What if Russia wins?

如果俄罗斯获胜呢?

The Global Story

2025-11-03

26 分钟
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Discussion of nuclear weapons has returned both to our news cycle and to the cultural conversation. Last week, President Donald Trump said that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons. Meanwhile, several recent films and books imagine a near future scenario where a nuclear attack is threatened or carried out. Tristan talks to Carlo Masala, professor of international relations at the Bundeswehr University Munich and author of If Russia Wins. His book imagines a scenario where Russia attacks a Nato country to see whether the alliance will respond, risking a nuclear confrontation. Masala believes Russia is already engaged in ‘hybrid warfare’ with Europe, and he wrote his book as a warning to the west. Producers: Viv Jones, Aron Keller, Xandra Ellin and Valerio Esposito Executive producer: James Shield Mix: Travis Evans Senior news editor: China Collins Image: A photo published by Swedish armed forces that it says shows a Russian mig-31 fighter jet that took part in the violation of Estonian airspace. Swedish Armed Forces/ Reuters. Credits: The War Game (1965) / Dir: Peter Watkins / BBC Dr Strangelove (1964) / Dir: Stanley Kubrick / Columbia Pictures A House of Dynamite (2025) / Dir: Kathryn Bigelow / Netflix
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  • Last week, Donald Trump said that the US would resume testing nuclear weapons.

  • We don't know exactly what he means yet, but if it's detonating nuclear warheads,

  • these would be the first US nuclear tests since 1992.

  • Also last week, Vladimir Putin announced that Russia had successfully tested two new,

  • so-called, super weapons.

  • One of them is a nuclear-powered underwater drone.

  • that's designed to create a tsunami that could overwhelm a city.

  • All of a sudden, nuclear weapons are on our minds, more than they used to be.

  • Lots of military analysts seem to think we're in a dangerous moment.

  • Some of them say that the NATO alliance is already in a kind of war with Russia,

  • and that Russia is planning a major escalation in that war, and it could happen soon.

  • Russia says it, quote, poses no threat to NATO member states.

  • Today on the show,

  • we'll be talking to a writer who's been thinking a lot about this and who's warning that despite its denials,

  • Russia has the upper hand.

  • From the BBC, I'm Tristan Redmond in London.

  • And today on The Global Story, are Russia and the West already at war?

  • And could NATO be finished unless it toughens up?

  • At moments of great uncertainty,

  • you'll often see books or films that lay out catastrophic scenarios.