Jeffrey Visits the Test Site

Jeffrey Lewis 0:06

You are listening to the Arms Control One Podcast, a podcast on arms control, disarmament, and nonproliferation. I am Dr. Jeffrey Lewis, a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey.

Aaron Stein 0:19

And I am Dr. Aaron Stein, Chief Content Officer at War on the Rocks. Jeffrey, it's good to see you again.

Jeffrey 0:26

It is good to see you. I am starting to think we're going to have to change the introduction because we talk not too much about arms control, disarmament, or nonproliferation, and just a lot about arms races these days. This is a podcast about arms races and, you know, our desire not to die in one.

Aaron 0:44

Maybe we'll call it the fallout shelter. Trademark that quickly.

Jeffrey 0:48

Oh, my God. When I was writing my column at Foreign Policy, which I really should get back to doing, I wanted to name it the mineshaft gap.

Aaron 0:58

I had water in my mouth and I just nearly spit it out. Taking a sip. Okay.

Jeffrey 1:08

Yeah, I think fallout shelter, the mineshaft gap. You know, when you bring me over to War on the Rocks, Aaron, we'll call it the mineshaft gap.

Aaron 1:15

The mineshaft gap. But so you went to go look at a mine shaft in the desert. I sure f***ing did, Aaron. So you got, well, first of all, for listeners, my favorite movie of all time is Swingers. When you first saw Swingers, where were you? I have never seen Swingers.

Jeffrey 1:36

Oh my God. You've never seen Swingers? You'll love Swingers. I know you. I'm sure I would. But when I was at CSIS, there was a colleague who I just, she loved that movie. That's a great movie. And she quoted it all the time. Okay. And just to be a fucking asshole, I like refused to see it. There are all these people in my life who I look back on and I was just like a jerk to them.

And I'm like, why?

Aaron 2:05

She was perfectly lovely. Like, why was I such a dick? Make it up to the listeners and go watch Swingers because people who have seen the movie know it's excellent. And people will know the famous scene where they go to Las Vegas, Vince Vaughn in the car. You went to Las Vegas. Why did you do it?

Jeffrey 2:23

I went to Las Vegas because the Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration held an NGO transparency visit, which is to say road trip to Vegas. We got to go to the test site. Not that we call it the test site anymore. It was incredible.

Aaron 2:44

So I've always wanted to go, obviously have never been. Well, let's start at the beginning. I think I know why they invited you on the road trip, but why did they invite you on the road trip?

Jeffrey 2:55

I basically bullied myself into a visit. I have for some time now been giving a little talk. In which I point out all of the reasons we are alarmed that Russia and China might resume nuclear testing. We've covered it on this podcast. And those reasons relate to the kind of activities we see at the Russian and the Chinese nuclear test sites.

And in the interest of analytic clarity, I always point out that if you were to look at the US test site, you would see the same activity. Now, people get very angry at me when I say this. They get very, very angry. So let me hasten to add, I know that the United States is not preparing a secret nuclear test.

All I am saying is that even with the admirable transparency of NNSA, I see signatures of That I also see in Russia and China. And so one, it may explain what the Russians and the Chinese are doing. But two, the people in Russia and China who want to conduct nuclear tests are almost certainly pointing to the activity in Nevada in order to justify their own activities, which by the way, to be clear, they want to do anyway.

Like this, they are seizing upon the activity at the test site to make their case. And and I've gotten I've gotten some flack for this.

Aaron 4:32

You controversial in the field. I know. I am not drawing an equivalent between these two things.

Jeffrey 4:41

I mean, I definitely am worried that, you know, a Trump administration will want to test. But that's that is separate. I'm just merely making the point that if all you have are satellite photographs of the Russian and the Chinese test site, you are seeing activity that is consistent with possible readiness to resume testing. But you see the same things at our test site where that is not what is happening.

But you see the same things, right? We're excavating tunnels. We have underground facilities, the whole deal.

Aaron 5:09

The mineshaft.

Jeffrey 5:11

And and a consequence of that. Again, I feel like I bullied my way into this trip. I mean, other people got to go too. The consequence of that was, and an essay, was like, look, come see the test site, which I think is a good thing. Oh, totally. Because on the one hand, they're supposed to do this.

Right. We're a free country. We're an open democracy. We're not doing anything bad. Everybody should be generally aware of the things we're doing. And to their credit, NNSA is like, yes, this is the stuff we're doing. But also, I think it helps allay fears. And so NNSA, and again, I really can't say enough nice things about them, although, you know, partly that's because we're saying nice things about friends of the pod, Corey Hinderstein and Marv Adams, who are great, but they really have gone out of their way to try to be open about what's happening at the Nevada National Security site, which I'm not allowed to call the test site because we don't test.

And that includes, by the way, not just this NGO visit, but a similar visit for Rob Floyd, the executive director of the Preparatory Commission of the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty Organization.

Aaron 6:28

So good on them.

Jeffrey 6:30

And I got to do a freaking awesome road trip. That is fundamentally the context.

Aaron 6:35

We're not testing. I know.

Jeffrey 6:36

I know we're not testing.

Aaron 6:37

But you didn't drive there, so you flew to Vegas. I'm curious about the logistics here. Do they pick you up at McCarran in like a black Mercedes van? Or do you, or like, what are the logistics here? An NGO visit. You pay, right?

Jeffrey 6:51

I got to buy my flight. I got to buy my hotel. I got to pay them for the meals that they serve us.

Aaron 6:57

It is the U.S. government. Did you stay at the Luxor or did you pay a little extra?

Jeffrey 7:01

Yeah, so I paid a little less. There wasn't, they chose a very nice hotel. Conference Hotel. Off the Strip. Off the Strip. And I should have stayed there. But have you ever seen the pictures from the 50s when people are at the old hotels in Vegas watching the nuclear tests?

Aaron 7:22

Oh, yeah. Yeah, I just used one for art in the War on the Rocks thing. Yeah, totally.

Jeffrey 7:26

You know the famous one with the neon cowboy with the nuclear test in the back?

Aaron 7:31

Yeah.

Jeffrey 7:32

Okay, that neon cowboy, that's the golden nugget. I mean, I don't I don't know if the cowboy was associated with the gold nugget, but that's the hotel that picture is taken from. It has been a lifelong dream of mine to stay at the gold nugget, which is on the old strip. I know it's seedy.

Aaron 7:49

Yeah, low table minimums. I mean, were you just trying to get $5 roulettes and watered down cranberry vodkas?

Jeffrey 7:56

I just once, once in my life, I wanted to stay at the oldest casino in Vegas, which is the place that people used to watch nuclear tests.

Aaron 8:06

Cool. Okay.

Jeffrey 8:06

I mean, I could have stayed with everybody else at the JW Marriott, which is like, objectively speaking, a much nicer hotel. But like, come on.

Aaron 8:15

You're also the guy who refused to watch Swingers. So it's on brand. It is on brand.

Jeffrey 8:20

So I flew in. I took a cab to the Golden Nugget. You know, ate some spectacular food. Like Vegas is nothing if not a restaurant town. It's got great food. I generally hate Vegas. Full disclosure although I suspect what I hate about Vegas is people like me. Like, I suspect I hate my fellow tourists. If, if you live in Vegas and you're like, actually it's very nice, just get off the Strip, like, fair, fair point. but the Strip is like a, the Strip is like a hicks idea of what a sophisticated place looks like, and that just aggravates me.

Aaron 8:59

My experiences in Vegas, it's like you got a 48-hour clock. Yeah. You got to get out.

Jeffrey 9:05

So anyway, that's Vegas. But then you – we did two days. So day one is there's something called the Desert Research Institute, which is a largely DOE-funded research institute that is responsible for a lot of different programs, some of which involve radiation monitoring. There's a lot of like making the local community feel less insecure about living next to the test site that spent so many years poisoning them.

You know, and like, they take that mission very seriously. And that was actually very cool to hear. I mean, honestly, there's some neat open source stuff, you know, they're basically a community radiation monitors around the site. That way, the community is doing the radiation monitoring, they don't have to sort of just trust DOE. Oh, that's cool. Yeah, it genuinely is.

And, you know, like I would encourage the Russians to do the same. Maybe we could set the Uyghurs up with a community radiation monitor.

Aaron 10:07

That's going to make a really terrible joke about how they would actually monitor radiation with Uyghurs. But let's just figure that one out. Yeah, no.

Jeffrey 10:14

I don't want to think about that. So we did a day of briefings and really, really incredible levels of transparency. So I can walk you through all the places we went, but we got a briefing on every place that we were going to go. And then and then the next day we all got on a bus and we went out to to the national security site, which I really I'm going to keep calling the Nevada National Security Site.

It's actually I'm wrong. It's Nevada National Security Sites, plural. Ones for the alien landing? I can't remember. Yeah, that's right. That's right. Yes. Yes, the Silurians have their own test site. Why is it sites?

Aaron 10:59

Ah, here it is.

Jeffrey 11:01

I guess they have offices in a number of places. All over the country, actually. And so those are the Nevada National Security Sites. It must be linked to the contract. I don't know. Anyway, f*** it, man. It's the test site.

Aaron 11:15

So... So you go in, you get the bus. I assume there's probably an outer ring fence. You get in there and then, you know what, what are they, what are they doing?

Jeffrey 11:22

Okay. So first of all, you know, you're about an hour outside of Vegas, although Vegas has really sprawled in the direction of the test site. So it takes you a long time to get out of Vegas.

Aaron 11:30

So a long time ago, my brother, he was like a very good track athlete and like he had a race out there. And so I've actually like sort of skirted that part. It's about 50 to 60 minutes from like when you leave the strip.

Jeffrey 11:44

That's right. A good portion of which, not half, but maybe like a third of that is now suburban Vegas.

Aaron 11:53

Right. That's where the race was. It was a high school out there.

Jeffrey 11:56

But maybe like the last, I don't know, the last two thirds of it, you know, is pretty empty. You can even today see why they picked it. You know, if you imagine at the time Vegas was not the Vegas we know today, right? It was basically just a little railroad stopover. This place would have felt very remote.

And so you drive. And the test site itself is enormous. So just to give you some perspective, once you do your hour, you get through the security gate, you get checked in, they stop and they let you buy some government coffee. You can use the toilets. Important. Our first stop is P-Tunnel, which is a tunnel into a mesa where the US did nuclear tests and where the US is currently doing some excavation and some conventional explosives as part of a CTBT monitoring exercise.

That's another hour from the entrance into the test site. So that gives you a sense of kind of the scale. Now, it's not a highway. You're not going quite as fast. But it is really, really, really far. So the first place we went was P-Tunnel. And, you know, you've got to get like – you get – You know, a helmet and safety glasses, and you have to have steel-toed boots, or they, you know, put these silly things over your, your toes that you can track your shoes. Yeah, right. You get like a, you get like a, a respirator because you're underground, right? and in case that, you know, you get stuck, you've got a flashlight and then at P Tunnel you get on like, like the world's worst Disney train.

Aaron 13:46

And you go deep in the freaking mountain. Oh, really? Oh, yeah. Oh, that's cool. I didn't think it would be like, oh, wow, all right.

Jeffrey 13:53

Yeah, no, and so they actually brought us, because all the way in the back of P-Tunnel, what they're doing is a few experiments, which, to be clear, I support wholly. And I'm glad NNSA is being transparent about them, because if the Russians and the Chinese did this, we would freak. They're doing decoupling experiments.

Aaron 14:14

Really?

Jeffrey 14:14

They're... They're excavating cavities and they are detonating conventional explosives in the cavities in order to study whether you could decouple a nuclear explosion. Now, I I believe them because I, you know, have some sense of the American political system that. We probably are not going to conduct secret nuclear tests because we can't do s*** secretly.

Aaron 14:45

If the Russians and the Chinese were studying decoupled tests, we would assume it was to cheat.

Jeffrey 14:52

On, on the test band. Yeah. So that's, that's a, I think incredibly important research that I support. It is research that you have to do openly and publish. And so like having an NGO visit come in, I think is really, really valuable because again, if you, if you found a, if you found a paper by somebody, Some guys associated with Rosatom on detecting evasive testing under the CTBT in which they had done decoupled conventional explosions at Nevaezemlia?

Yeah, it would not look great, right?

Aaron 15:29

I could only imagine how Ted Cruz's staff would recycle that into talking points to undermine any arms control agreement. So as part of an information campaign. So yes. Yes.

Jeffrey 15:39

So it's good. So, you know, again, if you step back, if you're the Russians and you're looking at this or the Chinese, you're seeing excavation at P-Tunnel and the spoils getting dumped out in front. They see us actively working a tunnel where we conducted nuclear tests. And then on top of that, there is published literature that demonstrates that excavation is for decoupled tests.

Now, those are conventional tests and those are experiments to verify compliance with the treaty that we all support. But you can see, I think, why transparency is so important.

Aaron 16:19

Yeah, definitely. So that was one. Yeah, it was one. And then you take the Disneyland train out. And then it's like the monorail or like Thunder Mountain. I mean, it's flat.

Jeffrey 16:30

So it's not like Thunder Mountain, but it's not fancy like a monorail. No, I mean, it's a mining. You're basically you're in a jumped up mining cart.

Aaron 16:37

There you go. Okay. And so you get out.

Jeffrey 16:39

It's bumpy.

Aaron 16:41

You get on the bus. Sounds like the Amtrak Northeast Regional. And so then you get out and then you get back on the bus.

Jeffrey 16:47

Yep. And then, you know, the test site's huge. And so, you know, we're on the bus for a really long time. And so after P-Tunnel, we went to BEEF. BEEF? Yeah, BEEF. BEEF is... I never remember the acronym. I mean, the acronym is freaking awesome, right? BEEF is, I believe, the Big... Big Experimental Explosives Facility. Wait, let me look this up.

I got it. You got a visitor's guide? I do. I am in possession of a lovely, lovely... Yeah, here it is. Beef is the Big Explosives Experimental Facility. And this is pretty wild because we got... We got some really, really great briefings. You know, a few years ago... We caught the Obama administration, this is like 10 years ago, doing something called the Source Physics Experiment, where they were doing conventional explosions underground to calibrate sensors associated, again, with nuclear test monitoring.

Yes. And we were super angry that they were doing these and not announcing them. Because, again, they look like low-yield tests. Right. And, again, there's nothing wrong with doing this research. But you have to be transparent about it. And they were doing a press release after the fact, which, you know, basically is fine, but like not ideal.

And so, again, this time they've gotten in the habit of announcing these things in advance. But, you know, these are these are shafts.

Aaron 18:33

Yeah.

Jeffrey 18:33

Right. So these are they're excavating shafts and their shafts and they're putting explosives down holes. And so, again, if you're that, you know, there's a there was actually a New York Times story recently that talked about how freaked out we were that a drill rig showed up at the Chinese test site. Right. It's like, why? Why is there a drill rig there?

And so you can imagine from our perspective, we see a drill rig and we're like, are you preparing to conduct a nuclear test? The Chinese are going to have the same reaction to our drill rig. Again, it's super important that one publish the data. Again, it makes perfect sense. They're trying to understand how... You calibrate the, basically how you estimate the yield.

And there are some nice scientific papers about it. I was a little shocked because we got this briefing and I was like, it was a completely unclassified trip. We've got, you know, foreign nationals on the trip. I mean, it's very open. And we get to the end of the briefing and I'm like, was that really unclassified? They were very frank that the yield estimates of the first North Korean test were off.

And that was because we didn't fully understand how fractures in granite affect the propagation of seismic waves. And so they're like off figuring that out. And like that's valuable and that's useful. And also the place is f***ing called beef.

Aaron 20:01

I love that.

Jeffrey 20:01

You have a sign with a giant cow.

Aaron 20:06

That's pretty awesome. I like that. That sounds like a restaurant you'd find in the casino, perhaps at the Golden Nugget. Oh, my God.

Jeffrey 20:17

Aaron, it is such a good idea to have a steakhouse. There is, in fact, a steakhouse on site, and there was some talk of us going there. It's a kind of famous steakhouse. But as you might imagine, it doesn't get a lot of business because it's really only for official events, and it's only available on certain days.

So we didn't get to do it. I think it's called the Mercury Steakhouse. We didn't get to do it. That's okay, though.

Aaron 20:46

I imagine that steakhouse is like the final scene, or like the bar and the shining, you know, with all those old photographs of people. And I actually mean that, like, I wonder if they have photographs of all the people who've come through there, because there'd be some, I mean, not for the normal person, but for listeners of this podcast, probably some faces you'd want to find out.

Jeffrey 21:06

Yeah. Maybe Jack Nicholson, too. Yeah. And so then we did a couple of other sites. I mean, I'm sparing you... Everything but the highlight was we went down the mine shaft to u1a which is now called pulse that's the underground facility where the u.s does sub critical testing oh really let me look up how deep u1a is because

Aaron 21:41

We had to take, it is 963 feet below the surface. Wow.

Jeffrey 21:49

Again, right, we're all geared up. We got the helmets. We got the whole thing. You know, you got the respirators. And you freaking take an elevator down. And it takes a long time. And it's not like an office elevator. This is an industrial elevator that fits like 40 people and or the dirt that they're tunneling out of the facility.

Okay. And so it's like an old rickety metal elevator. It's not even fully enclosed. Like it doesn't have a door. It's just like a, it's a hoist and they lower you slowly and there's no lights. It's pitch black. Right. So I got underneath and they're like blowing air in and you know, you, it dawns on you. Like I am a thousand feet underground.

If the elevator breaks, it turns out there's a stairwell, but you really don't want to have to do that. I started to briefly have a panic attack. I had to calm myself. It was totally bizarre. But we got to see the rig where the US does subcritical testing. Not through a window. We got to go into the space.

Aaron 22:56

I have a lot of questions. What does it look like? I mean, I know there's pictures out there, but what does it feel like when you're there?

Jeffrey 23:02

Yeah, so the first thing to say about all the tunnels is they're bare walls. Yeah. You know, it's not fancy. It feels like you're in a mine. It might be a big, spacious mine in some places. And then, you know, they put down concrete floors and they put like they had a fancy word for it. But basically, like, you know, there's like plaster and other things to keep the walls from, like, collapsing.

But it's like an unfinished basement. It smells like an unfinished basement.

Aaron 23:36

Okay, I've got a little mold issues, but okay. No, I'm just kidding.

Jeffrey 23:41

No, but you know how you have that wet stone smell in an unfinished basement? That wet earth smell. That's what it smells like. And, you know, it's a tunnel, which means in an office, all of your plumbing and electricity, that stuff is all behind drywall.

Aaron 24:04

Yes, of course.

Jeffrey 24:06

Like I'm sitting in my office now. I've got a drop ceiling. So I don't see the wires running to my lights. I don't see the wires running to the plug in the wall. The junction box is set in the wall. So there's this kind of. Thin veneer in an office space of decoration, and that's all gone. So you know, like your pipes with water are just running along the walls. Yeah, of course. You know, things are elevated, like they're neat and they're orderly. I don't, I don't mean to imply they're not neat and orderly, but it is, it has the feeling of an unfinished space. It's the subterranean loft vibe. Yeah, it's the Soho loft. 900 ground. It's stratospheric levels underground, but the stratosphere in Vegas.

Yes. And so, like, it's pretty wild. You know, and then you have this fairly high-tech equipment for conducting subcritical tests, you know, X-ray cameras and whatnot. And I think what was amazing about it to me was, first, I never expected in a million years that they'd let outsiders down there.

Aaron 25:14

Mm-hmm.

Jeffrey 25:17

And again, I think it's a really great, great, great thing because it's very hard to verify that subcritical tests have no nuclear yield. And the US and Russia have been accusing each other of violating and going over the line constantly. And so to let us down there and be like, no, this is how we do it. This is our process flow.

This is the device. Look around. That's amazing. The fact that they allowed foreign nationals to do that, you know, I think is amazing. I think it underscores the fact that we're like not cheating on the treaty. And it was, you know, like as transparency visits go, right? These are ultimately PR exercises. But it's pretty hard to pull off a PR exercise with highly technical people.

I was one of, you know, I was definitely not anywhere. I mean, there were people who were like proper technical experts on this trip. And pretty much every question they asked got answered. Occasionally, they would bump up against genuinely classified information. And they always got some version of, well, I'm not sure I know the answer to that.

And if I did, I'm not sure I would be able to tell you.

Aaron 26:25

And the polite chuckle?

Jeffrey 26:26

Generally, they were pretty open.

Aaron 26:27

The polite chuckle. So do you think that this would be the same tour? Because I know that the Biden administration has offered to give the Russians a tour of the site itself. Do you think that this would be the same tour? So...

Jeffrey 26:42

I have some sense of the sensitivity of this. They have not offered the Russians a tour. They have abstractly said they would be open to transparency visits. I think the Russians need to ask.

Aaron 26:56

Okay.

Jeffrey 26:59

I think the idea that DOE has said, yes, come, is not quite right. I think DOE has said that they're very open.

Aaron 27:06

So they're brought in international, you know, they're bad eyelashes. You got to walk over to the bar and say like, hey, what's your name? What's your size type thing?

Jeffrey 27:15

I mean, I think that, you know, I think that if the Russians and the Chinese wanted to come, there would be certain expectations of reciprocity and there would be negotiations. And and I think it's just I think it's very important. And I. I sincerely think it is important. I don't mean this in a in a flip way.

I don't think they're just asking willy nilly, like, would you like to come to the test site?

Aaron 27:36

I think they are signaling that they are open to test site transparency. Yeah, exactly. Yes, not to be flippant in the joke about the bad pickup line, but I guess my point is, is if the Russians were to ask and offer a return visit to Novaya Zemlya, do you think it would be the same tour?

Jeffrey 27:55

Yeah, I do. Because in particular, one thing that came out of the visit is I is I think NNSA would be very open to verification measures. So I was going to, you know, we actually yeah, we had been what we've been looking at verification measures here. And like we were trying to design verification measures where you wouldn't wouldn't have to be in the tunnel.

And when I pitched that, they looked at me like I was insane. They're like, no, the best place for the verification measures is in the tunnel. And you're in the tunnel.

Aaron 28:28

So figure out where you want to put your gamma ray detector, kid. Right, exactly. You could put in passive sensors. I mean, you could even go as far as an SD card camera like they have in Iran. So I'm just curious.

Jeffrey 28:43

I think the modalities – you'd have to work out the modalities. But what I think would be possible is I think NNSA would want to make their own detector. I don't think they'd want to let a foreign detector in.

Aaron 28:55

That makes sense to me.

Jeffrey 28:57

I think what you would do is you would have NNSA contract with one of the labs to make a detector, but then you would let international experts, ideally the CTBTO, but I think the CTBTO feels like this is a little too hot to touch right now. This would be like a good joint project for, I don't know, the National Academy of Sciences or something.

To convene an international panel of experts that would like check out the detector to make sure it was like all above board. Like they understood how it worked, that there was nothing weird about it. It wasn't, you know, fake. You might calibrate the detector in a, in an, in an environment. So that everybody believed it was doing what it said it would do.

And then you'd set up the detector. And then when the U S did a subcritical shot The international panel of experts would be like, yeah, yeah, it didn't go nuclear, right? It was a subcritical shot. And that, at least in theory, would be replicable in Russia and China. You know, this is all very difficult because on the one hand, I applaud NSA for their openness and their transparency.

It's sensitive because... It has the potential to make the Russians and Chinese look bad.

Aaron 30:18

And I'm also sighing about how you would even pull this off in our current domestic political debate. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. How dumb they would get real fast.

Jeffrey 30:27

They could get really dumb really fast.

Aaron 30:29

Real dumb, real fast.

Jeffrey 30:31

But, you know, you want... And I think that's why I sort of was so sensitive about like, no, they haven't invited the Russians and the Chinese. I don't think this is a propaganda stunt. No, it doesn't sound like it. Sometimes you make offers that you know the other side is going to refuse and you do it just to make the other side look like an asshole.

Totally. I don't think that's what this is about.

Aaron 30:54

I don't think so either. And I think it's really important, but I think it's really important to say like,

Jeffrey 30:59

This is not about like, well, the US did it. Why can't you do it, Russia? Because then the Russians are just going to be like, they're going to get their backs up and they're, you know. I think this is genuinely constructive. I think this is like, this is why we are doing what we are doing. We know what it looks like in satellite images.

That's why you can come here and look at it. It's unclear what the modalities for doing more would be. But no one is ruling anything out. No one is refusing anything. Right. And so if you had a change in perspective in Moscow or Beijing, I think it would be possible to do some things.

Aaron 31:41

Yeah. And maybe they get to eat at the steakhouse.

Jeffrey 31:47

I mean, yeah. Don't you want to go to the steakhouse? I mean, it's funny because, you know, some years ago, the Chinese invited the U.S. to the test. The Chinese invited U.S. experts to the Chinese test site, government experts, and they expected a reciprocal visit. And then that got all wrapped up in the Wen Ho leave stuff.

Aaron 32:04

Right.

Jeffrey 32:06

And so the Chinese never got their reciprocal visit. And so it's almost like we're just out of sync. And now NNSA is like, we're not inviting you, but we're also not not inviting you, right? There is the possibility of doing something here. But I don't know if Xi Jinping will take it.

Aaron 32:25

The seat next to them at the bar is open. It is up to you to saddle up and make small talk.

Jeffrey 32:33

Yeah. By the way, the last, we did two other cool things. We saw the Sudan crater.

Aaron 32:40

What is the Sudan crater? I'm not familiar with it.

Jeffrey 32:42

Sudan was a large underground nuclear explosion that created a huge crater. Oh, yes, yes, yes.

Aaron 32:48

Okay, yes.

Jeffrey 32:49

And it's, you know, it's one of those things that, It's one of those things that it's very hard to convey the power of nuclear weapons. And you look at the crater and you're like, fuck. And then we went and saw Ice Cap. And Ice Cap, I think, was like, A, cool, but B, it's a nice example of why you need transparency.

When the U.S., Stop testing. You know, that was basically Congress turned off the money.

Aaron 33:26

Mm hmm.

Jeffrey 33:27

Which. The labs are like... And the Brits. It was a US-UK test. The Brits were really annoyed by it. And I think this was a Livermore test. So was Livermore. But also, you guys didn't collaborate with the test ban urge. So that's what happens, right? When you fight tooth and nail, sometimes you lose a tooth. So I think unhappy ending for everybody involved, but whatever.

But that meant that the... Shaft had already been drilled, and the the, the tower in order to emplace the device had already been put there, and it's basically like, in, like for 30 years it's been in a state of suspended animation. I mean, there's no weapon, right? But like, it's all set up, right? It looks like you could do it tomorrow. I mean, I think in practice you probably couldn't, right, like.

But like all the instrumentation trailers are like out.

Aaron 34:33

Right.

Jeffrey 34:33

But like they must like, I can't imagine they're not like filled with rats, right?

Aaron 34:38

I would assume that it's the elements out there in the desert have probably gotten to it.

Jeffrey 34:43

Yeah. I mean, one thing I noticed as I went in and there were like rat traps all over the place, mousetraps, you know, because of like rodents. And like, yeah, I mean, how do you leave a trailer abandoned for 30 years as, you know? Yeah. But, again, if you look at it in a satellite image, you can't see that.

It just looks like it's a test rig ready to go. You don't see the level of degradation. By the way, they were so clever. Ice cap. It was filled with – they had a container for dry ice. They wanted to basically get the nuclear weapon really cold to simulate the temperatures at high altitude for British aircraft carrying the gravity bombs.

It was a test of the performance of the device at very cold temperatures. What would happen if you nearly froze a nuclear weapon and then thawed it out?

Aaron 35:38

Yeah, well, I mean, it sounds like you enjoyed the trip. I had a great time.

Jeffrey 35:42

You know, I'll tell you what, one thing in retrospect that really dawned on me was when you look at satellite imagery all the time, You see the big stuff, but you really need to know the pattern of life of the place. And we happen to be driving by a yard and somebody said, what is this yard with all this equipment?

And they're like, oh, that's the test readiness yard. That's the yard with all the equipment that we are required to maintain by Congress in order to be able to conduct a test in however many, whatever the time period is. Right. And like one, like whatever I, you know, I know that whatever the official time limits, when you actually see the stuff, you're like, oh, this would take longer.

Right. But more importantly, like, oh, that's what I would monitor.

Aaron 36:25

Right. You'd look for trucks or something leaving or coming to and through.

Jeffrey 36:28

Moving that stuff or rearranging it or replacing it.

Aaron 36:32

Yeah.

Jeffrey 36:34

I don't know. It's really great because you really do get a sense of the place you look at online in images and you know that there's a pattern of life there. You have a better sense of what you would see if there actually was a resumption of testing. I certainly left with a sense that it would be much, much harder for them to resume testing than sometimes one hears.

The Trump people had talked about a goal of being able to do a test uninstrumented in six months and You know, it was said to me, and as I looked around, I definitely got the sense that that's probably not realistic, right?

Aaron 37:07

Well, they did bolt a VLS launcher on the back of a trailer.

Jeffrey 37:13

You know, I didn't get... I didn't...

Aaron 37:16

I didn't...

Jeffrey 37:17

I mean... A correct point was made to me, and I didn't do the, like, you have no idea what these idiots might do. I have to say... It's like...

Aaron 37:27

Like, yeah, I dig a hole and drop the fucker in. Let's go.

Jeffrey 37:32

There was a there was a serious point being made about like the actual test readiness of the site. And and I want to honor that because that's fundamentally correct. You know, now, could some Yahoo set off an atmosphere, an uninstrumented atmospheric test?

Aaron 37:49

Yeah. You know, Donald Trump wants to get a big Aurora Borealis over his tower, right? He wants to paint something. The nuclear is so beautiful.

Jeffrey 38:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah. But I mean, it was good. Again, it was good. You know, you watch a place in – for me who looks at a site through satellite images to actually be there and get a sense of the place – Nothing is as easy in real life as it is on paper. And so to really see that, it was good.

And my guess is if the Chinese and the Russians ever let us see their test sites, we would have similar realizations. We might learn some things we don't like, but I think we might also realize that like, oh, yeah, it's... You know, it's not quite as imminent as we're worried about. We might have some more time. We could verify that we weren't testing.

I think you just, the world gets more complicated in a positive way when you actually get on site.

Aaron 38:52

Was that a clandestine call to get Novaya Zemlya's, let's say, catering department to sponsor the next show to fly us out there to do live shows, interviews and stuff like that? The Tucker Carlson of the Arms Control Podcast.

Jeffrey 39:07

Oh, my God. Vladimir, get Tucker to Novaya Zemlya. And then, you know, Fox is going to need an expert. And I...

Aaron 39:19

I'm about to say, you're not going. Are you insane?

Jeffrey 39:23

No. No way. I mean, I'd love to go to Novaya Zemlya. I'd love to go to the Chinese test site. Final question. I want to go to Punggye-ri. I'd love to go to the North Korean test site. Actually, when the North Koreans were closing up the test site and they were inviting international experts, or they were inviting rather media organizations, I was talking to a media organization like...

I could go. I could go. But then that organization didn't get invited. And I'm not sure that they would have taken me anyway. But I was like, oh, come on.

Aaron 39:51

I want to go. Last question. Did you wave at a satellite going over so that you could find yourself?

Jeffrey 39:57

Oh, funny. You know, I did look a couple days later to see if we caught the bus. But no. No.

Aaron 40:04

OK. Anything else we need to hit? Did you go directly back to the airport? Or did you have one more night at the glorious Golden Nugget?

Jeffrey 40:12

I had one more night at the, the glorious golden nugget, you know, like a bunch of us went out for dinner. It was a great time. I, let me again, close by saying, I think NNSA did a really amazing thing. And I'm not saying that I agree with every choice they've made. But I really was – if the goal was to convey that they were both serious about investing in the science that we would need to continue to verify and the non-testing of nuclear weapons and or characterize those weapons if someone does test them, and in terms of doing that in as transparent a way as possible that's both consistent with national security but also tries to reduce international tensions as much, I mean, I think – I can't imagine.

I can't imagine them doing more. I mean, I saw senior US officials engage with technical personnel in a really direct and frank way. And it's like, I mean, you know, like I. Not to be all sappy, but like sometimes, you know, you're really happy to live in a free democratic country where people feel accountable. And it's not something you're making them do.

It's that they feel like they are part of a democratic country where they're accountable and they want to explain why they do what they do. And it's like, yeah, it was good. That was really that was the U.S. government at its best. Yeah.

Aaron 41:47

No, I mean, other than other than missing out on the steakhouse, I mean, just anonymous complaint. But in all seriousness, no, it sounds like the coffee sucked.

Jeffrey 41:56

At least you didn't have to pay for it. That was America in a nutshell. Patriotic, honest, hardworking, smart people who feel accountable to their citizenry and drink terrible, terrible coffee.

Aaron 42:09

But usually you have to pay for it because of like, I always say the corrupt practices. Oh, I paid for it. I had to buy myself. You have to pay for it because heaven forbid the government be able to give you a 30 cents cup of coffee. Otherwise, conflict of interest and corruption. Meanwhile, all of this sort of shit.

Jeffrey 42:25

Permeates you out i mean you know the flip side is i'm i'm guessing the coffee in in nevaezemlia probably not any better so but you know but they would give it to you they would give it to you they would give you they would give you the free coffee along with a big rationable yeah and then they would give you a thumb drive as a thank you to plug in your computer on the way out

Aaron 42:48

Here are presentations on thumb drive for friendship and peace. Friendship and peace thumb drive. It's Vadim's thumb drive for a long time. But I did get a free cup of coffee along with my malware. That's right. Okay. So cheers to Vadim. Long time. Long time, I guess. Russian analog on the Arms Control Walk podcast. Sometimes known as the Arms Racing Podcast.

Vadim has bag. Vadim has bag. And we are racing... To the point where we are off the rails, which means it's time to end this show. And if you want to support the show, patreon.com slash ACW podcast, you can get on the inside joke of who exactly Vadim is. You can ask the Slack channel and you will find out.

$3 if you're a student, $5 if you're not. The last refuge on this planet for the arms control wonk nerd community. It is the best place in town. Patreon.com slash ACW podcast. Jeffrey, I'll be just there.

Jeffrey 43:51

We have that. We go.