U.S. nuclear weapons policies are based on many faulty assumptions, creating a lot of unnecessary risk. In fact, we've already had numerous close calls with nuclear war. Guest Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund and host Ryann Blackshere Vargas discuss who has the authority to launch nuclear weapons, whether missile defense could protect us from incoming attacks, and whether nuclear war is really a possibility today.

Guest bio:

Dr. Lisbeth Gronlund is a physicist working with the Laboratory for Nuclear Security and Policy in the Department of Nuclear Science and Engineering at MIT. Previously, she spent nearly three decades with the Union of Concerned Scientists' Global Security Program, including serving as co-director.

Resources mentioned in this episode:

Lisbeth's writing for The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists: https://thebulletin.org/biography/lisbeth-gronlund/

Lisbeth's writing for The Union of Concerned Scientists: https://blog.ucs.org/author/lisbeth-gronlund/