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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What they believe
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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.
youtube.comSaid 22 Mar 2024This on korrents
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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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Recent
Liked The Cold and the Dark
Carl Sagan talked about that in this amazing book that he wrote with two scientist colleagues called The Cold and the Dark. There’s a bunch of essays about exactly this. What would happen and how long would it take? It’s really interesting. It’s dated. It’s from the ’80s. But man, is it shocking.
lexfridman.com 22 Mar 2024
Where they publish
Site anniejacobsen.com Her site: the books, the sources and where she has spoken.
Link verified 20 Sept 2026.
x.com @AnnieJacobsen Their X account.
Recent
- No need to hyperventilate. Just read quietly and get informed. Nuclear War and Biological War are existential risks, as will be AI w/o guardrails. These are not theories for the conspiratorially minded. These are the facts. 3 Nov 2026
- Good time to read NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO. ☢️And watch this👇 https://t.co/ern19VIZC3: https://t.co/qVNFFE2wer: 3 Nov 2026
- Dear @POTUS, what happened to "denuclearization"? 2 Nov 2026
Show 15 more
- Good time to read NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO. 2 Nov 2026
- This is absolutely horrible. 2 Nov 2026
- This is how the North Korean regime pays for expensive things. 30 Oct 2026
- I write about the end of the world b/c I believe in preventing it. Man made problems have man made solutions. The way to change the ending is to act before the story begins. 🟢Read NUCLEAR WAR: A SCENARIO 🔵Read BIOLOGICAL WAR: SCENARIO At bookstores + libraries everywhere. Or listen to me read the audio book. 30 Oct 2026
- ☣️☢️Raj Shamani & Annie Jacobsen podcast up now! Raj is one of the biggest podcasters in the world, 100M YouTube views a month /2.6B downloads YouTube: https://t.co/kWxsUYXfhA Spotify: https://t.co/VnQfTyP5b6 Apple: 30 Oct 2026
- This provides very interesting analysis / possibilities as to why UK’s nuclear armed subs are out at sea. 29 Oct 2026
- This is an excellent article by @wesleysmorgan They Were the Military’s ‘Quiet Professionals.’ Now They’re Talking. https://t.co/woBl6cXSk4 via @NYTimes 28 Oct 2026
- Incredible moon rising over NYC. More cool podcast interviews coming. 🙏 27 Oct 2026
- Macron’s Forward Deterrence: “French nuclear-enabled Rafale jet fighters [deployed] across Europe and the creation of new infrastructure, communications, early-warning and intelligence-sharing links with these allies.” 26 Oct 2026 wsj.com
- Power of narrative.👇 “The Houthis have recently homed in on …revelations to try to undermine Saudi Arabia’s leaders—namely, reports showing that associates of the Saudi royal court sent tapestries that had draped the holiest site in Islam to Mr. Epstein’s private island.” The Epstein Files Produce an Unlikely Weapon for the Houthi Messaging Wars 25 Oct 2026 nytimes.com
- Arms Race Intensifies in Korea as the North Is Emboldened by Russia Alliance 23 Oct 2026 nytimes.com
- Agreed. Let’s start by you sharing the lab findings to establish what killed Anti-Plague lab technician Darya Shipilova. 21 Oct 2026
- “…it is time for the Biological Weapons Convention to adopt a Chemical Weapons Convention-like notification and verification regime.” 18 Oct 2026
- 🙏 to everyone reading BIOLOGICAL WAR: A SCENARIO. 15 Oct 2026
- John Kiriakou for U.S.Ambassador to Greece. 15 Oct 2026
Link verified 23 Sept 2026. Recent items update automatically from the channel.
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