HEFFNER: I am Alexander Heffner, your host on The Open Mind.

I'm deeply honored to welcome our guest today, Amy McGrath, who served as a marine fighter pilot.

She was the first woman to fly a combat mission for the Marine Corps, and she also ran for Congress in Kentucky's sixth Congressional district in the 2018 election.

I am honored and delighted to welcome her The Open Mind today.

Thank you so much for your insight and time.

MCGRATH: Great to be with you.

HEFFNER: Let me ask you for a geopolitical overview when it comes to nuclear weapons and the threat of proliferation, you sit on the Ploughshares Fund board.

There is a feeling that I've had for some years now that the people like the Dick Lugars and Sam Nunns, who were cautioning us about the military industrial complex, but specifically the investment in more nuclear weapons and not controlling proliferation and downsizing, that figures like that just don't exist anymore.

Is that true?

And, and if it is true, how can you birth those leaders who are going to understand the importance of counterproliferation?

MCGRATH: Those are some pretty tough questions right off the bat.

But I would say look as the greatest generation passes on, we're getting to a place where we don't have a ton of life experience, right, with the effects of nuclear weapons.

And, it's very scary because, uh, these weapons are terribly dangerous.

They could literally destroy the world as we know it, and we have to have serious people that think about them that want to make sure that the world doesn't, that we don't get into another arms race with these weapons.

And so that's the big concern.

Do we have the Dick Lugars of the world?

I think they're out there.

They need to be elevated to positions that matter.

And this goes back to probably a larger question of who we elect in office.

Do we want to keep electing reality TV stars or do we want to elect people that actually know a little bit about our national security and about American history, particularly in the last 75 years?

So, I think that's really important.

With regards to the overview of nuclear weapons around the world.

Look, there are nine nations that have nuclear weapons.

If you were to have asked scholars 30 or 40 years ago, would we have nine nations that had nuclear weapons by this point, 2024, the year 2024, if you had asked somebody maybe in the 1970s, how many nations would have nuclear weapons, I think most scholars would probably say a lot more.

And that's because of the Dick Lugars of the world, because we had super smart, the John Glenns of the world who looked at policies and wanted to make sure that these very dangerous weapons were controlled.

So now we have nine nations that have them.

If you go around the world, we have, of course, the United States, Great Britain and France both have all have nuclear weapons.

Israel doesn't say they do, but everybody knows they do.

Um, and then you have, India and Pakistan that have them.

You have North Korea that has probably 40 to 50, nuclear weapons at this point.

Of course, you have Russia, you have China, and we are on the cusp, perhaps of Iran getting a nuclear weapon.

And so the concern, I'm speaking from an American point of view, right?

Um, are the nations like, North Korea, who is a rogue nation, probably one of the most dangerous countries in the world, has a ton of chemical weapons, a ton of biological weapons, and they're have the nuclear capability.

It's very concerning because if they get the ability to send a nuclear weapon toward the United States or to our allies, Japan and, South Korea, which they probably already.

It's extremely concerning.

You also have Russia, which has thousands of nuclear weapons, the most in terms of amount.

Russia and the United States by far have more nuclear weapons than anyone else.

We have them in the thousands, two to three thousand.

And then we have another several thousand after that that are sort of the strategic reserve.

So you're talking 8,000 strategic nuclear weapons on both sides, the United States and Russia.

And we all know what Russia's doing right now in terms of its aggression in Europe.

And then you have China.

China has maintained a minimum, what's called a minimum deterrence.

For many years, they've only had about three or four hundred nuclear weapons, but now they are ramping up production of nuclear weapons.

So that, of course, is a concern.

And that's not even touching on the India, Pakistan, the fact that they have nuclear weapons.

So this is a big deal, and unfortunately, many people don't study this as much as we used to because the Cold War has ended, and we seem to think of nuclear weapons as being in the back burner, but it's very real.

In fact, it's probably the single most important national and international security threat that any generation that our generation or any generation in the future is going to ever face.

HEFFNER: That's a brilliant overview.

I think it's really insightful insofar as we contain the number of countries, like you said, that possessed nukes.

However, the buildup within those countries has been exponential, has been extraordinary.

And we don't recognize that the pendulum did not really tilt at the conclusion of the Cold War.

Rather, we expanded into a nuclear protective mode, if you want to call it nuclear protectionism, that in practice we don't really think about because of the theory of mutually assured destruction and the idea that cooler heads will always prevail.

So, what do we do with that big whopper?

The notion that we have to accept the buildup is to shield ourselves, but inevitably we won't need that shield.

How do you parse that?

MCGRATH: Well, I think that there is a risk of Americans thinking, look, there's nothing we can do about nuclear weapons.

Look, I am not somebody that believes that nuclear weapons are really going to go away, the genius kind of out of the box.

However, they can be controlled.

We can reign them in.

We have a history in human history.

We have actually done this before.

If you look at chemical weapons, chemical weapons were very prevalent.

They certainly were used in World War I.

They were used all the way, you know, through the 20th century.

And countries got together and basically said these weapons are heinous.

We need to outlaw them.

They're bad for humanity.

And now, I'm not somebody that believes that there are no chemical weapons on earth.

There are some.

North Korea has tons of them.

However, the vast majority of nations in the world have come together and signed Chemical Weapons Convention Treaty, which basically says, we're not going to produce or use these weapons, and we're going to destroy the ones that we have.

That's a win.

The world is safer because of that.

So I feel like we have some precedent to try to look at these very, extremely dangerous, I mean, on magnitude, far more dangerous than chemical weapons.

Look at nuclear weapons and say, we can't just throw over our, our hands and say, oh, there's nothing we can do.

We can do certain things.

We can look at our policies here in the United States in terms of how we declare what we would do with these weapons, you know, and, and try to rein some of this stuff in, try to make nuclear weapons not so important in our own defense posture.

Okay?

That's really important.

In terms of reducing the numbers, how many times do you need to blow up the world?

Albert Einstein once said, I don't know what exact weapons we're going to use for World War III, but I can tell you that World War IV is going to be fought with sticks and stones.

And what he meant by that is the destructive magnitude of an all-out nuclear war is just, the world would not exist as we know it.

If you think about the bomb that we dropped on Nagasaki and Hiroshima were about six to eight kilotons.

We are looking at a magnitude that is hundreds of times greater than that single bomb right now with thermonuclear weapons and what we actually have and what would actually be employed.

That's the scary part.

And we're talking one weapon, all five boroughs of New York City gone.

And so when you think about, I mean, the fact that we have, what, 3000, 4,000 of these weapons, I mean, how many targets are you going to go after?

So it's just, when you start really thinking about this stuff, you can really see that there's danger there.

There's also danger there in miscalculation, how many times do we not know the full truth?

I think, you know, where I was getting at is our leaders are human, and there is real risk for miscalculation.

If you look at the Cold War and even after the Cold War, times when, look at the Cuban Missile Crisis, there were things that we didn't even know.

Presidents, were making decisions.

Leaders were making decisions without the full context of what was going on.

Very, very scary times.

There were times in the 1980s, sorry, I've got people out my window too.

Let's start again.

There were times in the 1980s when we did military exercises in which the Soviet Union did not really fully understand what we were doing.

The tensions were greater.

And you know, their radars were showing a glitch, and oh my gosh, that that could be the start of nuclear war right there.

And we got lucky.

There were nuclear launches, missile launches that failed, where the missiles actually imploded.

There were bombers in the 1960s that slung nuclear weapons in North Carolina, in Greenland, in Spain, that we were carrying on our aircraft.

So accidents happen.

The key is you got to reduce as much as you possibly can, because an accident in the nuclear world and the with nuclear weapons could be absolutely devastating to the world.

HEFFNER: Can we believe in the efficacy or reality of self-imposed downsizing?

MCGRATH: Well, there's a lot of debate about that, because nuclear weapons are used in a diplomacy, area.

So sometimes the weapons are actually used as kind of a chess match, shall we say.

But there's re there needs to be real thought by smart people.

And I would love to see elected people actually getting into this debate about the idea of minimum deterrence, because China had minimum deterrence for a long time.

What that means is that the Chinese had three or four hundred nuclear weapons.

They weren't building anymore.

Because they looked at it and said, why do we need thousands of nuclear weapons if we're going to deter an enemy from launching a nuclear weapon at us.

We only need four or five thorough nuclear weapons to, to deter an enemy.

I mean, if, if, if five or six of their, uh, largest cities are going to be wiped out if they attack us, that's a pretty big deterrent.

So why do we need thousands of these weapons?

Let's just, just have it with a minimum amount.

I think we should start thinking about that again.

But it's politically, it's extremely difficult right now, Alexander, because the Chinese are actually kind of upping their numbers, probably in order to be able to, as I said, to use diplomacy to try to get some concessions from the United States.

But Russia isn't downsizing at all.

And so politically it's really hard to go to the American people and say, I think we should have less of these weapons when you see those other two countries building up.

HEFFNER: So is it most important to persuade the people of the world, but specifically the political leaders of the world, that pausing is okay, pausing the buildup, in fact, it will save countries money and resources to serve better their constituencies, the people.

Is that the right place to start?

MCGRATH: I think right now the best we can do is make sure that we're not knee-jerk reaction of well let's build more.

They're building more, so we should build more.

I think that's probably the best we can do in the current political climate.

However, if we can get smart people, uh, into office, um, and maybe educate the American public a little bit more about this, we can start looking at things like a no first use policy and declaring to the world.

We're not going to use nuclear weapons unless we're attacked by a nuclear weapon.

Okay, we won't be the first ones to use it.

I think that's something we could do.

I think we could look at our policies of keeping some of these nuclear, taking some of these nuclear weapons off the hair trigger that they're on right now.

That would be lowering the risk.

I think we can have debates about minimum deterrence, and there are some things that we can do unilaterally, but with the political reality right now, the best that I think we could hope for is let's not, let's not start building more.

I don't think that's a good answer.

HEFFNER: How can you make the argument that pausing the buildup will create jobs?

Because there is underlying a lot of political discussion about this subject the notion, and you can tell me if it's a notion or if it's The Real McCoy, it's in practice, the idea of investing in nuclear technology is a boon to our economy is creating jobs.

So if you pause that, the calculus is you stop creating opportunities.

And then we know, you know, that the defense contractors of the last decades, as well as the military, you know, have occupied a huge share of the American budget.

So I feel like if even you get electeds to agree on principle that pausing is the right thing to do.

How do you respond to the argument that it's in our economic interest, not just our national security to keep building?

MCGRATH: Well, number one, I think there's lots of ways to create jobs, and we don't need to be creating jobs by creating more weapons that will annihilate the planet.

So I think that's first and foremost, because we already have enough weapons to annihilate the planet and then some.

So if you're thinking about the defense industrial complex itself, there's lots of other things we need to be investing in the defense budget.

And I'm not somebody that believes that our defense budget is too big.

I actually think right now it's 3% of our GDP and the height of the Cold War.

It was much higher, you know, in the teens and, uh, 15%, 20%.

So actually, peace is a bargain.

And we are getting peace in terms of great power peace.

We have done that thanks to NATO in the last 75 years, we have been able to do that.

But we don't need any more nuclear weapons to continue that.

What we need to do is invest in other, um, defense platforms, new technologies, artificial intelligence, those types of things because those things are actually going to be used and are already being used around the globe.

So that's what I would say.

And then on the broader aspect of jobs, again, there's lots of things you can invest.

We just passed a huge infrastructure bill in this country.

That's a ton of jobs right there.

We need to continue to invest in things like broadband in rural America where I live.

Those things also create jobs.

There's lots of ways.

So it's not just the defense industry.

HEFFNER: I think my point here really is if you're going argue against nuclear that you should argue or not against nuclear overall, but against further buildup, then if that is going to resonate, then I think the prioritization or the alternative funding has to be visualized by the American people.

If someone like Senator Markey, for example, who is one of the prominent voices for nuclear control and counterproliferation.

If the argument is we're going to invest this billion dollars or multi-billion dollars in veterans, or in any of the areas that you just described, it's going to be more of a politically savvy presentation at least in my humble outlook, which leads me to kind of my last question and it's big one, so I want us to have a lot of time with it.

My grandfather, after President Truman left office, was driving across the country with my grandmother.

It was a time in our politics when President Truman opened his home up to any lay people, lay Americans, who were driving through that great town, city of Independence, Missouri or Missouri.

Bes was knitting on the porch.

Harry, President Truman was mowing the lawn, Americans from sea to shining sea just stopped in, you know?

Had a lemonade, a sandwich.

Here was this former president who had just made maybe the most controversial decision in the history of humanity, and he still could just be there mowing his lawn and talking with fellow Americans.

How do we get back to that place in America?

MCGRATH: Well, getting back to a place in our politics where civil discourse happens again is a tough one.

We saw just recently with the unfortunate, very unfortunate, assassination attempt of a political candidate that the rhetoric matters.

That what leaders say, what they tweet, how they act matters.

And, you know, some people in politics might think that that words don't matter, and that's just words.

But, um, it does.

And we, we've sort of opened the door to this violence, this political violence in America, because leaders have sort of unknowingly, but kind of knowingly opened that door.

And I think it's happened over time.

I think we have come in the last probably eight years or so to certainly in the last 10 years in a change within, I say the parties.

What I mean by that is that people now look at the other side, not as that's the other side politically, but they look at the other side as that side is evil.

And when the other side is dehumanized and the other side is considered evil, democracy takes a backseat.

Everything else, it's almost like religious.

Everything else seems to take a backseat, whether it's civil discourse or democracy itself, and all of this violence and do whatever it takes to gain power to stomp on the other side is condoned and uplifted in ways that I think we haven't seen in America, at least in my lifetime.

I know that there have been times in American history where we obviously had a civil war, so that was a big deal.

But in my lifetime, I have always seen the back and forth, the John McCains, the John Glenns, the Dick Lugars, the Sam Nunns, the statesmen.

And unfortunately, many of them have been men, not enough women, but that's another topic, have all have come together and done what's right for the nation.

And I'm afraid that we don't see that as much anymore.

So how do we get back to it?

We don't throw up our hands and say, I've given up.

We keep fighting.

The greatest generation fought.

Americans before them fought for various things.

They did not give up.

And I, for one, will not give up.

I will continue to talk to my fellow Americans.

I'll continue to fight for democracy, continue to talk about the dangers of nuclear weapons, for example, and do what I can.

And if everybody does just their little part, whether it's knocking on doors or contributing to political campaigns, or being involved or talking to their families, whatever it is, I think we're going to be okay.

But we got to do our part.

HEFFNER: And in the seconds we have left, if there's one way to bring people to the table on counterproliferation, especially those who are skeptical that it will be viewed as unpatriotic.

Is there one specific message you have for getting both parties to the table to embark on that pause of nuclear buildup?

MCGRATH: If had 20 seconds with every single member of Congress, I would say, read the book called, um, A Nuclear Scenario, A Nuclear War: A Scenario by an author named Annie Jacobson who lays it out, the dangers and how this could unfold.

And please be the leader that our country needs.

Take it seriously.

This isn't a red thing or a blue thing.

This is a protect America and the world thing.

And at the very least, get yourself educated on what these weapons can do and make your voice heard.

HEFFNER: Amy McGrath, once again, an honor to meet you today and to chat with you.

MCGRATH: Well, great to be with you, and thanks for highlighting this very important topic.

HEFFNER: You're welcome.

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Continuing production of The Open Mind has been made possible by grants from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, Angelson Family Foundation, Robert and Kate Niehaus Foundation, Grateful American Foundation, Robert S. Kaplan Foundation, Draper Foundation, and Ploughshares Fund.