Introducing Face-Off: Nuclear Anarchy?

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Matthew Bunn (0:37)

Rowhome Productions.

Jane Perlez (0:46)

It's October, 1962 In the Atlantic, north of Cuba, just 600 miles from the US., the crew of Soviet submarine B-59 are nearing their limit. Weeks of cramped conditions. Temperatures now exceeding 100 degrees Fahrenheit, dwindling water supplies, and they cannot surface. And Moscow is unreachable. This Soviet sub is one of four patrolling the waters. Their mission? To defend Cuba against a US invasion.

On board this Soviet sub is a nuclear-tipped torpedo with roughly the destructive power of the bomb dropped on Hiroshima. And the orders from Moscow about when to use it are dangerously ambiguous. There were three instructions. One, fire if there's a breach in the hull underwater. Two, fire if the subsurfaces and US forces blow a hole in the hull. And three, fire on order from Moscow.

The world has never been closer to nuclear war.

I'm Jane Perlez, long-time foreign correspondent for the New York Times. And this is Face-Off, Nuclear Anarchy. We're back with a new season to tackle a new topic, one of the most important issues of the day, the escalating nuclear arms race.

I titled this series Nuclear Anarchy because we are now living in an extremely dangerous time. Nuclear treaties have expired. There's nuclear buildup around the world. The US is modernizing its arsenal at great expense. China is actively expanding, and Russia is threatening nuclear attacks. Even French President Emmanuel Macron has deemed the coming century to be an age of nuclear weapons. The age of nuclear weapons. It can feel pretty bleak. However, looking at the past, we've been on the brink before.

SPEAKER_3 (3:24)

We now know that the Soviet Union has decided to transform Cuba We are going to put all of these names into a base for putting all of the Americans under the nuclear gun.

SPEAKER_7 (3:35)

Continued unrestricted testing by the nuclear powers will increasingly contaminate the air that all of us must breathe.

SPEAKER_1 (3:44)

Even with the Cold War now over, the spread of nuclear weapons or the theft of nuclear material could lead to the extermination of any city on the planet.

Jane Perlez (3:56)

In this series, we take you behind the scenes to key moments of the nuclear story, to help shed light upon the present. We'll talk about the origins of the bomb.

SPEAKER_8 (4:06)

Oppenheimer is not that worried about World War II. He's worried about World War III.

Jane Perlez (4:13)

We'll look at how close we came to nuclear war in 1962 during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

SPEAKER_9 (4:19)

Kennedy asks him outright, does this mean, General, that we're going to have nuclear war if we take out the sites?

Jane Perlez (4:25)

We'll hear from an American nuclear negotiator on what it's like to negotiate with the Russians.

SPEAKER_10 (4:31)

One of the main games they play is called slow rolling, where they just draw out the negotiations. They draw them out and draw them out until finally you cave.

Jane Perlez (4:40)

And we'll learn about how and why China has rapidly been building up its nuclear arsenal.

SPEAKER_11 (4:46)

Xi Jinping reportedly said, We need to develop military capabilities that scare the United States the most.

Jane Perlez (4:54)

Plus, we'll hear from Matthew Bunn, Faculty Chair of the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard's Belfer Center, for clever analysis and to put it all in context.

Matthew Bunn (5:05)

We are again in a situation where we have this intense hostility between Washington and Moscow, Washington and Beijing, Washington and Pyongyang. We need to find a path forward to limit the dangers and costs of an unrestrained nuclear competition.

SPEAKER_3 (5:26)

Now tell me right out loud, what are you supposed to do when you see the flash?

Jane Perlez (5:33)

Face-Off, Nuclear Anarchy returns October 6th. Join us.

SPEAKER_2 (5:38)

Duck and cover. Rowhome Productions.