Radio War Nerd #286 — The XB-70 Valkyrie, Part II (with Annibale)
Guest: Annibale
Recorded: June 27, 2021
RWN guest Annibale returns for part 2 of our series on the XB-70 Valkyrie (listen to part 1: RWN #284). In this episode, pick up from JFK's decision to cancel the Valkyrie... discuss the CIA's SR-71 spy plane...and the fallout from the cancelation of the Valkyrie, including the Skybolt Crisis and the Nassau Agreement that signaled the end of British independence, and France's withdrawal from NATO....
Images:
*SR-70 Blackbird
*SST design #1: North American Aviation
*SST design #2: Boeing 2707
*Sukhoi T-4
*Tu-125 design
Follow Annibale on Twitter.
Listen to Annibale's RWN series: Italy's Years Of Lead (#134, #135,#136, #139); Italian Resistance in WW2 (#131); Italy on the Eastern Front in WWII (#226, #227, #228, #231, #236); Venetian Empire (#207, #208, #209, #214); The Hundred Years War (#175, #176, #177, #180, #182, #183), The 1970 Borghese Coup (#264, #265).
Buy John Dolan's book "The War Nerd Iliad" and his audiobook "Pleasant Hell".
Interlude music by Brendon Anderegg. Check out his group Mountains here.
Total time: 1:51:55
Comments (19)
good a time as any for the annibale nuke strategy ep
Thank you for explaining why Green Lantern Hal Jordan, of DC comics, has a massive cock
The discussion is always fantastic. Still, this episode benefits greatly from Annibale. A clever guy, and I love the way he talks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JS91p-vmSf0
Wait for it, got an abc man of glass gone. Cant change the arrow of time, nor fix stupid, no close your eyes and accept that even with all the bs where you are is good.
On topic the nuclear deterence strategies are fallacies. It's not the nukes that have prevented holocaust it's social cohesion. It's a red ocean dogma I'll be worser. It doesn't line up beside for the people who only want to be at the top of the hyrarchies. Neither with wat we share being proud about as societies or people.
Anyone read the NY times piece with the TPLF 1337 h*cker, releasing their pow on Friday if there are no provocations
Great episode, guys. Living in Hong Kong the discussion of mutually assured destruction further emphasizes the futility and ridiculousness of the US "defending Taiwan" in the event of a China-Taiwan conflict. The notion is preposterous. Why would America risk nuclear war for the sake of Taiwan, a place most Americans couldn't find on a map?
I was listening to a discussion involving a former aide to Colin Powell and he said that what Trump had done was to openly commit the US to defend Taiwan whereas before it was never clear to the Taiwanese whether they would or would not.
It fun hearing about the Concord in context. I just finished 'Dead Lies Dreaming' by Charles Stross. It has an armed Concord to nuke Lovecraftian horrors. And is the getaway ride for the US President after Cthulhu takes over the NSA.
Of course the whole episode was great.
Also, John: have you ever read A Colder War by Charles Stross? It’s a Cold War/Cthulhu mythos novella (maybe an afternoon’s reading). It’s good, and mentions those nuclear ramjet loitering missiles you guys referenced in the first episode. EDIT: I think the name of that goofy airplane novel was Firefox.
Colder War is honestly what got me interested in nuclear weapons procurement/strategy. It’s like one of the minor Old Testament prophets to the war nerd gospel
ANNIBALE 👏 NUCLEAR 👏 STRATEGY 👏 SPIN-OFF 👏 PODCAST “It’s Complicate, With Your Host Annibale”
I got my second vaccine shot (moderna) about a month ago, and I’ve been treating the virus as if it is dead and gone, at least as far as I’m concerned. I’m sure it will have local spikes in communities with low vaccine coverage, but until I see something which shows that it is still a threat to vaccinated individuals the pressure I felt to wear a mask or socially distance has almost entirely dissipated. Though I have been wearing a mask indoors simply to reduce exposure to other respiratory viruses. How are other war nerds treating this particular plague?
Same here (in Canada), and the ambient dread feels like it’s slowly dissipating—albeit in an anticlimactic way.
You guys gotta address how fast things are deteriorating in Afghanistan and how quickly Afghan troops are surrendering to Taliban.
Yeah plus Rumsfeld's dead. A retrospective of that era and prospects for the future (Afghanistan civil war?) would be tre interesting.
Nice! I can't listen to this on a bicycle ride, my usual preferred podcast listening activity, as I would die of heat stroke. But I will find something