About 2011. Happens to be told the most powerful fm west of the mississippi river. So we cover all of Southern California every sunday morning. And you talk about issues. Yes. Its an interview show, especially with the experts and that tends to be on the liberal side of the political spectrum. When you think of antiwar activists, traditionally yeah, but antiimperialism has always been at the core of libertarian. From the very beginning it was of the main breaks in side the right after World War Two as the libertarians were essentially exiled the National Review for refusing to support cold war. And then later, theres a big split famously between Young Americans for freedom who broke up over the vietnam war. The libertarians left the vietnam. And so weve always ever since then and all throughout the war on terrorism and the Nuclear Brinksmanship of the eighties and the rest of libertarians have always been out front on peace. Well, scott horton, weve invited to appear on book tv to talk about your book hotter than sun, and if i may quote, from the introduction, the danger of nuclear war has never left us. Thats right. I think i try to stay in there through malevolence or misunderstand or miscalculation. The danger remains. And especially since end of the cold war and the brinksmanship, the days of the contest with the soviet union, most people more or less think of nukes as no longer existing. They think about it at all. They think, oh, well, maybe we have a few. Of course, the theyre no longer targeted at the and its all kind of a failsafe for someday that never comes and we dont really have to think about it. Do nothing. Nuclear missiles. Mr. Burns called them on the simpsons. Right. They just sit around and thank goodness, collect dust. But the thing of it is that for all different various reasons, the threat remains. And weve seen, for example, just in the last few years, a made sure ratcheting up of tensions between and our allies in europe versus russia. And on side, we still possess thousands of these devices, enough to wipe out all human civilization, at least in the northern of the planet. If we were to engage general nuclear war. So where we have the opportunity at the end, the cold war, to finish the dismantling meant that reagan and bush senior head start, essentially we settled keeping about 1500 operational nukes each year. Im sorry, im flubbing the numbers. About 6000 weapons each, about 2000 operational at any given time. And another 4000 reserve. Thats about same. I think the russians have a few more, but its basically around 6000 each. And of course, france and britain and israel, india and pakistan all have somewhere around 2 to 300 each. China has around 200. The north koreans, nobody really knows. But the estimates are that they have probably a couple dozen by now at least. And so thats enough devices, you know, in a in a general nuclear war, especially between america and our allies and russia. It would be not just to destruction northern civilization, but in theres a brand new study that just came out last week about Nuclear Winter where they said it would lead to what they call a little ice age. It essentially lead to crop failure around the world on the deaths of billions of people through famine. So it would be literally the apocalypse and the thing is, ill take it because the subtitle of the book is time to abolish Nuclear Weapons, which is a pretty frank way to say it. And really, the book is all about Nuclear Weapons and all different aspects of them. But i figure thats really the line. And i know that peoples reaction to that is it just sounds naive and utopic and maybe thats a jane fonda thinks but all Serious National Security know you have to have a stockpile of hydrogen get real. Thats what prevents war from. And theres a lot of truth to that right. They are a deterrent. Mutually assured, they call it. So ultimate mexican standoff, right except that it only works until it fails. And if it fails. Were talking about a war with. These machines. One of these devices kill an entire city at a time. One megaton bomb would all of las vegas in an instant. Austin, texas, where im from, washington, d. C. Imagine losing all of new york city. Not just all the humanity but all of the Human Capital built up there. All the museums, all that, everything. Itd be the ultimate tragedy in human history. And why are we taking this risk. Its not worth. It are Nuclear Bombs still in the u. S. . Yes, they and its a huge of course, you know what i say of course. But its its both shocking. Not surprising kind of thing. We have a Nuclear WeaponsIndustrial Complex and just the same as lockheed lobbies and Northrop Grumman and raytheon lobby to sell fighter jets and, you know, you hear stories about. Congress wants weapons that the navy doesnt even want and stuff like that. Its because the military Industrial Complex that Ike Eisenhower warned us about where the arms many of factories spent the smallest proportion of their income recycle it back into the think tanks and into k street lobbyists in d. C. To push for not just fighter jets and armaments carriers and the us, but even for Hydrogen Bombs. And there are lobbyists whose job is essentially senate ear. Let me tell you about the deal we got on h bombs this week and why you need more and why you can never scale back and why negotiations a bad idea. And in fact, if you go back to the obama years he pushed very hard to his credit to get the new start treaty passed through the senate and. Its now the only treaty is the last standing treaty limiting the numbers of strategic Nuclear Weapons in the american and russian arsenal. But in order to get that through the senate, he had to promise. 1,000,000,000,000 program to complete revamp not just americas weapons arsenal, but even the factories, the national laboratories, and essentially just give literally more than 1,000,000,000,000 there now says 1. 7, itll be three or four by the time theyre done. And this directly to these firms at the expense of all of us. And it makes sense from point of view. And, you know, they have the ultimate deniability. You can find raytheon spokesmen example saying, hey, defense is a completely side business. The Congress Tells us what they need for americas security and we provide that. But thats not true, right . They spend millions of dollars a year Convincing Congress to purchase their wares and to adopt the policies. Think about the money that goes into the think tanks. Theres a dozen of them in washington, d. C. That all turn studies about why we have to this and we have to do that to, curtail our allies to expand our to enhance our influence and at any cost are the russian Nuclear Weapons secured and are they still building over there . I dont. Well, okay. First of all, i dont know how, secure they are. But presumably yes, they take the care and feeding of their Nuclear Weapons very seriously and. Then the second part to your question is really a tragic story, is that when w came into power right after september 11th, even though vladimir was the First International leader to call him on 911 and say, sir, im at your what can we do for you . Just two months later, bush tore up antiballistic missile treaty. He and, john bolton did. And by tearing that antiballistic missile treaty, that was the treaty that had been signed, i believe, by nixon, limiting the number of missiles that we could deploy. Now, it sounds like its just offensive, but when you have a nuclear arsenal, your defensive missiles are part of overall posture and the more anti missile missiles you have, the more it seems you might be able to cancel mutually assured destruction and achieve a first strike capability. Now, we all know that the antimissile missiles dont really work, but as putin has explained. He has to take the threat credibly and serious. And so once bush tore the antiballistic missile treaty, we found out in 2018, the reaction to that putin announced in his state of the nation speech, whatever call it, theyre a whole new generation of russian Nuclear Weapons, and they include Hypersonic Weapons that they claim break mcc seven or more. They include nuclear torpedoes, are completely silent and, you know, Hydrogen Bombs destroy any American Naval port or or shipping port in the world. They claim to have a Nuclear PoweredCruise Missile that has essentially unlimited range, could fly around the world as many times as it needed to to creep up on our defenses and a new around our defenses, i should say, and a new merv rocket thats multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles, technol g and it has more they claim more warheads than ever before, and its designed to go around the south pole where we dont even pretend to have defenses from attack around the south pole. And as they claimed it, has one of these missiles now enough warheads, warheads to every major city in state of texas to wipe all of texas, off of the map, the equivalent the nation of france with one missile and that a reaction. And putin said in that speech he said we you please listen dont do this why restart the of the cold war again i bet youre listening now, he said and thats his right. Thats the position put him in. And of course, his natural being who he is. Well, lets bring ukraine into this. Sure. Has that raised the danger, in your view, of nuclear war . Absolutely. I dont think theres any question right now that we are a greater danger of nuclear war than at any time since 1983. During the evil archer exercise, in the height of brinksmanship, the first reagan term, or possibly 1962. Have to recognize that in the cold war, the last cold war, we used to draw the line at the elbe river halfway across germany and. The threat was to the soviets. If you try conquer west germany or france or britain, we will go to nuclear war to prevent that. Right. But now weve moved that line 1200 miles to the east and incorporated all these former warsaw pact states into our alliance and in fact weve even from the Russian Point of view by bringing the baltic into naito, weve left the russian mini province, kaliningrad behind, natos lines between, the baltic sea, lithuania and poland. And weve seen the controversy over lithuania. You inspecting and closing the railway between russia. Are really belarus and kaliningrad. To the russians and could see how that could lead to a major conflict right there right on the border with our natos ally, poland. And conflict with our nato allies in the baltic. Now and then, of course in ukraine. Major part of the controversy. America, first of all, promising official aid to bring ukraine into naito, which biden reiterated in september and october of last year, helping lead to the russian build up and then the but also as said in the New York Times explicitly, the de facto integration of naito, the normalization of their military and integration of its systems in with the United States and the rest of naito. And so that we were pushing the line so far and the russians did warn over and over again. And in fact thanks to julian assange, whos currently writing in prison for publishing this information, anyone can read it. Wikileaks org from february 2nd of 2008. Its our current cia director, William Burns was then the ambassador to russia, and he wrote a memo to condoleezza called nyet means yet. And he said, i just met with sergei lavrov, the foreign minister. He explained in no Uncertain Terms that they just absolutely will not accept us bringing ukraine into natos if it comes down to it, theyll essentially invade and conquer ukraine before. They let us bring it in nato and. So mr. Lavrov is begging us to just not try it and i think the language is there that could cause civil war and then we would be forced to intervene. And we dont want to have to that decision. Lavrov says, which is four months later, bush tried to bring them into natos, and the only reason he wasnt able was because germany and france absolutely put their foot down. And why . Only for one reason. It will unnecessarily provoke conflict with russia. Otherwise, why not accept that it would a problem and they knew it. So instead put out a statement that one day we will and putting them on the fast track for someday and that kind of thing, which is as almost as bad of a provocation, you know, in spirit. And its, you know, not as many academics and, Foreign Policy experts of the highest degree, even at the council on Foreign Relations and the university of chicago have said not at all to justify putins war, which was illegal and an aggressive war. But you notice how they always say, like, its just built in, like some email went out. I didnt get it. But weve all been instructed, have to call it russias invasion of ukraine. Well, that just gives the whole game right there, doesnt it, that it was everything but unprovoked, but they dont want to talk about how provoked it was. Their responsibility for provoking, and they really have, especially since bush and through obama through trump, who after all trump was absolutely falsely accused of being a russian stooge. But then how do they react to that . In fact, Donald Trump Jr even said, look, were pouring these weapons into ukraine so now you cant call us pro russian traitors, right . So ended up taking a very harsh antirussian posture in order to prove what prorussian traders they werent when that was unnecessary anyway. And now, you know, massively escalated bombers that go, you know, 12 and a half miles off of russias coast right into their airspace, essentially simulating nuclear attack, a first strike and naval exercises on the black and baltic seas. And, of course, these massive arms transfers to ukraine. And, you know, id like to point out, while im on this, that in the new york in last december 21, they said biden government official. Were carefully calibrating amount of weapons were putting into ukraine. Were putting in enough weapons to deter putin so he wont attack. But were being very careful that we dont put in so many weapons that it provokes him into attack. So either they were lying about that and they were deliberately trying to provoke him to attack and that worked. Or theyre just really terrible calibrating how to control Vladimir Putins behavior and look at the results of what they got by for and all those weapons and and if youll indulge me for a moment, i would like to just read real carefully a little bit from my book here. This is real weapons expert. Im sure youre familiar with this man, joseph kony, from washington, dc to anti Nuclear Weapons activists from the Ploughshares Fund and the Quincy Institute up until recently. And i interviewed him two days after the war began. And its the last chapter in my book hotter than the sun here. And he said very clearly here, sir. He said, theres nothing that we did that justifies what putin is doing. Lets be clear about that. But a lot of what we set the stage for, what putin doing, the natos expansion that George Kennan warned us at the time in the 1990s when the warsaw pact collapsed and we were just starting to let those warsaw countries into natos, he warned that this was going to stimulate the worst kind of militaristic and, revisionist nationalist fears. Russia, which it did. Obama was warned when he put in what he said were missiles, which is true. We were putting interceptors in poland and romania to try to intercept in iranian icbm. Should they develop a Nuclear Weapon with an icbm team. They have developed neither, but we still put missiles in poland and romania. The problem that these are the same kinds of missile launchers that we have on our air cruisers and destroyers. In fact, its called the land based aegis system. And while we have interceptors them now, those same missile tubes could house off offensive Nuclear Tipped Missiles like the tomahawk Cruise Missile. And russia wouldnt know what in the tubes because there is no arrangement for inspections. And so sovereignty only goes at length to explain how he told he was on advisory position in the obama government and he warned them about this and he says they laughed off russian as ridiculous and how that helped he explains lead to this current that the americans simply refused to take those concerns seriously. And i think Joe Cirincione probably does as good of a job as anyone in america in explaining truth of that. Well, lets move russia and the u. S. Sure. What about india and china theres some tension down there as well, both have Nuclear Weapons. Its terrifying, right . I mean, both of these are nuclear armed. Im not again, certain how many. India as must be at least 100 by now. China known to have 2 to 300 Nuclear Missiles and they have a border and a very tense relationship, a disputed border, i should say, in the himalayan mountains and all kinds of competing interests and i dont know what anyone can do about any of that. I mean, i have sort of in the in the broadest sense, an idea that what i would really like see is for america to truly our empire home from the old abandon our policy of hegemony and socalled pax americana, extending our security relationships all around the world and instead no longer have a dog in any of these fights abandoned all our conflicts of interest and then truly play an honest peace broker as we should as a limited constitutional republic. And then we can say to china and india and to pakistan as well, lets all work something out. Kashmir, lets all work something out about the border in the himalayan. Of course, right now we cant negotiate that treaty, can we . Because Everybody Knows were trying to get india to help us to contain china as part of our great power conflict with them. So how can we play the role of a neutral peacemaker . We cant if we had a ron paul in neutral foreign, then we could host peace conferences from now and do everything we can to settle all the socalled frozen conflicts and badly drawn borders in the world that need be resolved peacefully. Scott horton lets go back to the naive argument, okay . Sure. Everything youve said so far indicates that nobody going to be the first to give up their weapons, right . Thats a great point. And heres the counter to that. Ronald reagan not mondale. Ronald, lets put them on mt. Rushmore was just one hair away from making a deal. Mikhail gorbachev, to get rid of all nuclear on the planet earth and. This was in 1986 before two years before the wall down two and a half years before the wall came down, before anyone thought wall was coming down, when everyone believed the soviet union would last into the new century and he was willing to make deal not just with red, white and republican russia, but with the communist soviet empire. And heres the way it would work. And Joe Cirincione explains, it as well as anyone. And he had talked to george shultz, who was in the room, the secretary of state at the time. Reagan said, lets give up. And remember, he had built up all of our Medium Range Missiles in europe in counter to the soviets buildup. He said, lets get rid of all of our short and Medium Range Missiles. And gorbachev says, okay, reagan is great. And then gorbachev says, lets get rid of all of our long range missiles. In other words, everything, all our strategic nukes. And reagan says to shultz can we do that . And shultz says, yes, sir, president , we can. Lets do it. So theyre going to do it. And they already are working on a plan and the plan essentially would be that the us and the russians and the soviets we would reduce our Nuclear Weapons stockpiles down. Right. About 200 to get us at parity with britain and france. Israel india, china. Then we lean on all of our allies and do everything we can to a global push for total disarmament and people say this is just impossible, but we outlawed biological weapons. And that doesnt mean that no one can ever cheat. But it means that its absolutely illegal and its inspected and guaranteed in various ways. And if you look at the treaty of 1968, its the Nuclear Weapon states promise to someday get rid of their nukes. I admit, hasnt helped, but the nonNuclear Weapons states have agreed to allow inspectors in and permanent inspection regimes in countries to guarantee to secure against the diversion of Nuclear Material to any military purpose. And that has worked absolutely. In fact, look at even the case of iran, where despite all of the hype and all the accusations about their program, the iaea, this entire time since theyve begun to introduce Nuclear Material into their in 2005, the iaea has continued verify the non diversion of Nuclear Material in iran to any military or other special purpose and. So that has worked very well and that can be the model for the rest of the world. But america has to lead the way on what happened to the gorbachev. Reagan deal. So what happened to that deal is a terrible tragedy. You wont be surprised to learn. It was the selfproclaimed prince of darkness, richard perle, who took a major role in lying us into war in iraq, war to 2002 and 2003. Who was in the defense at the time . And he led a group of hawks in the Defense Department and they essentially manipulated reagan and fooled him. They said, you promised the American People star wars. Now, thats not just antimissile missiles. Now were talking lasers, space total, make believe, 1980s. Give me a break. Right. But you promised the american the star wars Missile Defense shield and as part of the deal. Gorbachev insisting that america abandon that project and they said youll be breaking your promise and betraying the American People and. Reagan said, well, i cant do that, but course, if we negotiate away all the missiles, who needs a missile shield, especially one that wouldnt ever work in 100 years anyway . And it was just a terrible tragedy that they manipulated reagan into abandoned that great project. The book is called hotter the sun. Time to abolish Nuclear Weapons and the author is the director of the libertarian scott h this is the fourth day of an amazing display of. Writers and thought leaders and today will be no different. Im so grateful to be here. This panel is