127. William Perry and Tom Collina — The Button: The New Nuclear Arms Race and Presidential Power from Truman to Trump

<p>From authors William J. Perry, Secretary of Defense in the Clinton administration and Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering in the Carter administration, and Tom Z. Collina, the Director of Policy at Ploughshares Fund, a global security foundation in Washington, DC, <em><a href= "https://www.amazon.com/dp/1948836998/?tag=skepticcom20-20">The Button</a></em>recounts the terrifying history of nuclear launch authority, from the faulty 46-cent microchip that nearly caused World War III to President Trump’s tweet about his “much bigger & more powerful” button. Perry and Collina share their firsthand experience on the front lines of the nation’s nuclear history and provide illuminating interviews with former President Bill Clinton, former Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Congressman Adam Smith, Nobel Peace Prize winner Beatrice Fihn, senior Obama administration officials, and many others. Shermer, Perry and Collina also discuss:</p> <ul> <li>even if Trump loses the 2020 election and we have President Biden, real risks of nuclear catastrophe exist because of the system, not the person,</li> <li>why the Iran deal was a good one to keep that country from developing nukes,</li> <li>how to deal with North Korea and Perry’s experience with the Kim dynasty,</li> <li>why the Russians are rational actors who do not want nuclear war,</li> <li>terrorists and the possibility of them getting a nuke,</li> <li>why we must eliminate <em>Launch on Warning</em> and <em>First Strike</em>policies,</li> <li>what is in “the football” seen held by men constantly trailing the President?</li> <li>Stanislav Petrov: the man who saved the world, and what this story tells us about the precariousness of our current system,</li> <li>game theory, the logic of deterrence, and how to get around it,</li> <li>why nuclear weapons were not inevitable, and</li> <li>changing the taboo from not <em>using</em> nuclear weapons to not <em>owning</em> them.</li> </ul> <p><strong>William J. Perry</strong> served as Undersecretary of Defense for