Lawfare Daily: Serhii Plokhii on the History of the Nuclear Arms Race
The Lawfare Podcast
The Lawfare Institute
4.7 • 6.2K Ratings
🗓️ 15 October 2025
⏱️ 63 minutes
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Summary
Lawfare Contributor Mykhailo Soldatenko sits down with Serhii Plokhii, Harvard History Professor and a leading authority on the history of the Cold War and Ukraine, to discuss his new book, "The Nuclear Age: An Epic Race for Arms, Power and Survival," that tells a history of nuclear proliferation and international efforts to tame it. They discuss the role of fear and prestige in a country's decision to acquire nukes, nuclear strikes on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, preventive wars against nuclear aspirants, Ukraine's decision to give up nuclear weapons it inherited from the Soviet Union, and more.
You may also want to look at the following Lawfare pieces about this topic:
- "Filling the Security Void of the Budapest Memorandum," by Mykhailo Soldatenko
- "Ukraine's Nuclear Moment," by Eric Ciaramella
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Transcript
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| 1:02.2 | In each of these cases, there is the general narrative that the world is coming to an end. |
| 1:09.8 | If that particular country, if the communist North Korea gets nuclear weapons, that will be |
| 1:17.0 | the end of the world. |
| 1:18.9 | If the Muslim government in Pakistan will get nuclear weapons, that will be the end of the |
| 1:24.8 | world. |
| 1:25.8 | Well, it didn't happen. It's Lawfare podcast. I'm |
| 1:30.0 | Mikhailo Soledatenko, Lawfare Legal Fellow. Today I have a great pleasure to be joined by |
| 1:36.0 | Sir Hipplohi, a Harvard history professor, a leading authority on the history of the Cold War |
... |
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