S4 E9 - Baby Nukes: When a Little Boom Is All You Need

Over the course of our nuclear history, smaller (potentially more usable) nuclear weapons have come in all shapes and sizes — from so-called backpack bombs to the Davy Crockett nuclear rifle... And last year, the US deployed a new one. But, what exactly are these things? Do we need them? And what does the deployment of a new generation of them reveal about the US’s nuclear posture? On this episode of Things That Go Boom, we talk about low-yield nuclear weapons -- or what we’ve affectionately termed, “baby nukes.” GUESTS: Matt Korda, Federation of American Scientists; Rose Gottemoeller, Stanford University ADDITIONAL READING: The Littlest Boy, Adam Rawnsley and David Brown. Nuclear Notebook: United States Nuclear Weapons, 2021, Hans Kristensen and Matt Korda. After the Apocalypse: US Nuclear Policy, Heather Williams, Vipin Narang, Beatrice Finh, and Togzhan Kassenova.