Adam Scheinman (1:48)

Happy to be here. Thanks so much.

Amy McGrath (1:50)

Well, there's a lot going on around the world and here in our country regarding foreign policy and regarding nuclear non proliferation. I want to start by just sort of setting the framework for everyone. You have extensive experience in basically making sure that other countries don't get nuclear weapons. We have nine countries around the world that have these weapons and we as the United States have spent spent many many years making sure along with other countries to try to make sure that the spread of nuclear weapons doesn't happen because they are so dangerous. And one of the primary ways we have done that is called the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The NPT which you worked On. Can you talk to our listeners about what that treaty is?

Adam Scheinman (2:50)

Yeah, happy to do it. Most people, even those who spend a lot of time reading newspapers every day, probably don't know a lot about the non proliferation treaty, except when crises pop up, as we've seen with Iran and North Korea historically. But it's useful to maybe think of it in the context of history. And really it was the Cuban Missile Crisis in the early 1960s that led both the United States and the Soviet Union. They have a shared interest here in preventing the further proliferation, the further spread of nuclear weapons, because that would increase the risk of a nuclear war, which frankly, we were on the cusp of in 1962 over Cuba. And coming out of that crisis, we worked with the Soviet Union, even in the, you know, the heyday of the Cold War, to write this new treaty to prevent the further spread of nuclear weapons. We took it to the United nations, it was signed in 1968, came into force pretty soon thereafter. And it's done really what we had hoped, stopping the spread of nuclear weapons, because the risks of a nuclear war, which would be horrific. You know, I think people really need to understand that nuclear weapons are not like any other weapon. They are hugely powerful and destructive, capable of wiping out entire societies as well as nations. So we have to do what we can. This was the lesson coming out of Cuba. We have to do what we can to prevent the spread, to prevent any nuclear wars. And we've done pretty pretty well. As you say, only nine countries have the bomb today, which is about the number that had the bomb 30, 35 years ago. So the question is, can we preserve this fantastic success and success story that we've been experiencing over many, many decades going into the future?

Amy McGrath (4:56)

Yeah. And there's a lot of people right now that are saying we're in a new nuclear moment, meaning that they're very worried that nuclear proliferation is becoming a bigger problem right now. Because in many previous years, you know, it was the United States and the Soviet Union and then the United States and Russia, we had the vast majority of these weapons in the thousands. And all of these other countries that had them, China, North Korea, uk, France, they had these weapons, but not in the numbers that we had. And now what you're seeing is China is investing in more numbers of nuclear weapons. And so people are very concerned about that. I mean, what. Do you agree we're in a new nuclear moment at this point?

Adam Scheinman (5:51)

Yeah, I think we are. And it has to do, in my estimation, with very serious changes that are underway in the international system. The Russian war in Ukraine has led countries in Europe to wonder whether they need their own nuclear weapons to deter further Russian incursions into Europe. China clearly has ambitions to be a major regional power, if not a global superpower, and it is growing its nuclear arsenal at a sort of alarming pace. They doubled their nuclear forces just in the last four years, and they're not showing any signs of slowing down. And countries in Asia have to wonder, will the Americans be there to defend their security if China uses its sort of massive nuclear potential to drive outcomes in the region that are not favorable to the US Or US Allies? So it's a real challenge, and we have to be smart enough in our policies to find ways to manage these developments so that we don't face an outbreak of nuclear war. Arms control has been a big part of that solution. Historically, we have a history of negotiating treaties with the Russians. China has never been a part of any nuclear arms control treaty. And I think it's incumbent upon the US as the leader of counter nuclear proliferation efforts to try to work with China to manage this new reality that we're facing. New technology is also a major concern with artificial intelligence and quantum computing. It might change the nature of nuclear deterrence in ways that we haven't really thought through all the way or thought about what types of solutions will be needed. So I think we are at one of these pinch points in policy that reflect changes in the world as well as changes here at home in our. In our own politics.

Amy McGrath (8:13)

One of the things that I always try to talk to people about is this idea of when you pull away from our allies and you pull away from our partners, they don't believe that you will protect them. And the United States has been sort of the protector when it comes to, to these weapons. We have told our allies and partners, hey, don't get them. We will protect you. And if they don't believe that we will protect them, then they're more likely to go get their own weapons. And I think what you're seeing right now in places like South Korea, where the majority of the population there thinks that they should get a nuclear weapon. You know, this is, and I'm interested in your take on this, I think it's getting worse and worse. In other words, I think the current administration gives a lot of our allies and partners pause to take a step back and say, like, are these guys really going to protect us because they're going after us in terms of trade? And there's a lot of rhetoric within the administration that is sort of anti our partners and anti our allies. And I'm just curious, is that assessment, am I overstating it here? What do you think?

Adam Scheinman (9:45)

I don't think you're overstating it. There is no doubt in my mind that frankly the two most effective mechanisms that we've had to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons global, globally has been one, the non proliferation treaty that we talked a little bit about. And the second has been the fact that the United States has alliances and partnerships in which countries can rely on the US for support if they're threatened or attacked with nuclear weapons, if those countries no longer believe in the fidelity of US Nuclear guarantees that the nuclear umbrella is going to be there when China pushes through or Russia pushes through. Frankly, I think they have little course but to consider whether they would need their own nuclear weapon because the only way to offset the other side's nuclear weapon is to have your own or to have the protection of someone else's nuclear weapon. So I am deeply concerned that the present trend line of loss of US Support for alliances, for pressuring our allies, whether it's on defense spending or tariffs and trade policy, that countries will lose faith in the United States as their supreme protector in the event of the worst possible crisis, which might be use of a nuclear weapon against them. So I'm not sure where this will take us. I don't think countries will lightly consider the prospect of developing nuclear weapons. I mean, it's hard, it takes time. It can generally be seen by good intelligence gathering. And some of these societies in Europe may not believe that having their own nuclear weapon is the best path forward. So we're in a very uncertain period. But I do think the pressures are rising for increased proliferation in a way we haven't seen in my lifetime.

Amy McGrath (12:01)

You know, in the past there, and you mentioned this earlier, there has been motive for a country like Russia and China to come together to the table with the United States and try to cooperate in a, what we call a non proliferation regime, a way to stop nuclear weapons from proliferating. But now you're seeing China and work with Russia in its war in Ukraine, you're seeing North Korea give troops to Russia in exchange for, we think potentially some technology in the nuclear front or ballistic missile technology. And so a lot of that cooperation we're seeing at least temporarily being stifled because these countries are now sort of aligning with Russia and kind of against the West. So it's a very difficult time for nuclear proliferation.

Adam Scheinman (13:10)

Yeah, it certainly is. And again, I think it has to do with what does Russia want going forward. The war in Ukraine has, I think, completely distorted Russian thinking about how to deal with nuclear proliferation and related issues. In fact, I think Russia has subordinated everything, every political, strategic consideration to winning the war in Ukraine. And I fear that until that war winds down, we really have nothing to talk to the Russians about. And what do the Russians want? They want to have a sphere of influence in Eastern Europe and essentially to bring the old Soviet empire back together. It doesn't have to be the Soviet Union, but Russia does believe that it's a great civilizational power that's been around for hundreds of years, and they have always secured their borders by expanding out. So until again, I think until the war does wind down, we're probably going to be at odds with Russia over the future of security in Europe, about the future of nuclear proliferation for which we have a shared interest. I don't think Russia wants more nuclear weapon states popping up around their borders. And Iran we can talk about later, but Iran with a nuclear weapon is a lot closer to Russia's borders and to China's borders than it is to the United States. And the concern that Russia and China may have is that if, if North Korea continues on the path it's on, if Iran decides that after this 12 day war, it has to pursue nuclear weapons on a sort of crash basis, other countries will need nuclear weapons to offset those programs. And I don't think that's good for Russia and China in terms of how they would like to project power globally. So we have this shared interest question is, can the United States, even in this administration, rise to the moment to deal with these, I think, existential challenges to the security of all of our nations? And I'm not persuaded at this point that the Trump administration is up to the task. I mean, there's not even a single US Official in a position of responsibility anywhere in government that deals with these issues.

Amy McGrath (15:47)

I want to ask you about a little bit more about this new nuclear moment. And there's a lot of people who look at what is happening right now with China creating more numbers of weapons, with the new START treaty potentially ending next year. And that what for folks listening, what that means is that's a treaty that the United States and Russia have come together for many years, decades, and have tried to limit the numbers of nuclear weapons that both of our countries have. And so if that ends and then Russia starts building more, and then you have China already building more, there's a lot of people here in the United States who are saying, well, we should then start building more weapons. And I'm curious to your belief on that. Is the answer mostly to the rise of, of the Chinese in the nuclear weapon number area? Does that answer more weapons on our part?

Adam Scheinman (16:53)

It could be. And there's sort of a growing consensus among the people that are marinated in strategic policy and nuclear issues that China's expansion of its nuclear arsenal is so dramatic that we could face a situation. It's kind of far fetched to my mind, but a situation where we're facing a nuclear war with Russia and China and we don't have enough strategic nuclear weapons, the type that can go long distances and knock out nuclear forces halfway around the world to deal with the China threat. So if the requirement is we have to be able to determine both, both countries in a war then, which might be the same war, then we may need more nuclear weapons to deter China from believing that it can launch its nuclear weapons against the United States. Now, you know, to some degree this is all kind of far fetched. I mean, the idea that nuclear wars can be fought and one to my mind is just, it stretches rationality to some point where I can't even recognize it any longer. But we don't have a way to deal with nuclear weapons among the countries that have them, except by deterring our adversaries from using them against us. So the question is, how much do we need to deter the other side from doing something, you know, cosmically stupid by starting a nuclear war? I think that issue we'll have to see sort of where the administration comes down on more nuclear weapons. It'll take time, it'll take money. We can't tomorrow come up with another 1,000 nuclear weapons and put them on top of our delivery systems. And we're in the middle of a very expensive nuclear modernization program and asking for another trillion dollars or it won't be that much, but in the billions and billions of dollars to increase our nuclear forces in the current economic environment doesn't look so great.

Amy McGrath (19:23)

And then you add in the January executive order from this current administration which orders the Department of Defense to start building this thing called the Golden Dome. And what this is, is this is like what they call a next generation missile shield. We have some anti ballistic missile capability, but it doesn't cover the entire United States and it's fairly limited. I'd be interested in your take on this, but you know, the Golden Dome project is very, very expensive. It's a, it's an idea to, to be able to Protect the entire United States against any ballistic missile coming at us from, I guess, anywhere. And so it's very ambitious. But my question to you is, how does that affect the nuclear balance in the world? In other words, if our adversaries look and see us creating a, for lack of a better word, a missile shield, do they then say, well, our 300 nuclear tipped ballistic missiles aren't going to be enough. We're going to have to over. If we're going to fight the United States, we're going to have to overwhelm their missile shield. And therefore we're going to need 2,000 of these. So we're going to have to start building more. So in other words, in our effort to protect ourselves, are we actually making the balance worse globally?

Adam Scheinman (21:06)

Yeah, I think we certainly could, depending on what comes out of this Golden Dome proposal. So just in terms of the narrow issue of. It's not so narrow, but the question of Golden Dome and President Trump's interest in it, I think he said $125 billion and we'll have it in four years. We might have something in four years. And having spent $125 billion, but it is not going to be a shield protecting Fortress America. That is a trillion plus dollar project, one that we don't know if it would work, having spent all the money to get there. But just set that aside. I think we're getting sold a pig in a poke here by the administration. The bigger question is the relationship between missile defenses and offensive nuclear weapons, the missiles that we would use in a nuclear war, and the role of arms control more generally as a way to make the world safe. And Golden Dome, ultimately, the idea behind it is also to make the world safe. The question is, will it? And we've had arms control treaties with the Soviet Union and then Russia going back also to the early 1960s, and it's connected to the Non Proliferation Treaty. You know, we got an international global treaty in place that said if you don't have nuclear weapons, when you sign the treaty, you are giving up the legal right ever to pursue them. North Korea was in the Non Proliferation Treaty and it withdrew from the treaty in order to exercise their sort of natural right, if they choose to have a nuclear weapon, to go ahead and build it, which they did. But those countries, when the treaty was negotiated, said, hey, wait a minute, if we're giving up these rights, you're going to have to give something too. You have to commit to a process of nuclear arms control, which ultimately should lead to zero nuclear weapons. Anywhere in the world, which is also sort of a fantasy in the current environment in which we live. But we have to continue to show that we're willing to make steps in that direction. And so when the first nuclear treaties were signed with the Soviets in the Nixon period, there were two. One capped or nuclear forces at a certain number, sort of where each side was at the time. And both sides had to give up the option or the idea of building anti ballistic missiles. And the reason was that if a country was building up its ballistic missile defenses, it might believe that it could prevail in a nuclear war, which is what we're trying to prevent in the first instance. I mean, this is all about preventing nuclear war. It's something all countries ought to be able to get behind. So the Russians today and have really for years been worried that if the United States goes down the path of building out its ballistic missile defenses, it would place the Russians at a strategic disadvantage unless they could match our missile defenses, which they really would have a hard time doing. You know, it's not quite the technical powerhouse that the United States is, and I don't think they could ever get there. They'd have to invest a huge amount of money and the Chinese would as well. So our sense over time has been it's better to focus on nuclear reductions rather than build up missile defenses. So I apologize for sort of.

Amy McGrath (25:19)

No, that makes sense.

Adam Scheinman (25:20)

Long answer. But you know, a. A U.S. sprint toward missile defense under the guise of Golden Dome will likely trigger this nuclear arms race that we see coming down the path here.

Amy McGrath (25:36)

Yeah, I mean, I think it's just important to remind people there's a reason why it hasn't. We haven't done this. There's a reason why we haven't invested massive amount of money into some kind of missile defense system.

Adam Scheinman (25:49)

We.

Amy McGrath (25:49)

One, it's really, really hard technically to do, and two, it has the real ability to backfire on us when it comes to the balance of nuclear weapons around the world. I mean, in my mind, and now we have a current administration that's sort of throwing that out the window. I think, in my opinion, fairly recklessly. We all want to protect our country, of course, but we have been able to do that in the past and have been able to stop the spread of nuclear weapons in the past in general. And I just fear that we're making things worse. On that note, but I want to ask you about AI and new technology because this is also something that I very much worry about as somebody who cares about nuclear weapons and Keeping the country and the world safe. You know, the Soviets, and correct me if I'm wrong, the Soviets had this thing called the dead hand during the Cold War, which we didn't really even know about. Maybe we did at the classified level, but the American public didn't know about it. And the idea behind it was that if the leadership of the Soviet Union was destroyed in some kind of first strike, that unless somebody, I guess, said stop, the Soviet Union would automatically then launch weapons against the United States. In other words, it wasn't a positive human launch. It was like, hey, the human has to come in and stop it. Sort of the opposite of what we would think of here in the United States where somebody has to press the button for a nuclear weapon to be launched. With AI, though, you can imagine just a ton of scenarios that are really, really scary here. So I'm just curious as to your thoughts on this, being an expert.

Adam Scheinman (27:58)

Yeah, it's something we do need to be concerned about. And if we ever got back to discussions with the Russians on nuclear and strategic issues, which I hope we will, as well as with China, this has to be a central question. How does new technology impact what we thought we knew and believed about nuclear deterrence? Hopefully we would agree, at least among the three of us, that you're familiar with the human in the loop concept. There has to be a human decision, whether it's the President or the head of Russia or China, whoever it is, has to make the positive decision to launch a nuclear weapon. And that means that if AI is built into our nuclear military systems, it can only be to a point. Now we have strictures in the U.S. constitution and American law and just sort of the way the military handles the question of whether to fire a weapon, where at least in the case of nuclear weapons, it is only the US President that has the authority, hopefully under the guidance of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs and Secretary of Defense and so forth. So I think we do want to have a conversation with the other sort of big nuclear powers as well as with others. India and Pakistan are two of the nine countries that have nuclear weapons. They're facing each other pretty closely. Military challenges flare up, it seems, about once or twice a year. I think any country that has nuclear weapons ought to be thinking about how to extend the decision time not to collapse it, because we don't have a lot of time. Even as it stands now, if we think a nuclear weapon was launched from Russia or China is heading our way, AI is one issue. And the decision time that readers would have to assess what's happened and to decide whether to launch in response. The other question that technology kind of brings forward is the possible vulnerability of nuclear forces that we thought were relatively invulnerable. So an example is we have a lot of nuclear weapons on ballistic missile submarines and, you know, anti submarine warfare is not nearly advanced enough to figure out where that submarine is at any point in time. We're probably a little bit better at it than Russia or China, but the seas are generally opaque. Well, what if through next generation computing, or perhaps AI would play a role here as well, you could find that submarine and take it out? Then we'd have to worry about a first strike where a country. And again, I think this is all kind of fantasy. I just can't imagine, you know, the world falling into this trap. But if Russia believed that the US was preparing a nuclear strike and they were able to track our submarines or maybe mobile missiles, if we had them here in the United States, they'd be tempted to hit us before we hit them. And you know, that. That's why, you know, at root, at the end, if we do nothing else, we have to use every tool that we have to prevent a nuclear war from, from starting. Because no one has any idea. No one, people that have been, you know, working these issues even longer than I have, no one has any idea how a nuclear war is going to end once it starts. So we have to do what we can to prevent one from starting in the first place.

Amy McGrath (32:15)

I can sense in your voice like, hey, this is stuff that we don't really want to think about, but you have to think about it. You have to think about all of these things, these new technologies and all this stuff. At least we don't want the everyday American to have to worry about this stuff. But we got to have experts that plan for this stuff, that think about the scenarios, that have the expertise, that understand history and that have studied it and understand diplomacy. And that gets me to my question to you about what's happened to our diplomatic corps, what has happened in this current administration with the State Department. And I very much worry about our diplomacy. I think you set it up very effectively when you said, look, we've got to have people that understand how to make sure that nuclear weapons are not proliferated around the world. So tell if you were to say to my neighbor, who may not know anything about nuclear weapons or proliferation and may be skeptical of the State Department, what do these diplomats do anyway? They just talk, right? Well, why are they so important?

Adam Scheinman (33:38)

Trying to Think about how to put it in terms that my neighbor would understand. They're so important because the system that we have to prevent nuclear proliferation is more than a president going on TV or picking up his or her phone and sending a 140 character message out saying that now we're going to do X. The challenges are so far beyond that, the technical aspects of nuclear weapons and all the systems that we've put in place to prevent proliferation from international safeguards. There's an entire agency in Vienna that does verification of countries nuclear programs to ensure they're not going for the bomb export controls that we have put in place so that countries don't grab dual use technology and start building nuclear weapons with those technologies. It requires a deep understanding of the weapons, how they're made, how the treaties and institutions that we have that have kept the world safe from a nuclear catastrophe all these years, how they operate. So someone has to man the guns. And we've seen in the case of this administration, there is no one currently in a position of responsibility who can care outside of the President and the Secretary of State. And they both have, you know, pretty busy jobs outside of dealing with the, you know, technical details. No one's in a position of authority anywhere in the government, not in the White House, in the State Department, at the Defense Department or the Department of Energy, which operates or manages our nuclear weapon programs to deal with these things. And we've seen rifts, you know, the reductions in force across government with whole offices cleared out of people that were focused on this 100% of their time. So without leadership and without experts, the US will just simply fall behind or the institutions that we built, I mean these were all American ideas. And US political leadership on non proliferation, on arms control was understood and assumed. And you can't assume that any longer. And there's frankly no one else that can do the work that we were doing. I mean, China has no incentive to replace the US as the world's number one player to prevent proliferation. The Russians are sort of a hot mess these days. So the danger is the system that kept us safe, which is hard to understand and you probably don't need to spend a lot of time digging into the details. But the fact is it kept Americans safe and safe from nuclear attack and nuclear threat. Those systems may fall into just utter disrepair as the world transitions into something else. And that's something else kind of has me worried.

Amy McGrath (37:16)

And we're not talking about a huge expense here. I mean the diplomats, the experts, that was not breaking the bank And I think, you know what, what you just said is these people and their expertise and the institutions that we built up really did keep America safe and keep the world safe. And gutting them is absolutely, in my mind, one of the dumbest things you can possibly do, because one, it wasn't that expensive. You know, it's part of what people, some people call it soft power, some people call it smart power. But it really, there's a bigger, for lack of a better word in the nuclear world. It's big bang for your buck. Okay. When you have diplomats and experts that create these regimes that maintain them to keep us all safe. I'm curious as to do you keep in touch with your counterparts, maybe in France or Britain, that do the same work? I'm certainly at a lower level because you mentioned the United States. There's nobody that does it better. But what are they thinking right now? If you do have some colleagues who are foreign, who are our partners?

Adam Scheinman (38:39)

Yeah, I mean, frankly, I haven't had much opportunity to be in touch with foreign colleagues, but I can imagine sort of the level of concern in part because the United States was there leading the charge and developing, shaping messages, working these issues very closely with our partners in Europe and Asia. And they relied on us. They relied on us to preserve the treaties and the systems that we have and to be constructive in dialogues. There's a lot of pressure in parts of Asia or even in parts of Europe not to go for nuclear weapons, but to go the other way to support the total, you know, dismantlement and destruction of all nuclear weapons everywhere in the world. You know, in theory, that I think is the right place to be, but it means we have to have a world that can accommodate that. And, you know, honestly, the technical details of getting to zero nuclear weapons perfectly verified. I mean, that's, that's beyond our capabilities still today. So I imagine there's a lot of frustration with the absence of the United States, frustration at the absence of any kind of political direction coming from Washington outside of America first, which doesn't sound to be too compatible with nuclear treaties. And I kind of, I feel for.

Amy McGrath (40:22)

Them American power and American leadership in the world, the behind the scenes people, that's you, people like you. And when the current administration guts these institutions, whatever you want to call it, you're gutting American power. You're gutting American leadership around the world. American leadership and power isn't just the President of the United States. It isn't just the Secretary of war, the secretary of defense, or the military. The outward looking stuff. It is the Adam Scheinmans of the world who are out there every day keeping America safe in their lane that they know best. And to me, the worry that I have is that the current administration does not understand that at all. And so when I talk to my neighbors and I talk to my friends here in Kentucky who may not understand necessarily nuclear, non proliferation, I try to frame it in terms of power because I feel like we are weakening America right now as we take top diplomats like yourself out of their positions. And that's just my rant here.

Adam Scheinman (41:48)

Yeah, I don't disagree. Yeah, I don't disagree.

Amy McGrath (41:50)

Well, I really appreciate you coming on the show, talking to us about we didn't get to Iran, but talking to us about all of the challenges that are happening right now around the world. Really appreciate your experience and insight.

Adam Scheinman (42:06)

It's my pleasure. And thank you so much for everything you're doing. And trying to bring complicated problems to your audience I think is fantastic. So congratulations.

Rubrik Marketing (42:23)

Sam. AI agents are everywhere, automating tasks and making decisions at machine speed. But agents make mistakes. Just one rogue agent can do big damage before you even notice. Rubrik Agent Cloud is the only platform that helps you monitor agents, set guardrails and rewind mistakes so you can unleash agents, not risk. Accelerate your AI transformation at rubrik.com that's R U B R-I K.com Marketing is.

Libsyn Ads Host (43:20)

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