Things That Go Boom

Last night it looked like we were headed for war. Iran fired more than a dozen missiles at two military bases in Iraq in response to US escalation in the region. How worried should we be? And, now that we know that President Trump is willing to take the most extreme option offered (ie: killing Iranian Gen. Soleimani with a drone) should we be even more concerned about his authority to launch nukes...

When we left off with our second season, there were... a few things happening with Iran… And Amb. William Burns has a unique perspective -- he's been down this road with Iran before, as one of the architects of the 2015 nuclear deal. We ask Burns for a gut check on the current situation, from Iran's threats to ramp up uranium enrichment, to the fallout from President Trump's 'exchange of love lett...

The first clue something was wrong came in the form of an alert on Yegi Rezaian’s phone. Where I grew up,” she says, “these things don’t happen by accident.” Within hours, Yegi and her husband, Washington Post journalist Jason Rezaian, found themselves in Iran’s notorious Evin prison. And interrogations quickly turned surreal. Jason’s captors seemed convinced his Kickstarter campaign to bring avoc...

If you want to know how sanctions are playing out in Iran — look no further than the classified ads. You’ll find folks selling unused cosmetics, pets, and… something even more unusual. But you might also come across people like Alireza Jahromi, an entrepreneur with a chain of trendy burger joints. He says sanctions are like a tsunami— destructive. But if you know how to surf, you grab your board a...

Money in politics is a little bit like an iceberg — there’s the stuff you can see, like lobbying firms, and then there’s all the stuff below the waterline. On this episode of Things That Go Boom… we wade into the swamp. We focus on one of the loudest groups that weighed in on the Iran nuclear deal to get a better sense of how the system works. The story that emerges includes a Greek shipping magna...

Before they were enemies, the US and Iran used to have a thing. In fact, we started their nuclear program. Like any failed relationship… it’s not just one thing that led us all here. Years of misinformation, politics, greed, reality tv, and some real security interests on both sides brought us to this point. This is the story of how the US and Iran broke up -- because you can’t truly understand th...

Jake Sullivan is no James Bond. He's a nice kid from Minnesota. But Sullivan's top secret diplomacy may have staved off catastrophe as the U.S. pursued the Iran nuclear deal. On this episode, we dig into how diplomacy gets done -- and, not the Hollywood-movie version. (Diplomacy, it turns out, isn’t as sexy as Bond.) This is the real-life version, where sleep-deprived people pore over thousands of...

Time magazine called Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster a “pre-eminent warrior-thinker.” President Trump called him a pain. So when McMaster left the White House to be replaced by the hawkish John Bolton, foreign policy experts saw the writing on the wall. The Iran nuclear deal was next on the chopping block. In this episode, we track how advisors clashed right up to the moment Trump yanked the United States...

Prepping a fallout shelter might sound like an exercise from an era of soda fountains and hula hoops. But for Ron Hubbard, president of Atlas Survival Shelters, business is, well… booming. Ron says he sold a shelter a month when he started out in 2011. Now he sells about one a day — from a barebones hideout to a luxury model that doubles as a wine cellar. So, why are 60s-style underground fallout...

It’s been called President Obama’s signature foreign policy achievement -- so why does the Trump administration think it was the “worst deal ever” made? On this season of Things That Go Boom, we’ll take a look at the Iran deal -- but this isn’t an Iran deal explainer. This is a story about how America stays out of a nuclear war. And the answer is messier than you might think. The government does n...

We don’t always talk about the things that scare us most. First, Ally Harpootlian's grandmother Betty kept a secret life of poetry locked away. Then, a whole new way to look at Shakespeare - and his relationship to war. Stephan Wolfert tells Laicie how he helps veterans open up and talk.

How Nancy Sinatra’s #1 hit, "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'," became a military anthem. Then, a bunch of students at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD) try to change the world —  and eliminate the threat of nuclear weapons — with design.

In this episode, Laicie explores white nationalism, the Haitian revolution, and the impacts of nuclear weapons production on the Navajo Nation – and goes all the way back to America’s founding to ask, “What is this thing we call national security? And who does it protect?”   Turns out, there’s no easy answer.

Two true stories about nuclear false alarms. Plus, what deterrence has to do with being an eleven-year-old boy, and a deeper dive into the Trump administration’s assault on diplomacy. 

One year ago, Donald J. Trump became the President of the United States. Since then, it seems like the world has exploded. North Korea, Russia, Charlottesville. The threats are all around. Enter Things That Go Boom , a new podcast from PRI and Inkstick Media. Hosted by Laicie Heeley, Things That Go Boom   digs deeper into US foreign policy and the ins, outs, and whathaveyous of what keeps us safe....