How A Nuclear War Will Start - Minute by Minute — Transcript

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1. 0:00Mr. President! Nuclear missiles will  strike our country in 14 minutes.
2. 0:05I know it’s your first day in office so I’m going  to walk you through it, but you’re the only one
3. 0:10who can authorize our nuclear retaliation in
4. 0:12response and you’ve only got a  few minutes to make a decision!
5. 0:15As you know tensions have escalated  rapidly in the past few days.
6. 0:19Today’s joint allied aerial defense exercise  began just minutes before we detected the launch.
7. 0:23A simple misunderstanding maybe.
8. 0:25We assume the sudden attack is meant to neutralize  as many of our nuclear forces as possible.
9. 0:30But that doesn’t matter now – missiles are in  the air and we can’t shoot all of ‘em down.
10. 0:34Why? Because Intercontinental ballistic  missiles are basically rockets launched into space
11. 0:40before re-entering the atmosphere over their  target and releasing many different warheads.
12. 0:45Higher and faster than anything  you can send after them.
13. 0:48We need to get you to the bunker!
14. 0:55Here is what we know: Four minutes ago  our new infrared monitoring satellites
15. 1:00detected one hundred twelve bursts consistent with  ICBM launches from the enemy’s inner territories.
16. 1:05For some reason only 20 of their 80 underground  nuclear silos seem to have fired, so we suspect
17. 1:10most of them were transporter-erector launchers,  you know: trucks with big missiles on them.
18. 1:15It’s unclear why they didn’t  use all their silos – they
19. 1:19might just not work after more than thirty years
20. 1:21or they might be keeping them in reserve. The  fog of war is keeping many things unclear!
21. 1:25Aerospace Command thinks the ICBMs are  targeting our nuclear command centers,
22. 1:30silos, and major airforce and navy bases,  ending this war before we have a chance to act!
23. 1:36The enemy’s strategic doctrine prioritizes  military targets and our nuclear weapon
24. 1:41systems, but their secondary targets are our  industry and infrastructure – oil refineries,
25. 1:46power stations and deep water ports. All  located near or in major population centers.
26. 1:53We won’t know the exact  casualty count for a few weeks.
27. 1:56Deaths from the blast and burns  may be a few million today.
28. 1:59It’s morning rush hour and there’s not much  to be done for people stuck in traffic.
29. 2:03People in major metro areas can’t really  evacuate, but emergency broadcasts are
30. 2:08being sent out to shelter in place and away  from windows. Radiation exposure for intact
31. 2:12population centers is highly dependent  on the weather over the next week.
32. 2:16We might be looking at dozens of millions  of deaths by the end of the month.
33. 2:19For the next few minutes we can
34. 2:22still respond, but – You need to decide!
35. 2:25We’ve got 1500 warheads across our  silos, bombers, and submarines.
36. 2:29The 400 in silos need to be launched now before they get taken out.
37. 2:3346 nuclear capable bombers on high alert can be ready to take off in 2 minutes –
38. 2:39though we need to transmit the order now to get them out of the blast radius
39. 2:42if you want to consider using them.
40. 2:43Of our 14 nuclear submarines,  5 are presently at sea.
41. 2:47While they’re submerged they’re  undetectable, so that’s our
42. 2:50back-up for a nuclear retaliation if we lose our silos and bombers.
43. 2:53We could try to use them  to bomb out their remaining
44. 2:56silo fields before they can launch them.
45. 2:58The sooner you commit to it,  the better the chance we have
46. 3:01of preventing a further  exchange after our retaliation.
47. 3:04Updates!
48. 3:05We have radar confirmation that the enemy ICBMs
49. 3:08have completed their burn  and deployed their warheads.
50. 3:12Our best guess is that each missile will  deploy at least 6 re-entry vehicles,
51. 3:16about 600 in total, which is the part that  carries a warhead back into the atmosphere
52. 3:20during its terminal descent onto the target  – and with many more decoys on top of that,
53. 3:25inflatable balloons meant  to waste any anti-missiles.
54. 3:28We’re now tracking nearly 4000 potential targets.
55. 3:31Our anti-ballistic missiles have been launched  and will begin their intercept in another minute.
56. 3:36We’ll do our best to protect the capital, although there really is no defense.
57. 3:42Wait… confirming a partial radar  blackout, our systems seem to be glitchy.
58. 3:48The enemy must have anticipated we’d launch our
59. 3:49interceptors and pre-detonated  a few warheads at high altitude.
60. 3:53That ionizes the atmosphere  and creates radar interference.
61. 3:56Our interceptors should still operate okay,
62. 3:58they’ve had a 55% success rate in  tests but never with this many decoys
63. 4:02or with radar interference this intense. We might shoot down 50 objects,
64. 4:06but there’s no guarantee they’re warheads. It looks like most bombs are going to get through.
65. 4:12This is our last chance to counterattack.  We’re out of time. Our silo launch
66. 4:16sequence takes 5 minutes. We have to  transmit and confirm a launch order
67. 4:19and the missile needs time to clear  the blast radius of the incoming bomb.
68. 4:23This is a lot to take in,  but the war plan is made,
69. 4:26you just need to enter the  launch authorization codes
70. 4:28and push this button to transmit them!
71. 4:30You can’t do anything else  to save more of our people.
72. 4:33If you don’t launch now then this war will be
73. 4:35over before it even begins – you understand this is our one chance, right?
74. 4:41The effect? Enemy civilian casualties are hard  to estimate, but should be similar to ours
75. 4:47– a few million right away, perhaps a few  tens of million by the end of the month.
76. 4:51The total fallout from their attacks  and ours might trigger a nuclear winter,
77. 4:55potentially killing billions around the world –  but that might happen even if we don’t retaliate.
78. 5:00I’m sure you have questions but you have
79. 5:03to give orders without expecting  answers right now.
80. 5:05With an attack of this scale there’s no guarantee
81. 5:07communications or assets will  be intact in a few minutes.
82. 5:10We’re out of time, we need a  decision Sir. Can we launch?
83. 5:19Nuclear wars aren’t regular wars. They  only last minutes, and in times of crisis,
84. 5:25small conflicts can rapidly spiral out of  control. Anything from small communication lags
85. 5:30to sensor errors to just uncertainty and the  fog of war mean that no leader will ever have
86. 5:34a complete idea of what’s happening as a crisis  unfolds. When tensions are high, accidents or
87. 5:40misunderstandings can steer leaders - even those  with good intentions - to launch a nuclear attack.
88. 5:45Confused and with incomplete  information, a single person
89. 5:49– yes, it's really just ONE  single person who decides –
90. 5:53can literally make civilization-ending decisions
91. 5:55killing hundreds of millions of people in  the time it takes to watch a YouTube video.
92. 6:00This story is fiction, but the world  came very close to this several times.
93. 6:04In 1995 Russian radar detected a submarine  launched missile and their nuclear forces went
94. 6:10on full alert, except it was actually  a scientific rocket to study auroras.
95. 6:14In 1979, US computers reported a full scale  Soviet attack with only minutes to respond
96. 6:20– except it was a training tape being  incorrectly loaded into a computer.
97. 6:23In 1983, the Soviet satellite alert system  showed five ICBMs launched from the US.
98. 6:29But it was a false alarm caused by sunlight reflected on clouds.
99. 6:34During the Cuban Missile Crisis,
100. 6:35a Soviet submarine with no contact to Moscow for several days concluded that
101. 6:39nuclear war had begun and decided  to launch a nuclear torpedo.
102. 6:43Luckily the authorization  of  three officers was required.
103. 6:46One of them, Vasily Arkhipov, opposed it. But what if he hadn’t?
104. 6:51Any safeguard can fail, no matter  how carefully designed it might be.
105. 6:56And decisions are being made right now to build new weapons and missile systems
106. 7:00that commit the world to another  century of nuclear stalemate,
107. 7:03complicated further by China's emergence as a new nuclear superpower.
108. 7:08Simply accepting that the existence of nuclear
109. 7:10weapons is inevitable might  mean their use is inevitable.
110. 7:14But the world doesn’t have to be  this way. Even incremental steps,
111. 7:18taking apart one bomb at a time, will  eventually result in a world with none.
112. 7:22During the Cold War, the world had over 70,000 nuclear weapons
113. 7:26– through arms reduction treaties, that number is now about 12,500.
114. 7:31Progress is not guaranteed,  but it’s also not impossible.
115. 7:36Governments and militaries are not separate  from their nations, they’re part of them,
116. 7:40just like you. You have the power to  make demands of your leaders and often
117. 7:45this begins with just being aware of an issue. If you want to learn more,
118. 7:48we've compiled a number of resources for you  in the video description and our sources.
119. 7:54This video was supported by Open Philanthropy.
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