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things that go boom fallout

Nothing Good Happens After Midnight

Are we headed for nuclear war?

Words: Laicie Heeley
Pictures: Marc Johns
Date:

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 shelters no longer so, well, underground?

Nuclear expert Sharon Squassoni tells us the threat of nuclear war is as grave now as the darkest days of the Cold War. One reason for the heightened concern is President Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran Nuclear Deal. But that decision also tells us a lot about how US foreign policy is shifting. Could the decision to withdraw render the US irrelevant? Did it make us safer? Or should we all be building fallout shelters in our backyards?

The first episode of Things That Go Boom’s new season — FALLOUT — is available now!

Author bio

Laicie Heeley

Editor in Chief

Laicie Heeley is the founding CEO of Inkstick Media, where she serves as Editor in Chief of the foreign policy magazine Inkstick and Executive Producer and Host of the PRX- and Inkstick-produced podcast, Things That Go Boom. Heeley’s reporting has appeared on public radio stations across America and the BBC, where she’s explored global security issues including domestic terrorism, disinformation, nuclear weapons, and climate change. Prior to launching Inkstick, Heeley was a Fellow with the Stimson Center’s Budgeting for Foreign Affairs and Defense program and Policy Director at the Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation. Her publications include work on sanctions, diplomacy, and nuclear arms control and nonproliferation, along with the first full accounting of US counterterrorism spending after 9/11.

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