To mark the 75th anniversary of the bombing of Hiroshima, Zack, Jenn, and Alex talk about an alarming series of recent US withdrawals from nuclear arms control agreements. They explain the history of nuclear arms control, why the US has turned against them (especially in the Trump era), and why this makes the small but still very scary risk of nuclear war go up. They also talk about some other scary nuclear news — China’s recently uncovered support for Saudi Arabia’s nuclear program — and how progress could be made on saving the international arms control regime.

References:

Here’s Alex’s long feature on “the end of arms control as we know it.”

He also wrote about how a nuclear war kills you.

The Wall Street Journal broke the story on Saudi Arabia’s secret nuclear facility.

Ernest Moniz, the energy secretary in the Obama administration, thinks the risk of nuclear weapons use is at its highest point since the Cuban missile crisis.

The US military just showed off its new hypersonic missile.

Vox has a story on the Soviet colonel who stopped a nuclear crisis from escalating.

Hosts:

Zack Beauchamp (@zackbeauchamp), senior correspondent, Vox

Jennifer Williams (@jenn_ruth), senior foreign editor, Vox

Alex Ward (@AlexWardVox), national security reporter, Vox

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