Nuclear deterrence, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing...say it again! Vin and Ola look at the latest nuclear threats to stumble out of politicians' mouths and dive into the many failed promises of nuclear deterrence, wondering what will actually keep us safe: a world where every nation has nuclear weapons or one where nobody does? Stick to the end for some hot book recommendations.
Books
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The hosts discuss various current global nuclear threats, including Israel's threat to use nuclear weapons in Gaza, Russia's threats towards Ukraine, North Korea's threats, and Russia's exercises with non-strategic nuclear weapons. They also explore nuclear deterrence, its definition, failures, and the concept of mutually assured destruction (MAD). The discussion encompasses the ineffectiveness of nuclear deterrence in preventing conventional attacks, the potential spread of nuclear armament to ensure global security based on faulty logic and the importance of multilateral disarmament. They also touch on societal and racial prejudices in nuclear armament legitimacy, the parallels between nuclear disarmament and the Black Panther Party's effect on gun legislation, and the need for re-education on nuclear policies beyond deterrence.
Chapters
00:00 Welcome to Minds Blown: Unpacking Nuclear Deterrence
00:55 Exploring the Complexities of Nuclear Deterrence
05:35 The Realities of Nuclear Deterrence in Modern Conflicts
07:52 The Global Nuclear Arms Race: A Critical Analysis
11:20 Racial and Geopolitical Dynamics in Nuclear Policy
20:23 The Path to Nuclear Disarmament: Challenges and Solutions
26:29 The Importance of Dialogue in Nuclear Disarmament
30:00 The Stark Reality of Nuclear Warfare
32:11 The Urgent Need for Nuclear Disarmament
33:31 Confronting Skepticism: The Case for Disarmament
34:32 Empowering Arguments for Disarmament Advocates
36:08 Political Change and the Power of the People
37:35 The Intersection of Animal Rights and Nuclear Issues
38:54 Youth Activism and University Divestment Movements
39:28 Corporate Influence and Education in the Nuclear Age
40:20 Reeducating Society on Nuclear Deterrence
44:51 Practical Steps Towards Nuclear Disarmament
48:37 Financial Strategies for Nuclear Disarmament
54:26 Book Recommendations for Further Learning
Ola: [00:00:00] this is minds blown.
Sen. Lindsay Graham Meet the Press: Historians would say, why is it okay for Reagan to do it and not President Biden? But let me ask you about why is it okay? Well, can I say this? Why is it okay for America to not to, to drop two nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end their existential threat war?
Why was it okay for us to do that? I thought it was okay. To Israel, do whatever you have to do to survive as a Jewish state. Senator, again, military officials say the technology has changed. But let me ask you about how all of this could impact. Yeah, these military officials that you're talking about are full of crap.
Vincent: Hello, everybody. This is the Minds Blown podcast with your hosts. I am Vincent Entendi and,
Olamide: Olamide Samuel.
Vincent: If you've been listening to us, we are the podcast that covers all things nuclear [00:01:00] disarmament and peace related for those that don't have a PhD in international relations or physics. And so what we wanted to do today is.
Cover a lot of things that are going on in the world in terms of nuclear threats and nuclear buildups and all of these kinds of things that can be super scary, especially to somebody that doesn't kind of study this or, is in this wheelhouse, like we are on a day to day basis, kind of break things down for, for our listeners.
And one thing that has come up that I want to ask you about is With Israel threatening to use nuclear weapons in Gaza with Russia, threatening to use nuclear weapons in Ukraine, we have North Korean threats. As we are speaking right now we, I just read that Russia is going to start doing some exercises with Non strategic nuclear weapons and then what should be the U.
S. is response. I also just read this morning about articles from deterrence [00:02:00] experts talking about why we should build up our nuclear weapons capability for because China is doing the same thing. And I say all this because. I recently had put out a tweet that said that something to the effect of I'm paraphrasing my own tweet here that with all of these threats and everybody seeming not to be deterred by any of these nuclear weapon states, there's still attacks going on and people defending each other and so on and so forth.
How can we say that this idea of deterrence is working? And that got a lot of backlash of people that are really into defending, , the idea of nuclear deterrence. So, before we get into all that again, for, for those listeners that they hear the word deterrence, maybe they read about it in a local newspaper.
But they really have no idea what that means outside of maybe if you grew up in the eighties and you heard the phrase mutually assured destruction. Can you give us a breakdown of when somebody says deterrence? What that means? Not so much in [00:03:00] the, you know, academic. Sense, but , in a sense for those that are, you know, not scholars in this and are trying to wrap their heads around this, frightening time.
Olamide: need to break it down um, for audience. And so what really is nuclear deterrence, right? I think terms, nuclear deterrence is a strategy. used by countries to prevent other nations from attacking them with nuclear weapons. And it is based on the idea that if you threaten a retaliation with equally devastating force, that you would somehow stop potential aggressors from launching a nuclear strike at you. You know, you've mentioned this already, At the core of nuclear deterrence, there is this concept of mutually assured destruction, or MAD for short, or MAD. And this basically means that if one country were to launch a nuclear attack, the targeted [00:04:00] nation would retaliate with its own nuclear arsenal, resulting in catastrophic consequences for both parties. Basically, it's a suicide mission to launch a nuclear weapon at a nuclear weapon state.
And the logic, oh yeah, go
for it.
Vincent: Okay. So yeah, let's just stop there then. And so this idea that you're explaining is the idea that if you have, say the United States that has nuclear weapons and Russia has nuclear weapons, the idea is one is too scared to launch them because the other country, the other nation state has them. And like you said, it would be suicide.
There would be neither country would just, that would be the end of the world.
Okay, that seems easy enough to understand
Olamide: super simple concept at its base,
but over to Okay.
Vincent: But then what happens when you have? So, for example Israel that has nuclear weapons that should on its face then [00:05:00] on this theory or strategy. Stop an I ran from, from attacking them or hitting them back when they're, when they're hit by, by an attack, it would stop Hamas from doing what they did in October.
So there, these. Either a terrorist group like Hamas or a country like Iran, they don't seem to be deterred if going by your definition by Israel having nuclear weapons and they themselves don't have nuclear weapons. So how does that? Does that change the mindset of how we should view deterrence and whether it is the right path that we should be on?
Olamide: Oh, absolutely. Um, in recent times and actually what many international security theorists have somewhat chosen to overlook over a longer period of time is that nuclear weapons can hardly deter. Anything other than a nuclear attack, right? So when you put look at the example of [00:06:00] Israel being attacked by Iran being attacked by Hamas, you know, they're being attacked by either state or non state parties that don't have nuclear weapons. And so it's very difficult for them to justify in nuclear retaliation in response. But even between if we look at, you know, States that both have nuclear weapons and the potential for conflict between them. Let's look at the U S and Russia. For example, we find that these states would always find a way to launch attacks or to be aggressive towards each other below that nuclear threshold. So always seeking out ways to cause trouble for the adversary or the enemy um, triggering a nuclear response. So. deterrence might have played a part in stopping two nuclear weapon states from going to all out nuclear war with each other, but it definitely opened up this whole tranche of activities using non nuclear weapons to spur [00:07:00] conflict.
Vincent: Is it fair to say with the evidence that we've seen since the Cold War, since 1945, that possessing nuclear weapons, threatening to use nuclear weapons, this idea of deterrence has not been successful in deterring conventional nuclear weapons. Weapons or attacks with conventional weapons. When we say conventional weapons, can you explain what we mean by that?
Olamide: Um, definitely nuclear deterrence has not been successful in deterring conventional attacks, and by conventional we mean Any new, weapons capability that is not nuclear, not chemical, not biological, right? So conventional basically means the bombs, the bullets, the regular guns, the tanks, the airplanes, the non nuclear missiles, you know, those sorts of arsenals, which are the majority of military capabilities all around the world.
....
Vincent: here I am, I'm looking at the state of the world right now. And what if I'm looking at [00:08:00] this and saying, it's in my best interest. If I was the president of a nation, it seems like the way to stop. Then if I was beholden, if I believed in this deterrence theory. Then I should have my own nuclear arsenal.
if Ukraine had nuclear weapons, Russia certainly wouldn't be doing this, is the argument. Is that the correct way to view it, or the wrong way to view it?
Olamide: enough. I would say in some ways that is the correct way to view it, but let's definitely explore this, right? The states that have nuclear weapons always drone on and on about how nuclear weapons guarantee their security, how nuclear weapons Enable them to further their national security objectives and foreign policy objectives, you know, how getting rid of nuclear weapons today would be irresponsible for them to do, especially if they do it unilaterally, you know, let's take their word for it. If nuclear weapons provide security for these few states, then it should [00:09:00] provide security for every state and all countries have a responsibility to acquire nuclear weapons. But then these same states are very anxious about what any other country would do with nuclear weapons. Let's imagine Iran having nuclear weapons today. As a matter of fact, the reason Iran is so central to international security. Discussions and debates is because they have said in the past that they might want to acquire nuclear weapons. All of a sudden, everyone is anxious about what an Iran would do. But what is the difference between a leader of Iran with the hands on a nuclear button and a leader of the United States? Surely they're both human and have rationality, right? They're not all just madmen lunatics, unless there is an undertone that we're missing, right? So based on the arguments for nuclear weapons, based on arguments that say that nuclear weapons provide stability, then every country in the world should [00:10:00] have them. And there should not be the non proliferation treaty. When people look at the Ukraine example um, Russia would not have attacked Ukraine if it had nuclear weapons, that may well be true. That may well be true, but the reality is, if Ukraine can have nuclear weapons, then so should Egypt, and so should Libya, and so should Ghana, and on and on and on, right?
Do we want to live in a world where every state is armed with the capability to end civilization as we know it? Definitely not. Do we want to continue living in a world where a few states have the veto power to end civilization as we know it? Definitely not. And so I think the only way to have a sustainable international security environment is the multilateral disarmament and disposal of nuclear weapons completely for every state in the world.
Vincent: [00:11:00] Okay. You had just mentioned by that theory of the idea that nuclear weapons will blunt Other countries from attacking and it will kind of levels the playing field, but there's only certain countries that say we have them and somehow we're more rational and we're more responsible. So we can have them and you can't.
Okay. So I've always joked around, partly joking, partly serious that we have such a gun violence problem in the United States, right? And I've always said, if we wanted to truly have gun legislation, what if everybody Black just started carrying a gun out in public? There'd probably be gun legislation in two seconds, right?
And we saw, we have an example of this, we saw this with the Black Panther Party. When the Black Panther Party were armed, it was a matter of seconds, it felt like, before the California legislature passed the Mulford Bill to disarm the Black Panther Party. And so, it's okay when there are, you know, You know, white racist militias that are carrying guns out in the [00:12:00] open, marching with guns, et cetera.
But if a black person has a gun, God help us, right? So same concept, right? So if the goal was to decrease nuclear weapons, the amount of nuclear weapons in the world, would it in a weird way? Start that process. If all of these nations now that from the quote unquote global South or that we feel aren't you know, responsible enough.
If they all said, we're all going to have built our own nuclear weapons, we're doing this. Would that cause the Western nations to say, whoa, we need to chill this out or we need to stop this. Or would it say we need to attack all these. Countries before they become operational and actually have them. How do you think that would play out?
Olamide: Oh, I think it's already playing out in a way. Um, and example of the Black Panther Party, you know, being militarized to having arms is a perfect example. The anxiety of countries really only peaks [00:13:00] when the darker skin nations express some sort of interest in acquiring a nuclear weapons capability. Um, this underlying racism when it comes to the quote unquote distribution of rationality across different countries that makes many be able to justify, Oh, this country should definitely not have nuclear weapons. They're crazy. Um, I is it so easy to argue that Iran or the DRC or North Korea would be crazy to have nuclear weapons? But also easy to forget that Japan and South Korea within the past 12 months clearly stated that it will be a good idea for them to possess nuclear weapons. That didn't even make headline news. There is this distribution of rationality on the basis of color and on the basis of racial prejudice that continues to inform the nuclear order today. And this was [00:14:00] identified by 1980s uh, professor Ali He said that Only when the Western nations discover that they cannot make the rest of the world refrain from nuclear weapons, while they themselves retain nuclear weapons, only then would the world begin to address the questions of human survival vis a vis nuclear weapons. The existence of a nuclear bomb. And he said, imagine if Emperor Bokassa from central African Republic was playing Napoleon with a nuclear bomb. Perhaps this will scare the Northern warmongers to sanity at last. He identified this issue and identified the racial connotations about who. is legitimate enough to own a nuclear bomb and who isn't.
Professor Ali Mazrui: Implicit in concepts like Pax Britannica was the assumption that Western powers have special privileges for being armed to the teeth, [00:15:00] while at the same time proceeding to disarm the natives.
Olamide: something that we continue and we should continue to raise up because at the end of the day, there is a clear correlation between the legitimate P5 nuclear weapon states um, and the imperialism. Every P5 nuclear weapons state has a history or a continuing um, behavior of nuclear imperialism that is further enabled by their possession of the nuclear bomb. They're the
five permanent members of the UN Security Council. It almost seems like getting the nuclear bomb is a good idea. If you want to be in the security council, if you ask me
Vincent: so far, a far is that are not familiar. P5 means
Olamide: the permanent five members of the UN security council, which are also the nuclear weapons States that are recognized under the nuclear non proliferation treaty, the NPT, and [00:16:00] these States include the United States, the United Kingdom, France. China and Russia.
Vincent: great. . If I'm somebody that's, you know, just working my nine to five in the United States , trying to put food on the table and just have live my life and try not to freak out every day about nuclear weapons and all the crisis going on in the world.
And I say to myself, well. I'm in a safe place because the U. S. is a superpower and it has nuclear weapons. And because we have such a big nuclear arsenal, it will be crazy enough to attack us with nuclear weapons. And so therefore, you know, deterrence works. There hasn't been a nuclear war since 1945. And so, yeah, I, this idea that the U.
S. wouldn't have nuclear weapons is just silly, fanciful talk. So I actually think deterrence works. Your response to that person would be what?
Olamide: My response would be, well, the UN also [00:17:00] existed since 1945 and so did the Bretton Woods institutions. That correlation in their existence is just as valid as the correlation in the existence of nuclear weapons to claim that they are the reason there's not been a nuclear war. War between States. It's very weak. We have had so, so many close calls between nuclear weapons States, you know, starting off with a Cuban missile crisis and many more that were just too numerous to list in a podcast to say reliably that the possession of nuclear weapons by adversarial parties is what stopped them from going to war with each other. Why do we have targeting strategies in nuclear capitals? Why do they prepare to use their nuclear weapons? Why do they overtly threaten time and time again to use their nuclear weapons? Why do they engage in the hundreds of nuclear tests, you know, All around the Pacific Island States and in other former colonies to [00:18:00] demonstrate that they were able to detonate this mighty and awesome weapons. All of these things were clear signals about the intent to use the nuclear weapon if they were pushed and the credibility of their nuclear threats. Nothing, nothing apart from sheer luck. And the normalization of relations with other countries protects the average American from being obliterated by a nuclear bomb within 30 minutes of a crisis escalating to go in nuclear, nothing, not even those fanciful. Um, mechanisms that you see in many movies that have proliferated in Hollywood, the U S doesn't have um, anti ballistic missile capabilities enough to overcome even the first wave of a nuclear strike from Russia or from China, that is. fiction.
Interceptor Movie Trailer: We're the only interceptor platform protecting from a nuclear missile attack. We have a [00:19:00] situation. An authorized missile removal. What the hell's going on up there? We are under attack!
You plan for every possible outcome. But you couldn't plan for me.
Vincent: Okay, it sounds like he then deterrence appears to be a little bit of luck and you know, that we're that we're haven't killed each other at this point. But if I said if I went the other way, and I said, look at, you know, I've, I've, I've watched Oppenheimer and I, and I've read books and I've You know, listening to Minds Blown and and other podcasts.
And, and I really now have come down on the side that disarmament is the way to go, that these weapons have no place in our world. I don't want to see the world destroyed, but I can't wrap my head around the United States. Saying we're going to disarm. We're going to eliminate all our nuclear weapons when I know that North Korea is not going to disarm.
[00:20:00] Russia is not going to disarm. And now without this, this kind of security blanket I've always had where they would be too scared to hit me because of nuclear weapons. Now. Can they just come in and say, we're going to run roughshod over you because you don't have these weapons and we can threaten you with them.
Is that a logical kind of path to go down or is there flaws in that thinking as well?
Olamide: I think even before we get to the process of nuclear disarmament, we have to unearth and make very plain the power structures that have been entrenched because of countries possessing nuclear weapons and being able to threaten it. catastrophic annihilation of other countries. If the US today were to say, Oh, we're just going to disarm.
We're going to reduce our nuclear arsenal. We're going to get rid of all our nuclear bombs without addressing a lot of their continuing exploits in other parts of the world. Then there might be in a situation where [00:21:00] they're extremely vulnerable. There is a reason North Korea hates the United States so much. And that is because of its continuing involvement in the Korean peninsula. You know, it's continuing um, with conventional and other capabilities um, Korea, right. They're still technically at war in North and South Korea. Um, with the continued engagement of the U S in that conflict, and of course, other nuclear weapons States like China and Russia, this conflict has essentially, you know, ground down into a very adversarial stalemate. If we look at, you know, Taiwan, for example. You know, being a country that claims independence and has all of the hallmarks of an independent state, but still being under the thumb of China, you also see here that there are complexes where the U. S. has entered into guarantees to protect Taiwan from Chinese. Um, that need to be addressed. They have so many of these complexes around the world, [00:22:00] not only for the U S to unravel, but for many of the nuclear states to unravel so that they can create a security environment where tensions are low enough that they can begin to withdraw their forces from these areas, especially because these areas are the flashpoints that cause tensions across nuclear weapon states, you know?
Vincent: Yeah, there's so there's another piece of this now that you're mentioning kind of how these things are all interrelated and it's not just, you know, by itself siloed here. Which is the idea of, of nuclear umbrellas, right? Which is that there are countries like Japan that don't have nuclear weapons, but the agreement kind of is that if they were to be attacked, they fall under our umbrella.
We have their back, including with nuclear weapons. So.
If the U. S. was to say, hey, we are going to start the process of disarmament there'd be this argument of now you're, you're not protecting allies now under this nuclear umbrella. Japan and other countries can be sitting ducks for other [00:23:00] nations to, to go in to, you know, attack.
And so therefore it is not the right thing to do because, you know, we shouldn't just leave our allies kind of out in the lurch and, you know, and, and have them at risk. What say you?
Olamide: right thing to do would be to address the underlying security concerns, including with those countries that the U. S. 's allies perceive as threats, you know, And this is something that was always in its infancy stage, this sort of discussion. I mean, the U S and Russia have engaged in arms control, nuclear arms control for the better part of the past 30 years, right? They have gradually and gradually over time reduced their amount of, you know, offensive nuclear weapons because they entered into dialogue with each other. Because they of this dialogue, they were able to gradually unravel certain flashpoints. But then, we've seen in the past 3 4 [00:24:00] years only, that the US and Russia have pretty much taken the hammer to everything.
every vestige of arms control um, that some sort of stability between these two countries in the past and actually turning their backs on nuclear reductions and are now looking at ways to expand their arsenals and looking for ways to achieve nuclear supremacy. So I think You know, nuclear disarmament has to happen as a concert of nuclear weapon states gradually reducing flashpoints and also reducing their need to have so many nuclear weapons and have them targeted at each other. And that is the way that nuclear disarmament is most feasibly likely to happen. But none of this will happen unless there is a fundamental change of mind and psyche that is so wedded to the idea of super powerism, which is a word I've just made up here, this idea of being an Imperial power that has a say in the far reaching corners of the [00:25:00] world and has a say in how those places um, and you know, who can lead what country and under what political system. You know, so the sermon is feasible. It has to be in concert, but it also has to be based on a realistic assessment of the flashpoints in the world today and a realistic um, credible political push to address these issues.
Vincent: Okay, but there are various times in our history where, , leaders, even though they were you know, the, the countries are perceived to be as enemies or on opposite side of the political aisle, whatever, there were times when these leaders would still talk to each other about these issues. So you had Khrushchev and Kennedy talking to one another, you had Gorbachev and Reagan talking to one another.
Even during the Iran nuclear deal was being diplomatically, you know, talked, you're trying to figure out that agreement. But today, if the U. [00:26:00] S. were to say, we want to sit at the table and talk about nuclear disarmament with Kim Jong un, with you know, the Chinese leadership, if Putin, do we really think these leaders, do we think these leaders would come to the table and actually talk about these things?
Or we say, look, if Putin's Putin, there's no way he's going to talk about, sit down and. You know, want to talk about nuclear disarmament. So we're just at a different time and therefore we shouldn't even talk about disarmament. Do you think that's a reasonable assessment or no?
Olamide: think the reluctance of many people, especially those that have the ears of policymakers to even engage in dialogue, I think it is remarkably stupid. If I'm being honest, leaders have to talk with one another and have to have continuous dialogue because opportunities arise. And these opportunities are fast moving, they arise where there is a chance for states to enter into [00:27:00] a specific agreement that reduces tensions in one areas. But none of these opportunities can ever be identified or taken advantage of if there's no dialogue, you know. During the Trump presidency, especially given how crazy Trump was, there was still a time when he tried to reinstigate some sort of dialogue with North Korea, you know, the denuclearization dialogue would probably have forgotten about this now because, you know, many other things have happened since then, but there was an opportunity there. Um. and the United States, Putin was leader when certain strategic offensive limitation treaties were negotiated and upheld, you know, it's still the same human being. There were still tensions in the air when these treaties were negotiated. But today I sense that many policymakers look at. The engagement in dialogue as some sort of reward in itself is like, Oh, you be good.
And then we can talk to you. That [00:28:00] is absolute BS
Trump-Biden Debate: Vice president Biden. You've said you wouldn't meet with Kim Jong on without preconditions. Are there any conditions under which you would meet with him on the condition that he would agree that he would be drawing down his nuclear capacity to get that the Korean peninsula should be nuclear free zone?
All right, let's move on to American families. They tried to meet with him. They tried to meet with him. He wouldn't do it. He didn't like Obama, he didn't like him. He wouldn't do it. I gotta give him a chance to respond to that before we move on. He wouldn't do it. And it's okay. You know what? North Korea, we're not in a war.
We have a good relationship. You know, people don't understand having a good relationship with President Trump. We have leaders of other country. We have a lot of country. We have a lot of questions to get to your response, think Sam, we had a good relationship with Hitler before he in fact, invaded Europe.
Olamide: During the cold war, during very tense times, This was precisely when dialogue enabled for world leaders to sit at a table and quickly take [00:29:00] advantage of, Oh, okay. We have some slightly less important nuclear weapons placed here and here. Maybe we can retire those for now. And maybe it will be a cost savings so that I can appease my domestic public and say, okay, we don't really need these weapons for now. I've entered into this treaty and we hope it holds, you know, So dialogue should not be seen as a reward in itself. It should be seen as a responsibility for world leaders, especially if they want to enjoy the continuing power of being world leaders.
Vincent: And if I'm somebody that again is just coming to this issue and my knowledge is limited, what are the arguments would you say of why deterrence isn't the answer? Why should somebody say, you know what, this isn't the right path and I need to start looking at alternatives, whether that's arms control, whether that's disarmament, whether that's, you know, a combination, but what are the arguments you would give somebody to say clearly to show them deterrence?
[00:30:00] This, this theory that we've been talking about here is not the right way to go and has not been successful over all these years.
Olamide: Imagine if in one day, seven times the number of people dead in Gaza were the result of one decision to use one bomb in one day, that was the reality in 1945 people were killed with a detonation of just. Two bombs, two explosions. And that is the capability of 1945. Today, we have around 12, 000 nuclear weapons, all much more powerful than those that killed 200, 000 people in an instant. If we were to India and Pakistan, for example, were to [00:31:00] go to nuclear war with each other over some border squabble or over some misunderstanding. If they were to use their full arsenals, we could see upwards of 2 billion people dead within a month because of nuclear winter. And there's no do overs from this. If the U S and Russia were to go to full scale nuclear war with each other, at the very least, we would have about , three and four people everybody knows would be dead within a month. And there is no do over how is this a sustainable path? to security. The fact that we've been lucky for long enough and the fact that we've not had crisis that actually led to the detonation of nuclear weapons in war because we've had nuclear tests that killed thousands of people. The fact that we haven't had a nuclear exchange in war is a combination of factors. And I would argue that the [00:32:00] least of the factors that we can assign as being responsible for not having a nuclear war is deterrence. It is the least of the factors. And so we need to find ways to peacefully coexist on our very small planet.
If we're being factually correct in a way that doesn't annihilate three quarters. Of all humans on earth today and in the future, because you can't just, you don't just use a nuclear bomb in a location and expect that, Oh, life will return to normal after 10 or 20 years. You're you're desecrating that location now. And in the future, you know, you're eliminating people that are unborn as well because of a political squabble that they have no say in,
you know, nuclear explosions don't respect spatial boundaries that is boundaries in terms of terrestrial distance. And it [00:33:00] also doesn't respect temporal boundaries as boundaries in time. effects are long lasting and far reaching. And so anyone who argues that we can continue to rely on this pointing guns at one and one another as a means of providing security is definitely very short sighted and possibly ill informed about the humanitarian impacts of nuclear weapons.
Vincent: Okay. So if we take what we've given us so far and somebody says, you know, listen to this, okay, , you've convinced me that deterrence just isn't the right path here. It hasn't worked. It's been luck and other factors. And this is not something I'm willing to be okay with having all these weapons that could annihilate civilization on the planet.
But the moment I bring up to friends or family, or if I'm in class or whatever, the idea that I am in favor [00:34:00] of disarmament, I get laughed out of the room. I'm an ideologue. You know, I'm a hippie. I'm somebody that's a dreamer, but I don't live in the real world because disarmament is never going to happen.
What are the arguments that somebody again, who is not going to be able to just argue in the weeds and pull statistics out of their heads in 2 seconds? Because they haven't done it for decades. Like us. What what can they say? What can they fall back on to kind of? Strengthen their argument that, yeah, disarmament is actually the right way forward.
Olamide: I think. There's many ways um, one statistic that everyone should be able to remember in any argument, and they can always back it up because we have our mobile phones and you can Google that, right? One statistic they could always pull out the hat is, okay, so you're arguing for three out of every four people, you know, To die within a month of some political crisis that you have little to do with [00:35:00] escalating into a nuclear war. that funny to you? You know, family of four. I'm guessing if you're going to choose yourself as the person that survives the nuclear Holocaust and everyone else in your family is gone, right? Three over four should be the mantra. Three over four. Another easy statistic to remember is 30 minutes. Because that is the average time for most intercontinental ballistic missiles from launch to destination.
Matter of fact, it's much shorter than 30 minutes, but the 30 minutes, you know, encompasses some of the crisis points and the decision to actually press the button to launch the bomb. So three over four of people, you know, Dead in 30 minutes, right? That should be an easy statistic for most people to keep in mind when someone decides to laugh about the improbability of nuclear disarmament versus the continuity of this [00:36:00] unsustainable nuclear deterrence that we see. Being practiced by a few imperialistic nations around the world. And, you know, I'm just going to add this for good measure in terms of political sea change and the ability to cause political change. I'm based in the UK, although I'm Nigerian. And I was in Africa for most of last week, just for me to return and see that the conservatives have lost half of their, you know uh, and um, representatives all across the United Kingdom. The Conservative Party have been a stronghold for the past 14 years and they were seen even just a year ago as infallible. They were seen as a party that could not be dislodged. But they have lost half of their power, at least at the local level. Already because of decisions they've made. So if anyone wants to make you, you know, not believe in the power of democratic reform and the power of using your votes to change policy, [00:37:00] let them look at the recent sweeping out of half of the conservative party. In one of the most conservative countries in the world, the United Kingdom to change as possible as well.
Vincent: You know, you mentioned that three out of four statistic which really plays at the, you know, human element and makes people should really think about their loved ones and what that, you know, what this does, which I think is the right approach really. Talk, you know, it's not statistics and it's not these abstract arguments, but it's real people we're talking about.
And of course, it's not only it's not only people, right? We just had headlines over Kristi Noem, the governor of North Dakota. I think it's North Dakota, South Dakota. I think it's one of the Dakotas. And you know, She is a front runner to be Trump's vice president, and she just wrote a book and in the book, she explains that she killed her 14 month old puppy, shot it, killed it because it was behaving badly and There are other things too.
She lied in the book [00:38:00] about meeting Kim Jong un. She we now know she's also executed goats and horses and just has no problem killing these animals. And then in a recent interview said like one of the first things she would do in the White House is get rid of Joe Biden's dog. So it's, she has no problem.
The we're okay with killing dogs, a voter block constituency. She seems to have locked up. And I say that because, you know, we talk about what, you know, the idea of losing a loved one and talking to somebody about that, let's talk about how many. Of your pets would be destroyed as a result of nuclear war.
Livestock would be destroyed. You know, you have to kind of sometimes tailor your message or how your conversations to specific people. There's not just 1 message in that regard. And we're seeing also you know, all kind of. Connects because we're seeing all of these campus protests in the United States, and indeed, starting to spread all over the world over [00:39:00] these endowments and over the schools divesting from Israel and in the military industrial complex and all of these things.
And. No, there is a connection there. We see how many of these universities are invested in companies that make nuclear weapons or they're getting, you know, they'll proudly announce that they're getting money from, from these companies to set up R and D and different, you know, programs in their school.
Lockheed Martin at UCF: I'm here today with Tom Warner. Program director at Lockheed Martin. Tom. Thanks for joining me. Thank you for having me. So Lockheed Martin Just donated 1. 5 million dollars to the University of Central Florida. Tell us about that. We're very excited We've donated 1.
5 million dollars to the University of Central Florida for the establishment of their new cyber innovation lab It's going to be a great partnership between Lockheed Martin and the university not only for the workforce Development that will occur our ability for mentoring our ability for innovation Internships and [00:40:00] partnerships, and just really, it's really about creating the workforce of tomorrow
Vincent: and so that's another piece of how this is connected as well. We're churning out students and how that's, you know, what they're learning in these schools is their strings attached what their school represents. And it brings me to when we think about nuclear weapons. And this issue of deterrence, it's almost like, when I think about, you know, how many years in the United States, you had a slave system and when slavery, you know, from the 1600s now to 1865 and when slavery is abolished, at least on paper.
You know, it wasn't that all of a sudden those who were enslaved were chest bumping for their, cause they got freedom and popping champagne and all of the former white slave owners were going, Hey, let's go out to dinner. Now we're all equal. It's all good. Slavery is done. No, you're talking about [00:41:00] hundreds of years of being told that there's a high, a racial hierarchy.
You are inferior. You, if you're white, you are superior. And this is embedded in your psyche and in the institutions. And I say it because. That was hundreds of years. The bomb was created in 1945. And since 1945, it has kind of been drilled into society that you now need these weapons for safety, for your own safety, for your own existence.
It's the right thing to do over and over and over again. So there's still a lot of, you know, there's a lot of work to do to try to, you know, convince and reeducate people to say, no, that narrative that you learned all these years wasn't actually correct.
Olamide: There is a lot of work to do. And the funny thing is weapons have not been around for For as long as slavery existed, even though they have been normalized, but nuclear weapons have [00:42:00] only been normalized because of the preservation of the quote unquote, unthinkable, right? In our previous episode, we talked at length about the movie, the day after, which was one of the very few portrayals of what the unthinkable looks like from a day to day perspective. Nuclear deterrent would be in very shaky waters if the whole of the world was really, really aware vividly and visually about the quote unquote unthinkable what happens when a bomb is used. We seem to have As a species, we have become comfortable with blocking out that part of our imagination and thinking about what happens when a bomb is used.
We're like, Oh, it's never going to be used. It's like, what are they there for? What are the threats for? Right? And so I think part of the re education that needs to happen is people need to see. You know, as [00:43:00] realistically as possible, what happens when a nuclear bomb is used. And I think this is where the responsibility of filmmakers of documentary makers comes into play because they can, using the data available to them, visually illustrate what a nuclear weapons use looks like for, you know, a regular person.
Vincent: Yeah. I mean, it also brings me to the. The difference with climate change, right? That climate change is often say much more tangible, you know, so we say, why are people so, you know, out there for climate change and realize the dangers, but not nuclear weapons. And again, it's because we can see the storms.
We can see the weather patterns. We can see what it does in all of these ways. You can see the plastic floating in the sea. You can see these things where, and you can also, I think, do [00:44:00] something. You know, that having that agency. So somebody that's listening and saying, I want to do something about this.
I just don't know what, because I can, at least with climate change, whether it's effective or not, and in any way, but I can recycle and I can look at, you know, how much energy I use and I can be conscious of my transportation and I can, you know, there's all these things that you can think about.
Physically do to say, look, I'm doing the best I can to save the planet. But with nuclear weapons, I'm not really sure what to do because it seems so gargantuan and so abstract and so technical, and I don't think I can get through to a politician or somebody to disarm. So, you know, that's the, what do you think is the.
Is the, the best path for somebody that realizes and is learning, you know, with everything going on now that, okay, I need to do something. It's where I want to put my energy, but I'm not sure really what to do. Is it with the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons and backing that up, which is we can, you can explain and talk about, is it [00:45:00] through divestment, the same kind of thing we're seeing in college campuses?
Is it somewhere, is it, you know, There's not one thing, there's a combination, but what do you think is the right, is there a right path if we're trying to achieve this disarmament that you would, that you would say you would advocate for?
Olamide: would definitely say that as tangible as climate change is, you just need to extrapolate a little bit more on some of the tangible, visible impacts of climate change to understand what would most likely happen. Um, nuclear weapons, you know, we are talking about keeping the world below 1. 5 degrees Celsius of warming and two degrees.
And we are talking about all of these very complicated financial packages that need to be negotiated by richer states to poor states to improve their resilience to climate change and all of that, you know, it seems to me that these [00:46:00] are highly technical. Solutions and very highly technical um, problems trying to solve with climate change with nuclear weapons connected to climate change.
All we have to think about is everything you have worked for in the climate change movement can be completely and irreversibly disrupted in 30 minutes with one mad person pushing one button. Everything else goes out the window, right?
Those people that are advocating for, you know, mitigating climate change are worried about their future. They want a planet to live on that their kids and their grandkids would still have a decent existence, you know, and have a sustainable future. None of that is possible. If we have full scale nuclear war, you can forget about kids.
You can forget about living for a month, let alone having kids and grandkids. Right. So, you know, we need to understand the [00:47:00] severity of this and also the speed at which disruption can happen. If we need to motivate people to then take concrete action. The concrete action, and I would say this is very related to my example of the Conservative Party's loss in the UK, is many of the states that are democracies, modern democracies, are the ones that rely on nuclear deterrent. It's quite interesting. Political processes in most of the global South, you know, this country's usually seen as less democratic. They're usually seen as hostile to NGOs and to grassroots advocacy and whatnot. And so it's difficult to have political campaigns on an issue based on democracy. But guess what? These are the countries that have signed the treaty on the prohibition of nuclear weapons. These are the countries that have rejected as a provider of security and what is left are mostly Western democracies to catch on to this realization that much of the [00:48:00] global South already has. And within Western democracies, there is the space to amplify grassroots movements and to put pressure on elected officials to say, what is your stance on nuclear weapons use as your foreign policy objectives?
If we were to elect you, do you want to murder 5 billion people, including 2 billion babies? Let's know the kind of person we're electing here. So, you know, Casting your vote where it matters is an important way to increase pressure in the states that actually do have nuclear weapons. That's one thing. The second you already highlighted was divestment. You know, does your bank have investments in nuclear weapons, producing companies or in companies that produce components of nuclear weapons? Well, you can actually find out that data with the divest from the bomb campaign, which will link in the description um, wherever podcasts, you actually have a list of financial [00:49:00] institutions and they have been surveyed for their, Involvement in the nuclear weapons enterprise. Perhaps you can switch from those financial institutions to more sustainable ones, the same way we do when we're out shopping for products to see whether or not they are green friendly or not.
Right.
Vincent: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I have, we all have in our certain jobs. It used to be, you had a guaranteed pension, but that's, those are gone now. Now you have a 401k plan and most of us are, you know, don't have MBAs and don't play the stock market. We're not, you know, so we just pick, do we want to be. I don't know, aggressive or moderately aggressive or really safe.
And you let your financial planner invest and you get a statement every month that says, this is what you made or lost or, and so on. You hope you have enough to retire. So what you're saying is that you can go to your financial planner when everybody has a four, even if you're not rich, you have a 401k, if you're in a job that is, has retirement plan and say to them, I want to actually see [00:50:00] who am I investing in?
And if it is a weapons manufacturer that you're not happy, you could say, I'd like to pull that and put it in something else. That is something you absolutely can do in terms of divestment. It doesn't have to be this giant thing, but that enough people do that, then, you know, again the other thing I saw the other day was the idea of, and it reminded me of that GameStop, which was a whole thing with the stock market, which is what, what, what, if people that were very, Affirm and nuclear disarmament in that camp, or even the students at these encampments, if masses amount of people like this bought shares of Boeing or Lockheed, and then as shareholders, you had to say, and what, what would you say?
Their policies were and could shape it and change it from the inside out again. It's an inside game and I'm not, I don't think financially savvy enough to figure all the ins and outs of that, but it was something that kind of raised my eyebrows.
Olamide: Oh yeah.
Vincent: you is it all, you know, is that something that can be done?
Olamide: Oh, absolutely. Um, I [00:51:00] GameStop example again is one example of a, of an uprising where regular people discovered their power in collective action. I mean, if we think about even the financial institutions, let's say we're talking to people that have no problem killing babies and dogs and goats and whatnot, but cared about their money.
Yeah. If we look at the top 10 financial capitals in the world, only two of these are actually slightly removed from nuclear weapons risk. Zurich and Geneva, everywhere else has a nuclear weapon targeted at them. People care about their money. Would it be sensible to move your capital from a financial capital? This is funny. Would it be sensible to move your financial capital? Capital from a financial capital that is being actively targeted by nuclear weapons to a financial capital that exists within the treaty of the prohibition of [00:52:00] nuclear weapons protections like Zurich or Geneva. Well, like Zurich really.
Um, sense?
Right.
Why is it that the financial market isn't considering the possibility of nuclear detonation risk as one of the things that they look at in their business continuity plans? I think it's a silly thing from the money perspective, right?
I mean, Yeah.
this is the sort of things we should think about um, you know, highlighting the pervasive risks of nuclear weapons in the world.
Hmm. Hmm.
Hmm.
Vincent: I mean, I think it's, we're, we don't make any mistakes about it that you and I are in favor of nuclear disarmament. That's, you know, who we are. But I think it's, if you. From what we've looked at today, it's, you know, our opinion is that nuclear deterrence does not work. That we've been lucky that it's, it's, it's a idea.
It's, it's not an actual policy. It's an idea [00:53:00] that again, if you just have nuclear weapons, that somebody will be, you know, that will keep somebody at bay. And then I think the other, you know, important thing is with nuclear disarmament for those, even those that are working inside this field can often feel that they're, Just smashing their head against a wall that nothing is changing that, you know, cause again, different with other causes, you can see you put out action a to get the result and you can see the result and you can, you know, but this is harder.
This is, you know, this is probably not going to happen in our lifetimes. It doesn't mean you, you, you don't stop working on it or educating yourself on it because it is so important. I think the most important thing. But yeah, it can be frustrating and and. Whether it's somebody who's working on it constantly or somebody that just says, I don't understand it.
It's just. Too big. So again, that's what our hope is, is that we're something that you can listen to, whether it's, you know, episodes we've done connecting the [00:54:00] athletic world to nuclear history or the entertainment world to nuclear history. We're now trying to break down things like deterrence and disarmament that you often see in the news, and maybe don't quite understand all the little arguments and intricacies of it.
This is hopefully a place that you can, you know, go to kind of say, okay, I need to look at something from different sides and kind of really get back to basics before I can make up my mind and say, now, here's what I can do about it or what I think. And so we're going to add a new. Concept to the end of each episode, which is we are going to each recommend a book for our listeners to read if they are interested in starting to learn this.
And again, we're not going to mention books that you need to have a doctorate to understand that would make any sense. So I'm going to, and these aren't something you have to read in some particular order, anything like that. It's just simply if you want to educate yourself in, you know to this, to this issue.
And so I'm going to. Do the really cliche and obvious thing and start with Annie Jacobson's [00:55:00] book, Nuclear War Scenario. This is a book that just recently came out. It is been optioned for a film from the director of Dune. It's gotten a ton of. Play all over the place, and I would highly recommend it in short is what happens when North Korea launches nuclear weapons at the United States and what unfolds and she it's impeccably researched.
It's a very fast read again. You don't need to be an expert to understand it. But it is, it is an incredibly important book if you are looking to educate yourself on, on this particular issue. So I would, I would advocate for Annie Jacobson's nuclear war scenario. And what about you, Ola? What would you suggest?
Olamide: I'll definitely second your recommendation for Annie Jacobson's book. And because we discussed a little bit about what you can do and how to Change can happen in the international system. My recommendation is a book that has been out for about two or three years. [00:56:00] And this book is called banning the bomb, smashing the patriarchy by Ray Aitchison. Um, a phenomenally accessible read, and it takes you into the halls of advocacy and the halls of diplomacy to see how regular people like you and me, We're able to push through change that created an international treaty that finally bans the bomb.
Vincent: Agreed. Ray is a, obviously a great friend of ours and Ray has been on the front lines of this for a long time. And yeah, if you really want to understand the conversations and the role of civil society with the diplomatic side and, and not just how those, you know, it might seem like a slog, but how that change can really, you know, those conversations and that work can really come out to have a real result, then yeah, I would recommend that too.
Two books, Annie Jacobson's Nuclear War Scenario and Ray Atchison's Battling the Bomb, Smashing the Patriarchy highly suggest those two. And for next episode we are going to [00:57:00] discuss, go back a little bit in history now. And so again, if you're not familiar with it, or you only got the, you know, one paragraph in your textbook when you were growing up we are going to.
revisit the decision to drop the bomb. And what went into that, and we will give you a little bit of that history lesson for, again, for those of you that aren't too familiar with it. So thank you as always for listening. We apologize for being on a little bit of hiatus as Ola was traveling through Africa and and got away from us a little bit, but we are back.
And thank you again, as always for listening. Thanks for all the support. Please hit that subscribe button. If you liked what you heard, give us a follow wherever you get your podcasts and we will see you in the next episode. So thank you so much for listening.
Olamide: Until next time. See you soon.
Ola: Minds Blown. Is produced by Jackson Street Collective and made possible by Lex International. [00:58:00]