A local expert helps put today’s geopolitical landscape into perspective.

David Schmalz here. Back in 2017, I interviewed Jeffrey Lewis, director of the East Asia Nonproliferation Program at Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey. In other words, he studies nukes (and other weapons), and the threats they present. 

It was a chilling interview, for me—talking about scenarios that could lead to nuclear conflict—but for Lewis, it was just another day at the office, something he thinks about every day.

I interviewed him again in 2019 about his speculative novel, The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against The United States, which envisions a scenario in which the U.S. stumbles into nuclear conflict with North Korea. 

Lewis’ Washington D.C-based colleague Joe Cirincione told me at the time that Lewis is “probably the most-quoted nuclear policy expert in the field today.”

He also founded a blog and podcast, both called Arms Control Wonk, and in 2022, was appointed to the State Department’s International Security Advisory Board, which advises the Secretary of State on arms control and nonproliferation, among other things. 

And Tuesday, on the social media platform previously known as Twitter, I saw Lewis made a series of posts that starts: “Russia conducted an exercise in which it practiced starting a nuclear war. A short thread.” 

Suffice to say, I clicked. 

The thread is Lewis’ analysis of a series of images in which he identifies types of vehicles and missiles, and it concludes with, “So, yeah, the Russians really practiced starting a nuclear war and went out of their way to make sure that is super, duper clear. Good times.”

After reading it, I was curious about what his assessment is of the risk for nuclear conflict now versus the past times we spoke, and I was able to connect with him yesterday. 

“I think everything [Vladimir Putin] is doing right now is pretty canny and pretty logical. He’s trying to raise the risk so we’ll be more cautious in what we do,” Lewis says. 

As to whether Putin would ever want to burn it all down if he saw his power slipping away, Lewis says, “He wants us to ask that question…I actually think deep down he’s pretty rational.”

Lewis brought up a story about how, in 2022, when Putin was still social distancing when meeting with world leaders and even his own generals, he was photographed standing side-by-side with a group of Aeroflot flight attendants.

“This is a rich man who still loves his life,” Lewis says. “He wants us to be nervous. He still wants to drink vodka and cavort with stewardesses.” That said, he adds, “There’s always a risk of something going wrong.”

I also asked him about the implications of the death of Ebrahim Raisi, the Iranian president who died May 19 in a helicopter crash in a fogged-over mountain range, and he essentially says that nobody knows. “This throws Iranian politics into complete upheaval.”

He adds that two of his grad students identified the crash site through videos, and Lewis says the mountain the helicopter crashed into was extremely steep, and he thinks the odds that the helicopter was shot down are nil—the terrain would make it impossible. It was foggy, and the bottom line, Lewis says, is “helicopters are f-ing dangerous.”

The geopolitical landscape, too, feels particularly dangerous to me right now, but I’m grateful we have experts in our local community like Lewis who can help us put it into perspective.

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