The Secret History of Nuclear War

Warfare

History Hit

History

4.5 • 943 Ratings

🗓️ 10 April 2023

⏱️ 37 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Why is it that nobody has used the absolute weapon, the nuclear bomb, since 1945? Was it ever likely that the American arsenal would be used against the Soviet Union? Or was it created solely to prevent nuclear war? If the latter is true, how does a country create the false impression that it is willing to release a weapon of mass destruction?

New York Times bestselling author and Pulitzer prize winning journalist, Fred Kaplan, has authored The Bomb: Presidents, Generals and the Secret History of Nuclear War. In this episode, he and James discuss the strategies and motives of those in control of the bombs in the face of multiple crises ... not all of which are generally known.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Last week the president of Belarus, Alexander Lukashenko opened the nuclear floodgates.
0:07.0	In a national address, he declared that Russia could deploy more powerful weapons in Belarus if Putin saw fit.
0:13.8	Alongside Putin's own nuclear saber rattling,
0:16.6	we appear to have reached a moment in international politics
0:19.7	where world leaders once again think it's acceptable to think the unthinkable.
0:24.8	So it feels like it's time to turn to history, to learn how the world navigated its way through
0:29.0	a previous period of tensions during the Cold War. I'm your host James Rogers. This is the
0:34.0	warfare podcast and as it's a holiday in the UK I've brought back an episode
0:37.4	with the eminent Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Fred Kaplan. Fred is the
0:42.0	author of The Bomb, Presidents, Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War.
0:46.9	And together we discuss why it is that nobody has used the absolute weapon,
0:51.1	the nuclear bomb bomb since 1945.
0:54.0	Hi Fred, welcome to the history hit World Wars Podcast.
1:00.0	Thank you so much for coming on the show.
1:02.0	How you doing today?
1:02.8	Oh good, good, I'm sure you're even better because you've got your new book out,
1:08.0	soon to be out in paperback as well, called The Bomb, Presidents Generals, and the Secret History of Nuclear War.
1:16.0	And if that doesn't tell us everything we need to know about the book, perhaps you can explain
1:20.2	what it's all about.
1:21.2	Well, as you say, the book is explained in its subtitle.
1:24.0	One thing that I learned in doing the research for this book,
1:28.0	which is a combination of very recently declassified archives
	...

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