Nuclear weapons in the 21st Century

Hosted by

As the U.S. and North Korea trade threats of atomic warfare, we’ll look at a “dirty secret” of history. It was the U.S. that first introduced nuclear weapons onto the Korean Peninsula. They were so-called “tactical” nukes for use on the battlefield.

Military experts, up to and including Colin Powell, now believe they’re worse than useless, but they’re still deployed in parts of Europe. Col. Douglas MacGregor, a scholar as well as a soldier, says “old men” run the Defense Department as if it’s still World War II. Are nukes hopelessly out of date as defense against cyber warfare?

Credits

Guests:

  • Walter Pincus - Former national security reporter for the Washington Post, now a columnist for The Cipher Brief - @walterpincus
  • Douglas MacGregor - Retired Army colonel, decorated combat veteran and the author of five books - @MacGregorDoug
  • David Sanger - White House and national security correspondent for The New York Times, author of “New Cold Wars: China’s Rise, Russia’s Invasion, and the Struggle to Save the West” - @SangerNYT

Host:

Warren Olney