In the final episode of the series, Usha takes a closer look at the people behind the nuclear arms race. At the 1955 Geneva Summit, the superpowers tried to manage the dangers of the Cold War through face-to-face diplomacy, dealing with each ot

The Soviets' Dark Nuclear Romance

Dec 16th, 2020 31m 16s

Once the Soviets got the nuclear arsenal Stalin had sought, they had to learn to live with the bomb - and all the dilemmas that came with it. This episode examines how the Soviet Union adjusted to the difficult new reality of being a nuclear po

Building Stalin's Nukes

Dec 2nd, 2020 34m 16s

What happens when a poor country, ravaged by war and brutalized by a totalitarian dictator, but dead-set on international greatness, tries to become a nuclear superpower? This episode - the first of three covering the Soviet nuclear program - e

The Perverse Sensibility of Nuclear War

Nov 18th, 2020 28m 2s

In the 1950s and 1960s, it became clear that any strategy that involved threatening to start a nuclear war was playing with fire. But what was the alternative? Strategists began searching for ways to wage "limited" nuclear conflicts that wouldn

The Dilemmas of Deterrence

Nov 4th, 2020 32m 34s

The idea of nuclear war became unimaginable almost overnight when the United States and Soviet Union tested the first hydrogen bombs in the early 1950s. But for President Dwight Eisenhower, preventing nuclear war meant convincing everyone that

Planning Armageddon

Oct 21st, 2020 34m 35s

A podcast about the dawn of the nuclear age, hosted by Usha Sahay and produced by War on the Rocks, with support from the Carnegie Corporation of New York and the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation. In each episode, Usha takes listen

A Most Terrible Weapon Trailer

Oct 14th, 2020 1m 34s

In August 1945, the atomic era began - and the world was changed forever. A Most Terrible Weapon is a podcast about the dawn of the nuclear age, hosted by Usha Sahay and produced by War on the Rocks, with support from the Carnegie Corporation o

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