Uncomfortable Questions for Unsettled Times: Are You Okay With Nuclear Warfare? | Frankly 146

**Nate Hagens** (0:00)
Good morning. It is Monday, June 15th, 9 a.m. Central Time. I do not want to do this, frankly. I would rather do it, frankly, on the non-dual experience I had with a spider in my bathroom this weekend. But I feel compelled to do this, frankly. Yesterday, it was announced that Iran and the United States agreed to a Memorandum of Understanding to a 60-day ceasefire, which will be signed in Switzerland this Friday. Because of this and how it came about, I feel compelled to do an impromptu Uncomfortable Questions for Unsettled Times. I'm sure the pundits will be out in spades in coming days talking about who got the best of this deal. Is this a taco or an enchilada? And how will Israel respond and all the other relevant stuff? I'm going to take a different angle. And today's questions are all on one topic. Nuclear weapons. And nuclear deterrents and all things nuclear. Which even the mention of that word makes me uncomfortable.
Events of the past week have brought the question of nuclear use out in the open more than I have seen in my lifetime. And the topic deserves its own episode. Why? Because of all the systems analysis I've done in the last 30 years, I have concluded the biggest risk to more sustainable landing spots for humanity in the biosphere are the ones where we navigate to the future without the use of nuclear weapons. I don't want to talk about this, but I feel it's my responsibility to share the direction of my thoughts and particularly my questions. A reminder on the spirit of this format, better questions are not meant to necessarily provide us answers. At worst, they're a form of preparedness in unsettled times. And I think when discussed with other people, they also become a form of community.
Okay, I think 13 questions today. Some come with context and some analysis, others stand on their own, and all of them are uncomfortable. So a peace fire will include the full opening of the Strait of Hormuz, a 60-day technical negotiation on Iran's nuclear program, and their sanctions and releasing Iranian funds, and presumably 300 billion for reconstruction, among other things. Importantly, peace in Lebanon from all parties is an important part of the agreement. Whether a real peace deal gets actually signed this Friday or next month or at all, still has quite a bit of uncertainty. But whether it's signed or not, the questions I'm about to raise are still relevant, and perhaps even more relevant.
So, Saturday, when I should have been weeding my potatoes, I was following what was going on, and President Trump posted about the agreement on truth social. And the post celebrates the brilliant pilots of the B-2 bombers. It refers to radioactive contamination from earlier strikes as nuclear dust that will be cleaned up at the appropriate time when all is calm. And downblended and destroyed, whether in Iran or the United States. It expresses hope that the process will all work out quickly, easily, and smoothly. But near the end, there is a line that has gotten the most media coverage, but still not remotely enough media coverage. Quote, if it doesn't, we have the ultimate alternative, hopefully never to be used again.
Notice the gap between what is being discussed and how it is being discussed. The subject is nuclear weapons, ongoing war, radioactive contamination of an inhabited country, and those downwind, as well as all humans exposed to some elevated background radiation, and the conditional use of weapons that have not been used against a nation since August of 1945, and never by an aggressor nation. The White House and other sources are quickly walking back that this and other previous tweets were not intimating tactical nuclear weapons. And this insinuation of nukes wasn't news, other than it being outwardly stated by the most powerful human in the world. Pulitzer-winning journalist Seymour Hirsch reported a few days before that, citing White House insiders that the president had floated the nuclear option in private national security meetings, and Brandon Weickart, senior national security editor at the National Interest, has since corroborated the reporting independently. So that option is being talked about inside the room, and Saturday's Truth Social Tweet is the first time the public has heard a version of it spoken from the room, and the tone it was delivered in matches the tone being used now from everything from tariffs to immigration raids to weather events. So whether or not the deal or Peacefire extension gets signed later this week, those words are now in the public record. And the questions they raise will outlast the news cycle. Back on April 2nd, in the last Uncomfortable Questions, number three, I asked a two-port question, could the US actually lose this war? And what would happen if tactical nuclear weapons eventually got used to reach Iran's deep underground sites? Two months later, two and a half months later, I think that question has gotten more uncomfortable, not less. In April, the tactical nuke scenario was something I had heard discussed by serious people. It followed logically, but it was still in the realm of, well, this is what could happen if nothing else works. Well, two months on and nothing else had worked. The Strait was still contested. The interceptor missiles on logistics of the US side were running low. Most of the off ramps that were available in April are now closing. So to stop a country from even acquiring nuclear weapons, the USA is now openly threatening to use nuclear weapons against them in a war they didn't start. The very thing the non-proliferation order existed to prevent is being deployed in language as the means to enforce it.