Oppenheimer's Forgotten Warning For Humanity
Oppenheimer's Forgotten Warning For Humanity
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00:00 of Worlds, the man infamously known for creating the atomic bomb. In one moment he changed
00:04 human history forever, and Oppenheimer knew what he had created, and knew the fate of
00:09 the world now rested on his and his colleagues shoulders. Motivated by the pressure of total
00:13 war and a possible solution to the bloodshed, he had opened Pandora's box, and he would
00:17 spend the next two decades trying to close it again. Everything that you see today about
00:20 World War 3 has been shaped by Oppenheimer, modern conflicts will now be taken to another
00:24 level due to Oppenheimer's invention. But despite this, we owe the fact that we're
00:28 still alive today because of Oppenheimer's humanism and his morality. His life and the
00:32 things he did are inextricably linked with the weapon he created, and whether we will
00:35 survive the next decade or century in his shadow is impossible to predict. But by seeing
00:39 how his unique story began and how it continues today, we might have some idea if nuclear
00:43 conflict will ever come about in our lifetime. J. Robert Oppenheimer was born into an upper
00:47 class New York Jewish family in 1904. His father had come from Germany and became a
00:52 partner in a leading textiles firm. His mother came from a rich background, but was an incredibly
00:56 talented artist. And by the time Robert was a child, his parents were multi-millionaires,
01:00 and he grew up surrounded by Picassos and Van Goghs. But despite their Jewish heritage,
01:05 the family weren't actively religious. Instead, Robert's father believed in a new way of
01:08 thinking, ethical humanism. And their teachings were that morality and good acts needed to
01:12 break free from their religious connotations, and that a secular, rational way of thinking
01:16 could be the basis for ethics. And it was this doctrine that his parents embodied to
01:20 the fullest, encouraging Robert to explore intellectual pursuits like poetry and science.
01:24 It quickly became apparent that the young Oppenheimer was extraordinarily gifted, a
01:28 true polymath. At the age of 9, he was said to have told a classmate, "ask me a question
01:32 in Latin and I will answer you in Greek." A year later, he was beginning his studies
01:35 in chemistry and physics, having skipped several grades ahead. At age 12, Oppenheimer had become
01:40 immersed in his hobby of mineral collecting and cataloging. He exchanged letters with
01:44 other hobbyists, and was eventually invited to give a talk at the New York Metallurgical
01:47 Club. It was only when Robert's father introduced him on stage that they realised they had been
01:51 corresponding with a young child, and the laughter became applause once Robert delivered
01:55 his speech. And so eventually once he breezed past school, Robert secured a place at Harvard.
01:58 But still, he didn't know what to do with his gifts. He took a mixture of different
02:01 classes, getting straight A's in all of them, but he eventually graduated with a bachelor's
02:05 in chemistry. However, university life for Robert wasn't so simple. He was still introverted,
02:09 and had little friends, although the few connections he did make were deep and intimate. And it
02:13 was after that he got his degree that Robert finally figured out what he wanted to devote
02:16 his great mind to, physics. The best place to be for experimental physics at the time
02:20 was Cambridge, and so that's where he went. But once he got to England, Robert quickly
02:23 found out that it wasn't all he'd hoped for. Whilst he had a uniquely brilliant mind,
02:27 Robert struggled with the precise and laborious tasks involved with setting up the experiments.
02:30 It was a first for Robert, who had always easily coasted to the top of the class before.
02:34 And it was this change combined with bouts of existential dread that made Robert even
02:37 more introverted than before. He rarely saw friends outside a very small group of confidants.
02:41 He had multiple breakdowns, and grew resentful of his physics professor who oversaw his failing
02:45 lab work. Multiple psychiatrists and doctors couldn't help improve his mood, and he became
02:49 cold and irritable at the best of times. In a violent expression of his pain, Robert
02:52 tainted an apple with harmful chemicals, and left it on his professor's desk. And now
02:56 this could be seen as attempted murder, but the fact that Robert never faced any challenges
02:59 means it probably wasn't all that serious. But still, when the plot was discovered, Robert
03:03 fled to Europe to see some old friends, fearing his expulsion from the college. And it was
03:07 on this trip that Robert had a breakthrough. First, two papers he had written on theoretical
03:10 physics at Cambridge were published, all whilst he was away, which was enough to convince
03:14 the college to forgo any disciplinary actions. It made it clear to Robert that his future
03:18 lay in theory, not on the conduction of experiments he hated so much. And at the same time, Oppenheimer
03:23 also broke through his own existential barriers, reconciling his apparent apathy for other
03:27 people's suffering with his own moral ideas. Making this a transformative trip, and when
03:31 Robert came back, he returned a new man.
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05:01 Oppenheimer finally settled into his lifelong career, theoretical physics, or more specifically,
05:06 quantum mechanics. It was a new and promising field of science dominated by geniuses in
05:10 the early to late 20s. Young, brilliant scientists like Heisenberg and Fermi were unlocking new
05:14 secrets about the fundamental building blocks of the universe. We're talking about the time
05:18 of Einstein, and all of these top physicists were studying at the University of Göttingen.
05:22 And that's exactly where Robert went, to finally make his name. He published seven
05:25 papers during his short time in Germany, advancing the field with his unique creativity. During
05:29 1925 through to 1927, this would set the foundations of knowledge which led to computers, lasers,
05:35 genetic engineering, and most crucially, atomics. After this time in Germany, Oppenheimer then
05:39 moved back to the US, where he accepted a teaching position at UC Berkeley. Once a man
05:43 with few friends, Robert now found himself surrounded by admirers and eager students.
05:47 At first his lectures were almost intelligible, so complex and vague that even other professors
05:51 had a hard time following them. But he quickly improved his teaching, and people came from
05:54 across the world to study under him. And over the 20s, Oppenheimer's mix of lectures and
05:58 informal seminars made Berkeley the unofficial center of physics in the US. For a time it
06:02 acted as an alternative to Göttingen, which still had its own collection of legendary
06:06 physicists. But in the early 30s when the Nazis came to power in Germany, they began
06:09 a long campaign of exclusion and terror against the Jewish population. In doing so, the Nazis
06:13 gutted the majority of their science, engineering, and mathematics departments. And at Göttingen,
06:18 the physics department which used to lead the war had pretty much ceased to exist, and
06:21 the majority of scientists then fled to the west, including people like Einstein. And
06:24 most of these physicists then ended up in Berkeley, often at the invitation of Oppenheimer.
06:29 Along with Oppenheimer's theoretical department, experimental physics at Berkeley was also
06:32 explored. And this is where things became crazy. Ernest Orlando Lawrence was Robert's
06:37 colleague and close friend, and he was a genius builder, creating a machine that he called
06:41 the cyclotron in 1932, capable of firing particles at speeds high enough to split atoms. And
06:46 it gave theoretical physicists like Oppenheimer the tool they needed to truly understand atomic
06:51 physics. And this major development brought in many financial backers, which meant that
06:55 he could create larger and more complicated cyclotrons. And the pace of research and breakthroughs
06:58 increased dramatically, but so did government and corporate influence. Financial backers
07:02 were mostly interested in the military applications though, and so of course this is where the
07:05 bulk of the research went. And over the next decade, this culture of military research
07:09 and technology would come to dominate Oppenheimer's pure science, using their theoretical work
07:13 as a starting point. And as this went on, Robert carried on living his life. He advanced
07:17 nuclear physics, found love, and even began getting involved in politics. After hearing
07:21 the awful stories from his German colleagues, he developed an intense hatred of the Nazis.
07:25 Like most people at the time, he had deep fears of their dominance in Europe. But above
07:28 all else, he was scared that they would develop nuclear weapons. Because in 1934, a paper
07:33 came out theorising a nuclear chain reaction, a process which could cause the splitting
07:36 of a large amount of atoms at once with the right trigger. Then in 1938, scientists in
07:40 Germany were forced to split an atom of uranium, releasing a massive amount of energy in the
07:44 process. And so if you could induce a chain reaction of nuclear fission of uranium atoms,
07:48 you would have a nuclear bomb. This was completely new experimental technology. And so spurred
07:53 on by similar fears that the Nazis were developing this technology, in addition to a letter from
07:56 Albert Einstein corroborating these fears, the US government decided to start their own
08:01 project. But it wasn't until 1941 that they really got started.
08:04 At first, progress was slow. The nuclear technology was so new that weaponising it seemed almost
08:09 impossible. But when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor in December of 1941, and their blitzkrieg
08:13 exploded across the Pacific, things started looking dire. The Nazis had taken Europe and
08:18 were outside Moscow, whilst the US and the Allies were losing war ground to Japan every
08:22 single day. The US needed a secret weapon, and only their small nuclear project had the
08:26 potential to make a difference. From its beginning, this was a top secret plan, codenamed the
08:31 Manhattan Project, and the US government would enlist Oppenheimer to clip the top mines in
08:35 nuclear physics under one roof. Gathering in California, they got to work on designing
08:38 two different kinds of nuclear weapons, and the US government poured the equivalent of
08:42 billions of dollars into the project. But most of it didn't go to weapons research
08:45 itself. Instead, the main challenge was gathering, refining and enriching enough uranium to make
08:50 the bombs. It was an incredible industrial effort just to get the materials alone. The
08:54 process was made much slower and more expensive because of the need for secrecy. If Germany
08:58 learned that the Allies were spending billions on buying up the world's uranium, they would
09:02 know that they were serious about nuclear weapons. So, using the British and French
09:05 colonial empires, the US bought thousands of tons of uranium in secret deals from mines
09:09 in Africa and Canada. Despite billions of dollars and over 10,000 people working on
09:13 the industrial side of the process, Germany never really caught wind of the project. As
09:17 for research, Oppenheimer called in the best physicists from around the world. Many of
09:21 them were refugees fleeing from the Nazis themselves. Among them was Enrico Fermi, a
09:25 physicist from Italy similar in stature to Oppenheimer. There was also Leo Szilard, who
09:29 fled Germany and was integral to the project. Dan Seaborg, who led the research on plutonium,
09:34 and Hans Bethe, a brilliant physicist whose earlier work on similar reactions in stars
09:38 was essential in making the bomb. These men and over 100 other top physicists had a monumental
09:43 task ahead of them. 1942 was mostly spent preparing the groundwork, organising uranium
09:48 shipments and building the massive facilities and reactors that were necessary for the project.
09:52 It was only in December of 1942, a year after Pearl Harbor, that the Manhattan Project created
09:57 the first functional nuclear reactor. It was the first of its kind and used graphite to
10:01 moderate the reaction, and it was the first real step towards a nuclear bomb. An earlier
10:05 conference had confirmed that a nuclear bomb was possible, they just needed a design to
10:09 create the nuclear reaction. The one that stuck was relatively simple. Working like
10:13 a gun, a conventional explosive could be used to push two pieces of enriched uranium together.
10:17 The energy, combined with enough enriched fuel, would cause an explosive chain reaction
10:21 inside the uranium, creating a nuclear explosion. There was also a new design that involved
10:25 plutonium, an element that had only been made just a few years earlier by Glenn Seaborg.
10:29 Plutonium was too reactive for the gun design to work, so instead the team worked on a bomb
10:33 that would compress a single core of plutonium till it reached critical levels and caused
10:37 a chain reaction. These were the two designs that would eventually work, but it would take
10:41 a long time for Oppenheimer's team to figure this all out. Two years of work was spent
10:45 on a gun-type plutonium bomb, until in 1994, they discovered it wouldn't work. Their
10:49 plutonium and the way it was created always left impurities, which made the plutonium
10:53 too reactive to work properly. It was only by inventing a new way of focusing the pressure
10:57 from conventional explosives that the team could create a new feasible plutonium design.
11:01 Once they had these two designs, the uranium gun and the plutonium compression devices,
11:05 that they could actually build a bomb, and by this point it was already 1945.
11:10 However they ploughed ahead, making strides in technology that would eventually lead to
11:13 the first atomic test. The ethics of even making such a weapon took back stage, even
11:16 as the scientists calculated how many kilotons of TNT the bomb was equivalent to. No moral
11:21 questions ever slowed the progress. Even a theoretical possibility that the weapon might
11:25 ignite the entire atmosphere was ignored, and every day time was ticking. Fears that
11:29 Germany would eventually unleash this bomb in Europe meant that the pressure was on,
11:32 and by the time the Americans and Oppenheimer learned that the Germans were nowhere near
11:35 a bomb and had abandoned the project entirely, they were now only months away from their
11:39 first successful test. And that came on July 16th 1945, in the Trinity Bomb test, when
11:44 Oppenheimer and his team watched from afar as the first nuclear bomb was exploded in
11:48 the New Mexico desert. Just a flash of the light from the explosion was brighter than
11:52 a thousand suns. In fact the explosion itself was so immense that it completely levelled
11:56 the desert for miles around. The bomb was far more powerful than Oppenheimer or the
12:00 government ever expected, and it was in this exact moment that Robert's famous words
12:04 describe. This was one of the biggest turning points in human history. The world had never
12:12 been the same since. Immediately after the Russia's success, came huge regrets at what
12:16 they had just unleashed.
12:19 On the 6th of August 1945, according to plan, the US exploded an atomic bomb over Hiroshima,
12:26 a city with a population of 350,000.
12:31 After they announced the bombings of Nagasaki and Hiroshima, details about the Manhattan
12:34 Project and Oppenheimer's position as director came into the public eye. Instantly he was
12:38 a household name, appearing in newspaper articles and on the front of the Times magazine, but
12:42 he scarcely had time to enjoy his new fame. Oppenheimer was immediately put in charge
12:46 of an interim committee to manage nuclear issues, and two years later it was formalised
12:50 as the Atomic Energy Commission, with Oppenheimer taking a leading role. It was from this government
12:54 platform that Oppenheimer began pushing for non-proliferation. In an admirable but ultimately
12:58 fruitless campaign, he and other scientists petitioned the US and the world to give up
13:02 nuclear weapons for good. Now that they had been used, he argued there wasn't any reason
13:06 to ever use them again. He saw that this would kill mankind, his invention was starting to
13:10 ruin his soul. Oppenheimer even took this argument directly to the president, but the
13:14 meeting turned sour and Truman demanded he leave. Even though the measure would have
13:18 made nuclear war a possibility, it was never taken very seriously. For the major power,
13:22 nuclear weapons were so tempting, they were the ultimate form of control, giving America
13:26 power over the world. Because the US now had the ultimate leverage over their new enemies.
13:30 The Soviets on the other hand weren't going to trust the US to give up the bomb, and so
13:34 they were now carrying out their own research, and they were emerging as the only competitor
13:37 to the US. And seeing as their armies had just conquered half of Europe under Stalin,
13:41 many were fearful they'd swallow up the rest, and so the bomb was the solution to this problem.
13:45 But Oppenheimer knew their security wouldn't last forever, an arms race was already underway,
13:49 and he was powerless to stop it. And so in 1948, Oppenheimer said that the US's monopoly
13:54 was like ice melting in the sun. Less than a year later, he was proven right, when the
13:58 Soviets tested their own nuclear bomb. They were much quicker than the US expected, partially
14:02 due to leaked secrets from the Manhattan Project. The US government, already working itself
14:06 into an anti-communist frenzy, was sent into full panic mode. For the first time in centuries,
14:11 the US mainland was now under direct threat, and they needed more nukes to maintain their
14:15 power. And so as both the Soviets and America started growing their stockpiles, the world
14:19 was then plunged into a never-ending standoff. And in retrospect, it may not have been a
14:23 bad thing. In 1950, the Korean War broke out. The communist North, bolstered by the experienced
14:27 Chinese soldiers fresh from their own civil war, ran over the US back south. The US, the
14:31 newly created United Nations, and the South barely held on. Douglas MacArthur, the general
14:35 in charge of the Western forces, flirted with the idea of nuclear action. He submitted target
14:39 lists of North Korean and later Chinese cities and military bases, but they went ignored.
14:43 Instead, the US waged an entirely conventional war, even when they were beaten back from
14:47 victory by the Chinese reinforcements. Eventually, the front line stabilised, which created the
14:50 modern Korean border that we know today. However, what's important here is that the Korean War
14:54 could have easily turned into World War 3. In a lot of ways, it already was a third world
14:58 war, when a united Western front fought the Chinese communist troops. But thank God it
15:02 didn't spill over, and the USSR actively tried to stay out of the conflict entirely. And
15:07 the reason for this was nuclear weapons. Any large conflict across multiple fronts would
15:10 inevitably lead to total war, opening the door to nuclear weapons. So keeping conflicts
15:15 isolated in their own regions was both in the US and USSR's interest. It was a dangerously
15:20 loose solution for the looming threat of nuclear war, but we still rely on it today. And as
15:24 the Cold War went on, the two powers' nuclear stockpiles only got larger and larger. Oppenheimer,
15:29 for his part, tried to interfere with the arms race. When a new type of bomb called
15:32 a hydrogen bomb was theorised in 1949, he did his best to fight against this creation.
15:36 Relying on fusion rather than fission, the bomb would be thousands of times more powerful
15:40 than the ones dropped in Japan. It lay waste to entire cities, killing millions rather
15:44 than thousands. It was this bomb that threatened mass destruction on a global scale, creating
15:48 the possibility of a real nuclear apocalypse, the end of humanity. So Oppenheimer argued
15:53 that it was a useless weapon. It had such destructive power that it would be impractical
15:56 against any target other than a city. But with Russia's recent entry into the nuclear
16:00 arms race, his and his colleagues' protests were pushed aside. National security was more
16:04 important. But Oppenheimer wouldn't give up easily, pushing the issue as hard as he
16:08 could, even considering resigning over the issue. But it wouldn't have changed anything.
16:11 His campaigning against the hydrogen bomb made him a lot of enemies, warlike generals
16:15 and politicians who already despised his talk of non-proliferation. Despite their ambiguity,
16:20 Oppenheimer's old political leanings would eventually end his career. Because both his
16:23 brother and his wife were communists at one point or another, gave his enemies and government
16:27 an easy excuse to question his loyalty. The FBI were also happy to dig up any dust on
16:31 Oppenheimer that was needed, passing it over to anyone who could put pressure on the president.
16:35 And that's how it came to be that in 1953, President Eisenhower asked Robert to resign.
16:39 But he refused, demanding a public hearing. Goers of old friends and colleagues came out
16:43 to testify on his behalf, but it didn't really matter. And unfortunately for Oppenheimer,
16:47 the hearing was possibly the highest profile case in the McCarthy era of communist witch
16:50 hunt. The Kangaroo Court found it to be a security risk, mostly due to his eccentric
16:54 way of speaking and submodal testimony. Oppenheimer's security clearance was revoked, and he was
16:58 left outside of government and the nuclear decisions. Being a huge slap in the face for
17:02 someone who had served his government so loyally, and in many ways it broke Oppenheimer. However,
17:06 he was seen as a martyr and a hero in the scientific community, which allowed him to
17:10 carry on teaching, taking Einstein's old job as a senior professor of theoretical physics
17:14 at Princeton. But eventually he retreated for public appearances, becoming more private
17:18 and secluded in his home in the Caribbean. And a little over a decade later in 1967,
17:22 he would peacefully pass away. And now his legacy lives on. His work to create the atomic
17:26 bomb whilst advocating for peace, gave the world the very tools it needed to destroy
17:30 itself. And during the Cold War, it almost did. The Cuban Missile Crisis was a headlength
17:34 away from triggering World War 3 for example. Later on, a glitch in the Soviet missile defence
17:38 system nearly led to a catastrophic nuclear exchange, with human history being saved by
17:42 one man who didn't pass on the false data over to his superiors.
17:46 If Arkhipov made a different decision, whether he fell into peer pressure or if he simply
17:50 chose a different submarine to be present on, you probably wouldn't exist and neither
17:55 would the internet or probably anything else that you know.
17:58 But despite all their near misses, we've survived so far today. Now Oppenheimer and
18:01 other scientists at the beginning of the nuclear age often spoke of humanity needing to grow
18:05 up in line with our technology. In this respect, it does seem like we might have. As today,
18:10 nuclear weapons have taken a backseat in the public consciousness. Compared to the peak
18:13 of the Cold War, we have just under a fifth of the missiles and bombs that we had then.
18:16 But were we to quit to disregard the danger they pose, as there's still around 12,000
18:21 nuclear weapons in play. And it's important we discuss the situation today.
18:24 Just like in the Cold War, the main two nuclear states are the US and Russia. They control
18:28 the vast majority of the nuclear weapons in the world.
18:30 The strategic systems, they have intercontinental range and so they can hit anywhere on the
18:36 globe. And if that was released, it could destroy all major cities.
18:40 Russia has just under 6,000 and the US around 5,000. The remaining 1,000 are then controlled
18:45 by a small set of other world powers. China has 400, France and the UK have 300 and 200
18:51 respectively, and the rest is split between Pakistan, India, Israel and North Korea.
18:55 Of these nations, North Korea is probably the most dangerous one. Ruled with an iron
18:58 fist by King Jomon, they are used as a puppet state for China. And as a puppet state, they
19:02 are used to do China's dirty work. And because of how much power has been centralized within
19:06 King Jomon and is in a circle, it's incredibly likely that he's got sole control of North
19:11 Korea's first strike capabilities. If the Supreme Leader decided it, North Korea could
19:15 use any or all of their nuclear weapons. They're also one of the most aggressive nations in
19:19 the world, constantly launching missiles into the Sea of Japan to advertise their capabilities.
19:24 And Japanese leaders say they are ready to shoot down any North Korean missile that could
19:28 land in their territory. In fact, the number of missile tests has dramatically increased
19:32 in 2022, as they launched nearly nine times more than in 2021. And then newly developed
19:36 intercontinental ballistic missiles can reach all the way to the US mainland, meaning that
19:41 nobody in the world is safe from them. And recent evidence from November of 2022 points
19:45 to the fact that they've started making more weapon-grade plutonium, meaning their stockpile
19:48 is only getting larger. And so all of this points to a possible nuclear war stemming
20:07 from North Korea, as they are used as a puppet state to do China's wrongdoings. It seems
20:11 like North Korea's nukes serve a purely defensive purpose. Every action that the Kim dynasty
20:15 has taken has always served to secure their own grip on power. Their nuclear arsenal is
20:19 no different, and it's insurance against any invasion meant to depose them. If they actually
20:23 did start a nuclear war, it would destroy the nation. And with the US's missile defense
20:27 systems, it's highly unlikely that North Korea will ever land a successful long-range
20:31 shot. However, South Korea, Japan, and other countries closer to them might not be as lucky.
20:35 And this is where North Korea becomes so dangerous. However, despite its repeated threats, Kim
20:39 Jong-un really doesn't want to be the supreme leader of a nuclear wasteland. However, the
20:42 worrying possibility is that Kim Jong-un could be forced by China, who serves as the country's
20:46 bloodline, to be forced into making decisions that put a thorn in the West's side. However,
20:51 even with all these dictatorships, Stalin and Mao, some of the most ruthless and despicable
20:55 people in history, have always had control of nuclear weapons and yet they never used
20:58 them, even at the height of the Cold War. And even if Kim Jong-un did order their use,
21:02 it's really unlikely that his subordinates would obey. They'd know the consequences
21:05 of their actions, and they'd want to protect their own power and position rather than throwing
21:09 it all away. Now, we'll never have a guarantee that North Korea won't use nuclear weapons,
21:13 but it doesn't seem likely. And even if they did use their nukes, they wouldn't destroy
21:16 humanity. Only Russia and the US possess the real capability to have a full-scale nuclear
21:21 war between the two states. And if this happens, this would be cataclysmic. The initial exchange
21:25 could kill billions, made worse by the fact that over half of the world's population
21:29 are crammed into dense cities. And the survivors of these bombs would have to deal with massive
21:34 levels of radiation and horrific nuclear winter. Studies on the ecological impacts alone predict
21:39 that global temperatures would fall by 8 degrees. The combined effects of cold and radiation
21:43 would then destroy ecosystems and make farming nearly impossible for years. Famine and starvation
21:47 would take over the world, possibly for years if not even decades. It's very doubtful that
21:51 civilisation would even survive such a blow. There would be riots everywhere. And this
21:55 possible future has kept nuclear missiles in their silos, because mutually assault
21:59 destruction is the only reason no one's used it yet, as it's not in anyone's interest
22:03 to make this happen, especially not the people who would run it all anyway. Even just using
22:07 one nuclear weapon would trigger retaliation, which would eventually result in an all-out
22:11 exchange. However, recently things have gone crazy. Recently the UK was accused of using
22:16 uranium in their bullets in the Russia-Ukraine conflict. And on the other side, one of Putin's
22:20 closest advisors, the chairman of the Council on Foreign and Defence Policy, recently stated
22:25 quote, "We will have to make nuclear deterrence a convincing argument again by lowering the
22:29 threshold for the use of nuclear weapons set unacceptably high. The enemy must know that
22:33 we are ready to deliver a pre-emptive strike in retaliation for all of its current and
22:37 past acts of aggression in order to prevent a slide into a global thermonuclear war."
22:42 His comments represent a dangerous shift in rhetoric. For Russia's top officials to be
22:46 openly debating the use of nuclear weapons is a completely new development like we've
22:49 never seen before, as is Putin's recent move to cut nuclear missiles in Belarus, or
22:54 like Putin's comments that the parts of Ukraine that they have invaded are now part
22:57 of Russia and that they will use any weapon to defend Russia. For now, Sergei's opinion
23:02 that Russia should use nukes is in the minority. Even within Russia's repressed media, other
23:06 articles have come out condemning any nuclear escalation. But as the war drags on and Russia
23:10 starts looking for a way out, we can't take these threats so lightly, and more precedent
23:14 does this set for a future conflict like China vs Taiwan. And with the recent attempt at
23:18 Wagner coup within Russia showed just how much power these military leaders have in
23:22 Putin's Russia, just the same as they do in America and in China. And the most warlike
23:26 among them are also going to be the most aggressive in future power struggles as well. Private
23:30 military companies in particular are incentivised to cross this very line. They need continuous
23:35 war to make their blood money. A limited nuclear exchange and the war to follow would give
23:39 them a golden opportunity. Someone's going to profit from this disaster. And once this
23:43 line is broken, it will be incredibly dangerous for everyone on planet earth. The US has warned
23:48 of cataclysmic consequences for Russia if they ever dared use nuclear weapons, but it's
23:52 still up in the air whether they would actually retaliate in any kind. And if they do, then
23:56 this will rapidly devolve into a nightmare scenario, one that human history has never
23:59 seen before. But if they don't, then Russia will have opened a whole new Pandora's box.
24:04 We could see tactical nuclear weapons finding use in wars for the rest of history if the
24:07 bar does fall too low. China could obliterate Taiwan's military or even their cities to
24:12 knock off their invasion. Or North Korea as a puppet state could get the courage from
24:15 China to finally invade the south using their nuclear arsenal. And it's clear that right
24:19 now in 2023, we are at a pivotal point in history as we're currently seeing another
24:25 great power struggle unfold. Nearly every single time a dominant power like the US comes
24:29 under threat from a rising power and their allies like China and Russia, war then breaks
24:33 out. And we only avoided it in the cold war because of mutually assured destruction and
24:38 neither side being willing to go that far. But if we cross that final threshold and states
24:42 begin using nuclear weapons, there won't be anything left to stop global war. And whilst
24:46 nuclear war does seem like it's right around the corner, we're not quite there yet. Whether
24:50 you can chalk this up to humanity growing up and getting more peaceful since world war
24:53 2, or just our leader's self interest, the results have been the same. And whether we
24:57 can continue this long peace and honour Oppenheimer's legacy remains to be seen. But the current
25:02 global crisis and the next 10 to 12 years will be the hardest test yet.