To Love the Bomb

Summary

History As It Happens: "To Love the Bomb" - Episode Summary

Release Date: January 7, 2025
Host: Martin Di Caro
Guest: Joe Cirincione, Former Director of Non-Proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

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Introduction to the Nuclear Arms Race

Martin Di Caro opens the episode with a historical overview of the nuclear arms race, highlighting its resurgence in the modern era. He sets the stage by referencing President Truman's announcement about Russia's atomic capabilities and President Kennedy's emphasis on renewing negotiations to mitigate atmospheric contamination.

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Historical Context and the Beginning of Arms Control Decline

The discussion delves into the historical trajectory of nuclear arms control, tracing its roots back to the Cold War era. Di Caro references significant events such as the testing of the Tsar Bomba by the Soviet Union and the subsequent devastation it caused, emphasizing its ineffectiveness in deterring the U.S. and complicating future negotiations.

Notable Quote:

"This is a dangerous tactic. It will not deter the United States and its allies, but it will make future negotiations all the more difficult."
— Adlai Stevenson [02:27]

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The Rise and Fall of Arms Control Treaties

Joe Cirincione elaborates on the impact of the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty, which he states Russia violated "without remorse" ([00:53]). He discusses the broader implications of such violations, leading to a new arms race involving the U.S., Russia, and China. Cirincione introduces his concept of "arms control extinction," explaining how landmark treaties are becoming relics of the past.

Notable Quote:

"After nearly a full year of negotiations, we completed an agreement earlier this year that cuts by a third the number of long range nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles that the United States and Russia can deploy..."
— Joe Cirincione [05:15]

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Economic and Political Drivers of the Current Arms Race

Di Caro and Cirincione discuss the economic motivations behind the arms race, pointing out that military contractors like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing are major drivers. The conversation highlights how these corporations benefit from the continuous buildup, making it challenging to halt the escalation.

Notable Quote:

"When you have that kind of money involved, you know, that's what's pushing these programs. You can talk about strategy and doctrine and necessity, military justification, but what really is happening is that there's a river of money in contracts roaring through Washington, through the Pentagon, through the Congress."
— Joe Cirincione [31:31]

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The Decline of the Anti-Nuclear Movement

The episode examines the weakening of the anti-nuclear movement, citing reduced funding and influence among arms control groups. Cirincione expresses pessimism about the resurgence of organized efforts to counter the arms race, attributing it to diminished public awareness and waning activism.

Notable Quote:

"Almost all the arms control groups and expert projects in think tanks, academic centers, have decreased in number, declined in influence over the last 20 years."
— Joe Cirincione [37:25]

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China's Role in the Modern Arms Race

A significant portion of the discussion focuses on China's expanding nuclear arsenal. Cirincione explains China’s shift from a “minimum deterrent force” to a more substantial stockpile in response to U.S. policies and missile defense initiatives. He warns of a potential domino effect, where other nations may follow suit, exacerbating global nuclear proliferation.

Notable Quote:

"They had the ability to do that. Not many. About 60 of their weapons could reach the United States and that was enough. They deterred us, but then they saw the US... we are now in the process of building a whole new generation of bombers, submarines, missiles, warheads..."
— Joe Cirincione [57:12]

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Historical Lessons and Future Prospects

Di Caro and Cirincione reflect on past arms control successes, such as the INF Treaty and the New START Treaty, contrasting them with the current decaying state of international agreements. They express concern that without renewed commitment to arms control, the world is heading towards an unparalleled nuclear arms race with catastrophic consequences.

Notable Quote:

"We are definitely in the nuclear buildup, arms control decline part of this cycle."
— Joe Cirincione [55:42]

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Concluding Thoughts and Call to Action

The episode concludes with a somber outlook on the future of nuclear arms control. Cirincione emphasizes the urgent need for a freeze on nuclear proliferation and advocates for diplomatic efforts to halt the arms race before it spirals out of control.

Notable Quote:

"The American people deserve a government that works to reduce risks, not magnify them."
— John Garamendi [60:21]

Final Remarks: Martin Di Caro teases the next episode, which will explore the future of Trumpism and its implications for American conservatism and global politics.

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Key Takeaways:

• The nuclear arms race is resurging, driven by economic interests and geopolitical tensions.
• Historical arms control treaties are deteriorating, leading to unchecked proliferation.
• China’s expanding nuclear arsenal poses a significant threat, potentially triggering a global arms race.
• The anti-nuclear movement lacks the momentum and resources needed to counteract current trends.
• Urgent diplomatic efforts are required to prevent a catastrophic escalation of nuclear weapons worldwide.

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For More Information:

Subscribe to Martin Di Caro’s weekly newsletter for updates and links to Joe Cirincione’s work on arms control at HistoryAsItHappens.com.

Transcript

[Martin DeCaro]

History as it happens. January 7th, 2025 to love the bomb.

[Adlai Stevenson]

President Truman's dramatic announcement that Russia has created an atomic explosion.

[John F. Kennedy]

President's statement underlines the importance of having.

[Adlai Stevenson]

An effective method of control. The hydrogen bomb, the bomb that Khrushchev announces will once again undergo tests by the Russians. It will not deter the United States and its allies, but it will make future negotiations all the more difficult.

[John F. Kennedy]

To renew negotiations with the Soviet Union and whether it's possible to come to some conclusion which will lessen the chances of contamination of the atmosphere.

[Ronald Reagan]

This ceremony and the treaty we're signing today are both excellent examples of the rewards of patience.

[Joe Cirincione]

As President Reagan said when he signed a nuclear arms treaty with the Soviet Union in 1987 Trust but verify.

[Martin DeCaro]

Russia has violated the terms of the.

[Joe Cirincione]

Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty without remorse.

[Martin DeCaro]

A new arms race is underway. The U.S. russia and China are preparing to spend enormous sums building up their nuclear arsenals. We're living in the era of arms control extinction. Landmark treaties seem like ancient history. When did the disarmament consensus begin to unravel? And what will be the consequences? That's next as we report history as it happens. I'm Martin DeCaro.

[John Garamendi]

It's a trajectory towards greater danger and increased instability. I stand before you today to say that we still have a choice.

[Joe Cirincione]

And this illustrates the fundamental conflict that has happened since the beginning of the nuclear age. There have always been people since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that said we have to get rid of these. These are terrible weapons. They threaten all of humanity. And there's been another group of people that says we have to get more of these. These are our ultimate security.

[Martin DeCaro]

October 30, 1961 casts its eerie shadow.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Over the face of the earth.

[Martin DeCaro]

The hydrogen bomb the Soviet Union test the H bomb undergo tests by the Russians.

[Adlai Stevenson]

As nuclear tests span talks reconvened in Geneva the Soviets said that they would resume testing.

[Martin DeCaro]

Dubbed by the Americans, the Tsar Bomba dropped at 34,000ft over the Mika Bay nuclear testing range in the northern Arctic Circle, it is the largest nuclear device ever detonated.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Adlai Stevenson expresses the views of the U.S. the Soviet government's announcement that it has decided to resume nuclear tests comes as a profound shock. Once again the iron fist of the Soviet Union has crushed the hopes of peace loving people. If the Soviets are attempting to intimidate the Western powers because they because we intend to defend our rights and duties in Berlin they are grossly misjudging the resentment of all nations large and small.

[Martin DeCaro]

Against threats according to The Atomic Heritage Foundation's Nuclear museum, all wooden and brick buildings Nearby Severny, located 34 miles from ground zero, were annihilated in other Soviet districts located over 100 miles from ground zero. Wooden houses were demolished. Brick and stone homes were damaged. One test witness felt the thermal effects at a distance of 170 miles.

[Adlai Stevenson]

This is a dangerous tactic. It will not deter the United States and its allies, but it will make future negotiations all the more difficult.

[Martin DeCaro]

Today, 80 years after the dawn of the nuclear age and the closing moments of the Second World War, today President elect Donald Trump's Project 2025 wants to reverse the Biden administration's decision to retire the B83 bomb. So what is B83? Journalist Matthew Galt, [e-mail] about the new nuclear arms race, says the B83 is a gravity bomb 80 times more powerful than the weapon dropped on Hiroshima. In August 1945. A simulation showed that were the US to drop one on Iranian weapons facility, it could kill 3 million people and irradiate India. Like the Tsar Bomba 60 years ago, the B83 serves no practical purpose. It is a weapon of incalculable destruction. But unlike 60 years ago, the incoming administration stated plans to build up the Pentagon's nuclear arsenal is not triggering global calls for arms control, for international summits, for new treaties. Instead, as our guest in this episode will discuss, the U.S. russia and China are leaping headlong into a new arms race. Only one major weapons treaty between the US And Russia is still in effect, the Obama era New Start Treaty. Ratified in 2010, it expires next year.

[Joe Cirincione]

After nearly a full year of negotiations, we completed an agreement earlier this year that cuts by a third the number of long range nuclear weapons and delivery vehicles that the United States and Russia can deploy while ensuring that America retains a strong nuclear deterrent and can put inspectors back on the ground in Russia.

[Martin DeCaro]

Joe Cirincione is a career nuclear arms expert, the former Director of non proliferation at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the retired president of Plowshares. In his strategy and history substack, he's written a four part analysis of what he calls the arms control extinction. He writes destroying agreements that limit or eliminate weapons has consequences. The mutual withdrawals from the INF treaty allowed first the United States and now Russia to field new medium and intermediate range missile systems. Russia in late November attacked Ukraine using a conventionally armed version of an intermediate range ballistic missile that would have been prohibited by the treaty. He says both countries plan to deploy such dual capable Systems in Europe in a revival of the Euro Missile crisis of the 1980s. And I will share links to Joe Cirincione's work in my weekly newsletter. You can sign [e-mail] so the Euro Missile Crisis of the 1980s. That brings us back to a much different time when millions of people in the US And Europe spilled into the streets to demand a nuclear freeze.

[Orson Welles]

I've got a question for 1 million people. Do you want to freeze the arms race? Do you think that Ronald Reagan is going to freeze the arms race?

[Martin DeCaro]

Central Park, 1982. About a million people gathered to decry Reagan's weapons buildup. Orson Welles was among the dignitaries who spoke that day.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Wait, just listen. Listen to the man. 3 days ago in Germany, he spoke of peace marches and he did place a certain benevolent and almost pittance. But in the midst of all that, he did say that he had noticed something in one of those parades. It was a placard and it read simply this.

[Martin DeCaro]

I am afraid the throngs in Central park may have feared Reagan was a madman, but the President actually abhorred and feared nuclear weapons. And in 1987, he and Mikhail Gorbachev signed the first treaty to reduce not merely cap arsenals, the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty.

[Ronald Reagan]

Mr. General Secretary, though my pronunciation may give you difficulty, the maxim is dovayai no provai, trust but verify.

[Mikhail Gorbachev]

You repeat that at every meeting.

[Adlai Stevenson]

I like it.

[Ronald Reagan]

This agreement contains the most stringent verification regime in history, including provisions for inspection teams actually residing in each other's territory and several other forms of on site inspection as well.

[Mikhail Gorbachev]

For everyone and above all, for our two great powers. The treaty whose text is on this table, offers a big chance at last to get onto the road leading away from the threat of catastrophe. It is our duty to take full advantage of that chance and move together toward a nuclear free world which holds out for our children and grandchildren and for their children and grandchildren the promise of a fulfilling and happy life without fear and without a senseless waste of resources on weapons of destruction.

[Martin DeCaro]

As Reagan and Gorbachev said, there was more to the treaty than the important technical details. It was a sign of trust between adversaries, cooperation, a thawing of conflict. Today, where is the anti nuclear movement? Where are the statesmen calling for summits? In November last year, Congressman John Garamendi, a California Democrat, delivered remarks that few noticed beyond those watching C Span.

[John Garamendi]

At the moment when advocates tell us that our nuclear modernization will cost $1.7 trillion, it's difficult to fathom just how much money that truly is. To be clear, the cost is more than the Iraq war cost us over 20 years. And the costs just keep rising. The Sentinel program, which will replace the Minuteman III ICBMs, has already ballooned to $200 billion and 81% cost overrun. For comparison, we could buy 20 aircraft carriers for the cost of modernizing a few hundred unusable missiles and warheads.

[Martin DeCaro]

Garamendi's words echo through the decades. Let's go back to 1958. According to the Council on Foreign Relations, that year was the most active to date for nuclear testing. The Soviet Union, UK and the United States detonated more than 100 devices. Then they voluntarily paused testing for several years and talked about a permanent testing ban. The possibility of endless dangerous tests and the prospect that more and more countries would enter the arms race was one of the most pressing issues in global politics.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Mr. Cator has the next question for Senator Kennedy. Senator Kennedy, last week you said that before we should hold another summit conference that it was important that the United States.

[Martin DeCaro]

October 13, 1960, the third debate between Nixon and Kennedy.

[John F. Kennedy]

Now, on the question of disarmament, particularly nuclear disarmament, I must say that I feel that another effort should be made by a new administration in January of 1961 to renew negotiations with the Soviet Union and see whether it's possible to come to some conclusion which will lessen the chances of contamination of the atmosphere and also lessen the chances that other powers will begin to possess a nuclear capacity. There are indications because of new inventions that 10, 15 or 20 nations will have a nuclear capacity, including Red China, by the end of the presidential office in 1964.

[Martin DeCaro]

Two years later, October 1962, with Kennedy in the White House, the US and Soviet Union came to the brink of nuclear combat.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Russian missile bases less than 100 miles from the United States. President Kennedy's dramatic retaliation underlines the gravity of this threat. Announcing the blockade to prevent further buildup of Soviet strength, he added that further action may be justified. Do you, Ambassador Zorin, deny that the USSR has placed and is placing medium and intermediate range missiles and sites in Cuba? Yes or no? Don't wait for the translation. Yes or no?

[Martin DeCaro]

Sanity. Human existence demanded change. The following year, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and United States agreed to ban nuclear explosions in the atmosphere, outer space and underwater, and to significantly restrict underground testing. The Limited Test Ban Treaty. Washington and the Kremlin also installed a hotline like the Bat phone to avoid an accidental nuclear war. So as we can see, efforts to limit or eliminate the bomb are as old as the bomb itself. Today, though, the world is moving in a frightening new direction of proliferation. But it doesn't seem to be receiving enough attention. I mean, do you know how many nuclear weapons are in the world today? There are nine nuclear armed states. Only five of them are legal. 12,100 nuclear warheads in all, the United States and Russia have about 5,500 apiece. China, 500 France about 290 the United Kingdom 225 India 172 Pakistan 170 Israel 90 North Korea, 50 according to armscontrol.org Joe Cirincione, welcome back to the show.

[Joe Cirincione]

Thank you very much for having me.

[Martin DeCaro]

Back on writing about the exhilarating topic, depressing topic unless you're Dr. Strangelove of nuclear weapons. But why doesn't this issue of the nuclear arms race that you say is well underway, why isn't getting more attention?

[Joe Cirincione]

One reason is that it's mainly invisible. We don't really see nuclear weapons or the effects of nuclear weapons the way we see, for example, a pandemic. You can't get away from it, or effects of climate change. It's all around us. Nuclear weapons in isolated air bases or scattered through the Great Plains of America in ICBM silos beneath farms or submarines patrolling the distant oceans. You don't see these things. It doesn't affect us until suddenly there's a crisis. And that's when it comes up. And with the reelection of Donald Trump, I expect we're gonna have some replays of the kinds of nuclear crises we saw during his first administration. You remember his showdown with North Korea, for example, or when we almost attacked Iran several times. So that's when they flare up and come in the news. But overall they're sort of ignored until you can't ignore them.

[Martin DeCaro]

You know, though, the Trump threats, just to use one example against North Korea, it didn't seem real. I mean, of course he's not gonna start a nuclear war. About a year ago, I had you on the show early 2024 to do an episode about the 60th anniversary of Dr. Strangelove. Yeah, that was a different time, a different period where there was a cultural awareness and a palpable sense, I don't want to say of doom. It's not like people are walking around expecting mushroom clouds all the time. But there was a palpable sense that nuclear war was possible and that that has diminished. I mean, even a generation or so ago, there were huge demonstrations in Europe when the US was deploying the Pershing 2 missiles there. But that kind of cultural awareness front of mind problem is not here. Even though as you say, we have this nuclear arms ra right.

[Joe Cirincione]

And we've seen these sort of waves ripple out through the 80 year history of the nuclear age. 2025 will be will mark the 80th anniversary of the invention of the nuclear bomb at Trinity test site made famous by the Oppenheimer movie. You know, during the 1950s, for example, there was a vast nuclear buildup and that did scare the public. And that crystallized in the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. And that brought us to the edge of the nuclear abyss. And people pulled back this urgent trans.

[John F. Kennedy]

Of Cuba into an important strategic base by the presence of these large, long range and clearly offensive weapons of sudden mass destruction constitutes an explicit threat to the peace and security of all the Americans.

[Joe Cirincione]

And that's why you saw the rise of arms control treaties coming out of the experience of the 50s and 60s and this great flourishing of arms control treaties that worked pretty well in the 70s and then the 80s when we started the Reagan nuclear buildup, people lost faith in arms treaties. Groups assembled to argue that we were going to be overwhelmed by Soviet nuclear weapons. We had to build up. And you had the scares of the 80s that resulted in people believing that Ronald Reagan and Leonid Brezhnev are going to start a nuclear war. And you saw massive demonstrations again in Europe, in America and again that led to a flurry of arms control treaties, nuclear guardrails that reversed the arms race, that brought it all down. And we've been living largely in that period, in the leftover of those nuclear agreements and restraints and the build down of nuclear weapons ever since. And here we are again starting a new cycle where we're in the middle of the beginning of a nuclear buildup, not just by the United States, but by Russia, China, other countries. And I'm afraid we're going to have to go through this cycle again of getting very close to nuclear catastrophe before we'll see a resurgence of efforts to restrain that arms race.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, I hope it doesn't come to that.

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, history tells us it probably will. I mean, that's the truth. People have to be confronted with the imminent threat of extinction before they'll take action on this issue.

[Martin DeCaro]

May you cite Robert McNamara in one of your pieces on your substack? He said that the world, or he said the world avoided nuclear catastrophe by sheer luck. Robert McNamara defense secretary under Kennedy, then Johnson. Well, as I said, I hope it does not come to that. You mentioned 1958, I believe that was the most active or you mentioned that era, the most active year to date for nuclear testing. Now, how can somebody not be aware of something they've never experienced? Or how can somebody be aware or forget about something they've never experienced? Many people listening to this podcast today are not old enough to remember when countries used to test nuclear weapons. So in 58, the Soviet Union, United Kingdom and the United states, the only three nuclear powers at that point, detonated more than 100 devices in total. Then they paused, they discussed a permanent testing ban. 1960, France conducted its first test. It is now the fourth nuclear power at the time. United States hasn't tested a nuclear weapon since 1992. But you're worried we might test one soon under Trump.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yes. You know, that's another part of how nuclear weapons are invisible. We conducted our last test, as you said, in 92. And so that means you gotta be somewhere around 50 or 60 to have any memory of a nuclear test actually going off. We just don't do this kind of thing anymore. But we used to pop them off like firecrackers. People used to bring long chairs to the Nevada desert to watch the nuclear explosions which were then in the atmosphere in the, in the 1950s, to see them. It was a big event.

[Martin DeCaro]

Did they get radiation from that?

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, yes, they did. I mean, there's, there's, you know, still we have the effects of what they call the downwinders, the people who were exposed to radioactive fallout in Nevada, in Utah, in those areas, and that includes some of the nuclear tourists, as they were then called. The idea that we have to start testing again is part of a multi point program put out by the project 2025 started by the Heritage foundation, which has a very detailed plan for what the United States has to do to ramp up the production of nuclear weapons, to elevate their budgets and to start the deployment of new kinds of nuclear weapons. It is the most detailed plan that we've seen since the Reagan era, since the 1980s. And in some ways it goes beyond that because it has a bureaucratic playbook like most of Project 2025. There's detailed plans for what the President should do right away, what memos he should write, how we should begin. One, alerting the public, they say, to the nuclear danger that requires us to build more nuclear weapons. And two, the exact mechanisms to undertake to make sure that you can start doing this while the President has maximum political power and lock it in, make it very difficult for future administrations to reverse.

[Martin DeCaro]

I Tip my hat to you. You've read part of Project 2025, the 900 page document. I've gotten around to reading it yet. I've read about it plenty, but I have just too much stuff to read. But you were quoted in an article by Gizmodo Orizmodo.com I'll share a link to that article as well, discussing what Project 2025 calls for. It notes that in 1987, as we've been discussing, there were 70,000 nuclear weapons in the world. Today, the number is only, quote, unquote, only around 12,000. I mean, that's always been a question. How many is enough in this article? Get to my point here. One project or one bomb that the Project 2025ers want to develop or test or something is called the B83. What is the B83?

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, the B83 is the last massive nuclear weapon that we have. It's over a megaton, so over a million tons of explosive force. It's about five times more powerful than the next largest bomb we have in the arsenal, which is about 350 kilotons thousand tons. It's a relic of the Cold War. It's when we built these things, thinking that we would drop several of these on cities to destroy them, or we needed them to go after underground silos. We've seen since gotten much more precise in our delivery mechanisms, our missiles, our bombers, so we can deliver a bomb much closer. We don't need a bomb that size anymore. We attempted to retire this bomb under the Biden administration and the Project 2025 people want to keep it. In fact, they want to build a new version of it. So that's what you're talking about. And that's one of the reasons they say we need to restart testing.

[Martin DeCaro]

So this weapon has no practical purposes. It's a genocidal level weapon. And this is where we might be able to weave in a little bit of history here. Because my question is, who are the maniacs pushing this? Because it's not just a number of bureaucrats or whoever sitting around the table who decide one day, you know, let's do this. There are always lobbying forces or powerful interests in this country who want strong defense, as they would call it. There used to be something called. Or actually, I think it's still around under Steve Bannon now. I mean, there's been multiple iterations of this. The Committee on the Present Danger, they asserted themselves for the first time in the 1950s. 50s, right. And they wanted more. More nukes.

[Joe Cirincione]

There was a version of it in the 1950s, arguing for a vast nuclear buildup, which of course we had under the Eisenhower administration. We went from a few dozen bombs in the 1940s to about 20,000 nuclear weapons when John F. Kennedy became president. And we had weapons for every mission, not just missiles, not just bombers or subs, but also army launched weapons on short range rockets, nuclear depth charges, nuclear torpedoes, nuclear landmines that one or two soldiers could carry, all kinds of nuclear weapons.

[Martin DeCaro]

And JFK still said that under Eisenhower, he allowed for a missile gap, that we were losing the arms. We were so far ahead of the Soviet go ahead.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yeah, right. So while this was happening, that was the discussion, are we going fast enough? And the Democrats were attacking the Republicans from the right on this. So that's how crazy it got. The real impactful Committee on the Present Danger began in the mid-1970s when a group of conservatives, largely organized by the then brand new Heritage foundation, which was just forming in Washington, were concerned that the Soviets were stealing a march on us. They worried about what they called a window of vulnerability. That the Soviets would soon have enough nuclear weapons to launch a devastating first strike, a bolt out of the blue attack that would destroy all our weapons and prevent us from retaliating, therefore eliminating any deterrence capability that the United States had. So they wanted us to build up our nuclear weapons. And they formed the then 1970s version of the Committee in the Present Danger. And it was led by many people who then went on to play a prominent role in the Reagan administration, including people like Paul Nitzer, Richard Pearl, Walt Rostow. Ronald Reagan himself was a member of the board of directors of the Committee In a Present Danger.

[Ronald Reagan]

And we will never stop searching for a genuine peace. But we can assure none of these things America stands for through the so called nuclear freeze solutions proposed by some. The truth is that a freeze now would be a very dangerous fraud, for that is merely the illusion of peace. The reality is that we must find peace through strength.

[Joe Cirincione]

And those people that dominated policy as they entered into the administration, resulting in the second great wave of the nuclear arms race where the US and the Soviets were racing to build and deploy tens of thousands of nuclear weapons. By that time, each side had about 30,000 weapons in their arsenals.

[Martin DeCaro]

Only 30,000. At what point? Well, I was gonna make a snarky comment. I mean, you'd have to live a million years in order to fire off that many weapons, maybe a billion years to allow the earth to come back and then destroy everything all over again. With that many weapons. I mean, that's just something about mad that is, I've never really been able to grasp. At what point do you have enough weapons?

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, actually, the United States began to believe in the 1970s that it didn't need as many weapons as it had. And it has actually started to decrease its arsenal even without major arms control treaties forcing the reduction. It was the Russians who were then trying to catch up to the United States. That was a large fuel, that arms race. And then China started to join in with them. A modest nuclear force. You're absolutely right. We lost all perspective. Even in nuclear doctrine favored by those who favored more nuclear weapons, they would talk about the spasm of a nuclear launch. Thousands of weapons going off back and forth. And the idea was you had to be prepared to do this, but you didn't actually ever have to implement that plan because the mere existence of the plan would convince the other side that going to war with you was suicide and they would back off. And if this sounds a lot like the Dr. Strangelove movie you and I talked about last year, you're right. This is exactly the kind of thinking, and of course what brings you to the brink is when people don't make rational calculations and decisions from the facts that are presented to them and think that, no, no, no, we can attack. We'll just attack this way and it won't provoke them too much or they misinterpret the way. Many times during the Cold War, we mistook, oh, a flock of geese for an incoming Soviet bomber attack or rising moon for an ICBM attack. The Russians thought that we were preparing to attack them and went to the highest levels of nuclear alert. So those are the dangers you face when you play this kind of nuclear brinksmanship.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, your deterrence needs credibility. I'll just note that under the non Proliferation Treaty, there are five nuclear powers that are allowed to have weapons. The U.S. soviet Union, now Russia, United Kingdom, France and China. The treaty prohibits all other signatories, which is almost every country in the world, from even pursuing nuclear weapons capability. Well, we know there are four rogue states when it comes to this issue. Pakistan, India, North Korea and Israel all have nuclear weapons. Israel never signed the npt. I believe North Korea did. Maybe they didn't, but they have.

[Joe Cirincione]

That's right. And they've since withdrawn their signature.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, and Pakistan and India, I believe they did sign it and then.

[Joe Cirincione]

No, never signed it.

[Martin DeCaro]

Never signed it. Okay, thank you. That's why I have you here. You alluded to the 1970s and you're right. The pendulum has swung back and forth. After this insane buildup in the 80s, Reagan and Gorbachev sat down and just didn't put caps on the number of weapons you could have, which was the legacy of the 1970s detente. They actually started reducing the number of weapons.

[Ronald Reagan]

Mr. Gorbachev, Mir Nanas Shma treat. The world is watching and we've got something to show that.

[Martin DeCaro]

And we mentioned Eisenhower and this massive buildup that took place in the 50s. That was as a cost saver. Right. In Eisenhower's view, instead of having a large standing army or having to keep troops stationed all over the world. Right. In bases, he thought that having the nuclear deterrent was a cost saver. Today, as you argue in your recent writing, it's the military industrial complex, military contractors who are driving forward, driving this needless nuclear buildup. It's not a cost saver anymore. It's going to cost trillions of dollars to do all this stuff. Right, Right.

[Joe Cirincione]

One of the arguments in the 1950s in order to sell the country on the need to build thousands of nuclear weapons was that they would save us money. You don't need to have a U.S. army tank division to oppose a Soviet tank division. You just need some nuclear weapons. Far cheaper, far fewer people. Right. And there was an argument for that.

[Martin DeCaro]

It made sense because the Soviets had a much larger army there, there. So.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yeah, right, exactly. So the only way for us to counter that and to prevent, I think it was 55 Warsaw pack tank divisions streaming through the Fulda Gap was to deploy nuclear weapons in Europe to stop them. Okay. So that's why we then ended up deploying thousands of nuclear weapons. Of course, what happened was that we didn't do that in the place of conventional forces. We did that in addition to conventional forces, and that's where we are today. There are no nuclear weapons that are sort of taking the place of conventional forces. For one reason. People, people don't really believe you're going to use the nuclear weapons. So you have to have the conventional forces. That's something tangible. They can see it, they depend on it. You actually do deploy them and use them. And so that brings us to the situation we're in today where we have a US military budget, a Pentagon budget heading towards $1 trillion. I think the Congress just last month approved, I think it was $890 billion budget for 2025. In that budget, about 100 billion goes to nuclear weapons and related programs such as missile defense designed to shoot down or try to shoot down nuclear Missiles. That's a heck of a lot of money. But it turns out it's not enough for the plans of what they want to do. And we are now in the process, and this is the third time in history the United States has done this. We're in the process of building a whole new generation of bombers, submarines, missiles, warheads, production facilities. We did it in the 50s, we did it in the 80s, and now we're doing it again in the 2000s, replacing every system across the board. Even though the Cold War ended decades ago, we're still acting like we need these Cold War weapons. And this whole program is going to cost the Congressional Budget Office estimates, about $2 trillion over the next couple decades.

[Martin DeCaro]

Trillion. Two trillion.

[Joe Cirincione]

Two trillion with a T. As I say, we're currently spending about 100 billion a year. That's going to go north of that. Mainly because most of the programs are behind schedule, over budget, behind schedule, running into real technical problems of all kinds. So almost every one of these programs is now increasing dramatically in cost. The cost of the new ICBM, for example, was estimated to be about 60, 64 billion when it was originally proposed. Then 90 billion, then 100, 120. We're now looking at 160 billion, almost more than double the original estimate. And that's not the end of it. When you have that kind of money involved, you know, that's what's pushing these programs. We can talk about strategy and doctrine and necessity, military justification, but what really is happening is that there's a river of money in contracts roaring through Washington, through the Pentagon, through the Congress. It is extremely difficult to stop that kind of money. When you're talking about $100 billion trough money, there's a lot of major corporations who want a piece of that and want to ensure their piece of it grow their piece of it. And that more than anything else, it's what's fueling the new arms race. That you can profit from this. You can make, make vast amounts of money by building nuclear weapons. That's the main driver of the nuclear arms race today.

[Martin DeCaro]

Now, you read my mind. That was my next question to ask you. Who is behind this? Because obviously it's madness. So who is then? We can say generally military contractors. But who are these people pushing this? Because you make a point in your writing, this is not ideological, it's money. In the Cold War, it was ideological. I mean, there might be some ideology today, but it's primarily money. Right? So that's part one and the second part of my question. How about I'll wait to ask it after you answer part one instead of inundating you with a multi part question. So who is behind all of this?

[Joe Cirincione]

Most of the people behind all this are good people. They're not evil geniuses or ruthless Nazis out to destroy, conquer the world. I spent 10 years of my life as a congressional investigator investigating nuclear programs. And I went all over the country, all over the world, really looking at our facilities and meeting people. And I hardly met anyone I didn't like, whether it was a control officer or executive of one of the defense corporations. These are good people doing a job. When you go out to these establishments, you're struck at the massive size of them, the amount of area a sub base takes up, for example, or a production facility like we have up in New London, up in Groton, Connecticut, or the strategic command headquarters out in Omaha, Nebraska. I mean, massive establishments. And you realize if you want to change policy, if you want to stop those contracts, if you want to eliminate those jobs, you have a massive fight on your hand. Which is why we lose that fight every year. And why the bureaucratic inertia, the drive for profits, the need to preserve the officer billets just overwhelms any strategic discussion. You can't stop that with an article or think tank report or podcast.

[Martin DeCaro]

Frankly, I thought maybe this would do it, but I guess so, like Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, others like that.

[Joe Cirincione]

And so those are the people who are making money, the five big contractors, you know, Raytheon, Northrop Gurman, Lockheed Martin, Boeing, these are the giant corporations that have locked up. There used to be dozens of nuclear weapons contractors, but over the last 30 years there's been a consolidation of the nuclear weapons production base. And so you're down to these big five contractors.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah, so. So who's talking out against this stuff? I mean, maybe Bernie Sanders does, but I rarely see this being debated. Maybe I'm not paying close enough attention, you know, where are the protesters? Where is the arms control lobby?

[Joe Cirincione]

Ah, yeah, well, you do see.

[Martin DeCaro]

Or the movement, the anti nuclear movement.

[Joe Cirincione]

It'S still there, but it's a shadow of what it once was. So just at the end of last year, a number of members of Congress under the leadership of Representative Garamendi, took to the floor of the House, about 12 members to talk about this arms race and the dangers of it. You know, nobody noticed.

[John Garamendi]

Today it's even more important than ever that we take steps, however difficult they may seem, to reprioritize de escalation and prevent a new nuclear arms race. In 1985, President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev, two Cold warriors commanding the largest nuclear arsenals on the planet, declared that a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought. This profound truth has been repeated often and was reaffirmed by leaders of all five nuclear armed states in 2022. This should serve as both the starting point and the guiding principle in every discussion we have about nuclear weapons.

[Joe Cirincione]

Good people, well intentioned, barely made a dentist. And you would think that as these nuclear dangers are growing, the movement to counter them would grow. But that's not the case. Almost all the arms control groups and expert projects in think tanks, academic centers, have decreased in number, declined in influence over the last 20 years. In fact, there hasn't been a meaningful arms control effort treaty agreement in the last 10 years. The last one you can talk about is the Iran deal in 2015 that restricted the ability of the Iranian regime to make nuclear weapons. But that was short lived. That was quickly overturned by Trump. There hasn't been a strategic arms control agreement of any significance since 2010 when Barack Obama negotiated the New Start Treaty. The expires to the Reagan ever treaties that reduced the numbers of strategic weapons that the US and Russia could hold.

[Martin DeCaro]

But that was it and expires next year. We don't, we don't know if it's going to be renewed. Probably not.

[Joe Cirincione]

Given probably not, that treaty is doomed. And we can get to the significance of that. All the groups are weaker or more scattered internal reasons. They refuse to unite, they don't want to merge, they want to keep their sort of mom and pop organizations going. The funding for the field has dried up. I was president of a foundation for 12 years that put about somewhere between five or eight million dollars a year into the field. And we were just one of the smaller foundations. That foundation has shrunk in size. MacArthur foundation, the biggest contributor to the field, has withdrawn from the field. So people are starved of funds, understaffed, lacking influence. I don't anticipate any turnaround in those groups in the near future, certainly not internally generated. So. So the future looks bleak for organized efforts to counter this new arms race.

[Martin DeCaro]

Protest movements wax and wane, but it's not like we don't have any protest movements in our country today. I don't remember recently seeing an anti nuclear protest. I vaguely remember one from my childhood in Central Park. Maybe there was a massive 1982, the.

[Joe Cirincione]

Largest demonstration in US history until the Women's March after 82 was inaugurated. 82. A million people in Central park, major rock bands playing, Bonnie Raid, you know.

[Martin DeCaro]

Were you there, etc.

[Joe Cirincione]

No, I was not. No, I was. I was working in Washington.

[Martin DeCaro]

Okay.

[Joe Cirincione]

I was. I was just starting my career. I was not there.

[Orson Welles]

I've got a question for 1 million people. Do you want to freeze the arms race? Do you think that Ronald Reagan is going to freeze the entrees? We need your help in Congress. When the music stops today, when the music is finished, when you've gone home, the fight must go on. It is time for the United States and the Soviet Union to freeze. The whole world is watching. The whole world is listening.

[Martin DeCaro]

So today's arms race, I think it's pretty easy to identify who is participating in it. The United States, Russia and China. I don't know if you want to add to that list. I mean I have a. I have a Foreign affairs article here. Foreign affairs is the in house publication of the US national security establishment, the Council on Foreign Relations.

[Joe Cirincione]

I'm a card carrying member of that establishment.

[Martin DeCaro]

I like Foreign affairs, it's a great magazine. But there's an article here titled why South Korea Should Go Nuclear. The bomb is the best way to contain the threat from the North. Robert E. Kelly and Min Hyung Kim are the authors of it. How concerned should we really be about other countries trying to enter the arms race? And that seems just like a horrendous idea.

[Joe Cirincione]

Absolutely. So there's always been two parts to the arms race, horizontal and vertical. So the vertical part is what we've been talking about. The U.S. and Russia. U.S. russia, China in competition, one builds, the other feels they have to catch up. Each side sees the other's arsenal, the threat, and there's the shield, the protector. And their arms are good and the other guys are bad. And that dynamic happens. Okay, but then there's the horizontal dynamic that everybody else in the world is watching. These nuclear giants start to battle and they start to worry about their security. Who's going to come and help defend them. In the 1960s, you worried that there'd be a whole host of new nuclear nations. John F. Kennedy in his debate with Richard Nixon in the 1960 presidential debate said that if current trends continue with we would go from four nuclear powers. China had not become a nuclear power yet. So it was the United States, Soviet Union, France and Great Britain. And we'd go from 4 to maybe 15 or 20 because all these other countries were considering getting nuclear weapons. And those weren't just our adversaries, those are some of our allies, like Germany, like Japan, like Norway, Australia, Switzerland, these. All these countries had considered nuclear programs. And that led to Kennedy's efforts to both rein in the vertical fight. He passed a limited test ban treaty in 1963 that stopped atmospheric tests of nuclear weapons, for example, but also the horizontal. He started the negotiations that eventually led to the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. And that was the deal. Those with the nuclear weapons would work to reduce them and eventually eliminate them. That's in the treaty. Disarmament is the goal. And those without nuclear weapons would pledge not to build them up. Well, if one part of that deal falters as it is now, the countries are not in good faith negotiations to reduce them. People are building up, not building down. Nuclear weapons aren't being eliminated. They're being enshrined as key pillars of national security for a number of countries. Well, then why shouldn't countries start to think about it? And then you couple that with Donald Trump's presidency, where he's shown that he wants to pull back from US Global security commitments, that he views relations with our allies as more transactional, not about US national security, but about what we get from them in exchange for our security guarantees. And that has led countries like South Korea and even Germany to start having internal discussions, public, internal discussions about the need for them get nuclear weapons. So the South Korean public, 70% of them, are in favor of South Korea getting nuclear weapons. And you can bet if South Korea gets them, it's not going to stop there. Japan is certainly going to consider that. And the same in Europe if Germany starts to get them. Well, why shouldn't Norway or Sweden, who used to have nuclear programs begin, et cetera, et cetera. You see the problem that you face and suddenly you do revisit Kennedy's nightmare of 15 or 20 nuclear armed countries, large and small, which means that any conflict runs the risk of becoming a nuclear conflict that would drag in the United States and the other great powers.

[Martin DeCaro]

Because today the international order is being pulled apart at the seams. Just preparing for this podcast, it occurred to me that often when we see these buildups or when we see the abrogation of treaties, which has happened a lot. One of your articles was about the extinction of arms control treaties. It's usually fueled by events that don't directly involve nuclear weapons, just the souring or the ruination of international relations. US Russian relations are in terrible shape right now. There is really no. They still have the hotline, right? And that was established during the Cold War between the Kremlin and Washington, D.C. they still have the hotline to connect leaders of different countries to make sure you don't have an accidental war. But relations between the US And Russia are terrible. In previous periods, you had detente. In the 1970s, Reagan criticized detente, but then of course, he went ahead and his critics said, appeased the Soviets when he was actually just working with and cooperating with Gorbachev. Trying to get to a question here, Joe, but we have these periods of detente, better relations between the two sides, and they're able to even work on these things. They're able to just sit down the table and talk.

[Joe Cirincione]

Yes. And let me give you a concrete example. I was on the International Security Advisory Board for the Secretary of State, but it was 2014, Ukraine was invaded. For the first time by Russia. Our immediate reaction was that we recommended no business as usual, cut all ties. And then we started to realize, no, there were things you still needed to have relations with the Russians for, like getting our astronauts to the International Space Station, for example, or negotiating an agreement with Iran to restrict its nuclear program. So even though we were at odds with Russia over their invasion and imposed sanctions and had harsh rhetoric, et cetera, the Russians still cooperated with us on getting that deal, a great deal, which solved the problem basically. And we did get that deal. Fast forward 10 years, 2024, the Russians refused to talk to us about any strategic arms control agreements, including replacing soon to expire New START Treaty, while the US Opposes the Russian invasion of Ukraine. So the invasion of Ukraine has frozen any kind of nuclear cooperation or agreements. In fact, Putin has suspended his compliance with the New START Treaty. He's no longer reporting the data that's supposed to come in every month as to what weapons you have and where are they. He stopped the inspections to verify that they're maintaining their limits on nuclear weapons, et cetera. So everything's ground to a halt there. And with Putin and Trump both showing now a disdain for arms control, they think it's not in their national security interests. I think it's highly likely that you will see the new START Treaty collapse next year and with it shake the very foundations of the non Proliferation Treaty. And couple that with the Project 2025 program to actually immediately start producing and deploying new nuclear weapons. Here we go. 2025, 2026. This is going to be the real upsurge of the nuclear arms race. The collapse of the last remaining arms control restraints, what we call nuclear guardrails. We will be off to the races, I'm afraid. I don't see anything that's gonna prevent that scenario. I can spin out a few rosy possibilities under Trump, but mostly I think that's what's gonna happen. And all this will be fueled by the search for profits by corporations both in Russia, the United States and China on making these weapons. It'll be ideological and material factors that will drive the explosion of the nuclear arms race in the next two years.

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, certainly in China, ideology plays a big role as far as Xi Jinping, the Communist Party and his view of where China belongs as a historically great country going back to U.S. history. And you made a great point at the beginning of your last answer about being able to work with your adversaries, even when they're doing things that you don't approve of. I mean, Reagan did this when he was de escalating the Cold War. He would criticize the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan. He would criticize a lot of other things. Matter of fact, the Daniloff affair. When Doneiloff, who was an American journalist kidnapped by the KGB accused of being a spy, Reagan publicly blasted the Soviet Union at the UN recently after the.

[Ronald Reagan]

Arrest of a Soviet national and UN employee accused of espionage in the United States, an American correspondent in Moscow was made the subject of fabricated accusations and.

[Martin DeCaro]

Trumped up charges and compelled the Soviets to release Stanilov so he could have the Reykjavik summit with GORBACHEV in was it'86'87? In Iceland'87?

[Joe Cirincione]

That's exactly right. So here's the president who called them the evil empire, Right? It's hard to think of a stronger anti Soviet president than Ronald Reagan. And yet he goes to Reykjavik in 1987 and comes very close to negotiating an agreement to eliminate all Soviet and American nuclear weapons. All of them, every single one of them. And they fail. They stumble over the Star wars program, the SDI program. Gorbachev wanted restrictions. Reagan didn't want to restrict it. The deal collapses. But the year later, they go and continue the talks and they negotiate the INF treaty, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces Treaty, which eliminated all the weapons that had been freaking out the people of Europe for the last, last five years. The Russian and us, what they call intermediate range. That is, they would have. They'd be exploded in Europe, not in the United States or Russia. All those thousands of weapons, they eliminated them. And then they go on to negotiate the START Treaty, the first treaty in history that doesn't just limit nuclear weapons, but drastically cuts them by 50%. And that made Ronald Reagan the greatest arms control president in American history.

[Ronald Reagan]

For the first time in history, the language of arms Control was replaced by arms reduction, in this case the complete elimination of an entire class of U.S. and Soviet nuclear missiles.

[Martin DeCaro]

So on that note, I'll just briefly go down the timeline here because I want to ask you a question about when this all started to unravel. In the 1970s, you get salt, strategic arms limitation Talks, which don't reduce the number, they just place caps on the total amount you're allowed to have. 1972, you get Nixon and Brezhnev. Same year, the ABM Anti Ballistic Missile Treaty.

[Joe Cirincione]

The two sides are taking this course.

[John F. Kennedy]

In the conviction that it will create more favorable conditions for further negotiations to limit all strategic arms.

[Martin DeCaro]

Then you get salt 2. Jimmy Carter walked away from salt II. Jimmy Carter just died at the age of 100. Before I continue with my timeline here, just briefly, Joe Cirincione. Jimmy Carter's legacy when it comes to arms control, it's not a big one, is it?

[Joe Cirincione]

Well intentioned, knew nuclear weapons well. Used to be the commander of a nuclear armed submarine.

[Martin DeCaro]

He knew about them, that's for sure.

[Joe Cirincione]

Good intentions. Wanted to do a lot, but stumbled over the details, over the aspirations. And then when the Russians invaded Afghanistan in 1979, that killed his SOL II Treaty overall. Not a very distinguished record in arms control.

[Martin DeCaro]

Carter had the Senate freeze consideration of it and then he pulled the United States out of the 1980 Olympics in Moscow because of the Soviet invasion. So I mentioned SALT 1, the ABM treaty, SALT 2, the INF treaty in 87 that you mentioned with Reagan and Gorbachev. Historic start treaty in 1989. Then you get start II in 1993. Was never implemented.

[Joe Cirincione]

It was never ratified, it was implemented. Both sides followed it. But US problems basically in implementing it. But we did follow it under Clinton.

[Martin DeCaro]

All right, thanks for that correction. Then the ABM Treaty was amended in 1997 and everyone's following along here. You can always look up timeline, major arms control treaties, and then you get in 2010, new start.

[Joe Cirincione]

Well, this is where it all starts to unpack.

[Martin DeCaro]

Yeah. Let me ask you, is there a point that you can identify where things start to come apart? Because it goes in both directions. Even as US Russia relations are not great, they still get the New START treaty in. Was it 2010, 2011?

[Joe Cirincione]

One quick point. 1972 is also a critical year. And that's another illustration of your point that even though the US is in Vietnam at the time and Russia and China are arming North Vietnamese troops that are killing, killing hundreds of Americans every week, Nixon goes to China, has a strategic breakthrough There, and he negotiates with the Russians at the same time. And we get the first SALT Treaty, the limit upper cap on how many weapons each country could have, and with it, the Anti Ballistic Ballistic Missile Treaty that limited how many defensive weapons a country could have. So that's another example of negotiating with your enemy while you're in conflict with them in other areas. Okay, so that really begins the modern era of arms control that goes into the present moment. That direction begins to unravel in 2001 when George W. Bush, in the wake of the September 11 attacks, listens to his arms control advisor, John Bolton, and pulls out of the ABM troops.

[Adlai Stevenson]

I have concluded the ABM Treaty hinders our government's ability to develop ways to.

[Joe Cirincione]

Protect our people from future terrorists or rogue state missile attacks. And this illustrates the fundamental conflict that has happened since the beginning of the nuclear age. There have always been people since the bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki that said we have to get rid of these. These are terrible weapons. They threaten all of humanity. And there's been another group of people that says we have to get more of these. These are our ultimate security. We need these to protect the nation for the same reason Kurds fight each other out. Yes, because of the terrible consequences of these weapons. And they see them just in fundamentally different ways. Those people who want more nuclear weapons start to prevail again in 2001 with the withdrawal of the ABM treaty. The illusion that we can build some kind of missile defense system that can protect, protect the country hasn't happened. Never happened. The arguments that were made in 2001 justify it have been proven to be completely wrong. And then it's followed up again in 2003. Bolton convinces the President to pull out of the agreed framework with North Korea. That had been preventing North Korea from crossing the nuclear threshold. Again with the idea that agreements don't make you safe, only military might will make you safe. We will starve, strangle, suffocate North Korea and bend them to our will. Again, proven completely wrong. North Korea, instead of going into retreat, advances its nuclear program, explodes its first nuclear weapon in 2006, now has about 60 nuclear weapons, plus a fleet of intercontinental ballistic missiles that can reach the United States, that could destroy the United States as a functioning nation. This little pipsqueak country that we had in a box in 2003, because of the wisdom of John Bolton and those who believe that arms control is our problem, not our solution, we're in a much worse situation. We are today. And the thing is just cascaded from there. 2001, 2003 Trump leaves the INF treaty. He and Putin pull out of the Open Skies treaty that allowed us certain surveillance techniques on each other's conventional forces. Pull out of the conventional forces in Europe treaty. Putin suspends new start. It's all come to a grinding halt and it's now operating in reverse. And it's all going the way that these hardliners want.

[Martin DeCaro]

And both sides of the divide, both Putin and the US have abrogated these treaties.

[Joe Cirincione]

Trends are clear. The cycle is clear. We are definitely in the nuclear buildup, arms control decline part of this cycle.

[Donald Trump]

I hope that we're able to get everybody in a very big and beautiful room and, and do a new treaty that would be much better, but because certainly I would like to see that, but you have to have everybody adhere to it and you have a certain side that almost pretends it doesn't exist, pretty much pretends it doesn't exist. So unless we're going to have something that we all agree to, we can't be put at the disadvantage of going by a treaty limiting what we do when somebody else doesn't go by that treaty.

[Martin DeCaro]

Okay, final question here for you. China is part of the npt, but it's a nuclear power that it's supposed to be reducing its stockpiles in cooperation with the other nuclear powers. Is there any way to prevent China at this point from building up its stockpile?

[Joe Cirincione]

That's a very good question. And the people who are much closer to this than I am tell me know that they have made the decision that their nuclear force is now vulnerable to a US first strike. And if you're hearing echoes of the US Position against vis a vis the Soviet Union in the 1980s, and if you think there's a Chinese version of the Committee on a Present Danger, you're not far off. That's exactly how the leading voices in China see it. They had what they called a minimum deterrent force, about 300 weapons, which they said was enough to deter the United States because after all, how many US Cities do you have to blow up to deter the United States? 1, 10?

[Martin DeCaro]

Well, who knows, right? Well, they could do that.

[Joe Cirincione]

They had the ability to do that. Not many. About 60 of their weapons could reach the United States and that was enough. They deterred us, but then they saw the US which they look as the buildup that began under Obama but then accelerated under Trump and Biden continued it. This is a bipartisan build up, up. It's not like anybody stopped this from happening. Biden didn't do a damn thing to stop any of the Trump policies that were implemented. He didn't negotiate any new arms control treaties. This has been a bipartisan failure on America's part. They see that buildup as threatening to them and they see this commitment to missile defense. And they believe US Officials when they say that we need to have a force that can strike China first and eliminate the Chinese weapons and then a missile defense force that can overwhelm any leftovers, any need, second strike capability. And so they say, well, 300 won't do it for us. We have to go to 500, maybe 1,000. And that's where they are now. Now they have 500 nuclear warheads and they're probably going to 1,000. And they seem to have decided that that should be enough of a deterrent force. So is anything going to stop them from doing that?

[Martin DeCaro]

No, the United States will build more then. They'll build more in response to that.

[Joe Cirincione]

So then, right. The name of the game has got to be some, some kind of freeze, some kind of agreement that both sides will just freeze where they are right now. And let's make an assessment and see if we can start reducing. And if that sounds like a throwback to the 80s, it is. But that's the kind of thing that logic sort of propels you to. If you can't get countries to reduce their weapons, at least try to convince them to stop building. And you could probably get that kind of agreement and limit China to something under a thousand warheads. If the United States was willing to freeze its nuclear buildup as well, prospects for that slim.

[Martin DeCaro]

This buildup is a reflection of the larger global environment of exactly, of conflict and confrontation, not cooperation. So. Well, General Cirincione, I have an idea of how to stop the Chinese Plan R provisions of Plan R, you know, I'll catch them with their pants down.

[Adlai Stevenson]

Prior to this time, we have done nothing further to suppress their retaliatory capabilities. We will suffer virtual annihilation. Now if, on the other hand, we were to immediately launch an allout and coordinated attack on all their airfields and missile bases, we'd stand a damn good chance of catching them with their pants down.

[Martin DeCaro]

It always comes back to Dr. Strangelove. I mean, I mean, this is what we're talking, talking about, right? One way to get rid of them is you hit them first. Then of course, you know, that's why their deterrent has to have credibility.

[Joe Cirincione]

I'm telling you, you hear those discussions in discussions of why you need new sea launch cruise missiles. We have to put nuclear missiles back on our subs, give them a few nuclear arms, cruise missiles to fire, put them back in the Navy ships, things we haven't seen for 30 years in this country since George W. Bush, H.W. bush eliminated them in 1991. People are talking about putting them back, and it's all because of this. What do we need to deter the Chinese or to defeat the Chinese?

[John Garamendi]

The soaring price tags of these nuclear programs are shocking in their own right, but it's also the human cost, the cost of our global security and the increased risk of catastrophic conflict. Congress must reclaim its role in shaping a rational, responsible, responsible nuclear strategy, one that prioritizes diplomacy over escalation, de escalation over deterrence, arms control over arms races. The American people deserve a government that works to reduce risks, not magnify them.

[Martin DeCaro]

On the next episode of History and as it happens, we will revisit the topic of Trumpism. Way back in 2021, I titled an episode Trumpism After Trump. Four years later and after another January 6th, this time without any riots or deaths at the US Capitol. What is the future of Trumpism? What about conservatism? Are we entering a new period in history, a post liberal period? All of these ideas are being debated out there. We will be joined by Damon Linker next as we report history as it Happens. New episodes every Tuesday and Friday. My newsletter every Friday. Sign up at History as it happens dot com.