Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un, and the Perils of the New Nuclear Proliferation

Summary

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The Political Scene | The New Yorker

Episode: Trump, Putin, Kim Jong Un, and the Perils of the New Nuclear Proliferation

Host: Dorothy Wickenden
Guest: Eric Schlosser
Date: May 18, 2018

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Overview

In this episode, Dorothy Wickenden, Executive Editor at The New Yorker, speaks with Eric Schlosser, journalist and author of Command and Control, about the evolving dangers of nuclear proliferation in a world where deterrence doctrine is shifting and leaders such as Donald Trump, Vladimir Putin, and Kim Jong Un are reshaping nuclear politics. The discussion revisits the history of nuclear weapons, evaluates current risks, examines public amnesia, and explores prospects for abolition in a new, multi-polar nuclear age.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Nuclear Fears: Past and Present

• The legacy of nuclear anxieties, from Kennedy’s famous “Sword of Damocles” speech to today’s growing nuclear risks ([01:16]–[02:19]).
• The Trump administration’s approval of a $1 trillion, 30-year plan to expand and modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.
• Expert consensus that the risk of nuclear conflict may be greater now than at any time since the Cold War.

Leadership and Contradictions

• Kennedy’s Secret Meetings:
  At the same time as calling for abolishing nuclear weapons at the UN in 1961, Kennedy privately discussed the possibility of a surprise nuclear strike on the Soviet Union ([03:05]):

  “What nobody knew is that the same week he was calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons at the United Nations, he was secretly meeting... to discuss the possibility of a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.” — Eric Schlosser [03:05]

• The psychological burden leaders shouldered—the “slenderest of threads” between peace and annihilation ([03:39]–[04:47]).

Cuban Missile Crisis & Tactical Nuclear Weapons

• Cuban Missile Crisis Lessons: The U.S. was unaware that Soviet troops in Cuba had “tactical” nuclear weapons and authority to use them without Moscow’s direct approval ([05:00]).
• Explains the new push in the Trump era for a new class of low-yield tactical nuclear arms—risking renewed miscalculations.

Doctrine: From MAD to “Tailored Deterrence”

• Euphemisms and Jargon:
  Nuclear language, such as “deterrence,” obscures horrific realities. Its logic is inherently suicidal ([06:46]):

  “If you attack me, I’m going to kill as many of your civilians as I possibly can. And so attacking me will be suicidal.” — Eric Schlosser [06:46]

• The Concept of “Megadeath”:
  The chilling reality hidden behind abstract terms. One "megadeath" equals one million deaths ([08:41]).
• New Strategies:
  “Tailored deterrence”—the concept that nuclear weapons might be used in varying escalatory ways, e.g., Russia’s “escalate to de-escalate” doctrine ([09:23]–[10:47]):

  “Once the first nuclear detonation occurs on the battlefield, nobody has any idea what will happen next.” — Eric Schlosser [10:47]

Multipolar Nuclear World & Shorter Fuses

• More nuclear states: the “bipolar” U.S.–Soviet standoff has given way to nine nuclear nations, with India and Pakistan locked in especially dangerous proximity ([11:10]).
• Missile flight times between India and Pakistan are merely 7-9 minutes—leaving terrifyingly little margin for error ([11:10]):

  “There’s enormous pressure to be the first one to use your weapons or lose them all. And there’s very little time to think about if it’s a false alarm or not.” — Eric Schlosser [11:10]

• Nuclear war between these countries could trigger a “nuclear winter” with a billion casualties and global climatic catastrophe ([11:10]).

Public Amnesia and Apathy

• In the 1980s, nuclear fear was ever-present in culture and politics, but the end of the Cold War bred dangerous complacency ([12:42]):

  “There’s a remarkable amount of historical amnesia and very little attention given to the subject.” — Eric Schlosser [12:55]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On euphemisms:

  “There are all these terms and all this jargon around nuclear weapons that hides what they’re really for and what they really do.” — Eric Schlosser [06:46]

• On Cold War leaders:

  “You had the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, and you had President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, desperate to avoid a nuclear war... And they almost got one anyway.” — Eric Schlosser [05:00]

• On new nuclear doctrines:

  “It’s a very 21st century term. It sounds very artisanal. Tailored deterrence means that you can use nuclear weapons theoretically in varying levels of engagement.” — Eric Schlosser [09:30]

• On public amnesia:

  “Right now in the United States, half the population... either was not born or were small children when the Soviet Union collapsed. So there’s no awareness of this risk.” — Eric Schlosser [12:55]

• Survivors’ testimony (Setsuko Thurlow, Hiroshima):

  “Each person had a name. Each person was loved by someone. Let us ensure that their deaths were not in vain.” — Setsuko Thurlow [15:41]

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Nuclear Abolition Movement: History and Hope

• The antinuclear movement began almost as soon as nuclear weapons existed; the UN’s first act in 1946 was to call for abolition ([16:31]).
• The 1982 anti-nuclear demonstration in Central Park was one of the largest in U.S. history, galvanized by writing such as Jonathan Schell’s The Fate of the Earth ([16:31]).
• Ronald Reagan’s shift from hawk to abolitionist was influenced by anti-nuke activism and the TV movie “The Day After” ([17:41]):

  “He left office completely committed to abolishing nuclear weapons.” — Eric Schlosser [17:41]

• There is renewed youth activism today, drawing on the success of anti-landmine and chemical weapon treaties ([17:41]).

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Prospects & Dangers Ahead

• The Trump-Putin Era:
  Both leaders argue—dangerously—that nuclear weapons make the world more peaceful. Putin’s warning:

  “Why do we need a world if Russia ceases to exist?” [19:30]

• Despite these threats, most of the world’s nations don’t possess nukes—nine nuclear states versus about 191 non-nuclear ones ([19:30]).
• 90% of all nuclear weapons are held by the U.S. and Russia, giving their relationship outsized importance. Disarmament by these two could set a crucial example ([20:38]).

Summit Diplomacy: Trump and Kim Jong Un

• On prospects for success in U.S.–North Korea negotiations ([21:01]):

  “I would love for that high level summit to lead to North Korea getting rid of its nuclear weapons, but I’m not optimistic about it. ...I think that he [Trump] is being completely outmaneuvered by an adversary that is looking long-range, has thought about this for a long time, and is not acting impulsively.” — Eric Schlosser [21:01]

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Conclusion

This episode underscores the perilous paradox of nuclear weapons: their catastrophic power is both downplayed by language and revived by new global tensions and doctrines. Schlosser stresses that nuclear catastrophe is not inevitable, but public engagement, pressure, and a renewal of abolitionist activism are urgently needed—as vital to humanity’s future as action on climate change.

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Notable Segments & Timestamps:

• Kennedy’s sword of Damocles speech – [01:45]
• The logic and horror of deterrence – [06:46]
• India–Pakistan missile risk – [11:10]
• The “megadeath” concept – [08:41]
• Setsuko Thurlow’s Hiroshima testimony – [15:41]
• Reagan’s nuclear conversion – [17:41]
• Schlosser on diplomacy with North Korea – [21:01]

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Tone:
Analytical, urgent, historically aware, determined not to leave listeners in despair—highlighting both the dangers and grounds for hope, and calling for renewed public consciousness and activism.

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Transcript

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[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is the Political Scene, a weekly conversation with New Yorker writers and editors about politics. It's Friday, May 18th. Dorothy I'm Dorothy Wickenden, Executive editor of the New Yorker. Every president since the 1960s has warned about the dangers posed by weapons of mass destruction. In 1961, in a speech at the UN, President John F. Kennedy urged the General assembly to jointly pursue the goal of abolishing nuclear weapons.

[John F. Kennedy (archival speech)]

Today, every inhabitant of this planet must contemplate the day when this planet may no longer be habitable. Every man, woman and child lives under a nuclear sword of Damocles hanging by the slenderest of threads, capable of being cut at any moment by accident or miscalculation or by madness. The weapons of war must be abolished. The before they abolish us.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Less than a decade ago, President Barack Obama promised that the United States would usher in a new era of nuclear disarmament. Yet today, the world's nine nuclear powers are engaged in a nuclear arms race. The Trump administration recently approved a 30 year trillion dollar plan to greatly expand and modernize America's arsenal Experts believe that there is a greater possibility today of a catastrophic nuclear exchange than ever before. Eric Schlosser joins me to discuss the perils of the expanding nuclear weapons arsenals and why nations have come to see proliferation as acceptable while knowing that a nuclear war would be unwinnable and potentially suicidal. Eric, thank you so much for joining me.

[Eric Schlosser]

Thanks for having me. And you know, you mentioned that John F. Kennedy speech at the United Nations. It got a lot of attention at the time. But what nobody knew is that the same week he was calling for the abolition of nuclear weapons at the United nations, he was secretly meeting with his top advisers to discuss the possibility of a surprise nuclear attack on the Soviet Union.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Well, I actually wanted to ask you about this very point, so maybe you could just set the scene a little bit for us and talk about why he then so vehemently turned against the idea.

[Eric Schlosser]

Well, you know, the Berlin crisis was going on at that time in 1961. Berlin was this oasis of the west surrounded by communism. And the Soviet Union was threatening to cut it off once again and incorporate West Berlin into the Soviet sphere. So there was a standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union, and it was very tense. And in nuclear war, whoever strikes first has a better shot at getting away with less damage. And the meetings that Kennedy had were extremely sobering. Even if the United States launched first and attacked the Soviet Union in a complete surprise, we were still likely to lose 3 million, 10 million, perhaps. But the dilemma for Kennedy was if we didn't strike first, we might lose 100 million. So when he went to the UN this wasn't an academic intellectual exercise. The issue was weighing quite heavily on him personally.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And then the next year, let's not forget, he faced the Cuban Missile Crisis and didn't know that the Soviet forces there had tactical nuclear weapons and the authority to use them without consulting Moscow.

[Eric Schlosser]

Yeah, and tactical nuclear weapons, these are the lower yield nuclear weapons that are meant for use on the battlefield not to destroy your enemy's cities, but to destroy your enemy's troop formations and airfields. It's become an issue, a controversial issue again, because the Trump administration wants the United States to have a whole new class of low yield tactical weapons that would be mounted on submarines, maybe on ships. And the Cuban Missile Crisis is a very instructive example. That is probably the closest that we've come to an all out nuclear war. The Joint Chiefs of Staff was almost unanimous in saying that we should bomb Cuba to destroy the nuclear weapons that were there. But the Joint Chiefs of staff Kennedy, Robert McNamara, the Secretary of Defense, had no idea that if we did that there'd be a nuclear reprisal which would probably have led to an all out nuclear war. So Kennedy made the right decision. What was fascinating about that history is here you had the leader of the Soviet Union, Nikita Khrushchev, and you had President of the United States, John F. Kennedy, desperate to avoid a nuclear war, doing everything they could to avoid it. And they almost got one anyway.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So during the Cold War, deterrence was basically the guiding principle on both sides. And there was a lot of talk about mutual assured destruction and the rest of it. By the end of the Cold War, nukes had come to be seen as unacceptable. So how did we get from there to where we are today, where all of these nations are vying for supremacy in this area?

[Eric Schlosser]

Well, one of the things that concerns me is there are all these terms and all this jargon around nuclear weapons that hides what they're really for and what they really do. When you talk about nuclear deterrence, what you're basically saying is, if you attack me, I'm going to kill as many of your civilians as I possibly can. And so attacking me will be suicidal. And there are critics of nuclear weapons who say that deterrence was irrelevant in the Cold War and the Soviet Union was never planning to attack Europe. I think nuclear deterrence actually works, but it's a very dangerous way of keeping the peace, because if there's a mistake, if there's a miscalculation, if there's a false alarm, you could literally have tens, if not hundreds of millions and even billions of people killed. And one of the reasons I think the situation is so dangerous today is the world leaders have forgotten the Cold War. There are probably few if no officers or commanders in the nuclear forces on either side who had to go through one of these dangerous international incidents during the Cold War. So nuclear weapons are increasingly seen as symbols of power, symbols of national glory. And what's being forgotten is how close we've come to wiping out most of civilization. That sounds like hyperbole, but sadly it's true.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

No, and as you say, this euphemistic language has grown up around them and everybody engages in this talk and it has this sort of softening effect of what they are really talking about. Until you get to the one term that really does describe what we're talking about here, which is megadeth.

[Eric Schlosser]

And megadeth is a. It's a unit of measurement. One megadeth equals one million people killed. When you read Some of the documents from this era that have been declassified, they seem so rational, and yet behind the this terminology and behind this veneer of reason is total and complete madness. And when I was doing the research for my book Command and Control, which is on nuclear weapons, some of the most anti nuclear people I met were the people in charge of this system. And it's sadly a knowledge that's been forgotten.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Trump and Putin now both use the language of tailored deterrence. What do they mean by that?

[Eric Schlosser]

Well, It's a very 21st century term. It sounds very artisanal. Tailored deterrence means that you can use nuclear weapons theoretically in varying levels of engagement. The Russian policy right now is called escalate, to de escalate. And so their strategy is if NATO forces start fighting Russian forces in Europe, the Russians will introduce a low yield nuclear weapon onto the battlefield. And by doing that, they'll freak everybody out so much that the conflict will end. And there were all kinds of theories like this about nuclear war that particularly Henry kissinger in the 1950s came up with, that there'd be gentlemen's agreements not to hit one another's cities, that there'd be pauses in the war to negotiate. That's all great in theory, but there's never been the use of a nuclear weapon against a country that already has nuclear weapons. When we hit Nagasaki and Hiroshima, Japan didn't have nuclear weapons. So once the first nuclear detonation occurs on the battlefield, nobody has any idea what will happen next.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And today the geopolitical conflicts are so much more complicated than they were during the Cold War. All of these proxy wars and these volatile conditions. And now we have all these other nations, as we mentioned, of China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea, Iran, Israel, Israel.

[Eric Schlosser]

During the Cold War, it was a bipolar competition between the United States and the Soviet Union. But today you have nine countries that have nuclear weapons. Right now, India and Pakistan are essentially recreating the nuclear arms race that the United States and the Soviet Union had. The difference being that we hated the Soviet Union, but we hated them from a long distance. A missile launched from the United States would take about a half hour to reach the former Soviet Union. So there was time to figure out, is this a false alarm, is this a real attack? But the flight time of a missile between India and Pakistan is very brief. Seven minutes, eight minutes, nine minutes. So there's enormous pressure to be the first one to use your weapons or lose them all. And there's very little time to think about if it's a False alarm or not, and a nuclear exchange between Pakistan and India would have global consequences. The latest studies suggest that the detonation of 100 relatively small nuclear weapons would create a nuclear winter and lower temperatures around the world enormously and maybe lead to up to a billion casualties. Now, this all sounds so apocalyptic, and yet people really need to know it and deal with it. I don't think it's inevitable. I think it's one of the greatest dangers that we face that no one is really analyzing and discussing in a public way.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Why is that? There used to be such passionate public debates about mad and loose nukes and all these questions that are raised by the possession of nuclear weapons. Why has that essentially gone away?

[Eric Schlosser]

Well, you know, I was at college and graduate school in the 1980s, and everybody knew about this. This was a top of the conversation everywhere. The mass media was constantly. And we were afraid we were going to die any day in a nuclear war. But what happened was it was astonishing, it was miraculous that the Soviet Union collapsed and the Cold War ended without hundreds of thousands or millions of people being killed. So there was a great collective sigh of relief. I think in my generation, there was a sense that, you know, the Cold War ended, this danger had gone away. And right now in the United States, half the population of the United States either was not born or were small children when the Soviet Union collapsed. So there's no awareness of this risk. There's a remarkable amount of historical amnesia and very little attention given to the subject.

[Katie Drummond]

What the hell is going on right now? And why is it happening like this? At Wired, we're obsessed with getting to the bottom of those questions on a daily bas, and maybe you are, too. I'm Katie Drummond, the global editorial director of Wired, and I'm hosting our new podcast series, the Big Interview. Each week I'll sit down with some of the most interesting, provocative and influential people who are shaping our right now. Big Interview. Conversations are fun.

[Eric Schlosser]

I want a shark that.

[Katie Drummond]

That eats the Internet, that turns it all off, unfiltered and unafraid.

[Eric Schlosser]

So in a lot of ways, I try to be an antidote to the unimaginable faucet of reactionary content that you see online. To the best of my ability, every.

[Katie Drummond]

Week, we're going to offer you the ultimate luxury of our times. Meaning and context. True or false. You, Brian Johnson, the man sitting across from me. One day, at some point, as of yet undefined, in the future, you will die. False. Tell me more. Listen to the Big Interview right now in the same place you find WIRED's Uncanny Valley podcast. Subscribe or follow wherever you get your podcasts.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

I now want to switch so that people don't feel that we're leaving them in a state of complete apocalyptic despair. There are efforts underway to at least reduce the likelihood of a nuclear exchange. And last year the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons won the Nobel Peace Prize. Setsuko Thurlow was there to accept the award. She was a 13 year old in Hiroshima during the atomic bombing and then grew up to become an anti nuclear activist.

[Setsuko Thurlow]

I want you to feel in this.

[Eric Schlosser]

Hall.

[Setsuko Thurlow]

The presence of all those who perished in Hiroshima and Nagasaki. I want you to feel above and around a great cloud of a quarter million souls. Each person had a name. Each person was loved by someone. Let us ensure that their deaths were not in vain.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

So Eric, can you just talk a little bit about the history of the movement to abolish nuclear weapons?

[Eric Schlosser]

The movement to abolish nuclear weapons began not long after the first nuclear weapons were used. The first act really of the United nations in 1946 was to call for the abolition of nuclear weapons. And ever since then the anti nuclear movement has grown in strength and then waned in strength and, and then grown. I mentioned the 1980s and that was really the peak of the anti nuclear movement. One of the largest political demonstrations in American history occurred in Central park in 1982. Jonathan Schell's article in the New Yorker, the Fate of the Earth had an electrifying effect on this movement. And I think when it came out as a book a few months later had as big an impact in some ways as Uncle Tom's Cabin or up in St Clair's the jungle on changing the culture. So there was this huge anti nuclear movement of the 1980s that I think played a major role in ending the Cold War peacefully.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

And by the way, it seems that it was responsible for helping to turn Ronald Reagan into a nuclear abolitionist.

[Eric Schlosser]

Ronald Reagan took office determined to expand our nuclear arsenal. And he left office completely committed to abolishing nuclear weapons. And I think that the anti nuclear protests had an effect on him. He also saw a television movie called the Day after, which was a film about America being hit in a nuclear attack. And he screened it at the White House and it really affected him. And that television movie remains to this day the most widely seen made for TV movie in American history. So this issue and this threat was a central part of mass culture. You mentioned the international campaign to abolish nuclear weapons. I'm encouraged that there is a new movement being led by people in their 20s and 30s that is drawing upon the success of, of the efforts to ban biological weapons, chemical weapons, landmines, cluster missions, and applying that same logic to nuclear weapons. And so I think that we're not doomed. It's not inevitable that these terrible machines are going to kill people, but it needs those of us who care about it to do something about it and get engaged. I think it stands alongside climate change as the two major existential threats that we face.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

This is an uphill battle, at least right now, where you've got two world leaders, Trump and Vladimir Putin, really proclaiming that nuclear weapons do make the world more peaceful. Putin said that his country would only use its nuclear weapons in retaliation and that he wouldn't hesitate. And then he said, why do we need a world if Russia ceases to exist?

[Eric Schlosser]

And he has the power to pretty much kill most of the people in the world, if not most of them, billions of them. So here are some grounds for optimism. There are nine countries that have nuclear weapons, and there are about 191 that don't. And there are continents like South America and Africa where there are no nuclear weapons. And the countries there don't necessarily love one another, but they're also not threatening to annihilate one another and kill all of their innocent civilians. About 90% of all the nuclear weapons in the world are controlled by two countries, the United States and Russia. So if the United States and Russia can sit down and make a meaningful effort to reduce the size of their arsenals and bring them off of a kind of a hair trigger alert, that in and of itself would have a huge impact on reducing the nuclear danger. And I think that sort of example could apply pressure on the other nuclear states to reduce their arsenals.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Just a few months ago, actually, it would have been inconceivable that Donald Trump and Kim Jong Un might be sitting down at a summit to discuss bringing North Korea into the world and perhaps eliminating its nuclear weapons. What do you think about the prospects for any positive developments emerging from that?

[Eric Schlosser]

Well, I would love for that high level summit to lead to North Korea getting rid of its nuclear weapons, but I'm not optimistic about it. Donald Trump proved unable to negotiate with his own political party to eliminate health care in the United States. I think that he is being completely outmaneuvered by an adversary that is looking long range, has thought about this for a long time, and is not acting impulsively. So we'll see. I mean, I'm all in favor of negotiations, and I'm all in favor of reducing tensions between the Koreas and the United States, but right now I'm not very optimistic about the outcome.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Thanks so much, Eric.

[Eric Schlosser]

Thank you.

[Dorothy Wickenden]

Eric Schlosser is a contributor to newyorker.com and the author of Command and Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety. This has been the political scene from the New Yorker. You can subscribe to this and other New Yorker podcasts by searching for the New Yorker in your podcast app and find more political analysis and commentary on new yorker.com Feel free to rate and review the political scene on Apple Podcasts. This podcast is produced by Alex Barron and Hannah Olentz. For newyorker.com I'm Dorothy Wickenden.

[Katie Drummond]

America is changing and so is the world.

[John F. Kennedy (archival speech)]

But what's happening in America isn't just a cause of global upheaval. It's also a symptom of disruption that's happening everywhere.

[Katie Drummond]

I'm Asma Khalid in Washington, D.C. i'm.

[John F. Kennedy (archival speech)]

Tristan Redman in London, and this is the Global Story.

[Katie Drummond]

Every weekday we'll bring you a story from this intersection where the world and America meet.

[John F. Kennedy (archival speech)]

Listen on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Eric Schlosser]

From. PRX.