Why America Wants More Nukes

Summary

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Are We Doomed? (NPR Network)

Episode: "Why America Wants More Nukes"

Release Date: August 11, 2026
Host: Ben Bradford
Featured Guest: Vipin Narang (MIT, Former Acting Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space Policy & Nuclear Affairs)

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Episode Overview

This episode examines the United States' recent turn toward expanding its nuclear arsenal—after decades of reductions. Host Ben Bradford explores the rationale behind "more nukes" by talking with Vipin Narang, a former top nuclear policy official, probing whether increasing nuclear weapons can actually make us safer or only doom us further. Through history, strategy, and chilling real-world scenarios, the episode offers a clear view into why America now wants more nukes, what “deterrence” really means, and whether anyone can “win” a nuclear war.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. From Disarmament to Buildup: How Did We Get Here?

• Post-Cold War Optimism: After the Soviet Union fell, the US and Russia drastically reduced their nuclear stockpiles, believing “great power nuclear competition” was history.
  • “We thought that we would never have to deal with this again.” — Vipin Narang (05:00)
• Obama Era and START: Focus shifted to further reductions, with New START capping US and Russian deployed nukes (nominally) at 1,550, aiming for eventual elimination.
• *“We shut our enterprise down at the end of the Cold War.” — Vipin Narang (06:35)
• Others Build, US Cuts: While the US downsized, China and North Korea expanded, and Russia adapted its arsenal for new military purposes.
  • “China…had been very content living with a very small arsenal […]. Xi Jinping decides that China is going to compete with the US and Russia.” — Vipin Narang (06:51)

2. Why More Nukes? The New Strategic Logic

• Deterrence and the Nuclear Umbrella: US nukes don’t just protect America but are supposed to “shield” allies. If allies lose faith in US deterrence, they might build their own nukes, creating a proliferation spiral.
  • “Our nuclear arsenal must also defend against strategic attack—for the allies… The US nuclear force must be able to meaningfully limit damage… That is a very tall order.” — Vipin Narang (11:06, 11:26)
• More as the Lesser Evil: Vipin argues expanding the arsenal is preferable to seeing allies like Japan, South Korea, or Germany start their own nuclear programs.
  • “It is far better for us to go from 1,550 deployed nuclear weapons to… 2,000…to stop South Korea or Japan or Germany or Poland from trying to pursue nuclear weapons…” — Vipin Narang (11:54)

3. The Arms Race Logic: “Use it or Lose it”

• Counterforce Strategies: US nuclear weapons are mostly aimed at other countries’ nukes, not cities—intending to destroy the enemy’s arsenal in a first strike, ideally before they can fire back.
  • “There’s no question that the US nuclear arsenal is primarily designed to deter large scale conventional attack or strategic attack against the US homeland…” — Vipin Narang (09:44)
  • “It’s called counterforce.” — Vipin Narang (23:29)
• More Nukes ≠ City-Busting Apocalypse: The main purpose, Vipin argues, isn’t the classic “mutually assured destruction,” but having enough nukes to cover new targets as China and Russia expand.
  • “The reality is the US never believed in mutually assured destruction. We always sought to have a capability that could essentially disarm as many Soviet nuclear weapons as possible.” — Vipin Narang (23:10)

4. The Real-World Scare: Tactical Nukes and Putin’s 2022 Crisis

• Tactical Nukes – Risk of Crossing the Line: Smaller, “battlefield” nukes risk breaking an 80-year taboo and could be tempting for a losing regime or leader.
• The Ukraine Scare:
  • In October 2022, US officials believed there was a “50-50” chance Putin might use a tactical nuke after severe Russian setbacks.
    • “The intelligence community, when they say 50-50, what they mean is, holy shit. They don’t know. That’ll get your attention.” — Vipin Narang (18:31)
• What Happens After a Limited Nuclear Use?
  • Vipin: US/NATO would likely respond conventionally (not with nukes), attacking the launch site rather than escalating to all-out nuclear war.
    • “There would have been a massive, I would think, conventional or non-nuclear response… logical target would be the base where those nuclear weapons came from.” — Vipin Narang (21:11)

5. Two Doors: More or Less?

• Escalation Control: Is it possible to “manage” nuclear escalation? Vipin is cautiously optimistic, trusting in rational state actors to step back rather than launch a full exchange.
  • “These are smart state actors, including us, including Putin, including Xi… they've developed strategies so that escalation is, in fact, potentially controllable.” — Vipin Narang (21:40)
• Can You Win a Nuclear War?
  • The goal is a “sporting chance” to survive and “win” by disarming the attacker first—raising the stakes for both preparedness and risk.
    • “American planners…have thought very hard about…what it would take to potentially disarm the Russians or the Chinese…We, at the end of the day, have a really sporting chance of disarming them.” — Vipin Narang (23:40-23:49)

6. The “Cure for the Cancer of War”

• Why No WW3 (Yet)? Vipin attributes the lack of major power wars since 1945 to nuclear deterrence forcing caution on world leaders.
  • “Nuclear weapons are sort of, I call, a cure for the cancer of global conventional conflict…They have induced caution in great power interactions.” — Vipin Narang (25:46, 28:58)
• Unending Dilemma: The knowledge of making nuclear weapons can't be uninvented, so deterrence may be the “least worst” permanent solution.
  • “I think it’s very hard to put the genie back in the bottle… you’ve not eliminated the ability and/or knowledge to produce nuclear weapons.” — Vipin Narang (31:18)
• Bleak but Hopeful: Vipin does not think we are doomed to nuclear disaster, believing “smart and sober” management and deterrence can work indefinitely—if states avoid catastrophic mistakes.
  • “I don't think we're doomed… I think we can manage escalation… and also ensure that we deter our adversaries from attacking our allies directly in the US homeland directly. I do think that is possible forever… It is the least worst alternative.” — Vipin Narang (32:13–32:27)

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the shifting nuclear threat:
  • “It was like a frog in boiling water.” — Vipin Narang (00:47)
• On the dilemma:
  • “Can it be this is the only way to prevent more nukes, to build more nukes?...The only way to stop this doomsday machine from going off is to make your button even bigger while enemies make their buttons even bigger.” — Ben Bradford (12:14)
• On close calls:
  • “The near-oopsie is practically its own genre.” — Ben Bradford (14:42)
• On historical context:
  • “Not only have we not had a nuclear weapon used in anger since Hiroshima, Nagasaki, we haven't had great power war in 75 years.” — Vipin Narang (28:38)
• On optimism (or lack thereof):
  • *“Do you think we’re doomed?” — Ben Bradford (32:01)
    “I don’t think we’re doomed.” — Vipin Narang (32:13)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:25–04:49 — Setting the stage: Cold War, reduction trends, nuclear logic
• 05:00–08:25 — The “hinge point”: Obama, New START, and why cuts stalled
• 08:25–11:41 — Why more? The case for nuclear expansion and the nuclear umbrella
• 14:15–15:35 — Accidental vs. intentional use: “Oopsie” and “Screw it” scenarios
• 16:06–18:44 — Tactical nukes and Ukraine’s 2022 crisis, a real near-catastrophe
• 21:11–23:05 — Responses to “baby nukes,” escalation management
• 23:10–24:05 — Counterforce vs. MAD (“Mutually Assured Destruction” is not the real US strategy)
• 25:46–29:10 — Nukes as peacekeepers: the “cure for the cancer of war”
• 29:36–31:18 — Long-term vision: is nuclear deterrence sustainable?
• 32:13–32:54 — Are we doomed? Vipin’s view on the future of humanity and nukes

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Conclusion & Flow

The episode relentlessly probes America’s nuclear turn—not just as a question of military might, but as an existential paradox. Vipin Narang explains why American policymakers believe “more nukes” could prevent proliferation, deter rivals, and maybe even contain future nuclear uses. While the logic is “bleak” by Ben’s own admission, it’s now the prevailing wisdom. Whether this reasoning holds, or leads us down a path to constant danger, remains an open question and an open door.

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If you want to hear the perspectives from anti-nuke experts and “Team Less,” check out Are We Doomed? Episode 1, which focuses on the case for nuclear abolition and the risks of arms race logic.

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Transcript

[NPR Sponsor Announcer]

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[Ben Bradford]

This episode of Are We Doomed? Contains some strong language. Parental discretion is advised. Today on Are We Doomed?

[Vipin Narang]

When you go from there's no way Putin uses nuclear weapons to holy shit, I don't know. That'll get your att see swearing.

[Ben Bradford]

It's someone who's been at the top levels of government describing a nuclear crisis.

[Vipin Narang]

We thought that we would never have to deal with this again.

[Ben Bradford]

He's not just describing one event, but a problem that's built it was like

[Vipin Narang]

a frog in boiling water.

[Ben Bradford]

The problem he's describing is not that we have nuclear weapons. It's that he says we don't have enough anymore. This is Are We Doomed? From Nuanced Tales and distributed by the NPR network. I'm Ben Bradford. Ever since our first episode on nuclear war, I haven't been able to shake the basic absurdity of this whole thing. We have nukes because other countries have nukes. They have nukes because we have nukes. We all point them at each other. So if anyone uses them, we all go down together. I appreciate the communal spirit, but as our nuclear expert Sharon Weiner put it in that episode, you're threatening to destroy

[Vipin Narang]

your way of life in the name of saving it.

[Ben Bradford]

Also, Sharon offered a radically simple solution. What do you think is the right number of nuclear weapons for the United States? Oh, that's easy. That's none so easy. That is not the direction we're heading, though. In fact, for the first time in decades, the US Is pushing to expand its arsenal. More nukes. New, different kinds of nukes. More. So today I want to see if I can be convinced that the US Needs more nukes for the world. Can adding nukes actually prevent nuclear war? And in a world increasingly packed with doomsday weapons, can we keep avoiding the one thing they were built to do? We're going to explore the rationale. We're going to hear the point of view of someone who's been involved in the highest level of government in pushing for this direction. There are a couple of reasons Vipin Narang sounds like the wrong guy to talk to. First, his former job title.

[Vipin Narang]

I was principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Space policy and Stuff, we called it.

[Ben Bradford]

But in Pentagon speak and stuff can apparently mean the nuclear arsenal.

[Vipin Narang]

My direct boss was primarily the space person, and I was mostly brought in to handle the nuclear portfolio.

[Ben Bradford]

And then Vipin's job got even bigger,

[Vipin Narang]

ended up as the acting assistant secretary of defense for space policy and stuff.

[Ben Bradford]

So he was in one of the front seats for the government steering nuclear policy. Still, that was in the last administration, which has some ideological differences with the current one, except on nuclear buildup, which makes Vipin incredibly helpful. Here he can really give us a glimpse of the official view from the inside. The push for more nukes. Vipin tells a story of the past.

[Vipin Narang]

I think the story is relatively simple, if somewhat tragic.

[Ben Bradford]

During the Cold War, the US built nuclear weapons. The Soviet Union built nuclear weapons. The two powers competed, jockeying for more.

[Vipin Narang]

Then the Soviet Union essentially falls apart. And the idea of great power nuclear competition was at that point believed to be sort of history.

[Ben Bradford]

And when you say great power nuclear competition, you're talking about the Cold War buildup, worries of a nuclear strike, needing to be able to deter that with your own nuclear defense, et cetera, with

[Vipin Narang]

a state that has a nuclear arsenal, like sort of on the same level and equivalence to the United States.

[Ben Bradford]

With the Cold War over, it left both countries with huge stockpiles, tens of thousands of nuclear weapons apiece, a total explosive power roughly equivalent to being able to repeat Hiroshima and Nagasaki 375,000 times and nowhere to point them.

[Vipin Narang]

We had, through the Cold War, only had to compete with and largely deter just the Soviet Union.

[Ben Bradford]

Over a decade, the US And Russia decommissioned more than half their weapons. Vipen says, we did this thinking the threat was over.

[Vipin Narang]

We thought that we would never have to deal with this again. And so after the end of the Cold War, we had the luxury with Russia to focus on reducing the number of nuclear weapons in both of our arsenals. And we were on to globalization. And then 911 happened, and we had the global war on terror. The focus on nuclear weapons was essentially loose nukes, nuclear terrorism. Like we worried initially about Iraq getting nuclear weapons and North Korea getting nuclear weapons. And then we secured all of Russia's and Pakistan's nuclear material.

[Ben Bradford]

Meanwhile, the trend of disarming continued until, Vipen says it reached a hinge point. In 2009, the new US president, Barack Obama, gave a speech he committed the

[Vipin Narang]

United States to, perhaps not in our lifetime, but at least committed the United States to the elimination of nuclear weapons. Way less nukes was accompanied by the new START Treaty.

[Ben Bradford]

Each country, Russia and the United States, agreed to a cap on the number they'd deploy at 1,550, 1550. Of course, the treaty counts a bomber with 20 weapons as one, we have another 2,000 in reserve. And some weapons don't count at all, among other details. But in the long arc of the Cold War, the promise of less with a vision toward zero was the latest success story, and Vipin hated it.

[Vipin Narang]

There was no urgency then, and that's one of the problems.

[Ben Bradford]

He says it was shortsighted.

[Vipin Narang]

We shut our enterprise down at the end of the Cold War.

[Ben Bradford]

He says cutting our weapons left us vulnerable.

[Vipin Narang]

We sized it for a world that

[Ben Bradford]

no longer exists because while the US took weapons offline, other countries began to do more, more, more.

[Vipin Narang]

China, China, for, you know, over half a century had been very content living with a very small arsenal.

[Ben Bradford]

Yeah.

[Vipin Narang]

And then sometime in the last decade, Xi Jinping decides that China is going to compete with the US and Russia, and you get this massive transformation in China's nuclear arsenal. North Korea, whose nuclear weapons arsenal continues to grow almost as quickly as anybody's in history.

[Ben Bradford]

And Russia began to flex its remaining arsenal in new ways to support their

[Vipin Narang]

territorial aggression, particularly in places like Ukraine. So Russia's re emergence as sort of a nuclear peer adversary, you know, is like a frog in boiling water. Maybe we should have seen it coming.

[Ben Bradford]

Other countries had built while the US had cut. So the question becomes, in a world where other countries are doing more, what do we do? What is the right way to be safe? Vipin argues the only answer is more. He wants new nukes, different kinds of nukes and more.

[Vipin Narang]

We have to, I think, change our mindset from we're going to keep reducing the size of our arsenal. We're going to, you know, sort of take it easy. And there's no urgency to thinking about, for the first time since the end of the Cold War, potentially deploying more nuclear forces than we currently have.

[Ben Bradford]

There's a lot of evidence that the country's mindset is shifting to do exactly this new start. The last non proliferation treaty has expired. The agreed limits are gone. The US is planning to spend upwards of a trillion dollars upgrading its old nuclear systems. And defense officials, policymakers and influential voices, including Vivint, are pushing to add more. One group, the Heritage foundation, has suggested tripling the number of nukes deployed. And what would they all do? The popular image the the one I have in my head is the start of a post apocalypse movie. A mushroom cloud blooms from the heart of a city. The movie camera zooms out to a view of cities around the world similarly gone. Mutually assured destruction. Our current arsenal is already plenty powerful for that. How does more help? But Vipin says that is not predominantly what our nuclear weapons are for or where they're pointed.

[Vipin Narang]

One thing that's helpful for listeners to understand is sort of, what do we ask our nuclear arsenal to do?

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin says our nukes are largely pointed at other countries nukes.

[Vipin Narang]

There's no question that the US Nuclear arsenal is, you know, primarily designed to deter large scale conventional attack or strategic attack against the US homeland, AKA lob

[Ben Bradford]

atomic fire back if lobbed upon. So with rival nations expanding their arsenals, that means new silos that we don't have nukes ready to point at yet. At this point, there are two logical pathways you could go down, two initial doors to choose from if you're trying to decide whether you're team more nukes or team less. The door to team more says, well, we need to point nukes at those new sites more. The other says, what stops those rival countries from just building more too? China is currently building its arsenal to get on par with the US And Russia. If the US expands its arsenal to equal both Russia and China, then those two countries will just expand more. It's more, more, more forever. And so that DOR says the only answer is less, less, less, less. But Bitman argues that if we don't build more nukes, if we walk through door number two, it still leads to more nukes.

[Vipin Narang]

The unique responsibility the United States takes on is that its nuclear arsenal must also defend against strategic attack. For the allies.

[Ben Bradford]

The idea here is that it's our nuclear arsenal doing the work to sort of provide their deterrence. It's called the nuclear umbrella. Our nukes shield countries so they don't have to have their own.

[Vipin Narang]

The US Nuclear force must be able to meaningfully limit damage, to convince both Moscow and Beijing, but also our allies, that we can fight a war to save them. And that is a very tall order.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin says if allies stop believing the US has enough nukes to fire on their behalf, they'll build. So how do you limit nuclear proliferation? More nukes.

[Vipin Narang]

And in my view, it is far better for us to go from 1550 deployed nuclear weapons to, let's call it 2000 deployed nuclear weapons to stop South Korea or Japan or Germany or Poland from trying to pursue nuclear weapons and create all that instability in regions of immense vital interest to the United States.

[Ben Bradford]

Can it be this is the only way to prevent more nukes, to build more nukes? The only way to stop this doomsday machine from going off is to make your button even bigger while enemies make their buttons even bigger. And doing it because you worry if you don't, a whole bunch of other places will add their own buttons. That is the ascendant view right now, and I want to play it out further. If you do build more nukes, I do go through that door. In this new arms race, as the buttons grow or multiply, how do you stop them from being pressed? How does a believer in that machine think we can ensure it doesn't fire against us?

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[Ben Bradford]

There are two ways for humanity ending nuclear war to start 1. A country's leader decides to fire intentionally. Back in episode one, we dubbed this the Screw it.

[Vipin Narang]

That really is a roll of the

[Ben Bradford]

dice, because once the first nuclear weapon has launched, then you have to wait

[Vipin Narang]

and see what happens next.

[Ben Bradford]

The other way A country only thinks an enemy is attacking. It fires its nukes back at the imagined threat.

[Additional Sponsor Announcer]

Boom.

[Ben Bradford]

Thermonuclear Armageddon. It's an oopsie. Oopsie. It sounds ridiculous, but we also know it's almost happened a lot. From oxygen deprived nuclear submarine officers loading torpedoes to flocks of birds setting off radar detectors, the near oopsie is practically its own genre. But Vipin Narang, former acting assistant Secretary of Defense, now back at mit, does not fear the oopsi.

[Vipin Narang]

Yeah, I think the oopsie is pretty unlikely.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin just thinks leaders won't take the bait.

[Vipin Narang]

I don't think that a president responds to an Oopsie. In all of these countries, nuclear weapons states have gone to great lengths to prevent an oopsie. Does that mean it can't happen? Of course not.

[Ben Bradford]

Right.

[Vipin Narang]

Over time, the probabilities cumulate and an oopsie is certainly possible. But I certainly think the first pathway is more likely.

[Ben Bradford]

The first pathway, as mentioned, the screw it. A country's leader decides to fire intentionally. You're not going to believe how plausible Vipen, our former defense official, thinks this is. There's one specific screw it scenario he worries about most. Go back to the last nuclear treaty the US signed with Russia in 2010. It was called New Start. I told you. It capped the number of weapons the countries could have at 1,550 at the ready apiece. But there was an exception.

[Vipin Narang]

That is not a completely all inclusive number because it does not account for Russia's quote, unquote, tactical nuclear weapons, of which Russia has up to 2,000.

[Ben Bradford]

And a tactical nuclear weapon is essentially a smaller nuclear weapon, smaller payload. So we're not talking about like blowing up a city, you're talking about blowing up a smaller area.

[Vipin Narang]

Correct.

[Ben Bradford]

The scenario. A country uses a tactical nuclear weapon, a little baby nuke against a normal military target, a base, an airfield, a formation of troops. There's no giant mushroom cloud, no city shattering blast or wave of nuclear fallout painting whole regions of the world with radioactivity. But it is a nuke. And that country has violated the 80 year old taboo, the one that the whole system of deterrence is for. But just slightly towed past the line, it's still screw it then.

[Vipin Narang]

You have to wait and see what happens next.

[Ben Bradford]

What happens next? A tactical nuclear weapon is pretty widely considered to be able to lead to escalation.

[Vipin Narang]

Right? It creates all the all sorts of policy challenges, all sorts of escalation management challenges.

[Ben Bradford]

Does the doomsday machine spin up? It's not theoretical. Just a few years ago, it almost happened. Vipin was at the Pentagon in October

[Vipin Narang]

2022, six months into a war that the Russians thought was gonna last six days. They faced the risk of Russian army collapse in Kherson. And the Ukrainians had stood up for those six months. The Russians were running out of conventional

[Ben Bradford]

capability, AKA low on regular weapons.

[Vipin Narang]

And there was a real fear that the Russian army would get just put on a platter by the Ukrainians. And if that happened, the collapse of the Russian army for Putin is sort of an existential threat to his regime.

[Ben Bradford]

He might get run out. That could get him killed. Makes lobbing one of those baby nukes to shoot, shake things up a lot more tempting.

[Vipin Narang]

We picked up indications that Putin was very seriously thinking about using some of these small nuclear weapons.

[Ben Bradford]

This was a real moment we heard. It was like 50. 50, that's right. And it was. I remember this. This was a. It was a terrifying moment. It was where it's like everything could change.

[Vipin Narang]

And you know, the intelligence community, when they say 50, 50, what they mean is, holy shit. I. They don't know. That'll get your attention.

[Ben Bradford]

What would have happened if Putin fired that nuclear weapon? Would that have pushed the doomsday button? This is an existential question for us. It terrifies me that Russia could still grow desperate enough anytime to try a baby nuke as its war in Ukraine drags on. But also, nuclear armed states around the world have invested in tactical nukes because they can envision using them. And Vipen, our insider, thinks eventually someone

[Vipin Narang]

will in the next 30 or so years. 30 or 40 years. I would be shocked if a nuclear weapon is not used intentionally in anger on a battlefield. I mean, I think we're heading in a direction where there are enough actors so that if they're losing on the battlefield, think about Pakistan here, think about Russia, think about China. It could even be the United States if we're losing a war over. Taiwan employs a limited number of small nuclear weapons in order to turn the tide of that war.

[Ben Bradford]

I got to tell you, when you say that you think it's likely that someone's going to use one of these things in the next decades, you feel like that's a fairly plausible thing. I mean, I just get absolute chills when you say that. That is such a terrifying prospect because it's such an unknown. What happens next? In our first episode, Sharon Weiner walked us through the nightmare version, which she and other disarmament advocates think could happen. The logic of controlling escalation is you have to respond with just a little bit more. The idea is that after the first small nuclear weapon, the other side responds. Maybe not with everything, but enough to punish. But then the first side responds to that. Each step is supposed to be controlled, doing enough for the other to back down. But because of how people respond to crises, shaky hands slam the buttons as the world crashes down. Decision making theories suggest that people in a situation like this, where they're afraid of losing, they actually double down and they engage in risky Your behavior. A spiral into doom. Vipin is much more optimistic. Same scenario, Putin launches a baby nuke. The US and NATO respond, but Vipen thinks not with a nuke there would

[Vipin Narang]

have been a massive, I would think, conventional or non nuclear response. Just theoretically, I think the logical target would be the base from which those nuclear weapons came from, so that it would degrade Russia's ability to use more nuclear weapons. In Ukraine, the US would not have

[Ben Bradford]

used nukes, but it still would have directly attacked Russia.

[Vipin Narang]

And then it would be up to Putin to decide whether he would escalate.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin has confidence the countries would ultimately figure it out. Step back.

[Vipin Narang]

There's, I think, a notion that escalation becomes uncontrollable. But these are smart state actors, including us, including Putin, including Xi, where the idea that, you know, they've developed strategies so that escalation is, in fact, potentially controllable.

[Ben Bradford]

Here again, two doors. One for team less nukes and the other for more. Which door you choose depends on how much you trust your government to make good decisions. And not just your government, but China's, Russia's, maybe North Korea's. Vipin, as you've heard, is pretty confident. Maybe that adds optimism. He's been there in the room as we spoke. Though, I found another reason behind his conviction, a more surprising one. The conventional view, the only one I've ever known, is no one wins in a nuclear war. That's the whole grim logic of deterrence. If the nukes ever fly in earnest, everyone's screwed. Camera zooms out. Mushroom clouds dot the planet like in the movies. Nuclear winner hits soon after. See our episode about how to survive nuclear war. But what if there are two doors?

[Vipin Narang]

We're going to get into some nuclear theology.

[Ben Bradford]

All right?

[Vipin Narang]

There are two basic options in terms of nuclear strategy.

[Ben Bradford]

The door to less is that conventional view that no one wins. Stay away.

[Vipin Narang]

This concept of mutually assured destruction, Vipen

[Ben Bradford]

says that has never been the official plan.

[Vipin Narang]

The reality is the US never believed in mutually assured destruction. We always sought to have a capability that could essentially disarm as many Soviet nuclear weapons as possible.

[Ben Bradford]

That's why he wants nukes pointing at other countries. Nukes to blow them up before they launch.

[Vipin Narang]

It's called counterforce.

[Ben Bradford]

So the door toward more nukes says, what if we can win a nuclear war?

[Vipin Narang]

American planners and strategists have thought very hard about and come up with pretty good solutions. We, at the end of the day, have a really sporting chance of disarming them.

[Ben Bradford]

Sporting chance.

[Vipin Narang]

It's not a foregone conclusion, but it's

[Ben Bradford]

a hell of an argument for more nukes. If they really could save us from other nukes. It's the best argument. Nukes the vaccine for nukes. And Mipin believes it.

[Vipin Narang]

Yes. There are nuclear planners and strategists who've been working on this problem for 75 years now, have thought of all the challenges of sort of what it would take to potentially disarm the Russians or the Chinese of their nuclear forces.

[Ben Bradford]

See, I mentioned being surprised. First, I don't know how maybe we can win deals with the nuclear winter of it all. Second, there's an argument that if everyone is playing the game of counterforce, everyone's planning to blow up their rival's nukes before they can launch, and they know their adversaries are playing the same to them, then haven't you just encouraged everyone to fire all they've got at the first hint that they're under attack or they're going to be under attack? What you've created is use it or lose it. Which just leads you back to those two doors. Can more nukes give you the win or do they just increase the danger? In a lot of ways, that debate, all of us actually, is the exact same debate that's raged since nuclear war first became a possibility 80 years ago. Do we need more weapons or less? If they're fired, will it end the world or be manageable? Can anyone win? Does thinking you might win add to the danger? It's the same doors with new grease on the hinges. And so as I was wrapping up with Vivint, I wanted to turn to his view of the past and the future. We have lasted 80 years with these weapons not destroying us. How does he think in the world of more nukes, we can do 80 more? And what I heard about his optimism went far beyond how we can mitigate the consequences of this invention.

[Vipin Narang]

Nuclear weapons are sort of, I call, a cure for the cancer of global conventional conflict.

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[Ben Bradford]

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[Vipin Narang]

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[Ben Bradford]

we are hearing the view today for more nukes, which is the prevailing view in our government. And we're hearing it from one of the thought leaders behind this approach, Vipin Narang at mit. He's presented the argument that nukes are needed, that they make us safer, that we can use them if it comes to it, that even we might be able to win. But I had always figured whether you were team more or team less or anywhere in between, fundamentally there was one door everyone went through that we all saw the technology the same basic way. A sad reality. But Wittmann, with some caveats, describes these weapons differently.

[Vipin Narang]

Not only have we not had a nuclear weapon used in anger since Hiroshima, Nagasaki, we haven't had great power war in 75 years. And if you look at the first half of the 20th century, it was riddled with great power conflict. Hundreds of millions of dead across the globe, he says.

[Ben Bradford]

Why have we not had another world war?

[Vipin Narang]

Nukes, nuclear weapons are sort of, I call it, cure for the cancer of global conventional conflict. They have induced caution in great power interactions. And across the globe, he believes they're

[Ben Bradford]

still keeping the peace today.

[Vipin Narang]

Even in the Ukraine conflict, we see deterrence working. Russia could have gained military advantage by striking supply lines in Poland, but Putin did not because he knew that striking NATO, NATO Territory would cross a red line for the United States in the alliance. And, you know, I think nuclear weapons have a lot to do with that.

[Ben Bradford]

Nukes. What can't they do?

[Vipin Narang]

It doesn't mean there aren't side effects. And those side effects need to be managed.

[Ben Bradford]

Side effects like close calls, arms races, little wee baby nukes, nations jockeying to be able to win on a first strike. All of which I think leads us to a final set of doors that may separate Team Moore and Team Less. Over the doors, a banner reads, where do we go from here? I think if you believe in disarmament, the vision of a good future is pretty simple. Get rid of the weapons and we don't blow ourselves up. What about if you believe? How is that sustainable? Jump ahead. Not five years or 10 years, but 50 years or 100 years. What do you think the nuclear threat looks like under this paradigm?

[Vipin Narang]

That's a great question. So what does success look like? And I think that is something we don't ask enough of.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin describes an arc the US builds so our allies don't.

[Vipin Narang]

Convinces China and Russia that there is no pathway through which continued buildups are in their interest.

[Ben Bradford]

So those rivals build for a bit, but then stop.

[Vipin Narang]

And we have multilateral sort of arms control. And a nuclear weapon has not been employed.

[Ben Bradford]

So we don't have to test whether a baby nuke leads to a doom spiral or whether countries can rationally step back.

[Vipin Narang]

That would be success in 25 years.

[Ben Bradford]

It's a vision of a world that builds some more nukes but then stabilizes it, settles into a newer version of the same paradigm we've had of deterrence. What about further into the future? Will countries always have nuclear weapons?

[Vipin Narang]

I think it's very hard to put the genie back in the bottle.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipin says you cannot uninvent the bomb. Even if every country did give up

[Vipin Narang]

its arsenal, you've not eliminated the ability and or knowledge to produce nuclear weapons.

[Ben Bradford]

So what about further into the future? Do you think that we can keep this paradigm of deterrence forever? Or do you think that global nuclear war is destined to occur eventually?

[Vipin Narang]

If the United States is smart and sober about the challenges it faces, and it depends on the leadership in our adversarial countries. Can you have deterrence failures? Sure, but the goal is to avoid the big deterrence failure.

[Ben Bradford]

Yeah. Yeah. But I'm asking you, your vision of the future under this, what you think is going to happen in your gut? You know, the name of the show is are we doomed? I guess I'm asking You if you think we're doomed.

[Vipin Narang]

I don't think we're doomed.

[Ben Bradford]

You don't think we're doomed?

[Vipin Narang]

I don't think we're doomed.

[Ben Bradford]

Vipen thinks humanity's survival is not based on phasing out nuclear weapons, but controlling what happens once one is almost inevitably used.

[Vipin Narang]

I think we can manage escalation if that were to ever occur, and also ensure that we deter our adversaries from attacking our allies directly in the US Homeland directly. I do think that that is possible forever. Yeah. I think there's no alternative. I think at this point it is the least worst. Is the least worst alternative. And that's the world we live in. Unfortunately,

[Ben Bradford]

when you open all the doors to Team More, this is where you land. I'm not saying it's wrong. I do think it's bleak. And there are other paths we could try. We heard where Team Team Less lands in our first episode, which, if you haven't listened, I really recommend. I think it's in conversation with this one. And I don't discount that we might discover other doors that we can't see yet that may not eliminate nukes, but lead away from deterrence or itchy counterforce trigger fingers. But right now, this is the path. As a nation, we appear to be walking toward the path of more. I need to go. The question is, when you look back at all the doors you opened to get there, do they make sense? A door that says the answer to other nations. More nukes is more nukes. The answer to stop proliferation among allies is more nukes. That you can maybe win a nuclear war if you have more nukes. That the reason for peace in the modern era has been nukes and that this is the way it has to be forever. That's the logic. Do you buy it? We have a new bonus episode for all. Are we Doomed supporters? A mysterious space threat that the former top scientist at NASA says we have to get a move on. Something happened out there a million years ago that moved these comets on a trajectory to come flying through the solar system. That bonus episode now available through our support site, arewedoomed.com support thank you to everyone who is supporting us. We definitely don't expect it or take it for granted, but it is a key reason we can do this show. And next week on the show, the ozone layer, whatever happened to it, Are We Doomed? Is a production of nuanced tales created and run by me, Ben Bradford. Thanks this episode to Lauren Harold for singing our More Nukes jingle. Our producer is Lindsey Kilbride. Our editor is Tracy Samuelson, engineer and sound Designer Jay Sebold YouTube Animation by Al Kamalazad theme music composed by Dylan Dagenet. The show is distributed by the NPR Network. Big thanks to Dan McCoy, Kalia Ali and the rest of the team at NPR for all they do. And most of all, thank you for listening.

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