Annie Jacobsen

I interviewed the former commander of the nuclear sub forces, a guy called Admiral Conner.

Never given an interview like this before.

And I said, like, how hard is it to find a nuclear armed sub?

And he said, Annie, it's easier to find a grapefruit sized object in space than a nuclear sub under the sea.

And these things are, by the way, I have a map in the back of the book that shows you how close our adversaries, enemies, call them what you will, China and Russia, how close they come to the East Coast and the West Coast of the United States regularly, which means it reduces that launch time I told you about of 26 minutes, 40 seconds.

That reduces it down to sort of 10 minutes or less.

I thought, wow.

I mean, when I began reporting this book a couple years ago, never did I think that I would see that while I was talking about my book with people like you after publication.

But in the same manner, I never thought I would hear...

the president of russia threatening to use a nuclear weapon i mean he said he's not kidding that he might use wmd that was that was his paraphrased quote did he specify like in what way he just said wmd against america yeah well you know having to do with intervention in ukraine yeah

This is like recently, yesterday.

Well, I'm guessing they're small cluster bombs that are in the nose cone of the warhead.

What's happening in Ukraine is so profoundly dangerous for everyone.

Well, it's also remarkable that we have so much available footage and so much citizen journalism that people can see these events and discuss them.

I don't know.

I don't know.

I'm not following the ground war in Ukraine right now with my focus on this.

But what I do know is that the ratcheting up of the rhetoric and the use of third-party weapon systems is complicating an already incredibly volatile situation.

You mean if things suddenly go nuclear?

Well, I think the big picture that frightens me most is that when we see the president of Russia going to the president of North Korea, our two, air quotes, arch enemies right now, having a new alliance.