Angry Planet

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe world is living with a Cold War hangover. The logic of deterrence, which dominates the minds of the people who plan nuclear wars, means that America must have enough nuclear weapons to credibly threaten to destroy the world should someone launch nukes at it. That thinking led to a world with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons, and that was just when the U.S. had the Soviet Union to think about. Now it’s facing the twin threats of Russia and China. Does that mean America needs twice the nukes to handle twice the threats?Some in the Pentagon seem to think so, and the world is embarking on a radical and expensive nuclear build up the likes of which it hasn’t seen in a generation.What if there’s another way? James Acton is here to pitch us on a world where Optimal Deterrence does not mean spending trillions of dollars on new world-ending weapons just to make sure everyone else doesn’t use theirs.Acton is a co-director of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program and the author of a new article that outlines the 21st century nuclear arms race and a new plan to stop it.Podcasting from an iPhone in a closetThe apocryphal camera lens storyThe nuclear teaseWhat are nuclear weapons pointed at?How to win a three-way nuclear warThe dread logic of counterforce targetingTrump’s nuclear reticenceHow many nukes are there anyway?How to spend a trillion dollars on nuclear weapons upgradesActon’s big idea“I don’t think we lose much by ceasing to target an adversary’s nuclear forces.”“It doesn’t matter if they believe it or not.”Optimal DeterrenceRussia’s nuclear torpedoCarnegie Endowment for International Peace

Sometimes it’s good to back up and ask the basic questions: How do we know Iran was even developing nuclear weapons?On this episode of the show, the Arms Control Wonk Jeffrey Lewis walks us through the history of the Iranian nuclear (weapons and energy) program. It’s got it all: diplomacy, assassinations, cowardly politicians, and uranium fever.Lewis is a professor at the Middlebury Institute, member of the National Academies Committee on International Security and Arms Control, and former member of the State Department's International Security Advisory Board. He knows the tale well and he’s here to tell it straight.Damning the strikes with faint praise.“The hard part of a nuclear weapon is not the explodey part.”Making a nuclear weapon is a solved problem.The Iran-Iraq war and the origins of Iran’s nuclear weapons programThe ladders of Natanz, how they cascade downEnergy programs are always bigger than weapons programs.Unmasking the International Atomic Energy AgencyIsrael’s war on the programHow to enrich uraniumThe “torturous” process behind the Iran dealCongressional cowards“A new generation of suckers”The French movie goodbyeThe Deal

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comPauline Shanks Kaurin PhD. was, until recently, the Stockdale Chair for Professional Military Ethics at the U.S. Naval War College. She’d been there since 2018, teaching philosophy and ethics to U.S. military officers and the occasional civilian. Then came Donald Trump, Pete Hegseth, and marching orders she said stifled academic freedom.So she resigned.On this episode of Angry Planet, Pauline talks us through her decision and tells us what she saw from the inside of one of the U.S. military’s most lauded academic institutions as the new administration seeks to restrict what’s taught in the classroom.Disclosures and caveats“A moral dilemma I couldn’t resolve”On ObedienceAdmiral James Stockdale“We’re all in vacation mode.”“The snitch line”Purging books, telling professors what not to talk about“I don’t want to be on Fox News”It happened fastSuggestions of pulling manuscripts at the editorWhat happens to a military that isn’t taught honor and ethics?Compliance versus deferenceAvoiding discomfort as a policy positionDisagreements as combatA heavy metal argumentThe cost of taking a moral stand“Everyday is ethics day”A Military-Ethics Professor Resigns in ProtestDisgraceful Pardons: Dishonoring Our Honorable

You can’t win a war with airpower alone, despite what the U.S. Air Force will tell you. For more than 100 years, the masters of the air have promised that military and political objectives can be achieved if you just let them drop enough bombs.It’s a theory that’s been tested, and fallen short, many times. Operation Midnight Hammer, the Trump administration’s use of 14 GBU-57A/B Massive Ordnance Penetrators on Iranian nuclear sites, is just the latest test. The promise is that this has set back Iran’s nuclear program (it probably has) but Israel is hoping for much more—regime change in the Islamic Republic.Time will tell, but I’m not betting on it.On this episode of Angry Planet we zoom out and talk about the strategy behind airpower in the 21st century. Robert Farley, a Senior Lecturer at the University of Kentucky, is on the show today to give us his thoughts on the Iran strikes, airpower in general, and the lessons to be learned from watching the war in Ukraine.Should we abolish the independent Air Force?Was Israel’s war on Iran a success?Has airpower ever forced regime change?Curtis LeMay mentionedBombing doesn’t create revolutionary fervorAirpower as theater“Israel-splaining”What’s a Golden Dome for anyway?Are FPV drones part of the air force arsenal or infantry weapons?Strikes on Iran Show the Force, and Limits, of AirpowerRobert on PBS in KentuckyBuy Grounded: The Case for Abolishing the United States Air ForceThe Five-Ring Circus: How Airpower Enthusiasts Forgot About Interdiction

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe ocean is vast, beautiful, and lawless. Thousands of miles from any coast, power belongs to those who seize it.On this episode of Angry Planet, journalist Ian Urbina stops by to discuss the Outlaw Ocean Project and the second season of its incredible podcast. Urbina and his team of investigative journalists are telling stories about human rights, labor, and the environment on the vast swaths of the planet covered in water.The hidden cost of the seafood supply chainWhy the ocean is such a lawless place“Crimes at the intersection of environment and human rights.”Libya is “hell on earth” for migrantsAliou’s journey to LibyaHow Europe enables Libyan militias to police its bordersThe migration to slavery pipelineA team of journalists at gunpointLife on a Chinese squid fishing vesselLow tech and high tech reporting gets the job done“That is what life is like in that niche of hell.”Listen to the Outlaw Ocean PodcastInside a migrant detention center in LibyaChina: The Superpower of Seafood

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe futures of the past have curdled into the nightmares of the present. The richest and most powerful people the world has ever known want to colonize mars, live forever, and digitize human consciousness. To make these technological miracles come to pass, they say, will require people to dramatically change the way they live and work. Will it be worth it? Does science even say it’s possible?On this Angry Planet, astrophysicist and author Adam Becker joins us to explain all the problems with Silicon Valley’s dreams of the future. It’s not a short list. Much of the tech, and even the physics, don’t work the way techno-utopians say it does. Some of the people hawking robot slaves and immortality are chasing the impossible for tragic personal reasons. Others are just trying to sell you something. It’s all the subject of Becker’s new book: More Everything Forever.ShareFranics Fukuyama and the end of everything“Death is the ultimate limit, the ultimate loss of control.”Moore’s law, the singularity, and Ray Kurzweil’s fatherThe Face on Mars and large language modelsElizas all the way downThe false binaries of the tech bro futureSilicon Valley’s lost boys“Death is avoidable and taxation is theft.”Stasis for me but not for thee“Mars sucks”Against Life Extension by Francis FukuyamaMore Everything Forever on BookshopMore Everything Forever on Amazon

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comAmerica loves the Western. Stories about frontier towns, outlaws and lawmen, and—most of all—killing. How did the myth and legend of the gunfighter come to permeate the U.S.? Were there rules to gunfights? How did you become famous by killing people? Did Texas, yes Texas, make all this possible?We’ll answer those questions in this episode of the show as we discuss the new book The Gunfighters: How Texas Made the West Wild. It’s the work of returning guest (and Texan) Bryan Burrough.Texas is both the West and the SouthWhat made Texas so violentWhat, exactly, is a gunfighter?The rules of the duel“Boys, I’m killed”How to win friends while killin’ people“What is more equalizing than a man alone with a gun?”Olive, Isom PrenticeHistoriography of the gunfighterModern bank robbers are boringThe cattle business is the perfect vehicle for violenceThe future belongs ... to pirates?Buy The Gunfighters from an independent bookstore or from Amazon

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comPalantir, Anduril and a suite of other Tolkien-inspired tech nightmares want to integrate artificial intelligence into every aspect of the U.S. military. Both companies have software suites they’re pitching as agents that will help make command decisions during combat. An AI general, if you will.Yes, that’s a terrible idea.On this episode of Angry Planet, Cameron Hunter and Bleddyn Bowen will tell us why. Hunter is a researcher at the University of Copenhagen and Bowen is a professor of Astropolitics at Durham University. They’ve just written a paper that skewers the idea that AI will ever be able to make command decisions.The narrow definition of AIThe folly of the AI generalThe games AI can’t win“Targeting things is a command decision”The IDF’s use of Microsoft’s use of AI systems“The enemy gets a vote”Killing more doesn’t mean winning moreAmerican military as a “glass tank”Matthew gets lost in a rant“They don’t even have an animal’s intelligence”The very real military uses of AIWe’ll never have a model of an AI major-general: Artificial Intelligence, command decisions, and kitsch visions of warPalantir’s pitchPalmer Luckey on 60 MinutesScientists Explain Why Trump's $175 Billion Golden Dome Is a FantasyOpenAI Employees Say Firm's Chief Scientist Has Been Making Strange Spiritual ClaimsEastern Europe Wants to Build a ‘Drone Wall’ to Keep Out RussiaHow Palantir Is Using AI in Ukraine

Listen to this episode commercial free at https://angryplanetpod.comThe Pentagon has been trying to pivot to the Pacific for years now. Under President Donald Trump 2.0, who is focused on China, it just might happen. It’s a complicated body of water with dozens of players and a bloody history. One where Beijing is increasingly asserting itself.Here to walk us through some of it is Angry Planet producer and Honolulu Star-Advertiser reporter Kevin Knodell. He’s just back from the Philippines where he spent two weeks reporting on a joint exercise between the U.S. and its allies in the Pacific.BalikatanTraining exercises as signallingHow 40 years of Balikatan tells the story of U.S.-Philippines relations“There are definitely some places where it is about the fish.”The Chinese Maritime MilitiaDuterte vs Marcos in 2025Why America doesn’t understand ChinaRussia’s imperial history in the Pacific (Kevin misspoke here, it’s Fort Elizabeth not Fort Alexandria)Why people like Pete HegsethThe Nine-Dash lineThe century of humiliationChecking up on Red HillHawaii troops forge alliances in PhilippinesArmy, allies ponder Pacific role