Very much for sitting down and talking about your book. Its a pleasure to meet you. Im delighted to have this opportunity. How are you feeling . Im delighted to be with you. So all the compliments back that you. It really is a pleasure. Thank you. Well, lets get right into this. This is a brilliant book. This isnt the right thing to say about a book. Nuclear war. But i really enjoyed reading it. It reads like a thriller. Youve taken policy and history and details and Nuclear Weapons effects and war games and wove them together into a page turner. I read this in about two days, just while taking extensive notes. So lets get right into one of your essential points of the book, which is the concept of nuclear. Dr. Strangelove tells us in the movie after him that deterrence, the art of instilling in the mind of the enemy, the fear attack. But in your hands deterrence almost becomes character in your book. It changes, morphs, and it almost has motivation. It becomes one of the central drives of your of your storyline. So please tell us how you think about the concept of Nuclear Deterrence and how it works in theory and in practice. I mean, thank you for that intro. In many ways, the concept of deterrence is very kubrickian or orwellian really, and that is a central theme. But i also want to say thank you so much for letting me know that the book fast because that is the intent and were going to obviously get into the policy and the foundation of it. But i believe as an investigative journalist job is to inform the people and the best to do that is to get their attention. Were all fighting for peoples attention these days. What could be a more important topic that is absolutely not discussed, although i will caveat that the present day, which neither us expected probably one or two years ago, but people really dont talk about nuclear war. They must because things must change. And so we begin with deterrence. Right . So for laymen, you know, i am in in spirits even though this is my seventh book, which deals with military and intelligence issues deterrence at its heart. Is this idea that if you have bunch of Nuclear Weapons and the other side has a bunch of Nuclear Weapons and you both keep them pointed at one another, the world will be safer. And that is really simple, really terrifying and also really bizarre, you know, because the next statement that comes out of anyones mouth who really believes in deterrence and have to believe in it or otherwise. The alternative of is collapse or in the world of an in the words of a deputy stratcom commander the unraveling. Yes, right. So but thats what deterrence its like. Okay. Were just going to have more Nuclear Weapons or rather differently. I would say deterrence. Like the more weapons you have, the safer you are right. So you talk about it in the book as the first rule number one of nuclear war, although later on you have a little plot twist. There are no rules in nuclear war. You also talk out as a concept it you talk about it as a concept that is to americans to make Nuclear Weapons their savior, not their, you know, the threat. And in the book, you the plot is about what happens when deterrence fails. And i think this is how i about deterrence its a great idea until it doesnt work and when it doesnt work it fails catastrophically. Absolutely. And that idea came me from having before nuclear war a scenario i previously six books on these the pentagon cia, darpa and you know 100 plus sources and each book almost all them at some point during a lengthy interview saying i dedicated my life to preventing Nuclear World war three. And most people said that to me with the kind of, you know, swelling and legitimately so and so during the Previous Administration and when President Trump was talking about fire and fury all that nuclear war rhetoric, i got to thinking about what all those sources had told. And i thought, what happens if deterrence fails . Prevention fails . What would that be like . And what i learned didnt just shock me. It shocked me again and again and again and again. And thats what i put in book. I put what i learned from top tier, Upper EchelonNational Security people who opened door into this world so that i could really see what and as you know from reading book it happens in seconds and not days and weeks. Right. I think. Its 78 minutes your nuclear war takes right around there. Yes. Yeah. Three x 24 minutes. 800. Thats not my nuclear war, by the way. Thats based on a quote from former stratcom general keeler when and i were discussing know nuclear war between russia and america and he said the world could end in the next couple of hours. Yes right an hour and a half Something Like that when you just start doing the calculations as you do. How long does it take to a weapon . What happens when the side sees the weapon . What do they do . Their decision process. Thats why this a thriller. I mean its history, its policy. But really acting out how. Does this play out . What would you decide to do in moscow in washington or in pyongyang because this starts with north korean. And let me let me get us to that because you start your book with a bang. I mean literally, literally, you blow up the pentagon with a one megaton thermonuclear explosion, but then, like all good movies with a drama sequence in the beginning, you then back up, you then say, well, how did we get here . So did you choose that approach . Tell us a little about what you what you learned and what you write about, about the beginning, the nuclear age . Because in some ways youre picking up where oppenheimer ends, right . What happens after the movie, after we decide to build a Hydrogen Bomb . Tell us. Thats right. And that is so important. And you, a historian, know that as well, that where we come from, you know, shakespeare past is so how did we wind up with many Nuclear Weapons . And i take the reader through that i think relatively or rather in a very sort of pared down manner so that people can see where, you know, when begin this the launching scenario because the book does take the reader from Nuclear Launch to Nuclear Winter and. You know, one of the things that was really shocking to me was learning all that history in depth and figuring out how do i make this zoom, right . How do you just rip through this . I you said you read it in a night or two, right . Yeah. And so the section that comes to mind to answer question is when i was looking at the buildup of weapons and i literally its like three or four pages in the book where im showing you this year, this number of weapons this year. I that was brilliant by way, because ive written about this myself and ive done these charts and. Im talked about the nuclear mountains and but ive never broken it down that way. And it was stunning to see how quickly we went from two three Nuclear Weapons at the end of World War Two to by the time the buildup sort of peaks when what when John F Kennedy is inaugurated. We have 20,000 Nuclear Weapons built in just years. I mean, that alone kind of tells you everything you need know. And i feel like that such an important thrust of the narrative because the average person walking down the street if they hear launch john warning policy which will into you know we will tourists are you know so president ial authority they just their eyes glaze over and they go oh thats for the ph. D. Crowd. And i think its the opposite as you know, there is a tiny ray of hope in this with the idea reagan reversal. Well talk about that later. But, you know, most people simply dont want have to wrap their brain around policy issues and inevitably, the policy issues turn political. Absolutely. And that is fundamentally at our own peril. When i say our its not just you and me. Its not just every american. Its the whole world. Right. Right. So talk about the buildup. What what motivated the buildup . Because i write in my books about how the air force, you know, around the 1940s thought, you know, were not going to need more than 60 Nuclear Weapons after that said, we run out of targets. But that is not the view that prevailed . Right. You talk about early on that some groups in the pentagon sketching out how many weapons they would need to completely the soviet union. Thats right. And thats where youre just of reading with your jaw dropped. And it does feel more like Doctor Strange than reality. And then you must remember that in the early in the fifties and parts of the sixties the idea among admirals and the generals at the pentagon was that nuclear war would be fought to win, which now the most absurd concept that you could ever not wrap up with that that we were going to fight win a nuclear war right . Yes, absolutely. And interviewing many sources, as i do, former secretary of defense people that advise president who are now in their eighties and nineties they were young men when this concept, these concepts were being, you know, promoted. I mean, like former secretary of defense bill perry. Yes absolutely. And and there was this idea of more, you know, the more Nuclear Weapons, the better. You just have more more is more. And that take away, i think is just you cannot really get around that other than thinking this is madness you bring us into one of the early meetings i think its 1960 where the military is decided and this is even before mcnamara becomes secretary defense, that they need to have a single operation plan psyop for nuclear war there. And you bring us into a meeting i know this. Id never seen this. One of the participant took which which then reveal what he was thinking as this plan is laid out. Can you talk about. Absolutely and how you got your hands on your notes . Youre about john rubel and, you know, the Nuclear Plans are among the most jealously guarded secrets. Absolutely. In the National Security apparatus. Bar none, right. They just dont want to know. And then parallel to that, very sick brit idea is, the fact that no one would break ranks. Right. So youve got issues, security clearances and youve also got issues of culture. Right. It would just be, you know, abominable to break ranks. Well, john rubel did in a tiny memoir i mean, its so thin and was published in 2007 or 2008. And because as america was in the middle of the war on terror, this got almost no notice. And that is what that from so those are not like some secret was like a Deputy Director of of pentagon planning a research and Engineering Research engineer, which you and i both know is like a pathway yeah, theres only a handful people in this room, a couple of dozen. And he was one of them at the highest level. Yes. And so there he is in 2000, in the early 2000, a man in his eighties knowing he is going to die sooner than later and he decides to write a memoir talking about how he felt and. That was what was key, because he speaks of the war through the long lens of history yes as a mass extinction. Right. And that really kind of takes your breath away. And he compares it from right about this to another meeting. I didnt know about you. I read your book in nazi germany in 1942, when the leaders of nazi germany are sitting, discussing very calmly a plan to exterminate millions of systematically on an industrial scale. And he thinks of that plan when hes sitting around. Thats absolutely right. The wrong side conference. And to equate to no audience in your mind as a man in your eighties who had debt you know lubell dedicated his life to this of militaristic you know effective and to have turning point your own mind i think is really remarkable. Well you know you know ive worked in the House Armed Services and im working Nuclear Issues ive written about them ive been a think tanks in 1991 when i was still on staff and top secret code word clearance, i went to the Strategic Air command. It was still called sac to get a briefing on the psyop generally. Butler was, the commander at the time, as you know, he later and becomes an advocate for nuclear abolition. But at the time he gave us sort of a sanitized view. And in this picture hes talking about the target list. And in this unclassified version of it, we drop 60 Nuclear Bombs on the city odessa, which was then in ukraine which was then still part of the soviet union. Soviet had collapsed yet and im looking at and i when i read your book im thinking thats what i thought. What what eight ruble ruble verbal ruble is thinking. Im thinking this is. 60 Nuclear Weapons on one city and thats just one of the targ of the plan. And i know the military would vigorously disagree this. But this is what youre pointing out in your book is this is the natural consequence of deterrence, for deterrence to you have to have a machine ready to execute and what it means. And thats what happens in your book is, okay, what happens when deterrence fails for whatever reason and we start to execute this. Absolutely. And then you realize there is no turning back. Its a system. You know, the decision trees are in place. No one no one changes their mind. Theres no to change the mind. The mind is set from the minute that the United States detects launch and that really frightening. And also compelling at the same time. Again looping back to, i think you and i are both in agreement about that nuclear this book this is not meant to scare people and sort of you know, make them even militaristic. Its simply to make them educated and willing to realize, wait a minute, the world that we live in today is very different than it was in the 1950s in from technology to Nuclear Armed nations. So shouldnt we all be having the conversation rather leaving it to a small group of people who are like the version today of the john rebels of the 1950s who might later an epiphany or maybe none of us will be here to have that epiphany, because this is a situation where we are all walking on the razors edge. There are no villains in your book with the possible exception of kim jong un, whose reasons for launching the attack are not known. Right. Which they in real life. Thats true. We wouldnt know why someone has done this. You would just see the missile launching. But there are villainous concepts and you get into these and they become sort of character in the book and they date back to the and sixties. So lets talk about this and what you think about launch on morning seoul Authority First use of Nuclear Weapons launch on morning tell us about that launch warning again. You asked the average person on the street. They have no idea what that is, including before i really drill down on this launch on warning is exactly like it sounds like we launch on warnings. Okay so. What does that mean then you have to pull back for a second to the most basic concern of strategic missiles, which, again, most people dont realize. Its like you can learn it in one page in my book, an icbm is a Ballistic Missile that travels from one continent to another in approximately minutes. Its 33 minutes from pyongyang. Its 26 minutes and 40 seconds from moscow. Okay. So are down to the seconds and minutes. So when you consider that amount of time, then an analogy would be this, is not 911 happening . This is not the pentagon suddenly realizing planes have hit the towers. This is a system, systems Nuclear Command and that americans have spent trillions of dollars setting up with most us not having any idea since the 1950s sixties. So now we have there is a satellite system in space. You, of course, know this bringing the reader or the listeners up to speed, the satellite system in space is so technologically advanced it sees Ballistic Missile launch, it sees the the exhaust coming. The bottom of the rocket right from in under second. Yes. Its actually Remarkable Technology achievement. I mean, it really is. And when you know that these are our Early Warning satellites. And once you learn think once you learn that as a reader, you go now i get it right. Launch on warning. So we see we have a warning our satellites Early Warning satellites that a missile has launched. Then what happens . And then everything begins because. And by the way, we have satellites parked, all the Nuclear Armed nations. So we are watching for the launch right. And then geosynchronous orbit. Absolutely and then this the situation begins. And so as i show in the book, because i take readers in seconds, you know and then we speed up 2 minutes but a immediately that data gets sent down to these Nuclear Command and control. Theres one called the Aerospace Data facility in colorado. And begin to interpret the information. Now its all about the missiles trajectory, right . Again, super fast. I mean, who knew that after 150, 180 seconds, the Defense Department knows the space, the the analysts, the Machine Learning the Defense Department whether or not that missile heading toward honolulu or the east coast. And so then you begin to realize driving in intensity is only building as all of these different individuals eyes are getting ready to brief the president. Yes, right. And they have minutes to do so. And the preside