Annie Jacobsen
Investigative journalist; wrote Area 51, The Pentagon's Brain and Nuclear War: A Scenario, reconstructing what secret programmes actually did from interviews and declassified records.
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Where they publish
Beliefs
Korrents What they believe 16 beliefs — each backed by an exact quote.
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Recent
A nuclear war between the United States and Russia would kill five billion people.
I’m coming back at you with a very dark answer and a very big number. And that number is 5 billion people.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Hundreds of millions of people die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war, and the billions die afterwards, of starvation, in the nuclear winter that follows.
First millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people will die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war. And then, comes nuclear winter where the billions happen from starvation.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
American policy is to fire its nuclear weapons in response before the incoming bomb has landed, rather than wait to absorb the attack and find out whether it was real.
Because we have that policy, Launch on Warning, which is exactly like it says. It means the United States will not wait to absorb a nuclear attack. It will launch nuclear weapons in response before the bomb actually hits.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Show 13 more
One person can start a nuclear war on his own authority in a democracy: the President of the United States asks permission of no one, and he is the only one who can do it.
So, in addition to the Launch on Warning concept, there’s this other insane concept called Sole Presidential Authority. And you might think, in a democracy that’s impossible, right? You can’t just start a war. Well, you can just start a nuclear war if you are the commander in chief, the President of the United States. In fact, you’re the only one who can do that.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
American missile defence is a fiction: 44 interceptors that work about half the time cannot answer the 1,670 warheads Russia has deployed.
First of all, we have 44 interceptor missiles total, period, full stop. Let me repeat, 44. Earlier we were talking about Russia’s 1,670 deployed nuclear weapons. How are those 44 interceptor missiles going to work? And they also have a success rate of around 50%. So they work 50% of the time.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
A nuclear-armed submarine is as dangerous to civilization as an asteroid, and unlike an asteroid it cannot even be located.
I mean, the submarines are what are called second strike capacity. Submarines were described to me this way, they are as dangerous to civilization… And let me say a nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarine is as dangerous to civilization as an asteroid. They’re unstoppable. They are unlocatable, the former Chief of the Nuclear Submarine Forces, Admiral Michael Connor, told me it’s easier to find a grapefruit-sized object in space than a submarine under the sea.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
American ICBMs do not have the range to reach North Korea without flying over Russia, which is the flaw that turns a limited counterattack into Armageddon.
there is an absolutely existential flaw in the system, which Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta confirmed with me, which is that our ICBMs do not have enough range. If we launch a counterattack against, say, North Korea, our ICBMs must fly over Russia. They must fly over Russia.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
The Pentagon's own war games found that no matter how a nuclear war starts, it ends in Armageddon with everyone dead.
And what we learned from his declassification is that no matter how nuclear war starts, there was a bunch of different scenarios, with NATO involved, without NATO, all different scenarios. No matter how nuclear war starts, it ends in Armageddon. It ends with everyone dead.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
American nuclear doctrine is not tit for tat: one incoming warhead is answered with eighty, and that is what the phrase escalate to deescalate means.
But it’s actually more than that. They launch one, we launch 80. That’s called escalate to deescalate. Pound the you know what out of them to get them to stop.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Nobody becomes STRATCOM commander unless they are the kind of person who follows orders, so the hope that the launch order would be refused is misplaced.
You don’t wind up as STRATCOM commander unless you are someone who follows orders. You follow orders.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Judgment and cognition are the two capacities the nuclear launch decision actually turns on, which is the standard a presidential candidate should be measured against.
Because why on earth there would be two candidates, one of whom has cognitive problems and the other of whom has judgment problems? These are the two biggest issues with the nuclear launch, judgment and cognition. And so where’s the young-ish, thoughtful, forward looking, wise, dedicated civil servant running for president? I know that sounds fantastical, but I wish it weren’t.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
As politics grows more viperous, leaders of nuclear-armed nations surround themselves with sycophants, so you can no longer count on a president being given good advice.
So you don’t have wise decision makers. Long gone are the days where we had presidents who had advisors on both sides of the aisle. That’s really important, because you want to have differing opinions. But as things become more viperous, both here in the United States and in nuclear armed nations, all bets are off at whether your advisors are going to give you good advice.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Russia has abandoned its long-standing official position that it would wait to absorb a nuclear attack before launching.
But that was their official position, and that changed just two years ago when Putin gave a speech and he said that their position had changed, that they will no longer wait to absorb an attack.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
After interviewing hundreds of people inside America's secret military and intelligence programs, there is no reason to believe aliens have ever visited Earth.
Well, not just at Area 51, but in all the different national security and military intelligence and intelligence programs. And I personally have no reason to believe that aliens have ever visited Earth. That’s just me personally.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
The recurring UFO narrative is a strategic deception campaign, a very large catch-all for keeping the public's attention on the wrong thing.
Now, does that mean that every UFO sighting in the world has been a U-2? No, but I come from it from that lane of thinking, and there are so many strategic deception campaigns, and as I look over the decades of how these same UFO stories, and again, this is just my opinion based on my reporting, this narrative that keeps reoccurring, it seems to me like a very large catch- all to keep the public’s attention on that, not on that.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
Atomic weapons destroy cities and thermonuclear weapons destroy civilizations, which makes the decision to build the thermonuclear bomb more confounding than the decision to drop the first two.
I mean even projects within the Manhattan Project defined thermonuclear weapon, the thermonuclear weapon as the evil thing. It was evil. It’s a weapon of genocide. Atomic weapons destroy cities, thermonuclear weapons destroy civilizations.
Annie Jacobsen: Nuclear War, CIA, KGB, Aliens, Area 51, Roswell & Secrecy | Lex Fridman Podcast #420 Said 22 Mar 2024
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