Playing With Dynamite

Summary

History As It Happens

Episode: "Playing With Dynamite"

Date: November 11, 2025
Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Joe Cirincione (nuclear weapons expert, national security analyst)
Main Theme:
A deep dive into the continued threat of nuclear war, sparked by the cultural phenomenon of Netflix’s new film "House of Dynamite." The episode connects current anxieties, policy realities, and the lessons (forgotten and remembered) drawn from both fiction and historical near-misses, with a particular focus on the limitations of missile defense and the political rhetoric surrounding nuclear arms.

---

Overview of the Episode

This episode explores the resurgence of nuclear anxiety in American culture, prompted by the blockbuster success of "House of Dynamite." Host Martin Di Caro and guest Joe Cirincione discuss public complacency around nuclear risks, the myths of deterrence and missile defense, and real-life incidents that still haunt global security. They analyze how Hollywood reflects—and can reignite—public awareness, and scrutinize recent political statements advocating a return to nuclear testing.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. The Cultural Power of Nuclear Fiction

• House of Dynamite's Impact:
  • The film revitalizes fear and discussion about nuclear war, reminiscent of the 1980s TV movie "The Day After" ([03:23]).
  • As Cirincione notes, "It reminds people that this danger we thought had disappeared with the end of the Cold War has not disappeared at all." ([09:44])
• Comparison to Historical Media:
  • "The Day After" led to national debate, even influencing President Reagan’s diary and attitude toward Soviet relations ([05:38]).
  • Classic films like "Dr. Strangelove" are referenced as benchmarks for cultural engagement with nuclear issues ([12:18]).

2. Nuclear Complacency and Existential Risks

• Fading Awareness:
  • Despite the reescalating arms race, public concern has receded. Di Caro observes, “It’s not front of mind for me... but we all still know it’s a possibility” ([10:26]).
• Cirincione's Four Existential Risks:
  • Climate change, AI, pandemics, and nuclear weapons—nuclear being “the most dangerous... because unlike the others, it can wipe out human civilization in an afternoon.” ([11:02])

3. The Mechanics of Nuclear Deterrence and Response

• Realism (and Limitations) in House of Dynamite:
  • The film’s scenario—an undetected ICBM with no clear point of origin—though unlikely, is technically possible due to satellite or cyber sabotage ([14:12]).
  • Decision-making time: Only ~18 minutes to decide retaliation, accurately depicted in the film’s multiple perspectives ([15:19]).
  • Military procedures: “Our military procedures are basically to be prepared to launch on warning... just following the procedure. That I thought was a very powerful part of the film. How caught up in the mechanisms, in the procedures.” ([19:02])
• Launch Policy:
  • US systems are set up for "launch on warning," prioritizing speed and mechanical response over deliberative consultation ([20:49]).

4. Real-World Parallels: The 1995 Norwegian Rocket Incident

• A Near Miss:
  • Cirincione recounts how Russia nearly launched nuclear missiles in 1995 after mistaking a research rocket for a US attack— "We came that close just 30 years ago" ([17:23]).
  • The incident mirrors the movie’s scenario, highlighting the perennial risk of accidental nuclear war.

5. The Myth of Missile Defense

• Ground-Based Interceptors Aren’t Reliable:
  • The film depicts a 61% “success” rate; Cirincione clarifies real tests have achieved only 55% ([24:32]).
  • Pentagon claims of “100% accuracy” are based on selective, scripted tests ([24:32-27:09]).
  • “You’re trying to shoot something down that’s going 6,000 miles halfway around the globe... This is the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet. It’s a very demanding mission.” ([24:32])
• Systemic Flaws:
  • Even if partially effective, interceptors can easily be overwhelmed by decoys, multiple warheads ("MIRVs"), or simple numbers ([29:34]).
  • “There is no defense against 100 incoming ICBMs. Even if they got up to 80%... 10 still get through and you have—you know...” ([29:16])
• Star Wars and Current Ambitions:
  • Reagan’s initiative was based on unproven science; a new generation of orbital interceptors would require tens of thousands of satellites and trillions in funding ([33:14], [35:02]).
  • “You would need 1,600 satellites in orbit to cover a single launch site in North Korea,” Cirincione cites recent scientific studies ([34:58]).

6. Political Posturing and the Return of Nuclear Testing

• Recent Presidential Statements:
  • In a public statement, President calls for a resumption of US nuclear testing, justified by claims that Russia and China are testing too ([36:23]).
  • Cirincione fact-checks: Since the 1990s, only North Korea (2017) has tested nuclear arms; Russia/China have not. “Basically, the President is either deeply confused or he doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” ([37:11])
  • The shift could provoke a wave of global testing, breaking decades of restraint ([39:27]).

7. Ambiguous Endings and the Value of Imagination

• Film’s Final Message:
  • The President’s choice—retaliate or not—remains unresolved, echoing the unknowable risk at the heart of nuclear posture. “It leaves it up to you to decide what you think is going to happen next.” ([41:20])
  • “There’s no good case for launching. He shouldn’t launch. He should wait it out.” ([41:53])
• Near-Misses and Reality:
  • Most nuclear near-misses are accidents, not deliberate. “Most of the near misses we’ve had… have been mistakes—a training tape, a flock of geese, a full moon.” ([43:28])
  • “We’ve come real close to the end of the world many more times than people realize, and there’s no reason to think that’s going to end.” ([43:28])

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On missile defense illusions:

  • “That’s what $50 billion buys us.” — Joe Cirincione ([01:59], echoed again at [24:32])
  • “It’s the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet. It’s a very demanding mission. It’s amazing that we can do it at all.” — Joe Cirincione ([24:32])

• On scenarios depicted in fictional and real crises:

  • “We have the ability to destroy all that humankind has built over the millennia in a few hours. There’s no other threat like that.” — Joe Cirincione ([11:02])
  • “At least twice a day, the strategic command practices launching nuclear weapons.” — Joe Cirincione ([23:14])

• On political confusion and the risk of new arms races:

  • “President Trump inadvertently has made nuclear weapon testing great again. He may be setting off a new, dangerous phase of the arms race, and he doesn’t even realize that he’s doing it.” — Joe Cirincione ([39:21])

• On the responsibility and uncertainty of nuclear launch authority:

  • “There’s no good case for launching. He shouldn’t launch. He should wait it out.” — Joe Cirincione ([41:53])
  • “We have built a house of dynamite, and now the walls are caving in.” — President (in film) ([42:00], paraphrased from Cirincione’s summary)

---

Timestamps for Key Segments

• [09:44] – Why "House of Dynamite" resonates today.
• [14:12] – Technical plausibility: missile undetected by US satellites.
• [15:19] – The 18-minute nuclear launch decision window.
• [17:23] – Real-life parallel: 1995 Norwegian rocket incident.
• [19:02] – Procedures and the pressure to launch.
• [24:32] – Fact-checking missile defense claims.
• [29:16-30:55] – The insurmountable problem of overwhelming defenses.
• [33:14-35:35] – The staggering cost and complexity of space-based defense.
• [36:23] – President’s (fictional and real) call for renewed nuclear testing.
• [41:20] – The film’s ambiguous ending and its meaning.
• [43:28] – The reality of accidental near-misses throughout history.

---

Tone & Style

The conversation is clear-eyed, sobering, laced with dark humor and references to both cinematic and historical moments. Both host and guest move fluidly between policy analysis, technical insight, and cultural observation, keeping the discussion urgent while accessible.

---

Conclusion

"Playing With Dynamite" provides a sobering, fact-based look beneath the pop culture resurgence of nuclear anxiety. By using both historical events and cinematic fiction, the episode makes a powerful case for renewed public awareness, skepticism about technological “fixes” like missile defense, and the urgent need for sustained arms control efforts—even as the machinery and rhetoric of nuclear war grind on.

Transcript

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

Introducing Family freedom from T Mobile. We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones, all on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com familyfreedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phone via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement. Example Apple iPhone 16128 gigs $829.99 Eligible trade in example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end and balance due if you pay off early or cancel Contact us.

[Odoo Advertiser]

So when I ask, what is Odoo, what comes to mind? Well, Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a suite of business management software that some people say is like fertilizer because of the way it promotes growth. But you know, some people also say Odoo is like a magic beanstalk because it grows with your company and is also magically affordable. But then again, you could look at Odoo in terms of how its individual software programs are a lot like building blocks. I mean, whatever your business needs, manufacturing, accounting, HR programs, you can build a custom software suite that's perfect for your company. So what is Odoo? Well, I guess Odoo is a bit of everything. Odoo is a fertilizer magic beanstalk building blocks for business. Yeah, that's it. Which means that Odoo is exactly what every business needs. Learn more and sign up [e-mail] that's o d o o dot com.

[Martin Deccaro]

Hey everybody. It's great you listen to this podcast. You can also help make it sustainable by subscribing for $5 a month. You'll get ad free listening bonus content and access to the Entire catalog of 500 episodes. Tap subscribe now in the show notes or go to history as it happens.supercast.com history as it happens November 11, 2025 playing with dynamite we're talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet.

[Joe Cirincione]

That's what $50 billion buys us.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Get in the car and just start driving.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

If we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose.

[Joe Cirincione]

Our window to do so.

[Martin Deccaro]

The Netflix film House of Dynamite raises a terrifying scenario. The United States is under nuclear attack, but our leaders do not know where to retaliate. All the missiles and satellites, procedures and expertise, the hundreds of billions spent to deter and defend suddenly amount to little as the walls of the House of Dynamite cave in. Does this movie get it? Or is it just Hollywood fiction? That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin Deccaro. Do you think that what we should.

[Joe Cirincione]

Do is resume nuclear testing, Russia's testing.

[Pete Hegseth]

And China's testing, but they don't talk about it. You know, we're a open society. We're different. We talk about it. We have to talk about it.

[Joe Cirincione]

There's a reason that the House of Dynamite struck such a chord, why it's generated so much conversation, why it's now the number one streaming film in the world from the Netflix list of top movies. It reminds people that this danger we thought had disappeared with the end of the Cold War has not disappeared at all.

[Martin Deccaro]

On November 20, 1983, something amazing happened on ABC. It was the premiere of the TV movie the Day after about nuclear war and the nuclear winter that befell the American heartland. Well, the movie wasn't the amazing thing. It did come at a time when most TV movies were pretty bad. But. But this one caused such a stir in the midst of Reagan's nuclear buildup at a particularly cold time in the Cold War, that after the movie aired, ABC broadcast a panel discussion moderated by Ted Koppel with some of the heaviest hitters in politics and science.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger. Elie Wiesel, philosopher, theologian and author on the subject of the Holocaust William F. Buckley, Jr. Publisher of the National Review Authority and columnist Carl Sagan, astronomer and author who most recently played a leading role in a major scientific study on the effects of nuclear war. Lieutenant General Brent Scowcroft, National Security Advisor to President Ford, Chairman of President Reagan's bipartisan commission on the MX missile and former Secretary of defense Robert McNamara, who wrote in the current edition of Foreign affairs that nuclear weapons are totally useless except only to deter one's opponent from using them.

[Martin Deccaro]

The US Secretary of State George Shultz made an appearance too.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

The film is a vivid and dramatic portrayal of the fact that nuclear war is simply not acceptable.

[Martin Deccaro]

William F. Buckley did not like the movie.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

The whole point of this movie is to launch an enterprise that seeks to debilitate the American. May I ask you just to move in a little closer to your microphone? It seeks to debilitate the United States.

[Martin Deccaro]

Carl Sagan did.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

I think in this country we've been sleepwalking during the last 38 years and passed this problem without really coming to grips with how dire and compelling it is. And I think ABC should be congratulate. Congratulated for spurring what I hope will be a year long debate on this issue.

[Martin Deccaro]

Wherever one stood, there was no denying the power of the day. After as Max Boot wrote in his biography of Reagan published last year, the president had already been growing concerned about the risks of World War III. Always influenced by Hollywood, he had seen on October 10, 1983, a preview of a powerful ABC television movie the day after about the impact of a nuclear strike on Lawrence, Kansas. It's very effective and left me greatly depressed, he wrote in his diary. It wasn't clear says bout when he learned of reports that the Soviets were worried about the United States launching a preemptive war. But on November 18, 1983, just a few days after the conclusion of able Archer, Reagan wrote, I feel the Soviets are so defense minded, so paranoid about being attacked, that without being in any way soft on them, we ought to tell them no one here has any intention of doing something like that. And that is Max Bout riding in his life and legend. Of course, several months before, the day after Reagan made his Star wars or SDI speech on TV that also antagonized the Soviets.

[Ronald Reagan]

Let me share with you a vision of the future which offers hope. It is that we embark on a program to counter the awesome Soviet missile threat with measures that are defensive.

[Martin Deccaro]

Star wars was the derisive label for his space lasers idea. Nuclear war, not Star wars with Luke Skywalker. Nuclear war had been the subject of many great films, like Dr. Strangelove in 1964.

[Joe Cirincione]

Gentlemen, you can't fight in here.

[Martin Deccaro]

This is the war room. But less so since the cold war ended, our cultural awareness has indeed faded, although another nuclear arms race is underway. So maybe that'll change with Netflix's House of Dynamite.

[Joe Cirincione]

Approximately three minutes ago we detected an ICBM over the pacific. Current flight trajectory is consistent with impact somewhere in the continental United States.

[Odoo Advertiser]

Every seen death on two before noon.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

Is this real?

[Martin Deccaro]

Stratcom is asking for launch instructions right now. This film by the academy award winning director Katherine Bigelow begins with an undetected missile launch. A single ICBM headed for Chicago. Once American satellites finally pick it up, US personnel in Washington can't detect its origin. So who to retaliate against? Now, whether you find such a scenario realistic or not, House of Dynamite is serving an important purpose. It is getting Americans to think and talk about the madness of mad again. Joe Ciruncione is a career nuclear weapons expert and national security analyst. You can read his work now at the strategy and history newsletter on substack. Our conversation next, introducing family freedom from T mobile.

[T-Mobile Advertiser]

We'll pay off four phones up to $3200 and give you four free phones all on America's largest 5G network. Visit t mobile.com family freedom up to $800 per line via virtual prepaid card typically takes 15 days. Free phone via 24 monthly bill credits with finance agreement. Example Apple iPhone 16128 gigs $829.99 eligible trade in example iPhone 11 Pro for well qualified credits end in balance due if you pay off early or cancel contact us.

[Martin Deccaro]

Joe Cirincione, welcome back.

[Joe Cirincione]

Thank you, Martin. It's a pleasure to be with you again.

[Martin Deccaro]

You know, when you're here, everyone knows what the topic is going to be.

[Joe Cirincione]

It's usually not good news.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, the uplifting and joyous subject of nuclear combat. But you know, in the past we've discussed how cultural awareness around nuclear weapons proliferation, the threat of nuclear war, has faded, even as the major arms reduction and limitation treaties have pretty much all expired or been abrogated. And as we discussed last time you were on, a new nuclear buildup is underway. Well, now we have this movie, House of Dynamite. So I guess it's important in that sense.

[Joe Cirincione]

Oh, absolutely. You know, and there's a reason that the House of Dynamite has struck such a chord, why it's generated so much conversation, why it's now the number one streaming film in the world from the Netflix list of top movies. It reminds people that this danger we thought had disappeared with the end of the Cold War has not disappeared at all. And it's still very much with us. And it can strike at the most inopportune, unexpected times. And that's the beginning shock value of House of Dynamite. It's a perfectly normal day and suddenly an American city is faced with total obliteration.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, there will be spoilers in this conversation. Sorry, there's no way to get to the heart of the movie and the issue here without spoiling some of the plot points. But that's all right. But you know, Joe, the funny thing about nuclear war is that we all know, I guess it is possible, but I mean, it's not front of mind for me. I don't know how many people walk around thinking, oh my gosh, at any moment I could see a mushroom cloud. Right. But we all still know that it's a possibility, however faint. You don't want to walk around all day afraid and paranoid, but at the same time, we can't. You can't go to the other extreme and just, you know, forget about this as an issue.

[Joe Cirincione]

Absolutely. Look, in my threat assessment lexicon, there are four human civilization existential risks. Two of them are with us pretty much Every day, climate change, you can feel it, you can see it. There's a story in the paper every day about it. Artificial intelligence. Every day somebody's talking about artificial intelligence. Pandemics can also wipe out Yuba's civilization. We just, of course, have come through one, but there's others lurking out there. But mostly we don't talk about that. And the hidden one is nuclear weapons. And this is in my view, the most dangerous one, because unlike the others, it can wipe out human civilization in an afternoon. Whether it's by an intention to start a nuclear war, a miscalculation, an accident, or an act of presidential madness. We have the ability to destroy all that humankind has built over the millennia in a few hours. There's no other threat like that.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yet we all assume maybe we shouldn't, but we assume that everyone knows. World leaders know no one can win a nuclear war. Countries seek nuclear weapons not to use them, but as defense, as deterrence, as bargaining chips. Right?

[Joe Cirincione]

Yes. And sometimes, you know, we think about this like, oh, I don't know, a Dr. Strangelove way, which I think you and I agree is probably the greatest movie ever made about the nuclear weapons threat. A madman deciding to intentionally launch a nuclear war.

[Libsyn Ads Narrator]

War.

[Joe Cirincione]

We've seen movies where tensions escalate between powers and it leads to a nuclear war. But in this particular case, it's unclear what's going on. American government isn't sure who fired this missile.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, we're going to get into.

[Joe Cirincione]

It's actually happening. And that, that kind of stumbling into an unexpected nuclear catastrophe is a very real risk.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, we'll dive into the movie now because, you know, how are you going to approach this issue as a filmmaker? We're talking about trying to generate awareness about a very real problem after years of seeing this fade from our cultural awareness. Right. You can do a movie like a Nicolas Cage movie where it's so far fetched no one takes it seriously.

[Joe Cirincione]

Or you can.

[Archive Panelist / Historical Figure Voice]

Right.

[Martin Deccaro]

Or you could be try to be real. But then it also has to be convincing. It still will be a movie. They will take liberties with certain things, but it still has to be convincing, grounded in reality, if you want to take that approach. Or you could do, you know, Strangelove, which was satire, black comedy.

[Joe Cirincione]

What is going on here?

[Ronald Reagan]

I demand an explanation.

[Joe Cirincione]

This clumsy fool tried to plant that ridiculous camera on me. Yeah, you bet your sweets, Mr. Commie.

[Pete Hegseth]

Look at this, Mr. President.

[Joe Cirincione]

This lousy commie rat was taking pictures with this thing of the big board.

[Martin Deccaro]

Mr.

[Joe Cirincione]

Ambassador, this clumsy fool attempted to plant that ridiculous camera on me. That's a damn lie. I saw him with my own eyes.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Gentlemen, this is outrageous. I have never heard of such behavior in the war or before.

[Martin Deccaro]

So in the film, right? There's an undetected unknown when, as far as origin. Nuclear launch over the Pacific that somehow escaped American detection. Is that possible?

[Joe Cirincione]

Sure, that's possible by a variety of means. You know, one is technical failure of the satellites. These things happen. The other could be cyber sabotage. You know, somebody's penetrated our satellites and is blinding it. The other is laser weapons to blind satellites. We know the Chinese are experimenting with this. We are, too. So it, in the very first minute, it detects it, but it didn't detect it in the very first minute of launch or when it clears the clouds. And so it can't pinpoint the actual origin. So that's possible? I think that's unlikely. But you can't say it's impossible. And the movie uses it to stress confusion about what to do. How do you respond to something like that?

[Martin Deccaro]

So the movie has a few different settings. StratCom, and then there's also the Situation Room in the White House. And the characters are debating. They're arguing in these precious minutes they have until the missile comes down. Who did it? Could it have been North Korea? Could it have been Russia? Could it have been China? Well, and then they're on the phone with these countries asking, hey, did you do this? And they're denying it. I mean, how did you. What did you think of those scenes?

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, the most important part of that scenario is that they're showing how little time you have to make what might be the most important decision of your life or of any president's Life. It's about 18 minutes. And so the film shows that 18 minutes once, and then it repeats the same 18 minutes from an another character's point of view, and then it does it again to show you the different perspectives. Some people didn't like that technique. I do like that technique. I thought it was very illuminating. I thought it was a very realistic portrayal of the officials and the way they would respond to this. And it shows the pressure of the situation. And at the end of the film, you're left with the lesson that we end up in most war games about nuclear weapons. Almost every war game I know about, no matter how it starts, ends up a global thermonuclear war. And the point of doing the war games is to try to figure out how to prevent yourself from getting in that position in the first place. And I think that's the central message of the movie. How do we prevent this situation from developing in the first place?

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, because you don't want to.

[Joe Cirincione]

One of those things is the time pressure to launch because we have a, basically a launch on warning posture if we're attacked. The existing procedures are to launch our nuclear weapons in response before the enemy warhead can impact.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, I mean, it was effective as far as creating that scenario. We can't ever get to this point because in the film one of the military commanders is saying, okay, we don't know who launched this missile at us. Why would any country just launch one missile anyway? Makes no sense. Right? You would want to launch if you're going to try to defeat somebody, dozens or hundreds of missiles. So this one missile is about to hit Chicago and they're saying, look, we can either do nothing and hope that this is it and we lose one city with 10 million dead, or we can launch a retaliatory or preemptive strike right now and take out not other cities, but the launch sites, the silos, the aircraft across the board in wherever, China, North Korea, Russia. A major first strike. I mean, did you find all that convincing?

[Joe Cirincione]

When I was watching the movie and I saw it at a screening at the American Motion Picture Association a couple weeks before the film came out, I was puzzled by this and I thought this was a bit of a stretch, but then I was reminded that this scenario actually played out in real life, not with us, but with Russia. In 1995, when Boris Yeltsin was President of the Russian Federation, the Russian military detected a single missile being launched from the Barents Sea and they thought it was a US submarine launched ballistic missile. And in some scenarios that's how a nuclear attack would start, with one missile with a very large multi megaton explosion to set out an electromagnetic pulse to try to blind the radars, which would be followed by a salvo of missiles. It turns out that they had mistaken a Norwegian weather rocket which the Norwegians had told them about, but that hadn't been communicated down the chain of command. And they thought it was this US launched missile. And so for the first time in the nuclear age, the Russian military rushed to the President and opened up their nuclear football, their codes, their attack plans, and they told Boris Yeltsin he had to launch, which is exactly the scenario that is depicted in this movie. Now, Yeltsin didn't believe that his friend Bill Clinton would do it. He wasn't drunk. He waited and waited long enough to find out no There was no explosion, nothing happened. Closed the briefing books, put away the nuclear attack options. We all lived to see another day, but we came that close just 30 years ago.

[Martin Deccaro]

I remember reading about that scenario.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yeah, so we, so we have seen this scenario play out not in exactly the same way. And we'd like to think that our military leaders would be more responsible. But when I saw the head of STRATCOM and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs in the movie urging the President to respond, they were making a case for a response even though the missile was headed for an American city and not Washington D.C. or not our actual nuclear forces. And so we don't really have a need to respond, but you know, we don't have a need to respond anyway. There was no reason for the United States to respond to even a large scale attack on the United States first before the missiles hit. Because we have 14 submarines in the Pacific and the Atlantic, several of them on patrol at any given time, that have enough safe, survivable weapons to respond. And yet our military procedures are basically to be prepared to launch on warning, to be able to launch our missiles before the other guy's hit. And that's the procedure that the military was following. They weren't doing it because they were warmongers. They weren't crazy. They were just following the procedure that I thought was a very powerful part of the film. How caught up in the mechanisms, in the procedures.

[Martin Deccaro]

We've established there's a mechanism, there's a machinery to take away the variable of individual decision making or maybe somebody who doesn't have the guts to make the decision when it matters. You follow a process. So you found that accurate there.

[Joe Cirincione]

And that's the whole point of our nuclear deterrent. The enemy has to be convinced that as they say in Strangelove, the whole point of nuclear deterrence is to let the enemy know that you will respond if attacked.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Deterrence is the art of producing in the mind of the enemy the fear to attack.

[Joe Cirincione]

The launch procedures are set up to be swift and mechanical and free really of human interaction, except for the President who gives the order. They're not designed for careful consultations and deliberations. And of course the timeframe largely prohibits that. Like in the movie, they're trying to call the Chinese. They can't get through to the Chinese. Is that realistic? I think it is. We don't have a hotline with the Chinese. We would have to track the them down. Why should they be waiting by the phone for exactly the President of the United States?

[Martin Deccaro]

They're Attacking you. They don't want to talk, they're attacking. You know, I think that's why this movie is good. The whole idea of a failure of imagination, right. We have to think about something that. Well, that would never happen. You actually can't have that mentality.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right.

[Martin Deccaro]

Again, it is a movie, but still you can't have that mentality, oh, this would never happen. You know, we tend to think maybe, maybe. I mean, this is how I think about things. I'm not an expert. There's going to be a nuclear war. You can kind of see it coming. Probably not how a nuclear war would start.

[Joe Cirincione]

And of course Hollywood has to simplify this. You can't show a scene with all the people that'd be involved. You got to trim it down. This is a common technique. Instead of 10 people consulting, there's two or three, et cetera. But even that I found realistic. So the President of the United States is not in the Situation room surrounded by all his aides. He's on a helicopter with just the guy, the officer who's assigned to him 24 hours a day, seven days a week to carry the nuclear football. The command codes, the launch options. And why? Because he was shooting hoops with WNBA star Angel Reese at the Capital One center in Washington. Cuz he's doing what presidents, well, most presidents do. A booster for youth sports. He's not ready to go to nuclear war. And that's the point of the movie. Nobody's ready to go for nuclear war. We think this is all going to be carefully planned out like some nuclear war planners have designed it with the proper consultation. And everybody's in a good mood and everybody's up to speed. No, it's chaos. And the combination of this chaos and nuclear weapons brings us to this existential risks. And at any moment something like this more or less could play out. What are we going to do to prevent this from happening?

[Martin Deccaro]

Bring the chaos under control with the process, the books, the training. I mean, how many times is this practiced? Thousands. Right. They go over these scenarios, right?

[Joe Cirincione]

At least twice a day, the strategic command practices launching nuclear weapons.

[Martin Deccaro]

Wow.

[Joe Cirincione]

Twice a day.

[Martin Deccaro]

After this movie came out, the Pentagon released a statement. I have a Yahoo News article up in front of me here. So in the film, the missile's on its way to the US and they decide, StratCom, whoever it was in the movie, American officials launch the GBIs, the ground based interceptors. And they miss. And in the movie somebody shouts out at some point, we spent $50 billion on this and you're telling me it's only a 5050 chance we're gonna knock this out of the air. The specific number that was cited in the film was 61% success rate. Some Deputy National Security Advisor's on the PH says in our testing we did 61%. That actually sounds pretty high. Hitting a bullet with a bullet. The Pentagon under Secretary of Defense or War Pete Hegseth they released a statement saying that multi billion dollar hit to kill Systems displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade. So my question, Joe Cirincione this is an issue that we've discussed in the past on the show about Star wars and Reagan's plan to be able to and knock out intercontinental ballistic missiles heading for the United States. What is the truth here?

[Joe Cirincione]

We've had a lot of movies and you of I have discussed a number of them depicting nuclear war scenarios. I think this is the first that's looked at the missile defense scenarios. And in the film, which opens up at a missile defense base in Fort Greeley, Alaska, which is where we base most of the 44 interceptors and they play a key role about halfway through the film when they try to intercept and all the officials believe they're going to work and why shouldn't they? They've been told that and in real life that is what happens. The Pentagon officials, the contractors, the program officials, they all assure the American public and the Congress that we are protected, that we have a missile defense system. But it's not true. We do not have an effective reliable national missile defense system. This isn't Iron Dome in Israel where you're shooting down rockets that are going kilometers. You're trying to shoot something down that's going 6,000 miles halfway around the globe and is moving at about 5-7km per second in a very small object. Warhead's about the size of a person. So this is the equivalent of hitting a bullet with a bullet. It's a very demanding mission. It's amazing that we can do it at all. But it turns out that even in tests carefully scripted for success of this system, this particular system, the ground based interceptor system, over the last 20 years we've only hit it half the time. And that's the statistics that's referred to. In fact the film is a little more generous. They say 61%. It turns out out of 20 tests we've hit it 11 times. That's a 55% success record. The Pentagon comes up with a statistic of 100%. Right? Well that is True, if you cherry pick the data. Shades of Dick Cheney. If you cherry pick the data, if you manipulate the information to fit your storyline. If you only look back at the last 10 years, we did four tests over 10 years. That's a scandal in of itself, by the way. Why are we only doing four tests of a system that's designed to protect the United States? Well, in those four tests, those four interceptors hit. But if you go back just five more years, you see three additional tests were all the interceptors missed. So over 15 years, four out of seven, that's also 55% success record. So it depends how you use the data. And again, even in the four intercepts, only two of them were against long range ICBM range missiles. The other two were medium range missiles which are easier to hit, they're moving slower, et cetera.

[Martin Deccaro]

Even the Iron Dome missed a lot of the Iranian missiles by the end of that war.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. The longer the range of the missiles, the more missiles that are coming at you, the much more difficult it is to do so. I found this movie incredibly accurate of what you can expect if you test a system like the ground based interceptors. Rarely. And each one is carefully scripted to success. You know when it's coming, you know what the target looks like. There's no countermeasures, there's no decoys, there's no attempt to suppress the defense by attacking the radars first, for example, Even in those scenarios, you miss half the time. And that's what happens in the film. In fact, if you let me go, just nerd out about this a little bit. The first interceptor in the film misses because the kill vehicle, the tiny little part of it that actually tries to hit the warhead, doesn't separate from the booster. Well, that's happened in three of our tests. They just didn't separate. The second interceptor, the kill vehicle, does separate and it misses. Like I say, that happened in six other tests. So yeah, this is quite realistic about what you can expect from missile defense. And by the way, the film says 50 billion. We've actually spent 64 billion and it doesn't work. And the proof of the fact that it doesn't work is not cherry picking data, it's that the Pentagon itself has canceled this system. So the 44 interceptors we have and the kill vehicles attached to them have been canceled because they're plagued with technical problems, faulty switches, they don't launch when they're supposed to. There's all kinds of things that have gone wrong. And the Pentagon has now launched a Program called the Next Generation Interceptor, which is supposed to build a more reliable, more accurate interceptor. We'll see.

[Martin Deccaro]

So they put out a statement saying this is 100% accurate, but they've actually canceled the very system they're saying, defending. I did not know that exactly. Well, that's the Trump administration, which is.

[Joe Cirincione]

Why we haven't tested since December of 2023. We haven't tested in two years. If this system's so great, show it to me. Prove it, go test it, and we'll see how well it does.

[Martin Deccaro]

There is no defense against 100 incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles. There's no defense against nuclear war. Even if they got up to 80%. 70 missiles are shot. You knock out 50 of them, or 55 or 60, 10 still get through and you have, you know, so you.

[Joe Cirincione]

Don'T even have to go that high. We have 44 interceptors. If somebody really wanted to attack the United States, the standard protocol is to fire two interceptors per missile, or sometimes four interceptors per missile. You could quickly exhaust the possible interceptors with somewhere between 10 and 20 missiles or targets. It doesn't have to be an individual missile. The missile can release multiple warheads. So one missile could release three warheads or three warheads and 10 balloons that look exactly like the warhead in the vacuum of outer space. That's the fundamental problem with ground based interceptors is that it's so easy to overwhelm them with either real warheads or things that look like real warheads.

[Martin Deccaro]

So that's the ground based interceptor. Reagan's Star wars idea was to have of satellite based. It was called Star wars because of the use of lasers. Right. To knock out incoming nuclear weapons. This is an issue you've talked about quite a bit about the amount of money the United States continues to spend on missile defense when there really is no defense against nuclear war. But I guess they would counter while we're trying to get there. What's the current situation? Now? You alluded to it before that we're trying next generation. We're still spending tons of money on these systems and we're not sure if they'll ever work. Is that it?

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. So in the 1980s, missile defense proponents understood the fallibility of ground based interceptors. Remember, we had deployed ground based interceptors in the 1960s and 70s. We've done this before. We had 100 interceptors spread out with nuclear warheads on them. We couldn't do hit to kill at that time. So we had nuclear warheads on these Spartan missiles and Sprint missiles. That would blow an atomic bomb up in the path of the incoming warhead. Well, once the American people understood that that was the protection system, they weren't too crazy about it. And the army canceled it six months after deploying it.

[Martin Deccaro]

So you would blow up a bomb to blow up a bomb, but that.

[Joe Cirincione]

Was all we could do. We couldn't do hit to kill. And it's a technological achievement that we can even do it half the time. Frank, this is such a difficult mission. You may remember General Daniel O. Graham, who had a project called High Frontier, and he was pushing putting these interceptors in space. And then Edward Teller convinced President Reagan that you didn't need interceptors. He had a laser that could do this. And so that's when Reagan launched the Star wars program. It turned out after a couple of years, the scientific community took a real hard look at this, particularly the American Physical Society, the nation's premier physics association, and said, we're nowhere near even understanding whether these weapons are feasible. 20 more years.

[Martin Deccaro]

Edward Teller of the Manhattan Project.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yes. And he was then at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and he basically lied to the President and told him he had a proof of concept. Back at the office.

[Ronald Reagan]

I am directing a comprehensive and intensive effort to define a long term research and development program to begin to achieve our ultimate goals of eliminating the threat posed by strategic nuclear missiles. This could pave the way for arms control measures to eliminate the weapons themselves. We seek neither military superiority nor political advantage. Our only purpose, one all people share, is to search for ways to reduce the danger of nuclear war.

[Joe Cirincione]

It was a total lie. It wasn't true at all. And it took took four or five years of funding this program to find out we couldn't do that. And that's when they went to other scenarios, which is the kind of thing that President Trump is trying to resurrect now.

[Martin Deccaro]

Yeah, what are we doing today? What's the situation now?

[Joe Cirincione]

His golden dome project just got $25 billion from the Congress in the big beautiful bill, on top of the 10 billion a year we spend on missile defense programs to try to put in place a constellations of satellites in space to overcome the problems that you face with just a ground based defensive system. And the idea was you'd put these interceptors, think of them like little air to air missiles, like we put on our fighter jets. These missiles would launch out of these little garages. Maybe each interceptor would hold 2, 3, 5 interceptors and they would orbit the earth over the launch sites of North Korea, for example, and they would intercept their ballistic missile as it launches, which is actually theoretically easier to do because now you're talking about a slow target, very hot, with big flume coming out of it. So that's an easier target to hit. And you get it before it can disperse the warheads, before it can disperse the countermeasures. But here's the problem. In order to do that, you have to have your satellite in low earth orbit. So that's, you know, maybe 60 to 100 miles up, about 100 miles up, and you have to have it over the launch site. Well, satellites move, so that means you have to have a constellation of satellites. There was just a study from the American Physical Society looking at this, and it reckoned that you would need 1,600 satellites in orbit to cover a single launch site in North Korea. Not only do your satellites move, but the Earth is moving underneath them. So you need basically satellites everywhere.

[Martin Deccaro]

And that's just for one site in one country.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. So if you had two launch sites, you'd need to double that. And if you want to cover the dozens of launch sites in China, well, now you're talking about tens of thousands of satellites. Todd Harrison from the American Enterprise Institute, no liberal organization, respected conservative think tank, estimates that it would cost about $2.5 trillion to deploy tens of thousands of these satellites. And remember, these satellites wear out, so you'd have to replenish them every five years.

[Martin Deccaro]

And you get an arms race.

[Joe Cirincione]

Exactly. It's an unbelievably complicated operation to do this. And even if everything worked, your problems are not over because the enemy has an option here of attacking your satellites before they launch.

[Martin Deccaro]

So, yeah, there's an arms race here where the enemy will try to develop the weapons to knock out the satellites that are floating above their launch sites, guarding them, if you will, when there's a better way to de escalate this situation, that is to reduce the number of nuclear weapons. So you just wrote this piece for your substack and for msnbc.com about the president musing about a return to nuclear testing. But you're not sure the President knew what he was talking about. There was some confusion about what he meant.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. So last week, the President makes this very odd statement out of nowhere that because other countries are engaged in nuclear testing, we're going to have to match them. And he's ordered the Department of War to start the testing immediately.

[Interviewer / Journalist]

Are you saying that after more than 30 years, the United States is going to start detonating nuclear weapons?

[Joe Cirincione]

For years.

[Pete Hegseth]

I'm Saying that we're going to test nuclear weapons like other countries do.

[Interviewer / Journalist]

Yes, but the only country that's testing nuclear weapons is North Korea. China and Russia are not.

[Pete Hegseth]

Russia's testing nuclear weapons.

[Interviewer / Journalist]

My understanding.

[Pete Hegseth]

And China's testing them too. You just don't know about it.

[Interviewer / Journalist]

That would be certainly very newsworthy. My understanding is what Russia did recently was test essentially the delivery systems for nuclear weapons. Weapons, essentially missiles, which we can do that, but what. Not with nuclear weapons.

[Pete Hegseth]

Russia's testing and China's testing, but they don't talk about it.

[Joe Cirincione]

Okay, there's three problems with that. One, no other countries are not doing nuclear testing. Nobody has tested a nuclear weapon since North Korea tested one in the Last one in 2017. No major power has conducted a nuclear Test since the mid-1990s when all of them, when we stopped testing because we had conducted over a thousand tests, more than the rest of the world combined, we stopped. We led the world in signing the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, banning nuclear testing altogether. North Korea is the only one to violate it. And they did that in this century. And that's one of the reasons we consider them an outlaw state, or at least an outlier state.

[Martin Deccaro]

That's right, North Korea.

[Joe Cirincione]

So nobody's testing. Yes, that's number one. Maybe he was confused about. Because the Russians have been testing some new missiles, some new. A long range cruise missile, an underwater drone. Maybe he thought that was nuclear testing, but that's just the delivery vehicle. There's no nuclear warhead involved, no live testing. That's number one. Number two, the Department of War doesn't test our nuclear weapons. The Department of Energy does. Number three, there is no immediately here. We have closed the Nevada test site for, I think we closed it in 1998 and we renamed it and it's still there. But to get it up to speed again, to refurbish it, to actually conduct an underground nuclear test again, it would take at least 18 months and probably 36 months to do it. Basically, the President is either deeply confused and. Or he doesn't know what he's talking about. And we have gotten used to this from the President. But now we're talking about nuclear weapons. Now we're talking about accelerating an ongoing arms race and relaunching a global competition in nuclear testing. Because if we start testing, Russia is certainly going to do it. They've said that China, which has only conducted 45 nuclear tests, would love the chance to test new weapons designs, new explosives. India, Pakistan, they've only conducted a handful of tests. They would love to be able to get in on the act. President Trump inadvertently has made nuclear weapon testing great again. He may be setting off a new, dangerous phase of the arms race, and he doesn't even realize that he's doing it.

[Martin Deccaro]

1996 was China's last nuclear test. 96. The Soviet Union's last test was in 1990. The successor state, Russia, has not tested a bomb. United States last test. 92. And since the 90s, the immediate cold War. Post Cold War years, only one country, as you said, Joe, North Korea in 2017, has done a blast, a nuclear blast, not talking about missiles or delivery systems and actual nuclear blast, which has a whole host of potentially bad side effects.

[Joe Cirincione]

And even they tested underground because John F. Kennedy and Nikita Khrushchev negotiated the Limited Test ban treaty in 1962, which banned atmospheric tests or tests underwater or tests in outer space. And by the end of the 1960s, nobody was doing atmospheric tests. It's been a long time since anybody's seen a mushroom cloud.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

Negotiations were concluded in Moscow on a treaty to ban all nuclear tests in the atmosphere, in outer space and underwater. For the first time, an agreement has been reached on bringing the forces of nuclear destruction under international control, a goal first sought in 1946 when Bernard Baruch presented a comprehensive control plan to the United Nations.

[Martin Deccaro]

So we'll wrap up with this. The movie ends ambiguously. Sorry for the spoilers. You're not sure what happens. It fades with the President of the United States, played by Idris Elba, has all the information he needs. He has the codes. He's being urged. You must decide now. That's it. Although I guess he could wait a few minutes. Chicago is going to be wiped out anyway. But yes, you have to make a decision. It's the moment of decision and the movie fades to black. Without a decision, you don't know what the President decides to do. What are your final thoughts?

[Joe Cirincione]

Right. This is the part of the film that a lot of people didn't like. It's a very controversial ending, but the people who didn't like this hanging ending probably didn't like the ending of the Sopranos either. You know, it's the same kind of thing. It leaves it up to you to decide what you think is going to happen next. And I liked that about the film because it captures the uncertainty, the unpredictability, the basically coin flip decision, is the President going to launch or not? In my view, there's no good case for launching. He shouldn't launch. He should wait it out.

[Martin Deccaro]

Even if Chicago is Incinerated.

[Joe Cirincione]

Right.

[Martin Deccaro]

Well, he doesn't know who launched it. Right. There's no answer to that. In the movie, you don't know what happened.

[Joe Cirincione]

You don't know. So you lose a city, but you know you've got all your weapons. You don't have to launch. But we don't have to launch in any nuclear scenario. And yet the pressure's there. And in the film, they're making the case that if we don't have a prompt response, it's gonna raise doubt about American credibility. Always a powerful national security argument. And others will take advantage of us, even the people. If China didn't launch this, maybe China would think that we were vulnerable and now would be the time to attack. So there's a logical argument the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is making here. And remember, there's no villains here. There's no evil people. Everybody is just doing their job. And that's. Look at the system. And this is the closing line from the President. We have built a house of dynamite, and now the walls are caving in. And I can't think of a film like this that has provoked this much discussion about this topic. Nothing has come close to this in decades. And by the way, it's not the last one. There are two other directors. Villanueva, the director of Dune, who's bought the rights to Annie Jacobson's book Nuclear War Scenario, and James Cameron, famous director, among other things, Avatar. And he wants to make a film about Hiroshima to show what actually happened. So there's more nuclear films coming in the next few years. You and I may have a lot more to discuss.

[Martin Deccaro]

So in a sense, it's actually more terrifying to think of a nuclear war starting by accident.

[Joe Cirincione]

So most people think about near misses. They think of the Cuban missile crisis, where it was both leaders, Nikita Khrushchev and John F. Kennedy, were considering going to nuclear war intentionally, as a war plan, as a strategy. I'm going to do this unless you stop. But most of the near misses we've had, and there's been over a dozen during and after the Cold War, have been mistakes. A training tape was submitted into the NORAD computers and the entire stratcom. Then Strategic Command thought we were under attack. Radars picked up a flock of geese and thought it was Soviet bombers coming in. A full moon rising was thought to be an ICBM attack. You know, Zbigniew Brzezinski told the story of getting the call in the middle of the night, and he almost woke up President Carter because the military was on the line saying we're under attack. It turned out to be the training tape incident. Fortunately, they discovered in time. But we've come real close to the end of the world many more times than people realize, and there's no reason to think that's going to end.

[Historical Narrator / Archive Voice]

This treaty is not the millennium. It will not return, resolve all conflicts, or cause the Communists to forego their ambitions or eliminate the dangers of war. It will not reduce our need for arms or allies or programs of assistance to others. But it is an important first step, a step towards peace, a step towards reason, a step away from war.

[Martin Deccaro]

On the next episode of History As It Happens. Presidents and the press from the beginnings of the Republic to present with historian Lindsay Chervinsky. That is next as we report History as it Happens. Make sure you sign up for my newsletter. It is free. It is on substack. Just go to substack and search for History As It Happens.

[Joe Cirincione]

Plastic bags, plastic lids.

[Martin Deccaro]

What do we do with you?

[Joe Cirincione]

You can't go in the recycling bin.

[Martin Deccaro]

But you can be recycled if taken to a new Recycle on center. Find one near [e-mail] OregonCenters marketing is.

[Libsyn Ads Narrator]

Hard, but I'll tell you a little secret. It doesn't have to be. Let me point something out. You're listening to a podcast right now and it's great. You love the host. You seek it out and download it. You listen to it while driving, working out, cooking, even going to the bathroom. Podcasts are a pretty close companion. And this is a podcast ad. Did I get your attention? You can reach great listeners like yourself with podcast advertising from Libsyn Ads. Choose from hundreds of top podcasts offering host endorsements, or run a pre produced ad like this one across thousands of shows. To reach your target audience in their favorite podcasts with Libsyn Ads, go to Libsyn ads.com that's L I B S Y N ads.com today.