America’s Secret Nuclear Upgrades
Angry Planet
Matthew Gault
4.3 • 882 Ratings
🗓️ 20 November 2017
⏱️ 24 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
If you just look at the number of warheads, the U.S. nuclear arsenal is a small fraction of the size it was during the Cold War. But is that even the right measure anymore? This week on War College, Reuters’ Scott Paltrow discusses a special report the wire service will release this week.
Paltrow’s investigation discovered vast improvements to bombs whose names have stayed the same as their power increased tenfold, and weapons with adjustable yields that could lead to the ultimate temptation—dropping the big one.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Love this podcast. |
| 0:02.0 | Support this show through the A-Cast supporter feature. |
| 0:05.0 | It's up to you how much you give, |
| 0:07.0 | and there's no regular commitment. |
| 0:09.0 | Just click the link in the show description to support now. Even though they're considered to represent the biggest danger of accidental nuclear |
| 0:21.8 | or there's still no real movement to get rid of them. You're listening to War College, a weekly podcast that brings you the stories from behind the front |
| 0:39.0 | lines. |
| 0:40.0 | Here are your hosts, Matthew Galt and Jason Fields. Hello and I'm Matthew Gull. |
| 0:55.0 | I'm Matthew Gull. |
| 0:59.0 | The U.S. nuclear arsenal may be more accurate, deadly, and tempting to use than ever before. |
| 1:05.8 | The number of warheads is down, but the technology now allows fewer bombs to do more than |
| 1:11.0 | enough damage. Today we're talking to Reuters investigative reporter |
| 1:15.3 | Scott Paltrow about US nuclear modernization efforts and also their |
| 1:20.4 | potential consequences. Scott, thank you very, very much for joining us. |
| 1:24.8 | Thank you for having me. So can we talk for a second about the number of warheads and it's down |
| 1:31.9 | from the height, is that right? |
| 1:34.0 | Well, it was at an enormously high level during the Cold War, |
| 1:38.8 | reached a peak during the Reagan administration |
| 1:42.0 | of a total of about 30,000 warheads of the U.S. and Soviet Union |
| 1:48.3 | combined. |
| 1:49.3 | Once the Cold War ended, and it looked like there would be some accommodation between Russia and the United States. |
| 1:57.0 | The treaty is the numbers of warheads and missiles and bombs and so on dropped precipitously. |
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