do kind of err on the side of like, yes, you should be worried about nuclear weapons. in the, you know, the longer-term drive by Russia, the sort of a new wave of nightmarish weapons,

some of which you've mentioned, that it rolled out in the past few years, you know, at different levels of, you know, success in development or at different stages in their development are, you know, are a real escalation in the same way that the United States decision during that to expand that, you know, the range of nuclear weapons it is building and possesses, like, is, is an escalation. It's strange also to contrast this to what I think before the Ukraine invasion was a persistent sense in the public mind that nuclear weapons were somehow less relevant or less threatening than they had been maybe 30 years ago, although that I think is really rapidly changing because of this invasion.

What makes it necessary to build up or really rapidly changing? redo our nuclear missiles. I mean, why are we putting a trillion dollars into it? Why are the Russians so concerned to update their missiles? Weren't we all able to kill each other before? Because, let me answer this, because I have a funny answer. Okay. Sorry.

Because there was a bunch of bad press 10 years ago about how America's ICBMs were running off of floppy disks and still using computers from the 70s that were security risks and some guy dropped a wrench in one of the on an ICBM in one of those tunnels in I think the Midwest somewhere and we're lucky that you know that it wasn't a horrifying disaster and these things have been sitting around unused for a while you know do they still work who's to say maybe we should put more money into making sure they work etc etc that's my brief pithy that's my pithy answer I don't know if you have something else yeah I mean, I could go way less pithy, actually.

I spent most of my time working on those very missiles in five states in the Midwest and Mountain West. And there are a lot of stories you can tell about, one, you know, are we sure they work? Do they work? And two, you know, the more subtle kind of interest service dynamics within the military of like, when do we replace the nuclear weapon? When do we decide it needs to be replaced or it doesn't, right? So, I mean, the conversation around modernizing the ICBM force in the U.S. has been a long one.

And there's been until very recently when the what's called the GBSD, the ground-based strategic deterrent program, which will replace all of the U.S. ICBMs, move forward to that program that we sort of renovate existing ICBMs, right? But yeah, they went into the ground about in the early 1960s in those states. and the U.S. no longer conducts nuclear weapons tests. You know, it tests its capabilities mostly through computer programs. There's a very, you know, elaborate way that we test many capabilities, but we don't do like a full, we don't do full weapons tests anymore, which are prohibited by treaty. So there's, you know, there are arguments for replacing them.

And, you know, the one I tend to go to is that I, I, ICBMs are more of a risk than they are a benefit, even if you're someone who fully signs on to nuclear deterrence as an indefinite basis for national security. And we can go into that logic, if you like. But yeah, we've committed to investing 300 billion roughly into replacing our ICBMs. Can't we just hire Elon Musk to do it? I mean, he's already got all the rockets. Absolutely not. Those rockets explode over Boca Chica. No, thank you. We lost enough nukes in the ocean in the days of strategic air command. We don't need more.

We don't need more broken arrows. Yeah, I don't know if move fast and break things as the way you want to approach. What can the U.S. do to east tensions here, do you think? Yeah, that's a great question. I would say that what you're seeing now from the U.S. is intentions to isolate Russia in sort of diplomatically, politically, going forward. that is the intention. I think you can read pretty easily into the sanctions and other economic measures that have been taken against Russia. And I'm not saying that was a bad response overall, but I would say from the perspective of nuclear weapons, that's, it's just that is just not a responsible attitude to take.

Right. There are many different aspects to the U.S.-Russia relationship. And we've seen many moments during the Soviet period. where I in certain areas like the US and Russia or the US and the Soviet Union rather were not in any way getting along right things were very tense but nevertheless like there was still progress being made on arms control issues and that I think is kind of what in the medium term we need to aim for right and a functional relationship even if it's not a good relationship but in the moment the number one priority should be keeping the risk of new

are used low, which means maintaining communication whenever possible and not feeding into this rhetoric of, you know, no rules, global collapse. The need for, you know, arming yourself to the teeth, first of all, is the only response to these developments. Well, we do have another player now arming themselves to the teeth. And I'm not talking about North Korea, which, boy, is its own case, and I'm sure, you know, we all know they are armed to their teeth. But China is now making this huge push into developing their nuclear weapons program. Why? And are they just looking to join the deterrence club? Yeah, I mean, I think if I could give a really, really watertight reason for why China is doing what it's doing, I would experience like a level of career success. I cannot imagine

at present. But I think that China has been, you know, China has. about 300 nuclear weapons. So in terms of deterrence, I mean, I think that is sufficient, right? But there has been this like ramped up rhetoric around China as an adversary of the United States. There are complex dynamics in that tripartite relationship, right, where China and Russia have pretty close ties and the U.S. is kind of navigating its relationship with both of them. Obviously, this invasion has thrown a big wrench into all of that. But, you know, I would say that I wouldn't read China's decision to expand its nuclear arsenal as like a simple, aspirational attempt to kind of, you know, become a world power. If we're measuring like being a

world power, a great power, as they say, by how many nuclear weapons you have, right, whether you achieve parity with the U.S. and Russia. I think that you can look at it to some degree as like a part of China's like longer term ambitions. You know, I think the more interesting, questions with China and nuclear weapons and China and just sort of its international role in particular remains in the more in the southeast, the South and East China Sea, right? And it's control or, you know, contested control over those areas. But I mean, my top line approach to China in this moment is just like it has repeatedly stated its willingness to participate in disarmament talks, but noting the fact that the U.S. and Russia have over 10 times, it's

weapons, right? And so while any country developing new weapons is worrisome and should be addressed, this kind of isn't the number, I don't see it as the number one, like, priority, the number one thing to be, to be addressed in U.S. national security policy. I just don't think that's incredible. No, I guess that makes sense. I mean, they've already had plenty of nuclear weapons. They've never shown any particular use for them any more than anybody else. And we consider them a somewhat responsible actor. Right. This stuff started coming up when Newstart was dying because Trump, like, dragged ass on extending

it. Russia was like, we'll extend it. If you want to extend it, it'd be cool. And Trump kept dragging his feet and saying, well, we got to get like any nuclear treaty like this. We got to get China on board. To which, as McLear pointed out, China would say, like, y'all, we've got 300. and you want us to engage at a treaty about reducing arms,

why don't you all come down to our level and then we can talk? And I think you're right in McClare. And this is something I've been thinking about in the last like 48 hours and like a line I've been seeing coming up more online, is that like China's level of nuclear weapons is that is deterrence, right? If you're like a country of that size and you want to make sure that no one else nukes you, you have like, you can argue about what the specific numbers are, but like 300 when Russia and America have thousands is, you know, like you're, you're, you just have them so nobody else hits you, right?

But when you've got as many as Russia and the U.S. have, like you start to, it feels less like deterrence and more like compelence. And I like, I'm wondering what you think about the use of that word, compelling. It definitely feels like that's part of America and Russia's nuclear policies at the moment, even if they wouldn't say that out. loud. Right. Yeah. I mean, I think that's a good kind of specialist term to understand what is pretty adamantly referred to, I believe, on an official level, as deterrence. But, and, you know, I'm not a person who's going to, like, argue for a narrow definition of deterrence because I think that, you know, again, deterrence is not a workable strategy into the indefinite future, even if it's like a reality, it's a political reality of the moment. But I think that you, you know,

see from the U.S., you see from Russia, you know, again, you see this like creeping norm that, like, deterrence means whatever we want it to mean, right? And like, even more kind of weirdo idea that if you have nuclear weapons, it's almost like your hand is freed, right? And one thing that's really interesting about the Ukraine invasion and the sort of public effort to grapple with it is that it's a clear example of the way in which sometimes, you know, having nuclear weapons can limits what you can do, right? There is a fairly sizable contingent of supporters within the United States for some kind of more active U.S. military role in Ukraine. Even if nuclear weapons didn't exist, I am not at all sure that that would make the situation better rather than worse,

but I don't think we need to go into that kind of counterfactual. But basically, like, within that discussion, you're kind of seeing people realize that, like, oh, the existence of nuclear weapons really does limit what you can do without inviting consequences that are on a level that are, like, far beyond what we're seeing right now. It also allows us to not do something, though, right? I mean, you have the cover where you can say, well, you know, we can't, get our boots, you know, muddy because while they're nuclear weapons, which actually may turn

out to be completely the right thing to do, actually. I mean, I'm making fun of not going to war, which now I feel disgusting and take it back. But, but, you know, it's, it's interesting just how this plays any way you want it to play, right? I mean, it's, and I think it has a lot to do with, like, do people trust the government? I'm talking, I guess, just very colloquially about the United States. The answer is no, I would tell. Although on a national security level, I think there is more trust across the board than on other issues. And there's been a great effort to maintain that trust, right?

But the specific area where I think this is relevant right now is like we're seeing, more people are starting to see how you can sort of cite nuclear weapons to justify a whole range of actions. or inaction. And the question then is, to what extent do people trust that that is a, on some level, honest or at least like accurate assessment of the situation? Can I ask you some more big picture existential stuff kind of here as we're going out, if that's okay? Oh, yeah. So there's a lot of newcomers to nuclear anxiety right now. I've had a lot of my friends asking me about it. What's your advice to someone just learning about this stuff now? Like, how can, they learn about it and keep their anxiety in check as much as possible?

So not to, you know, rat around the question, but, you know, I think you see the nuclear anxiety concept getting a lot of play with people whose job it is to steward nuclear weapons. Like, they're very excited about this idea and this framing. And that's understandable because, again, in the absence of any, any democratic control over nuclear weapons, which there simply isn't. There has to be trust, which can, which allows people in a nuclear. armed country to believe that their leaders who are in charge of nuclear weapons, and it's very few people, you know, who really have a meaningful role in deciding if and when

they're used, they have to believe that those people are making the right decisions and are making the decisions that are in their best interests, right? So I think that often you see this idea kind of deployed in a little bit of a disingenuous way. Because when you think about, think about like why people experience anxiety, you know, something that I think it's a that a lot of people I feel they exist in these days, right? It's kind of a, it's kind of a state that you exist in, but at some point, there was something that caused it, right? Maybe it was in the past, maybe it's sort of just become a part of your life, but there's a cause there's a cause there, right? Somewhere deep. And when you're thinking about kind of that experience of that

mental state, it's, it's often easier to address the feeling rather than the cause. But with nuclear weapons, I think you need to make a real distinction here, which is, is like it's a very different situation than like having some experience in the past, which then, you know, has created this kind of condition in you, right? There are actionable, if very difficult and remote, paths to getting rid of nuclear weapons and therefore removing the cause of this anxiety, right? And so all, everything I'm saying probably sounds very obtuse and very just like, you know, walking around the actual question.

But I think this is really the key to addressing nuclear weapons, right? I really think it's valuable if you're someone who's waking up to this moment where you're feeling a real visceral fear that nuclear weapons might be used, that you find a way to start, one, start understanding the understanding how nuclear weapons work, what their actual role is, how many, you know, the sort of basic one-on-one stuff. And then two, like, what can you do to make sure we're moving in a direction where there is, they are less of a threat? It's a tall order, right? But it's not impossible.

And I found that when I'm facing these overwhelming, you know, existential issues, but, you know, ones that are fundamentally human created, like nuclear weapons, the best way to manage those feelings, which can be overwhelming is to find something that you personally can do to a different. address it. You know, for me, I get that through my work, but I think increasingly there are opportunities for for mass action, for organizing, things like that, for talking to representatives, where you can, you know, in some small way, have an effect on this issue and really take an action that allows you to feel less helpless and less just like at the mercy of this force that can feel so elemental, right, and so eternal, because they're really not. what do you do when you're not talking to people like us i mean what is you know how do you actually try to move this along well a lot of what i do is talk to other people like you um

she's doing it right now jason no i just you know i just what else i mean you've devoted your life to it in a way that most people haven't so i mean yeah i mean i mean i mean i i i mean i i do that, but I think increasingly I'm interested in political organizing I can do through my job and externally. That allows to claw back some level of democratic control over nuclear weapons and over foreign policy writ large. That is such a tall order, right? There's so much to do to get to the point where U.S. policy meaningfully reflects what Americans want to see in the world. I think there's like a lot of mismatch there. But there's also a lot of opportunity to work on that.

So, you know, when I'm looking for opportunities to work with neighbors, work with friends, work with people in my city and my state to work for a better political status quo, for me, the nuclear issues always far down on the horizon. It's far away, but it's there, right? because if you're building up the capability to take action on domestic political issues, political issues that affect our lives directly and in everyday way, that power will then be available to you to address these questions that feel extremely remote, extremely abstract, but in these unpredictable moments, extremely visceral, extremely personal, and extremely

frightening. So that's my take. I think that's a really great message to end the show on. So that's what I'm going to do. Emma Claire Foley, thank you so much for coming on. on Angry Planet and walking us through this. If people are looking to get into more of the activist side of this and want to start working for change, where would you send? So one organization I work with that's doing really great work is called Beyond the Bomb.

They have a presence throughout the United States working with organizers who work in their universities and their communities to ask their lawmakers to take action on nuclear weapons. You can go to Beyondthebomb.org to learn more. and I can also give you information about how to get plugged in. As Martin Pfeiffer would say, we built them, we can dismantle them, lick the bomb, everybody. Thank you so much. That's all for this week, Angry Planet listeners. As always, Angry Planet is me, Matthew Gulp, Jason Fields, and Kevin Odell.

It's created by myself and Jason Fields. If you like us, if you really like us, go to AngryPlanetpod.com or AngryPlanet.substack.com, where, for a mere $9 a month, you can get commercial free versions of the mainline episodes as well as bonus episodes every month. Put out one already this month that is a look at what it's like to use open source intelligence to cover the war in Ukraine and how someone might get into that field and what dangers there are with that. The next one, which we've already recorded, should be out maybe tomorrow or this weekend, is about what's going on in Ukraine on the ground.

We talked to someone we've had on the show before who is there right. now and got some of their thoughts and talked about some of the conversations they're having and what they've seen as they've been over there. So stick, so stick around for that. Again, that's at angryplanetpod.com or angryplanet.substack.com. We will be back next week with more conversations about conflict on an angry planet. Stay safe until then.