273: Annie Jacobsen: Why Biological War Scares Her More Than Nuclear

Wouldn't you rather not know how the world ends?

Nine nations hold nuclear weapons, and every one of them is watched, counted, and deterred. A biological weapon needs no nation, no missile, and no submarine. The delivery system is a pair of lungs, and the barrier to entry is a working knowledge of biology and a computer. That asymmetry is why the journalist who wrote the definitive account of how the world ends in seventy-two minutes has spent the last two years on something that frightens her more.

Annie Jacobsen is a Pulitzer Prize finalist and New York Times bestselling author who has spent more than fifteen years reporting on classified military and intelligence programs, reconstructing worst-case scenarios from the testimony of the people who built them. Her new book, Biological War: A Scenario, follows Nuclear War: A Scenario. She calls us to courage by reminding us that you cannot fix what you cannot face.

Key Ideas

Six Minutes to Decide What the nuclear chain of command actually looks like once a missile is airborne, and why the clock is the least of the problems.

The Delivery System Is a Pair of Lungs Why a biological weapon needs no missile, no submarine, and almost no barrier to entry, and why that changes everything about who has to worry.

What the Pandemic Actually Cost Us Jacobsen's argument that the most lasting damage of COVID was never counted in cases, and that we are still paying it.

The Pope's Quiet Backchannel A story she learned at the Vatican about how the world once stepped back from the brink, and why almost no one was allowed to know.

Old Men in Their Nineties What decades of interviewing soldiers near the end of their lives taught her about how a human being changes.

Solution, Solution, Solution Her answer to the reader who finishes the book, decides the worst case is inevitable, and gives up.

⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠⁠Show Notes, Resources, and Transcript⁠ for abridged episode with Annie Jacobsen

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