403. The Unimaginable: Will Nuclear Weapons Be Used Again in Our Lifetime?

Battleground

Goalhanger

History

4.5 • 824 Ratings

🗓️ 26 May 2026

⏱️ 56 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, a chilling question has continuously loomed over the international community: how real is the threat of a nuclear escalation? While the nuclear dimension has historically overshadowed the conflict, the rules of engagement and atomic posturing are constantly shifting.

In this episode, host Roger Moorhouse sits down with one of the world's leading nuclear experts, Matt Korda, to pull back the curtain on the subtle, dangerous games of atomic signalling being played by both sides.

Korda breaks down the stark contrast between Vladimir Putin’s aggressive public rhetoric and NATO’s quieter, tactical show of force—from Cold War-style bomber flights along borders to the rare surfacing of a US ballistic missile submarine off the coast of Norway.

Together, they explore:

The Art of Moving Goalposts: How NATO successfully calling Putin’s bluffs on supposed "red lines" (like sending tanks and aircraft) has redefined the perceived limits of nuclear deterrence.
Russia's Evolving Nuclear Doctrine: An inside look at the text of Moscow's updated criteria for nuclear deployment, including its expansive shift toward countering conventional threats.
The Belarus Mirror: What Russia’s deployment of nuclear weapons to Belarus actually means for international law, and whether it echoes the US/NATO hosting agreements.
An Arsenal in Disrepair: The alarming state of Russia's degrading infrastructure under the weight of sanctions, poor quality control, and recent high-profile failures—including the Sarmat ICBM exploding inside its own launch silo.

Don't miss this clear-eyed, gripping analysis of a subject that continues to shape global security.

Join the Conversation: If you have a question about the war in Ukraine or any of the conflicts we cover, email us at podbattleground@gmail.com

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Producer: James Hodgson

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Transcript

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0:00.0	if Trump really wanted some leverage over the UK, right?
0:04.2	There's a lot that he can do to undermine the UK's nuclear deterrent.
0:08.9	I think it's probably fair to say that around seven-ish of the nine nuclear-armed countries
0:14.7	are operating in some sort of state of authoritarianism.
0:18.3	Do you think that in your lifetime, you'll see nuclear weapons used again?
0:22.9	Yes.
0:36.3	Welcome to Battleground Ukraine with me Roger Morehouse.
0:39.9	Now we get a lot of questions every week about the nuclear aspect of current affairs, both in Ukraine and elsewhere.
0:48.7	So in trying to address some of those questions, we decided to bring in one of the world's experts on the issue.
0:55.9	So this is Matt Corder we'll be speaking to today. He is the associate director of the nuclear
1:00.1	information project at the Federation of American Scientists. Matt, my first question, I suppose,
1:08.3	is the overarching one that, you know, throughout this conflict
1:12.2	in Ukraine, since the Russian invasion, even arguably since the first invasion in 2014, the sort
1:19.6	of nuclear aspect has sort of overshadowed it to some extent. It's always been lurking
1:23.5	in the background, right? Partly because of, you know, the fact that you've got the two,
1:31.1	ultimately the two superpowers either side, you know, nuclear-armed Russia, nuclear-armed US,
1:36.1	and to a large extent, NATO as well. And also, of course, that the Ukrainians were once
1:41.9	the third largest holders of nuclear weapons in the world up until
1:47.0	1994 in the Budapest memorandum, which they were encouraged to give up in return for security
1:53.2	guarantees. So for many, many reasons, the nuclear aspect kind of overshadows all of that.
1:58.9	Can you just sort of give us a little introduction into sort of that
2:02.1	aspect of things and where the nuclear question fits in this current conflict?
	...

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