Yves here. Even though the risks of nuclear war are rising, with America’s new belligerence and Israel having over-extended itself while remaining determined to subdue Iran among the elevated risks, most want to avert their eyes from this threat to humanity and a lot of life on this planet. For instance, Tucker Carlson had an extended discussion with an expert on what a nuclear war would produce, which was highly informative if also predictably deeply disturbing. Yet it got only one million views, which is light for one of his interviews. I encourage you to take the time to watch it.
It’s a measure of their insanity that leaders around the world are seriously considering nuclear war. Ivana Hughes of Columbia on what that would mean.
(0:00) How Powerful Are Nuclear Weapons?
(9:46) What Would Happen if a Nuke Detonated Over Times Square?
(19:53) What Is… pic.twitter.com/Thux3JLtgE— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) October 17, 2025
On a joint presentation by Theanalysis.news and The Way Forward: Regenerative Conversations, Paul Jay talks with Dr. John Izzo and Alain Gauthier about the risks of nuclear war, providing a historical perspective informed by Jay’s long relationship with Daniel Ellsberg.
Originally published at Theanalysis.news
This is an auto-generated version of the transcript. An edited version will be arriving shortly.
Dr John Izzo
There are three things that can end life on Earth as we know it for humanity. Two are in the news all the time, but the third one, a threat that’s been around for 70 years, is almost never talked about, but we must talk about it. The first is climate change and the destruction of the environment, which is in the news all the time. The second is AI and superintelligence that may, in fact, make us pets one day. But the third one, which we don’t talk about, has been around for 70 years, but the danger is as great or greater than it’s ever been. Most people think it’s just a Cold War relic, and I’m talking about nuclear war. In this podcast today, we will show you why nuclear war is still an urgent and imminent issue that all of us must pay attention to with award-winning documentarian Paul Jay about his upcoming film, How to Stop Nuclear War. You don’t want to miss this podcast, every minute of it, because this is the one threat thinking people are not thinking about, but we must. So Let’s get started. Hi, I’m Dr. John Iso, and I’d like to welcome you to this episode of the Wayfoward Regenerative Conversations podcast, where, as you know, we explore issues and ideas about the future of humanity and planet, especially from this perspective of those over 60 and how we can weigh in to make a difference for future generations, whatever age you are, welcome.
Dr John Izzo
Now, today’s topic is timely, it’s important, and it’s urgent, even though most of us feel that way. Here’s my take. If you think about the things that concern most human beings, go to a party of thinking people, thinking about the future or the present and what worries people. You hear things about AI and the economy, and maybe AI is going to destroy the planet and make us pets. You’ll certainly hear about climate change and the destruction of the environment. You’re likely to hear concern about the war in Gaza and the war in Ukraine, and perhaps the rising military in China. What you probably will not hear in even most thinking circles is any concern or conversation about nuclear war. But here’s my perspective. In this generation, the Gen Zs and young millennials, about 50 to 60% of them have increasing and incredible anxiety about climate and what that means for their future and their children’s future. But they may think they have a corner on anxiety about the future. But being a baby boomer, I can tell you our anxiety about the future was all about nuclear war. War. I remember as a young child growing up in New York City, we would do drills where we hid under the desk preparing for a nuclear war, basically bend over and kiss your butt goodbye.
Dr John Izzo
I remember in the early ’70s, when I was in high school, Being in New York City, knowing that we were literally at ground zero, the epicenter, if the Russians were to launch those nuclear weapons, we were going to be some of the first to go. And I remember nights when I couldn’t go to sleep knowing that in just a short 18 to 20 minutes, my life and everyone that I love could be over. Now, as we fast forwarded through the years into the ’80s, things started to look a little better. There started to be arms control and agreements to begin to limit nuclear arms and the nuclear arms race. There was change in the Soviet Union when the Berlin Wall fell, and suddenly it seemed like a relic of the Cold War past. But fast forward to this present moment, and I would argue that it is as dangerous or more dangerous than perhaps it’s ever been. There’s a new arms race going on, both in Russia, in China, and in the United States, creating new and more destabilizing weapons all the time. The flashpoints are getting greater and greater, and we’re living, as many people say in a recent film, in a house of dynamite.
Dr John Izzo
We literally are surrounded by weapons that could end life as we know it in a short 30 to 90 minute window, and yet we’re pretending that everything is fine. And that’s what makes this conversation station today so important and timely, because those of us who care about the future must turn our attention again to this seeming relic of the Cold War past that is very much a present threat in reality. And today we’re privileged to have an award-winning Canadian film director and producer Paul Jay, who is now working on his latest project, How to Stop Nuclear War. It couldn’t be more important. It couldn’t be more timely. One more interesting perspective before we get started. Apparently, when Ronald Reagan first took office, really at the height of the Cold War in his presidency, he was told that he would have about six minutes, six short minutes to decide what to do in a nuclear emergency, to which Ronald Reagan supposedly said something like this, No one would be able to make a good and prudent decision in six minutes about something that important. Anyway, Alon, I’m going to turn it over to you as we to welcome Paul Jay into our conversation this morning.
Alain Gauthier
Welcome, Paul. You have had a varied life.
Dr John Izzo
You once were a truck driver and worked as a railroad mechanic before becoming a filmmaker.
Paul Jay
Could you share a story or moment early in your life that set you on this journey into journalism and documentary filmmaking? I can’t pick a moment, but how about a moment that pushed me towards doing this film early in my life? I also grew up with duck and cover. I’m born in 1951, So when I’m in public school, I’m hiding under my desk. We all grew up in the ’50s with a feeling of an imminent threat of nuclear war and surrounded by cold war propaganda. Not only did we fear nuclear war, we were told to fear a Soviet invasion of Europe. We were told to fear a Soviet attack on the United States. We were told that better dead than red. We grew up enveloped in a culture of deliberately created paranoia. It’s only later in my life I start to realize how much of that paranoia was a fabric of lies. In 1958, ’59, we’re told there’s a bomber gap, and we’re told the Soviet bombers are coming in masse. That turned out to be a big lie. In fact, there was a bomber gap, but it was way, way on the side of the US.
Paul Jay
The Soviet side, barely a few bombers, nuclear bombers. We were told there was a defensive shield protecting America, Anyway, I don’t know. Canada was part of it. I don’t know how protected Canada was. It’s called the SAGE Radar System, which I learned later was a total boondoggle. It never worked, partly because they never solved the problem of radar jamming. But get this, the SAGE Radar System. This is starting in the late ’50s into the early ’60s, which almost no one’s ever heard of. I’m guessing none of you guys have ever heard of it. The SAGE Radar System cost three times the Manhattan Project. It was over. It was close to 1. 5 % of the GDP of the United States, and no one’s ever heard of the damn thing. Not only that, it never worked. And there’s studies that were commissioned by Mactamara, where it says right clearly in the studies, the thing never worked. It’s the beginning of the anti-ballistic missile system, boondoggles. And in the film, we’re going to tell this whole story, because where are we now? The Golden Dome, the latest of the Bündogels. Anyway, I grew up in the early ’60s, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the assassination of Kennedy.
Paul Jay
So by the time I’m about 14, 15, I decide I’m done with school because I won’t live till 20. And so I quit school in grade 10, and I don’t go back. And it’s A little bit like Ellsberg’s story in some ways, when he went to work at RAN Corporation, he was offered a pension. He’s about 30 years old when he goes to RAN, 29. He just laughs and refuses the pension plan. There’s no way I’ll be around to collect the pension. So at any rate, I grew up believing, and rightly so to a large extent, that that nuclear war could happen at any time. Now, as you mentioned in your excellent introduction, John, that we all started saying, Well, maybe it ain’t going to happen. And certainly by the ’90s, it seemed the Cold War was over and the threat was diminished. And now I, too, was much more concerned about climate and other kinds of conventional war and economic inequality and so on. Then I read Ellsberg’s book, Doomsday Machine: Confessions of a Nuclear War Planner. And I read that about 2018. Then I did a long series of interviews with Dan. Then I realized that book and what Dan had to say, in some ways, was maybe the most important thing I’d ever read, given what was at stake.
Paul Jay
So I talked to Dan and decided to make the film. The short of the story is Dan was a very committed cold warrior. He grew up in this culture of this deliberately constructed expected exaggeration of the Soviet threat. And I can talk a little more about it, but what it really is about, and we’re going to get into this in the film, it’s a culture that has began long before there even was a Soviet Union.
Dr John Izzo
So Paul, first of all, thank you for that. I really want to get into your relationship with Daniel Ellsberg. And for those of you who don’t remember, Daniel was an insider in the US government, in the military complex in the CIA. And then he’s the one famous for leaking the Pentagon papers about the lies during the Vietnam War, and then really became an incredible activist, as you said, with his book about doomsday, but an incredible activist well into his ’80s and early ’90s around nuclear war. But let’s start, Paul, at the highest level. So many people, as you said, think of it as this Cold War relic. Tell us why The first headline, then I want to get into your experience with Daniel, why we ought to be concerned about this now. Why is it as important or maybe even more dangerous than it’s ever… I think it’s actually more dangerous than it’s ever been. And I wonder what your thoughts are. What’s the headline? Give people why, folks, this is not something of the past.
Paul Jay
Well, the first point is the Cold War never ended. So people that talk about it’s the most dangerous time since the end of the Cold War. The Cold War didn’t end because the Cold War was never about Soviet military expansion. That was the excuse. But there was no Soviet military expansion, and that’s been clearly documented now. Once the Yalta Agreement was done, yes, there was interventions in Czechoslovakia. There was an intervention by the Soviet Hungary. The only real military adventure you could say the Soviet Union did outside of the Yalta Agreement was the invasion of or intervention in Afghanistan. And that was clearly a defensive posture. I mean, Afghanistan was on their border, and the Americans, Brzezinski, loved to brag about how they sucked the Soviet Union into that by arming the jihadists with anti-helicopter missiles and so on. But But it was very well known. And when I say very well known, I mean by those people that had access to the intelligence. The CIA was producing report every single year, ’46, ’47, ’48, all through the late ’40s, into the ’50s and the headline of the reports, and we have those reports, and we’ll show them in the film.
Paul Jay
The title of the reports were, Is the Soviet Union a threat, a military threat, to Europe and the the United States? And year after year, the conclusion of the CIA was, no, there’s no military threat. They’re in a defensive posture. There’s even a report that’s titled, Now that the Soviet Union has a nuclear weapon, is it a military threat? And the conclusion was, no, they have nuclear weapons in a defensive posture because we have nuclear weapons. It is not an offensive threat. Even George Kennen, who was a very senior American diplomat, had this famous cable he sent, author by Mr. X, but it turns out it was George Kennen. He said, and so did many others in very senior levels of the Truman administration. This is a political ideological threat to the American global system. Maybe not exact words, but close. It’s not a military threat. And that is the The real gist of the Cold War was that, and this planning begins, we’re going to document, the planning begins in 1939, 1940, working led by the Council on Foreign Relations, funded by the Rockefellers. The planning for this begins during the war, and it’s essentially what Henry Luce, the guy who published Time, Life magazine, it’s the American Century.
Paul Jay
And the American Century was very straightforward. It was a plan that the entire non-Soviet world must be part of an American-led global capitalism. And the fundamental mission of US foreign policy is to prevent countries leaving the American sphere and joining a socialist sphere. And it wasn’t about Soviet military expansionism. The truth is, the real thing they were afraid of were national liberation movements in Asia, Africa, and Latin America, and that they would become socialist. They tried to dress this up and frame it as Soviet military expansionism. But where does the US go to war first in a major way? Korea. They knew the Soviets were not going to intervene in Korea. Cia was saying it. They knew there was no Chinese intervention planned later that comes. But did the Chinese intervene because the Americans did intervene. Where’s the next big war? Vietnam. Had nothing to do with Soviet military expansionism. They knew very well, in fact, that the Vietnamese National Liberation Movement had started right after the war, when the French tried to recolonize Vietnam. It was an independent, indigenous, you could say, National Liberation Movement. It had popular support. And in an American documents, and Dan knew this well from the Pentagon papers, if there had been an election, it was well known, Ho-Chimmin would have won the election.
Paul Jay
It had popular support. So the intervention in Vietnam had nothing to do with Soviet military expansionism. It had to do with defending the American sphere. And it’s very interesting. We’re studying these history, the Council on Foreign Relations now. They actually did a study on could the United States go it alone? Meaning, could you have a world where Britain, United States, South America essentially create a block and forget about the rest of the world? And the answer was not without Indochina. That the American economic prosperity was the term they used, couldn’t survive without the rubber, the tin, three quarters of the world’s rice production. You needed Indochina as part of a geopolitical positioning in order to have a successful American global system. So the invasion of Vietnam, again, had nothing to do with Soviet expansionism, but it did have to do with preventing national liberation movements, detaching from the American sphere and trending, gravitating towards socialism. So that has not ended. That’s still the system, the outlook. That’s still the world vision we belong in. Nato was not created to protect Europe from a Soviet invasion. Nato was created to ensnare Europe in the American sphere, to make sure that Europe, both economically and in terms of its military infrastructure, was within the American sphere.
Paul Jay
But it was a plan that learned from the end of World War I. Instead of destroying and seeking compensation from the defeated Germany and Japan, they allowed these countries to rebuild in a way that they stayed within the American sphere. So they learned from World War I. And this was actually what the whole role of the Council on Foreign Relations was during this planning of World War II. The basic point is the DNA of the system is seeking monopoly, seeking monopoly, even just Corporation versus Corporation. But that seeking a monopoly exists as a fundamental economic driver globally. And if you’re not a country that’s big enough to be the hegemon, you jump on the hegemon train like Canada. Canada didn’t get the cards dealt to become the hegemon. So Canada rides the US gravy, plundering the world old gravy train. And we’re a significant arms manufacturer in Canada. I think we’re number nine or 10 in the world. So a lot of arms, including parts of the nuclear. So the fundamental thing now is the contention with China Number one, the system was always meant that there should never be a peer competitor. They use this term in the last even 20 years called the all full spectrum dominance.
Paul Jay
Well, you can’t have full spectrum dominance when you have not just a pure competitor, a competitor that’s winning the commercial rivalry. Number two, you can’t allow Russia into Europe in a full way. It has too much potential to be too big, too powerful. And it threaten NATO, not because it’s a military threat, but Russia has the potential, and certainly in the history, the 1800s, 1900s, even go back in the 1700s. I mean, Russia has the potential to be a heavyweight player. And imagine if Russia, after the ’90s had been incorporated into Europe. And imagine if there had been a Russian-German-French alliance, well, US would have essentially lost its dominant position in Europe. That helped fuel the development of a very toxic regime, which is what exists now in Russia. The same way… I’m jumping to things. I’m assuming your viewers know a lot of what I’m saying. The way the Versailles Treaty helped fuel the rise of fascism in Germany, this excluding of Russia from modern Europe after the fall of the Soviet Union helped fuel a very toxic, I don’t know if the word fascist is quite right, but it’s pretty close. They use authoritarian, but the toxic regime that exists in Russia now.
Paul Jay
So the Cold War never ended. And because of two fracture points that are so tense, the toxic regime, which the West helped create, and the invasion of Ukraine, and now the possibilities that it could lead to other fractures, and who knows what will happen in Georgia. But mostly it’s China. And the contention in the South China Sea, the fight over Taiwan, the necessity of the American military-industrial complex and nuclear complex to have an existential enemy, number one. Otherwise, how do you justify spending so much money, which has really been one of the cores of the whole thing. Number two, there is a real belief system in the people that run these things. What I mean these things, not who run the state, who run the Pentagon, who run companies like Palantier, Karp or Peter Thiel, who’s one of the founders of Palantier. He’s an investor in Andrew. They actually believe their own bullshit. I believe they believe it the same way Hitler believed his metaphysics. And this belief system is deeply embedded in American culture because it goes right back to slave owners who believed that the defense of private property equalled freedom. So if you can get your head around, defending slavery defends freedom.
Paul Jay
If you grow up in that milieu, that culture, that white supremacy, which is the core of slave plantation owners culture. When you get your head around, somehow that equals Christianity. Somehow that represents Jesus. Somehow that represents freedom. Remember, the founders of America and the American Revolution were slave owners. Yet they’re talking all men are equal. Once you can get your head around this weird dualism, compartmentalism, that’s the core of American elite culture. So you get Dick Cheney’s funerals going on as we speak. How does someone like that purely believe, just say any bullshit to make money, like Cheney’s connection to Halliburton or the striving to grab Iraqi oil. I think they actually believe that that’s justifiable in the same way slave owners thought slavery was justifiable because they represent civilization. They They represent really what it is they believe in social Darwinism. They really believe that survival of the fittest is what drives human progress. And if we’re making money along the way, that’s just part of how the system works. It’s the same way people that ran tobacco companies could justify, even though they’re hiding tobacco studies, they let their kids smoke tobacco executives because it got them ahead in the tobacco companies.
Paul Jay
So it’s an internalized view of the world that you can understand when you understand how the slave system works, because it’s a continuation of that mentality.
Dr John Izzo
So Paul, one of the things that as I listened to you, which I think important for people in the West to recognize, is that in many ways the West drove the arms rights for all kinds of reasons that you’ve really are articulated. And as you said, we could get into a whole conversation about the way we were with Russia post the fall of the Berlin Wall that helped, in a way, set up the Putin regime, et cetera. But I don’t want to go into that. But I think you’ve done a great job of showing the arc of how we got to this moment. And yet at the moment that we’re at now, we have now North Korea, really the first rogue state in the nuclear. If you think about it, they’re really the first unstable state.
Paul Jay
Can I disagree with you? First rogue state is the United States.
Dr John Izzo
I understand what you’re doing, but by rogue, what I mean is an unpredictable state. One of the reasons the Cold War was able to One reason we didn’t blow ourselves up during the Cold War, in my view, is we had two relatively stable states that had this equilibrium. And I don’t want to get too much into North Korea, but meaning now you’ve done a great job of showing historically how we got here. But now we have as many nuclear weapons as we’ve ever had. The system is becoming more advanced than they’ve ever been, more players than they’ve ever been. And so you’ve done a great job setting up to this moment that we’ve come to. And I guess one of the questions then becomes, how do we stop nuclear war in this moment? I wonder if I can bracket that for the moment and talk about Daniel Ellsberg. Give it a little teaser for audience because I obviously want to get into how do we stop nuclear war now. But can we talk a little bit about your experience with Ellsberg? I’m going to turn it over to Alon, but I want to come back to that question.
Dr John Izzo
I hope you’re enjoying this conversation we’re having with Paul Jay about how to stop nuclear war as much as we are. There’s so many good things yet to come, so please don’t leave. But I wanted to take a moment and thank you for being a part of our community and to encourage you to subscribe on whatever channel you’re watching or listening to this podcast on. First of all, if you subscribe, it means that you will get notified every time a new podcast comes out and really be sent to our old library as well. Second, it helps us to grow this community and spread these great ideas.
Paul Jay
And please make a comment, because every time you make a comment, it engages others to be in the conversation, which is really what this podcast is all about.
Dr John Izzo
One more thing before we get back to our conversation with Paul Jay. In just a short time now, on December second, at 08: 00 AM Pacific Time, we’re having a live podcast, our first live podcast on Climate Crossroads: Why Haven’t We Made More Progress and How Can We Make It Now? So please in the show notes, you’ll notice a link to sign up for that December second live podcast. It’s our first one, and we’d love to have you be a part of it. Now, let’s get back to this important conversation. You said that your upcoming film, How to Stop a Nuclear War, is inspired, at least in part by Daniel Eswell’s book, The Doomsday Machine.
Paul Jay
So what’s from Ellsberg thinking most shaped your approach? And what did you learn in your conversations with him? Well, first of all, his arc as a true believer in the Cold War, to over years of discovering how what he believed to be true turned out to be lies. Even during the Pentagon papers, even when he’s exposing the lies of the Vietnam War, he hasn’t fully realized just what a complete fabric of BS he still believed, even after the trial. When people don’t know the story. He was charged with, I guess, espionage or leaking secret documents. And the trial gets kicked because of the Watergate plumbers broke into his psychiatrist office. So it was prosecutorial misconduct, and they threw the case out. Then he starts reading. And he starts reading people like Chomsky and Howard Zinn. He just reads and reads and reads. And the light bulb goes off for him. This isn’t just bad policy. It’s not just a mistake. It’s systemic. It’s in the DNA of the way the system works, this military expansionism. So his arc is fascinating because it keeps making me remember that people of good intent really believe believed in the Cold War, and they didn’t have access to the intelligence.
Paul Jay
They didn’t understand the historical development. And that gives me some hope that if Ellsberg can come to realize these things, well, maybe there’s other people within these institutions. And you see like an Edward Snowden type. You see these Larry Wilkerson’s like that. I mean, Larry was fully believing in the… In fact, Larry, I guess people know he was Colin Powell’s Chief of Staff, he volunteered to go to Vietnam because he thought he was fighting against the Communist scourge. And later in life, he denounced the Iraq war, and he starts to realize he believed in a bunch of bullshit. Now, this It wasn’t to say the Soviet Union wasn’t a police state. Let me get to this a bit. It doesn’t quite directly answer your Ellsberg question, but it doesn’t get talked about enough. You can’t equate communism with Stalinism. It’s one form of socialism. There’s many different forms, just as there are many forms of capitalism. You can’t equate capitalism with Hitler, or Pinochet, or Mussolini, These are particularly malignant forms of capitalism, and Stalinism became a particularly malignant form of socialism. And I won’t get in the reasons why now. But people People say, and I know this is not your question, but I’m going to answer it anyway.
Paul Jay
People say, well, where has there been a more positive model of socialism? Where is socialism not become a police state? And it’s a very simple answer. Nowhere. Why? Because the Americans kept killing anybody that tried it. In Chile, you have a popularly elected President, Allende, who tries to develop a democratic democratic form of socialism, and the US, aligned with Chilean elites, stage a coup and kill the guy. In Indonesia, you had a Communist Party that participated in elections, had a democratic view of how to develop power. And the US and the Indonesian elites were so terrified that they would win the election. They killed a million Communist and left wingers. A million. Blood was literally flowing in the streets. Lumumba in Africa, a Nationalist, but a Socialist. In no way a sympathizer of anything like Stalinism. They assassinated Lumumba. Even in Europe. After the war, in 1948, I guess it is, the Italian Communist Party, which was participating in the elections, rejected Stalinism. I mean, they still had formal ties, but the model of socialism they wanted to develop in Italy had nothing to do with what was going on in the Soviet Union. The Americans put in millions and millions of dollars to defeat the communists in the election and created a secret organization called P2.
Paul Jay
I don’t know if you guys have heard of this thing called Gladio. It’s this whole secret plan in many European countries under the auspices of NATO to interfere in any election in any country where they thought the Socialists/Communists might come to power. And Berlusconi is the product of P2, and P2 worked with the Mafia. This is all on Wikipedia. This stuff is very available. Just look up Gladio, look up P2. The point is we haven’t seen this model of a democratic form of socialism. And I’m not just talking socialism like free busses. And I’m not critiquing Mandani in New York. There’s only so much you can do under these situations. But there were attempts to develop democratic models, and they were crushed. So I’ll stop there. If you want to know more about that, I’ll go on. Anyway, Dan started to realize all this. And so that taught me something about the importance of don’t write people off just because they believe the Cold War mythology. I was going to do a film about 9/11, and I was going to take a group of 9/11 families to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and I’m just going to follow them around and get them to ask people Why do you hate us?
Paul Jay
Just that. And let these families hear the answer. Anyway, so one of the guys I was going to take was a fire chief, whose son was a fireman, killed in the towers. He was a fire chief at 9/11 as well. He formed something after 9/11 called Democrats for Bush because he thought you got to rally around your president. Anyway, I told him just a little bit about the history of modern Afghanistan, how it was the US that brought bin Laden to Afghanistan. It was part of the scheme of sucking the Russians into the war and so on. He didn’t know any of it. He didn’t know a single thing about the actual history, what led to the death of his son. And his jaw dropped. So part of dealing with the danger of nuclear war today, this is why I’m going on about this stuff, is you have to dispel the mythology of the Cold War because everyone looks at it through that prism. So when we hear the Chinese are coming to get us, the Chinese want to control the world. The Chinese are going to have a military that can dominate the world.
Paul Jay
People tend to believe it because we’ve been told about this external, exaggerated threat from the time we’re born. So if you get the history of the threat has been driven primarily by economic factors. There’s a term called military Keynesianism. After World War II, this is a very important point we’re going to make in the film. The New Deal didn’t solve the problem of the Great Depression. It mitigated the effects for a short time, but that level of government spending wasn’t nearly enough. So what actually did, World War II did, because of the massive government spending. That’s what actually plugged the hole, if you want, of the economic crisis. So when the war is coming to an end, even during the war, when they see how it’s going to end, there’s a big decision to be made. How are you going to plug that hole that still exists? You need government spending. Is it going to be back to the New deal, but at a much higher level, which is what Vice President Henry Wallace wanted. And if you know the Wallace story, Roosevelt’s vice President, they dumped Wallace in ’44, I guess it is, because he wants a New deal on steroids.
Paul Jay
Or do you go to military expansionism and use the military-industrial complex as a way to stimulate the economy? And of course, we know what they chose, and we can go into why they chose that versus the New Deal. But it’s essentially the New Deal gave the workers leverage because they didn’t have to fear unemployment. They didn’t have to fear being desperate. Where military expansionism is just boondoggle after bloody boondogle, essentially war profiteering. But it’s also together with geopolitical dominance. So the risk today is, this is a continuation, is it more dangerous? Yeah. And I take your point. They knew the Soviet side were very rational. Whatever was going on domestically. I interviewed Sam Nunn, and he made a really good point. Senator Sam Nun, he’s retired now. See, During the Cold War, there was all kinds of negotiations going on for various forms of arms limitations treaties. There were treaties agreed. One of the more important actually was the ’72 Anti-Balistic Missile Treaty. ‘ But none made a very important point. The two sides were talking to each other. He was saying that’s almost more important than the agreements because they got to know each other and they realized they weren’t so different.
Paul Jay
They both sides wanted to avoid nuclear war. Well, now nobody’s talking to anybody. The regime, government, and power in Russia is very toxic, very nationalistic. I don’t know if it’s irony, but Putin represents the center, not the right. He’s pressured by the Russian right, the Orthodox Church, even the so-called Communist Party, virulent Nationalist forces. I’ve interviewed progressive Russians. They say, Putin may be doing terrible things, but if you want Putin to overthrow him, be careful what you wish for, because there’s a lot of the forces on his right that likely will come. Anyway, the real issue is going to become, is and will be China, because the very deeply rooted foreign policy outlook is you can’t have a peer competitor. Two, they’re dedicated to almost war with China. And even people like Mirresheimer, who talk about, don’t inflame the situation with the Russians and His critique of NATO is, I think, mostly right. I think he exaggerates it. But even Mirresheimer thinks the defense of the American sphere of influence in Asia is legitimate. It’s very dangerous because the system itself, the global capitalist system managed by the United States, is reaching an endpoint. First of all, the climate crisis They’re in such denial or they’ve given up.
Paul Jay
The billionaire class thinks they and their grandchildren will be okay, and they don’t want to think any further. The smart ones, no. We’re here already. Two Degrees is already baked in. We’re within 10, 15 years, and maybe less, of millions of people in the South have to go north. We’re within maybe 15 years, where much of the agriculture of the United States and China will be wiped out. But they’re in denial. They don’t want to deal with it. War has always been the answer. Whenever the system is in deep crisis, the answer has always been war. The problem now is you’re dealing with so much nuclear weapon capacity and the introduction of AI. You get a convergence of the climate crisis, nuclear powers who don’t even talk to each other, a ramping up of American threats to China over Taiwan. Taiwan, which is the craziest situation. How do you have a one China policy and still think you can defend Taiwan? I don’t understand. The other big lesson from Ellsberg, it’s not an all or nothing proposition. It’s not nuclear weapons end of the world or abolish nuclear weapons. There are steps that could be taken to reduce the risk.
Paul Jay
That’s the big practical lesson from Ellsberg. Number one, Get rid of ICBMs. They’re pointless. All they are is targets. When you have this six minutes thing, the six minutes is only because it’s a use them or lose them with ICBMs. But the whole mythology of that is that you can’t stop what’s coming in anyway. So you might as well let it hit and see if it’s real. Nobody wants to say that. This recent film, House of Dynamite. Some of the things in it are terrible. This idea that a missile hits Chicago, but you’ve only got 10 minutes to decide whether to launch your ICBM. I mean, one thing is, first of all, Chicago doesn’t have any ICBM, so it’s got absolutely nothing to do with it. You could get rid of ICBMs. You could renegotiate an anti-ballistic missile treaty. You could get rid of sole authority. You could stop absolute any talk of testing. And now Putin and Trump are both talking about restarting testing. Our film, once we get in, We’re going to deal with a historical context so people can clear their minds of the paranoia, then let’s focus on practical steps because there are some that at least reduce the risks.
Paul Jay
But instead of focusing on reducing the risk, what’s actually happening? A new nuclear arms race and an AI arms race.
Dr John Izzo
Yeah. So Paul, again, so much done. Thank you for sharing those extra. I want to come back to those points in a moment. But just to put some exclamation points, some things you already said. One is that this mentality of there’s only going to be one winner and one loser, and we’re not going to talk to each other. One of my mentors was John Morozo, a friend who started the East-West Institute. In the height of the Cold War, he’s one of the few people who go to the Kremlin and the White House. But your point is, they were talking to each other. And this whole idea, which I feel like, of course, I can’t stand Trump. But one thing I think Trump has over Biden is Trump at least thinks you got to talk to people. He’s not the right guy to talk to people. But Biden was like, We’re not going to talk to you, right? We have to talk to people, and we have to assume that it’s going to be a multipolar world now. Americans must give up the idea that American will be the only hegemon in the world until we give that up.
Dr John Izzo
Economically, of course, it’s a race. We want to win the economic race, so to speak. But we have to recognize it’s not going to be a one nation world anymore. And until we give that up. And that’s what you said. That’s what’s driven so much of this. We need to talk to each other. And then you’re getting into now the… Even in Ellsberg’s original book, The Doomsday Machine, he talked about how fragile the systems were. And now AI, as you said, now a part of that. How so much of the decision making, if the President was to, for example, become incapacitated, is now delineated down to others, so others could decide to launch nuclear weapons. And so, as you said, you gave four really important things, but they all begin talking to each other again. And of course, Ukraine hasn’t helped that. The situation in Ukraine has not helped that at all. And there’s all kinds of historical reasons why that came to be. But that has certainly complicated things hasn’t it? Because it’s made relationships with, especially, though I agree with you, in the big China is probably the bigger issue in the long term.
Dr John Izzo
But also just, as you said, still having this house of dynamite around us. And it’s a powder waiting for a spark.
Paul Jay
I want to go back to something you said right at the very beginning. Why are we talking about this? Why is the issue of nuclear weapons and American nuclear policy essentially taboo? In the last elections, the only person that even mentioned nuclear weapons, presidential elections, was Trump, and only to promote his Golden Dome boondoggle. I call it the Golden Con. My other line is, it’s not It’s not about the dome, it’s about the gold. But other than that, nobody even talks about it. In the media, you don’t hear a word about nuclear weapons. So why is that? Because the whole nuclear doctrine, the nuclear structure, the nuclear weapons, the whole thing is based on such mythology, lies, nonsense. Anyone that looks at it, how are you risking the Apocalypse? There’s no way it’s not going to blow up someday. Anyone that studies this knows and says, Everybody I’ve talked to, and I’ve talked to now, maybe 200 leading experts. They all think it’s essentially inevitable. Someday there’s going to be a mistake, a miscalculation. I actually don’t think it’s very likely there’s going to be a deliberate nuclear war. I don’t think the North Koreans are insane.
Paul Jay
It may be a bizarre nutty system. Not maybe, it is, from what I can see. I haven’t been there. But they’re not suicidal. The real danger right now, and it’s high, is as tension increases over Taiwan, over the Philippines, that something happens, a bunch of space garbage knocks out some strategic satellites. Ai misinterprets it as the beginning of a first strike. I’ve raised this with various experts who all think this is a plausible scenario. This use them or lose them thing. It’s so nonsensical Because there’s only one way to know if an attack is real, if you see something coming in, is you got to let it hit. If you let it hit, number one, you always have subs. So it’s not like you’re going to lose your second strike capability. Number two, you can’t stop it anyway. It’s going to hit. It’s not like your choice, Oh, let them hit. It’s going to hit. There’s no such thing as stopping an incoming ICBM attack. They talk about it now with Golden Dome, you’re going to be able to… Maybe you couldn’t stop a bullet with a bullet, but now that you have AI, that was the terminology, a missile bringing down an ICBM, it’s like hitting a bullet with a bullet.
Paul Jay
For the sake of argument, let’s say AI could hit a bullet with a bullet, and even yet, there’s no evidence of that. But let’s say AI cannot distinguish between a bullet and a bullshit. No missile comes in just as a missile. It comes in surrounded by hundreds of decays. There’s no AI in the world that’s going to be able to tell the difference between a missile. So So there is no such thing like he wants to compare the Golden Dome to the Israeli Iron Shield. Those are not ICBMs that are coming in. They’re just ballistic missiles. Icbms come in at thousands of miles per hour faster. I mean, it’s just nonsense. So the only thing is to be honest about there is no defense. Number two, why the hell is anyone launching a first strike anyway? Why would they? Russia, China? They know the US has subs, number one. Number two, why would China that owns a trillion or more of US dollars, they’re going to want to take out the American economy? It’s nonsense. It’s ridiculousness. So they don’t talk about nuclear weapons because the whole thing is utter BS, and always has been utter BS.
Paul Jay
Even the bombing of Hiroshima, Nagasaki was bullshit. It didn’t end the war. It’s clearly documented now.
Dr John Izzo
One of the points that you hint at here, Paul, is it’s really a miracle it hasn’t happened, given how unstable it is. And I saw in one of your interviews, the interviewer mentioned that the former head of the strategic command in the US had said, Why hasn’t there been a nuclear war? He said, The incredible good sense of a few people. He said, Blind luck and divine intervention. And to the This suicidal point, I was speaking at the College of Charleston just after the Ukraine war started, and one of the people on the program with me was the woman who had negotiated the last strategic arms treaty for NATO with the Russians. And I asked her on the side, I said, Are you worried that Putin is going to go nuclear? And she said, Well, it’s a danger, of course, she said, because of miscalculation. She said, But no, because I don’t think he’s suicidal. But you know what I thought, Paul? That’s a pretty thin thread that we’re hanging by to assume that we might one day have a leader who is suicidal. So even that isn’t a guarantee. As long as we have the house of Dynamite going, we can’t count on that one day.
Dr John Izzo
There might be a leader with them who is suicidal.
Paul Jay
We say Nixon in his last days was suicidal deep, deep in depression and alcohol. And his wife and the senior staff around him had to push him out of power. And Dan Ellsberg certainly believed that Nixon planned to use nuclear weapons in Vietnam. Yeah, that’s a real danger. But the bigger danger, and they don’t want to talk about it, is you cannot trust the system of sensors and satellites and now AI. And there’s so much potential for miscalculation when the underlying truth is there actually is no threat. It’s just ridiculous. No major power is going to start a nuclear war deliberately. So if that’s true, get rid of this bullshit deterrence that just justifies an unlimited spending on arms, which is what it’s really about. And not only in the United States, there’s a military-industrial complex in Russia, there’s one in China, but it is mostly driven by the American side. So let me jump to another endpoint here. What can we do? First of all, start talking about it to everybody you know. Ask people, Do you think about this? Do you know there might be some concrete things that could be done to reduce the risk?
Paul Jay
Because nobody really talks about that at all. In Congress, there’s a little handful of members of the Senate and the House who actually focus on this stuff. But much Much bigger than them is something called the ICBM Caucus, that represent the states that have ICBMs, and fight every attempt to get rid of ICBMs. Sam Nunn says, Get rid of ICBM. Former SACDF Perry says, Get rid of ICBMs. A whole whack of senior military political leaders say, get rid of ICBMs, because right now that is what leads to launch on warning. And they do nothing. Subs can do whatever ICBMs do. You Don’t lose your deterrence. So it’s a very concrete step. So when the film comes out, which will be in the early fall of 2027, because we’re going to film the midterm elections, and we’re going to go ask these kinds of questions to people that are voting, got election rallies, we’re going to corner candidates and ask, Why aren’t you talking about this stuff? We got to break the taboo on not talking about the nuclear risk. I ask a guy, Mark Bly, I don’t know if you heard him, a great political economist.
Paul Jay
He advises big corporations and all that. And I said, why aren’t the elites more freaked out? Why isn’t Wall Street freaked out? And they bloody well own all these companies making nuclear weapons. They could stop it overnight. Why aren’t they freaked out? He said, The problem with nuclear war and nuclear risk is you can’t hedge against it. Meaning it’s an all or nothing proposition. It’s a nuclear war, and we’re all wiped out, but there’s no or. So if you can’t hedge the risk, it’s better to ignore it, be in denial. So we’re allowing the elites The billionaire class who are in an orgy of profit making. There’s been nothing like it in the history of humanity. So much concentration of wealth and power. They would rather be in denial, live on their yachts and have their girls and whatever their thing is. And they’re leading us over the cliff. So we have to decide not to let them decide the fate of humanity. And the start of it is, let’s bloody at least talk about this stuff. Don’t vote for anybody who doesn’t have this as part of their campaign. And from that perspective, Paul, if you could speak directly to ordinary citizens who feel powerless in the face of such a huge issue, nuclear war, what can they actually do that matters now?
Paul Jay
Well, two things. In the elections, keep raising this issue. Say, I’m not voting for you unless you have a real plan how to reduce the risk of nuclear war. And I don’t care what party you are. If you don’t have that plan, at least force these, go to all candidates meetings, go to election rallies, anywhere you can. If you’re at a school or a church or a union, Get them to take a position on this. Film comes out. We hope the film becomes a tool for people to learn and educate themselves about these issues, promote the film. Make it personal because it is personal because It’s you and your kids. This is the most important thing to get. It’s not necessarily all or nothing. Yeah, nuclear war wipes us all out. There’s no question. Any BS that will recover in a year is just nonsense. But we can reduce It’s the risk of error and miscalculation, which is the bigger danger right now. So we got to put it on your agenda. You’re at dinner with somebody. You know what I heard? Everybody wherever you are in society, most people belong to something, even it’s a Rotary Club, the Legion.
Paul Jay
And it doesn’t matter. It’s one of these rare issues that transcends normal political divisions. Nobody wants a nuclear war. It doesn’t matter. I would guess 90 % of people that vote for Trump don’t want a nuclear war. I don’t think Trump wants a nuclear war. But the problem with Trump is, one, there’s so much money to be made out of almost war. And two, the Golden Dome is the biggest boondoggle you can imagine, and he’s surrounded by crazies and by those the crazies, I mean like Peter Thiel and Alex Karp and others in Silicon Valley who are essentially techno-fascists, techno-Christian, religious fascists, who are creating the same metaphysical view of the world that surrounded Hitler and Mussolini. And maybe Hitler is even more an example. And people like Peter Thiel actually quote Nazis in his own writings. I guess we can talk about another So it is a very dangerous moment, but don’t get paralyzed by it.
Dr John Izzo
Very important points there, Paul, and we can’t wait to see the film. I mean, it’s so timely and so important, as I said in the opening, because we’re not talking about it, because we’re pretending it’s not going on. And you’re right. One reason is because you can’t hedge. There’s a great story, actually, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. True story, about a young stockbroker who was out selling everything in the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis. His boss said, What the hell are you doing? He said, I’m selling everything? There’s a rumor that the missiles are on the way. He said, No, buy everything. He said, Because if the missiles are on the way, it doesn’t matter. But if the missiles don’t come, everything’s going to go up. But that denial is part of the problem, isn’t it? That it’s so big, it’s so frightening. It’s such an end of the world. We know no matter rich you are, you can’t hide from That doesn’t make it less important. It maybe makes it more important for films like yours because that’s why we’re not talking about it, because it’s so big and we feel so powerless.
Dr John Izzo
And we feel, Oh, it can’t possibly happen because It can’t be that stupid, right? But as you said, the real danger is miscalculation is more likely if somebody decides to go suicidal, though we know that’s possible, but we know that’s the least likely. Let me just say it again.
Paul Jay
Get rid of ICBM, no golden dawn, No new testing. Even it’s just starting just those three things, even. Greatly reduce the risk of nuclear war.
Dr John Izzo
And it all begins, and I think you made a great point, Paul. Unfortunately, time touches slightly. We’re going to have to end now. Is that it begins with us as citizens have to ask these questions. We’ve got to put it on the agenda. Politicians, what’s the main driver of all politicians, except for a few with deep values, to win the next election? If the citizens don’t care about it, they’re probably not going to talk about it, except for, again, there are issues. Obviously, there are people of great character in politics, too. But the reality is they respond to us. So we’ve got to get this on the agenda. And thank you for taking on this project and for your life’s work. We really appreciate the time you’ve given us today.
Paul Jay
Thank you. And I’ll just add not only elections, but be ready to hit the streets, too.
Dr John Izzo
Yeah, definitely. We’re going to have to.
Paul Jay
This needs mass protests. We have to converge the climate and the nuclear issues who’s in really hit the streets and be very vigilant at the ballot box.
Dr John Izzo
Excellent. Alon, I’ll give you a chance to just say a final word, and then I’ll close this up. It was a final word in the frame of the question for me, too, after spending so much time immersed in this existential threat. How do you personally stay grounded and hopeful?
Paul Jay
That’s funny. I asked Ellsberg that because he smiles all the time. I don’t smile anywhere like he does. He would say, he would talk about the end the world and then break out in a big smile. But I define myself as a clinical optimist. Every rational bone in my body would lead me to being rather pessimistic. But humanity has overcome pretty terrible things in the past. And what’s the alternative? I’m not going to live a life of being depressed and succumbing to the paranoia and the fear. It’s a better life to fight. It’s a better life to fight for humanity. And I’ll just end with one thing. The other thing people need, I think, give up. Give up our American identity, Canadian identity. Start to detach from all this national identity, because what we are, objectively, are humans. That should be our identity. We’re humans. And there aren’t going to be many humans if we don’t step up.
Dr John Izzo
Well, thank you, Paul. Great, great way to end. So to close us out, Leonin Brejnev, the former head of the Soviet Union, once said about nuclear war. He said, There are no winners in nuclear war. The living would envy the dead. Almost all the people who’ve had their hands on those weapons have realized that in one form or another. I go back to my own childhood, and you share that, Paul. I we all do in this podcast today, of that fear I felt as a young person just being in New York City and knowing that we were targeted, those ICBMs could come at any moment. And we can’t be paralyzed by that fear, but we can’t hide from it either. Just because the truth is difficult, just because the truth is overwhelming, doesn’t mean we can run away from it. So thank you for shining a light on this. We hope we in this podcast have shown a light on this thing that continues to be an existential threat to all of us and really to all life on Earth. You’re a part of our community because you care about the future, and that’s why we would love to hear from you.
Dr John Izzo
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Alain Gauthier
Thank you for joining us in this episode of The Way forward: Regenerative Conversations podcast. I’m Jim Burke, the producer. We’d like to extend our heartfelt thanks to our sponsors, elders’ Action Network and elders’ Climate Action for their unwavering support in making this podcast possible. Their dedication to empowering elders to take action on climate change and social justice issues is truly inspiring. If you found this conversation as enlightening and motivating as we did, please subscribe to our podcast and YouTube channels. Your subscription helps us continue bringing these vital discussions to a broader audience. Don’t forget to share this episode with your network, and let’s work together to build a better world for all generations. Find us on YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Amazon, and now on Instagram and YouTube Shorts. Together, we can make a difference. We’d love to hear your feedback on today’s episode and any suggestions you have for future guests. Please send your thoughts and recommendations to thewayforwardrc@gmail. Com. Your input is invaluable in helping us shape the future of this podcast. To learn more about our sponsors and get involved, visit eldersactionnetwork@eldersaction. Org and eldersclimateaction@eldersclimateaction. Org. Thank you for being part of the Wayforward community.
