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The John Batchelor Show

S8 Ep161: The Wolf's Call: Submarine Thrillers and Nuclear Miscalculation — General Blaine Holt — General Holt analyzes the French thriller film The Wolf's Call, utilizing it as a framework to examine the independence of France's nuclear deterrent and the terrifyin

The John Batchelor Show

John Batchelor

Society & Culture, Arts, News, Books

4.52.8K Ratings

🗓️ 4 December 2025

⏱️ 6 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

  • The Wolf's Call: Submarine Thrillers and Nuclear MiscalculationGeneral Blaine HoltGeneral Holt analyzes the French thriller film The Wolf's Call, utilizing it as a framework to examine the independence of France's nuclear deterrent and the terrifying velocity of nuclear launch protocols that preclude human intervention once activated. Holtdraws historical parallels to Cold War close calls including the Cuban Missile Crisis and contemporary hybrid warfare scenarios, emphasizing how catastrophically easily strategic miscalculation can cascade into unintended nuclear escalation with civilization-ending consequences.
1937 ESTONIA


Transcript

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0:00.8

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0:34.6

I'm John Batson with my good colleague, General Blaine Holt,

0:37.5

United States Air Force, retired, a veteran of NATO.

0:41.0

But here is a thriller movie with a nuclear submarine and attack boat

0:46.5

and nuclear weapons in the end of the world and a launch from the Bering Sea at France.

0:53.7

All of this happening without NATO on the scene.

0:56.5

This is France. They have four nuclear-powered submarines that carry missiles. They are capable of being

1:06.5

all by themselves the end of Europe. That's how many warheads they have. Two hundred

1:11.3

ninety warheads, two hundred of those are mounted in those submarines, there are four of them,

1:18.3

the triumphant class. In this thriller, the triumphant class is also in the movie, but the

1:25.4

attack boat begins. It's complicated, and I urged Blaine to enjoy it,

1:31.3

and he did. But what I took out of it, Blaine, is that we don't need no NATO here in Paris. We're

1:37.4

going to make our own decisions. And who thought the French Navy was independent enough? So if the

1:43.0

President of France says, go, they go. Did you know that?

1:46.8

I did. There are a lot of fail-safe options in different nuclear forces in NATO that have these

1:53.3

types of protocols. And so what we're talking about is a ship that's being sent to a nuclear target or potential launch of a nuclear missile.

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