Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420

Annie Jacobsen · 3h 07m · youtube.com ↗

16 korrents from this recording

Annie Jacobsen did not write this page.

Every claim below is a statement made in this recording, quoted word for word and linked to the second it was said, so you can hear it rather than take our word for it. The wording comes from the transcript published alongside the recording; the sentence above each quote is our reading of the claim, not their wording.

0:02:24 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A nuclear war between the United States and Russia would kill five billion people.

Their wordsI’m coming back at you with a very dark answer and a very big number. And that number is 5 billion people.

Interesting
2 min later
0:03:58 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Hundreds of millions of people die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war, and the billions die afterwards, of starvation, in the nuclear winter that follows.

Their wordsFirst millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people will die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war. And then, comes nuclear winter where the billions happen from starvation.

Interesting
2 min later
0:06:09 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
American policy is to fire its nuclear weapons in response before the incoming bomb has landed, rather than wait to absorb the attack and find out whether it was real.

Their wordsBecause we have that policy, Launch on Warning, which is exactly like it says. It means the United States will not wait to absorb a nuclear attack. It will launch nuclear weapons in response before the bomb actually hits.

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1 min later
0:07:15 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
One person can start a nuclear war on his own authority in a democracy: the President of the United States asks permission of no one, and he is the only one who can do it.

Their wordsSo, in addition to the Launch on Warning concept, there’s this other insane concept called Sole Presidential Authority. And you might think, in a democracy that’s impossible, right? You can’t just start a war. Well, you can just start a nuclear war if you are the commander in chief, the President of the United States. In fact, you’re the only one who can do that.

Interesting
19 min later
0:26:04 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
A nuclear-armed submarine is as dangerous to civilization as an asteroid, and unlike an asteroid it cannot even be located.

Their wordsI mean, the submarines are what are called second strike capacity. Submarines were described to me this way, they are as dangerous to civilization… And let me say a nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarine is as dangerous to civilization as an asteroid. They’re unstoppable. They are unlocatable, the former Chief of the Nuclear Submarine Forces, Admiral Michael Connor, told me it’s easier to find a grapefruit-sized object in space than a submarine under the sea.

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19 min later
0:45:02 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
American missile defence is a fiction: 44 interceptors that work about half the time cannot answer the 1,670 warheads Russia has deployed.

Their wordsFirst of all, we have 44 interceptor missiles total, period, full stop. Let me repeat, 44. Earlier we were talking about Russia’s 1,670 deployed nuclear weapons. How are those 44 interceptor missiles going to work? And they also have a success rate of around 50%. So they work 50% of the time.

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12 min later
0:57:25 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The Pentagon's own war games found that no matter how a nuclear war starts, it ends in Armageddon with everyone dead.

Their wordsAnd what we learned from his declassification is that no matter how nuclear war starts, there was a bunch of different scenarios, with NATO involved, without NATO, all different scenarios. No matter how nuclear war starts, it ends in Armageddon. It ends with everyone dead.

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1 min later
0:58:31 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
American nuclear doctrine is not tit for tat: one incoming warhead is answered with eighty, and that is what the phrase escalate to deescalate means.

Their wordsBut it’s actually more than that. They launch one, we launch 80. That’s called escalate to deescalate. Pound the you know what out of them to get them to stop.

Interesting
2 min later
1:00:08 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
American ICBMs do not have the range to reach North Korea without flying over Russia, which is the flaw that turns a limited counterattack into Armageddon.

Their wordsthere is an absolutely existential flaw in the system, which Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed with me, which is that our ICBMs do not have enough range. If we launch a counterattack against, say, North Korea, our ICBMs must fly over Russia. They must fly over Russia.

Interesting
4 min later
1:04:00 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
As politics grows more viperous, leaders of nuclear-armed nations surround themselves with sycophants, so you can no longer count on a president being given good advice.

Their wordsSo you don’t have wise decision makers. Long gone are the days where we had presidents who had advisors on both sides of the aisle. That’s really important, because you want to have differing opinions. But as things become more viperous, both here in the United States and in nuclear armed nations, all bets are off at whether your advisors are going to give you good advice.

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5 min later
1:09:29 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Judgment and cognition are the two capacities the nuclear launch decision actually turns on, which is the standard a presidential candidate should be measured against.

Their wordsBecause why on earth there would be two candidates, one of whom has cognitive problems and the other of whom has judgment problems? These are the two biggest issues with the nuclear launch, judgment and cognition. And so where’s the young-ish, thoughtful, forward looking, wise, dedicated civil servant running for president? I know that sounds fantastical, but I wish it weren’t.

Interesting
7 min later
1:16:58 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Nobody becomes STRATCOM commander unless they are the kind of person who follows orders, so the hope that the launch order would be refused is misplaced.

Their wordsYou don’t wind up as STRATCOM commander unless you are someone who follows orders. You follow orders.

Interesting
8 min later
1:24:52 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Russia has abandoned its long-standing official position that it would wait to absorb a nuclear attack before launching.

Their wordsBut that was their official position, and that changed just two years ago when Putin gave a speech and he said that their position had changed, that they will no longer wait to absorb an attack.

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48 min later
2:12:38 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
After interviewing hundreds of people inside America's secret military and intelligence programs, there is no reason to believe aliens have ever visited Earth.

Their wordsWell, not just at Area 51, but in all the different national security and military intelligence and intelligence programs. And I personally have no reason to believe that aliens have ever visited Earth. That’s just me personally.

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2 min later
2:15:03 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
The recurring UFO narrative is a strategic deception campaign, a very large catch-all for keeping the public's attention on the wrong thing.

Their wordsNow, does that mean that every UFO sighting in the world has been a U-2? No, but I come from it from that lane of thinking, and there are so many strategic deception campaigns, and as I look over the decades of how these same UFO stories, and again, this is just my opinion based on my reporting, this narrative that keeps reoccurring, it seems to me like a very large catch- all to keep the public’s attention on that, not on that.

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45 min later
3:00:19 · watch on youtube.com↗

Our reading
Atomic weapons destroy cities and thermonuclear weapons destroy civilizations, which makes the decision to build the thermonuclear bomb more confounding than the decision to drop the first two.

Their wordsI mean even projects within the Manhattan Project defined thermonuclear weapon, the thermonuclear weapon as the evil thing. It was evil. It’s a weapon of genocide. Atomic weapons destroy cities, thermonuclear weapons destroy civilizations.

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