Conversations about downsizing America’s defense budget almost immediately stall out in a Catch-22: Reallocating those tax dollars to invest in domestic priorities would be devastating to the many small cities where a manufacturing plant, ICBM silo, or military base is the lifeblood of the local economy. If Biden begins to shift some money away from defense, or even just, away from some of the big weapons systems a lot of defense towns are tasked to build, does that mean a whole lot of middle cl...
Aug 30, 2021•31 min•Season 5Ep. 6
On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we look at some of the ways civilian and military cultures are merging — and diverging — after two decades of war in Iraq and Afghanistan. If Americans are distanced from the messy work of national security, how can the Biden administration have an honest conversation with them about priorities? GUESTS: Lacey Hopper, rucking aficionado; Timur Nersesov, US Army Reserve Officer; Loren DeJonge Schulman, Center for a New American Security. ADDITIONAL READING: ...
Aug 16, 2021•28 min•Season 5Ep. 5
Washington and Beijing have been increasingly at odds -- over human rights, trade, maritime boundaries, you name it. Does this tension help Biden at home? And what does it mean for Asian Americans? GUESTS: Samuel Chu, Hong Kong Democracy Council; Nina Luo, Writer and Organizer; Adrian De Leon, University of Southern California; Rui Zhong, Wilson Center ADDITIONAL READING: The American Victims of Washington’s Anti-China Hysteria , Nina Luo, The New Republic. Why Is China Coming After Americans Li...
Aug 02, 2021•25 min•Season 5Ep. 4
Here in the US, we’re just catching on to the idea of creating a foreign policy that lifts up our middle class, but China’s been at it for decades. On this episode, we dig into China’s rise. What’s worked, what hasn’t, and where it might go next. GUESTS: Ethan Lee, Stanford University (Student); Ali Wyne, Eurasia Group; Scott Rozelle, Stanford University; Peter Lorentzen, University of San Francisco. ADDITIONAL READING: The World China Wants , Rana Mitter, Foreign Affairs. Invisible China: How t...
Jul 19, 2021•30 min•Season 5Ep. 3
One of Biden's biggest foreign policy moves so far has been sticking with Trump's Afghanistan withdrawal plan. The move comes after 20 years of war, which killed more than 241,000 people on all sides according to Brown University estimates. But how does it fit into Biden's foreign policy for the middle class? And what does our exit mean for the lives of middle-class Afghan women who fear a Taliban resurgence? GUESTS: Metra Mehran, Institute of Diplomacy at Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Kabul; Jam...
Jul 05, 2021•25 min•Season 5Ep. 2
Quick, give me the first answer to this question that comes to your head: What TV character is the archetype of the American middle class? Archie Bunker? Homer Simpson? Roseanne Conner? What about Cliff Huxtable? Dre Johnson? Or Jane Villanueva? On this episode, we dig into the huge, diverse swath of people that make up America’s middle class. And we ask if it’s possible to create one overarching policy that makes life better for them all — especially if you, yourself, only represent a small pie...
Jun 21, 2021•29 min•Season 5Ep. 1
The Biden administration says it’s focused on creating a “foreign policy for the middle class,” But what does that really mean? Keeping on keeping on with the way things have always been done? Slapping a little lipstick and climate change on Trump’s, “America First” agenda? Or creating something truly revolutionary? Ask around in Washington, and you’ll get ten different answers to the same question, if you get an answer at all. So this season, Things That Go Boom set out to decide for itself: Wh...
Jun 14, 2021•3 min
April 29 marked President Biden’s 100th day in office. So we thought it was about time to pop back in with a special bonus episode — before we’re back officially with season 5 — to take a look at what Biden’s done so far in terms of foreign policy, and what that might signal about his priorities going forward. On this episode Things That Go Boom: A very candid conversation with Nahal Toosi. What has Biden already accomplished, what can we learn about his goals, and what are analysts watching for...
May 03, 2021•21 min•Season 4Ep. 10
Over the course of our nuclear history, smaller (potentially more usable) nuclear weapons have come in all shapes and sizes — from so-called backpack bombs to the Davy Crockett nuclear rifle... And last year, the US deployed a new one. But, what exactly are these things? Do we need them? And what does the deployment of a new generation of them reveal about the US’s nuclear posture? On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we talk about low-yield nuclear weapons -- or what we’ve affectionately ter...
Mar 01, 2021•26 min•Season 4Ep. 9
Conspiracy theories are as old as time. And, they’re not all bad. Sometimes they bring us together for a subpar party in the desert. Take, for example, that one time in 2019 when more than 2 million people RSVP’d to ambush Area 51. But when they take a turn to the dark side, conspiracy theories can be as dangerous as any other threat we face. On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we talk about how the internet has fueled a rise in that dark side, and how it caught the US government by surprise...
Feb 15, 2021•25 min•Season 4Ep. 8
When a violent pro-Trump mob stormed the legislature on Jan. 6, it caught the Capitol Police completely off-guard. But there was one woman in the House Chamber who was not surprised. In fact, she wore tennis shoes that day — Rep. Barbara Lee. We speak with Lee about the greatest terror threat inside the United States today, white nationalism, as well as a more general trend toward political radicalization. We also revisit her lonely vote in the wake of 9/11, when Lee was the only lawmaker in bot...
Feb 01, 2021•25 min•Season 4Ep. 7
In December 2020, the company FireEye noticed that it had been the victim of a cyber intrusion. And it wasn’t the only one. About 18,000 companies and government agencies were breached, everything from the agency that controls America's nuclear weapons to the agency that regulates the electric grid, to a company whose products you probably use every day: Microsoft. So, what did they have in common? They were all using the same software monitoring service: a platform called Orion, from the compan...
Jan 18, 2021•23 min•Season 4Ep. 6
Darlene Turner is an Inupiaq Eskimo living on a battle line. Not the military kind, the climate change kind. With less sea ice to buffer storms, the ocean is washing away chunks of her village and its residents have made a difficult decision to relocate. “Would you relocate?” she asks. Experts believe stories like Darlene’s are just a precursor to a massive migratory trend that could have millions of Americans on the move before mid-century, as wildfires rage and floodwaters rise. And the conseq...
Jan 04, 2021•27 min•Season 4Ep. 5
Over the past few weeks, the president-elect, Joe Biden, has been rolling out announcements about his new cabinet. And in one of those announcements, he revealed that the subject of one of our favorite interviews over the years, Jake Sullivan, would be named national security advisor. The announcement made sense to us, since tensions between the US and Iran seem to have reached a new boiling point in the wake of President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal. Jake, you might rem...
Dec 21, 2020•30 min•Season 4Ep. 4
Just after President Dwight D. Eisenhower assumed office on January 20, 1953, deep in the middle of the Cold War, his greatest adversary died. The speech that followed is considered one of his best, though not his most well known. Today, the US is sitting on the precipice of another great moment of potential change. One in which it’s not hard to imagine Eisenhower standing up before us and making the same case he did almost 70 years ago. So on today’s episode, we sit down with someone in a posit...
Dec 07, 2020•25 min•Season 4Ep. 3
Things That Go Boom is launching its very first fundraiser! Please consider giving just $5 a month. It’s convenient for you, provides ongoing support for Things That Go Boom and Inkstick Media, and you’ll feel good knowing you’re helping make Things That Go Boom freely available to everyone. Always. If Things That Go Boom is something that you’ve come to rely on over the course of the past two years, please go to inkstickmedia.com/donate and make a donation today. ————————— In 1958, a movie abou...
Nov 23, 2020•29 min•Season 4Ep. 2
2020 has been a scary year. In an effort to get to the root of why we’re all feeling the way we are, the first thing we did was something we probably should have done a long time ago... we reached out to a psychiatrist. We also asked all of you — our listeners, our friends, our family — to tell us the answer to what might seem like a pretty simple question: How safe do you feel? But the answers didn’t feel simple at all. GUESTS: Arash Javanbakht, MD; Bunmi Akinnusotu, Host of What in the World? ...
Nov 09, 2020•24 min•Season 4Ep. 1
Things That Go Boom will be back November 9th, and we’ll be there to hold your hand while you weep, or party, all the way to the inauguration, a coronavirus vaccine, an accidental nuclear war (?!) … and beyond. In the meantime, go vote!
Oct 26, 2020•2 min
Can the country rebound from the social, cultural, and economic toll of COVID-19? Now we know what happens while we’re sleeping; have we woken up? And what will it take to right the ship? GUESTS: Gigi Kwik Gronvall , Senior Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security and Associate Professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Engineering at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health; Sherri Goodman , former Deputy Undersecretary of Defense for Environmental Securit...
Aug 24, 2020•32 min•Season 3Ep. 8
Why did the US Naval Academy reinstate celestial navigation as part of its curriculum a few years ago? Well, you can’t hack a sextant. In this episode, we look at some of the vulnerabilities that come with an over-reliance on high-tech defense systems. Our guests are Peter Singer and August Cole — national security experts who have taken to writing futuristic techno-thrillers to sound a few alarms. Among their warnings: The opening battles of WWIII won’t happen on a battlefield, and they will pr...
Aug 10, 2020•27 min•Season 3Ep. 7
Disinformation and misinformation have been blurring the line between fantasy and reality since the start of communication itself. But over the last decade, they’ve posed an increasing threat to democracy in the United States, with the 2016 presidential election becoming a major flashpoint in Americans’ understanding of the consequences of fake news. The false information flooding the internet and spreading like wildfire on social media pose risks not just to national and election security, but ...
Jul 27, 2020•29 min•Season 3Ep. 6
As the US reckons with systemic racism and a less-than-democratic past, China is doubling down on its authoritarian ways. Meanwhile, research on the health of democracy from across the globe indicates the patient is not well. We trace China’s rise from the 1990s, when American pop music held a place alongside patriotic education, to its more recent political assertiveness-- not to mention its chokehold on civil rights in Hong Kong and Xinjiang. As China moves to assert itself on the world stage,...
Jul 13, 2020•26 min•Season 3Ep. 5
Are we in the middle of a new Cold War? Or have we rewritten the game? With old nuclear arms treaties expiring, and no new ones being signed, are we adapting to the times or playing with fire? In this episode, we look at the past and present of civil defense and nuclear arms control and ask what we can do — as individuals and as a nation — to prevent the existential threat of nuclear war. GUESTS: Alex Wellerstein , professor at the Stevens Institute of Technology and historian of nuclear weapons...
Jun 29, 2020•31 min•Season 3Ep. 4
After almost a decade in prison, Yevgeny Prigozhin was released into a new world. Gorbachev gave his last speech as leader of the Soviet Union; the Communist Party was outlawed. Soon, gangs were violently extorting new business owners and the murder rate doubled. But Prigozhin was comfortable with chaos. He started a hot dog stand and climbed his way up into the highest echelons of power… then decided to diversify. In this episode, we look at a Russian businessman who takes on a new game, war in...
Jun 15, 2020•25 min•Season 3Ep. 3
If the US can’t build better airports or trains than China, or even take care of itself in times of major crisis like the coronavirus, how exactly is it supposed to “beat” China in this global competition we’re in? We look back to see how China’s ascent snuck up on the US, and we ask if a zero-sum mentality is sleep-walking us to war. GUESTS: Kishore Mahbubani , author and distinguished fellow, Asia Research Institute; Rachel Esplin Odell , International Security Fellow, Belfer Center. ADDITIONA...
Jun 01, 2020•26 min•Season 3Ep. 2
The US spends more than $700 billion on defense every year, more than healthcare, education, and all the rest of our discretionary spending combined. And yet the coronavirus slipped silently and invisibly across our borders, and even onto our aircraft carriers. You could say we were preparing for World War III, when we got hammered by World War C. This season we ask, “What else are we missing?” GUESTS: Alden Wicker , Sustainable Fashion Journalist; Kathleen Hicks , CSIS; John Blocher, Dave Ahern...
May 18, 2020•23 min•Season 3Ep. 1
Could the rise of China spell the end of the US as the dominant world power? Are we on an irreversible path toward military confrontation? Are we prepared for life in a multilateral world? Military spending is growing, and the Pentagon says it’s in service of something called “great power competition” — but are the biggest threats to US power military? Or, something else. This next season of Things That Go Boom will explore how our national security has refocused on threats that require traditio...
May 04, 2020•2 min
Last night it looked like we were headed for war. Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq in response to US escalation in the region. How worried should we be? And, now that we know that President Trump is willing to take the most extreme option offered (ie: killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani with a drone) should we be even more concerned about his authority to launch nukes? — Things That Go Boom is a production of PRX and Inkstick Media. This episode was produced by Ruth...
Jan 08, 2020•20 min
When we left off with our second season, there were... a few things happening with Iran… And Amb. William Burns has a unique perspective -- he's been down this road with Iran before, as one of the architects of the 2015 nuclear deal. We ask Burns for a gut check on the current situation, from Iran's threats to ramp up uranium enrichment, to the fallout from President Trump's 'exchange of love letters' with North Korea. He also shares some of the lessons from "the most depressing brainstorming se...
Jul 08, 2019•22 min
The first clue something was wrong came in the form of an alert on Yegi Rezaian’s phone. Where I grew up,” she says, “these things don’t happen by accident.” Within hours, Yegi and her husband, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, found themselves in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. And interrogations quickly turned surreal. Jason’s captors seemed convinced his Kickstarter campaign to bring avocados to Iran was some kind of spycraft. So… it took some time before they came to realize that, one ...
Jun 24, 2019•28 min•Season 2Ep. 7
