17 Sep 2023

Alex Wellerstein: on the world’s nuclear weapon arsenal?

From Sunday Morning, 10:37 am on 17 September 2023

Nuclear weapons have unfortunately been brought to the fore once more with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine despite most experts agreeing deployment is unlikely.

No nation has detonated a nuclear weapon in conflict since 1945 and many of those weapons are getting pretty old.   

Alex Wellerstein is a nuclear weapons historian at the Stevens Institute of Technology. He talks to Jim about the state of nuclear weapons and how reliable they are.    

A deactivated Titan II  nuclear ICMB is seen in a silo at the Titan Missile Museum on May 12, 2015 in Green Valley, Arizona. The museum is located in a preserved Titan II ICBM launch complex and is devoted to educating visitors about the Cold War and the Titan II missile's contribution as a nuclear deterrent. AFP PHOTO/BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI (Photo by BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP)

Photo: BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI