How close has the world come to nuclear war in the past several decades? How many accidents, miscommunications, and misunderstandings have brought us to the brink of annihilation? Professor Phil Nash joins us to explain how many times we’ve been on the brink of nuclear war, what happened in these incidents, and what mistakes were made. You’ll be very surprised (and made uneasy) at how many times simple human error brought the world close to nuclear war. Take a deep breath, Buzzkillers, and listen with the lights on!
Eric Schlosser, Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety (2014).
Drawing on newly declassified archives and paced like a thriller, Command and Control catalogues a series of accidents and near misses, celebrates the heroic efforts of scientists, military planners and ordinary servicemen and women to avert disaster – and warns that our nuclear arsenals are by no means safe today.