Episode 177: “A Nuclear War Scenario” with Dr Peter Vincent Pry

This is a very upsetting episode. I’m joined by my frequent guest Dr Peter Vincent Pry and we’re talking about Ukraine and the likelihood of nuclear war. Dr Pry is executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security, served as chief of staff to the congressional EMP Commission, and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum. Just recently, he published a piece titled, “The Nuclear Crisis Nobody Knows” “I think we're facing an unprecedented danger that we've never experienced in the nuclear missile age, worse than Cuba, a circumstance where we are on the threshold of a nuclear war, nuclear attack, from Russia.” Nobody knows what’s in Putin’s mind but apparently he going to just keep using his conventional forces to overwhelm the Ukrainians and eventually achieve victory in Ukraine at a conventional level. But many people predicted that the Russian conventional military would just steamroll through Ukraine in a couple of days, and that hasn't happened. So what's the probability Putin then decides, “I'm under pressure from my political enemies and I’ve got to wind this thing up. Maybe use a few tactical nuclear weapons in order to bring this to more rapid conclusion." If he did, how would the Biden administration respond? He knows that Biden’s is the most anti-nuclear administration that we have ever had. There are many anti-nuclear activists in the Biden administration and their agenda is to deeply reduce US nuclear weapons and US dependency on nuclear deterrence. Peter explains, “these people don't believe that any rational actor would ever use nuclear weapons and, therefore, all you need is a bare-minimum deterrent. That's one of the things that makes the current nuclear crisis most dangerous, because Biden is acting as if Putin would have to be a mad man to use nuclear weapons, that it was not a rational decision that he would make, despite the fact that Russian doctrine calls for that, that they've exercised it, that their force structure is clearly designed for war fighting and surprise attack. And that's why the Biden administration are like children playing with nuclear fire.” Most of our information about Ukraine is coming from two biased sources that have an interest in making the Russian army look as bad as possible: the Ukrainians and the Biden administration. Putin has put his forces on nuclear alert and there are reports that he has self-deployed himself to his nuclear bunker. Also, that the United States put its “Doomsday Plane” into the air last week. Is this true? Are we going to blunder into a nuclear war over Ukraine? Peter has a comprehensive grasp of the issues. Another listen well worth the time.