--:-- [Up First theme music plays]
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Israel attacked the studios of Iran's state TV news channel in a fifth day of fighting. Israeli leaders say they are not ruling out Iran's supreme leader as a military target, so what's Israel's goal in a steadily widening war?
--:-- A Martinez: I'm Steve Inskeep with A. Martinez, and this is Up First from NPR News.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: Prosecutors gave a detailed account of the man accused of killing a Minnesota lawmaker and her husband. This was a targeted attack against individuals who answered the call to public service.
--:-- A Martinez: The suspect had a notebook with the names of dozens of targets, quote, mostly or all Democrats.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: What does the security video reveal about his actions?
--:-- A Martinez: Also, states reached a new settlement with the Sackler family and Purdue Pharma, ending the family's ability to sell opioids in the U.S. Stay with us. We've got all the news you need to start your day.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Fernando Madeira describes how BetterHelp Online Therapy has helped him.
--:-- Steve Inskeep: President Trump left a G7 summit in Canada a day ahead of schedule. The president said it was to focus on the rapidly escalating conflict between Israel and Iran. He also posted a warning on his social media platform, telling Iranians to immediately evacuate their capital.
--:-- A Martinez: For more, we're joined by NPR's Hadil Alshalchi in Tel Aviv.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: So considering President Trump's warning, what's the mood like in Tehran right now?
--:-- A Martinez: Well, we know that people are very anxious. There is an atmosphere of panic and confusion in Tehran today. People are stocking up on food. Tehran streets are quiet, especially at night, which is when Israel carries out most of its strikes.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: NPR reached out to a woman named Baran in Tehran. She asked us to only use her first name because the situation is so sensitive in Iran right now. She said she and her family tried to leave Tehran yesterday but had to turn around.
--:-- A Martinez: You can feel the fear, hear the fear in her voice. She says they couldn't fill up their tank. All gas stations had lines a couple miles long and people were waiting up to four hours for fuel.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: The roads out of the city are also bumper to bumper traffic. So leaving, evacuating Tehran is no easy feat right now.
--:-- A Martinez: Now, Israel's ambassador to the UN told us last week that preemptive strikes were meant to prevent Iran from putting together a nuclear weapon. So five days in, how has Israel's messaging and actual targets changed?
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: I mean, you're right. So almost immediately after the start of the attack on Friday morning, Israel struck military targets, killing top security officials like the chief of staff of Iran's army. It also struck three nuclear facilities, including the main one called Natanz.
--:-- A Martinez: But now, Israel is expanding its attacks. For example, yesterday, the Israeli military attacked the studio complex of Iran's state news channel.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: You know, there's a video online of the moment this happened. You hear the anchor speak and then the explosion. You know, in the video, you see the anchor flee the studio and pieces of the roof start to fall on top of her head.
--:-- A Martinez: Israel's defense minister confirmed the attack, saying, quote, we will strike the Iranian dictator everywhere.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: So now the question is, is the political apparatus fair game now? Will Israel go for Iran's supreme leader next, for example?
--:-- A Martinez: Yeah, so if Israel does that, I mean, does this mean this war changes from nuclear capabilities to regime change?
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: So the Israeli military has said that it's been instructed to dismantle Iran's nuclear capabilities, not specifically for regime change.
--:-- A Martinez: But in an interview on ABC yesterday, correspondent Jonathan Karl asks Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu this question. So are you going to target the supreme leader?
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: Look, we're doing what we need to do. I'm not going to get into the details.
--:-- A Martinez: So, you know, Netanyahu hasn't ruled it out.
--:-- A Martinez: Where does this put the United States now?
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: So, so far, the U.S. has only helped with defending Israel with the interception of missiles.
--:-- A Martinez: Trump has always said that Iran, he doesn't want Iran to have a nuclear weapon. He says he has, but a preference is to do this via a deal.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: He said that maybe Israel's war may force Iran to make a deal. But now, you know, Iran pulled out of the talks.
--:-- A Martinez: So now, as the war intensifies, all eyes may be on whether or not Trump changes course and decides to directly get involved in the war.
--:-- A Martinez: NPR's Hadil Alshalchi in Tel Aviv, thank you very much.
--:-- Hadil Alshalchi: You're very welcome.
--:-- A Martinez: The man suspected of killing a Minnesota state lawmaker and her spouse and wounding another lawmaker and his wife now faces federal and state murder charges.
--:-- Meg Anderson: Yeah, Belter is facing six federal charges, including two counts of murder for the killings of Minnesota State Representative Melissa Hortman and her husband.
--:-- A Martinez: Those charges can carry the death penalty if he's convicted.
--:-- Meg Anderson: He's also facing federal charges for shooting State Senator John Hoffman and his wife.
--:-- A Martinez: At the state level, officials charged Belter with two counts of second-degree murder and two counts of attempted second-degree murder.
--:-- Meg Anderson: But officials say they do plan to pursue first-degree murder charges.
--:-- A Martinez: Okay, Now federal authorities released more details yesterday. What did they have to say?
--:-- Meg Anderson: That right. And the details officials describe about what happened are really chilling.
--:-- A Martinez: Belter allegedly went to the Hoffman residence first where video of the exchange was recorded on a security camera.
--:-- Meg Anderson: That video shows a man wearing a hyper-realistic silicone mask and dressed like a police officer. He knocks and yells that he's the police and to open the door.
--:-- A Martinez: Here's acting U.S. Attorney Joseph Thompson at a press conference yesterday describing what happened next.
--:-- Meg Anderson: Senator Hoffman and his wife, Yvette, came to the door. When they opened the door, Belter shined the flashlight in their faces and said there had been a shooting reported in the House.
--:-- A Martinez: Belter asked if they had any weapons. When Belter lowered his flashlight, which he had shined in their face, they realized that he was not a police officer.
--:-- Meg Anderson: The man officials allege is Belter began shooting right after that, and Hoffman's daughter, Hope, is the one who called 911.
--:-- A Martinez: After that shooting, Belter allegedly went to the homes of two other state lawmakers but was not able to get to them. Then he allegedly went to Hortman's home where officials say he killed her and her husband.
--:-- Meg Anderson: Now, officials there are saying that all of this was a targeted political attack.
--:-- A Martinez: Why are they saying that?
--:-- Meg Anderson: Yeah, so there was a notebook found inside the alleged shooter's car, which we've learned more about now.
--:-- A Martinez: It contained a hit list with the names of at least 45 lawmakers and officials in Minnesota and several other states and at the federal level.
--:-- Meg Anderson: It is now confirmed that they were mostly or all Democrats.
--:-- A Martinez: Here's the FBI special agent in charge of the Minneapolis field office, Alvin Winston.
--:-- Meg Anderson: This was a targeted attack against individuals who answered the call to public service.
--:-- A Martinez: Let me say this clearly. Political violence has no place in this country.
--:-- Meg Anderson: Police also recovered six guns from the scene. Most of those were found in the abandoned car.
--:-- A Martinez: And they say that, you know, if the alleged suspect had not been forced to flee, they think he would have kept going on his rampage.
--:-- Meg Anderson: What's going to happen next?
--:-- A Martinez: Yeah. So Belter is now in federal custody. On June 27th, he's going to have a preliminary hearing.
--:-- Meg Anderson: That's the time that a judge will decide whether or not to set bail.
--:-- A Martinez: All right. That's NPR's Meg Anderson.
--:-- Meg Anderson: Meg, thanks.
--:-- A Martinez: You're welcome.
--:-- A Martinez: One of the darkest, most complicated chapters of the U.S. opioid crisis may finally be nearing an end.
--:-- Brian Mann: Well, it's really huge. Opioid pain medications used to be doled out very cautiously by doctors and hospitals.
--:-- A Martinez: And what we've learned in legal documents made public during this court fight is that under the leadership of members of the Sackler family, Purdue Pharma convinced regulators in the healthcare industry OxyContin could be used a lot more liberally, they said, without a huge risk of addiction or overdose.
--:-- Brian Mann: And that turned out not to be true.
--:-- A Martinez: Ryan Hampton is an addiction activist now. He was hooked on OxyContin for a decade.
--:-- Brian Mann: It completely destroyed my life. It took almost everything that I had away from me.
--:-- A Martinez: And Purdue Pharma has pled guilty twice to federal crimes for false marketing.
--:-- Brian Mann: The Sacklers were never charged with crimes, and they've denied any wrongdoing.
--:-- A Martinez: But a lot of public health experts believe this company's actions cleared the way for the opioid fentanyl crisis that killed more than 50,000 people last year alone.
--:-- Brian Mann: So Purdue Pharma is in bankruptcy now and there's a new deal that states have signed off on.
--:-- A Martinez: What's new in this deal?
--:-- Brian Mann: Yeah, so the big change is this deal would no longer force people who believe they were harmed by OxyContin to drop civil lawsuits that are directed at members of the Sackler family.
--:-- A Martinez: The last attempt at a deal that was overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court included broad legal protections for the Sacklers.
--:-- Brian Mann: That was really controversial.
--:-- A Martinez: Under this deal, the Sacklers are expected to pay roughly $6.5 billion out of their personal fortunes.
--:-- Brian Mann: They'll give up ownership of the company, but they won't get that broad immunity from lawsuits.
--:-- A Martinez: How will this money be spent if this deal is finalized?
--:-- Brian Mann: Yeah, most of the money, including a billion dollars coming from Purdue Pharma's company coffers, will go to states and communities over the next 15 years.
--:-- A Martinez: Activists hope this money will be spent helping more people in addiction get better treatment and health care.
--:-- Brian Mann: One thing I'm hearing a lot of concern about, though, is that this money could wind up redirected just to prop up existing programs.
--:-- A Martinez: That's because the Trump administration is now trying to make deep cuts in federal spending.
--:-- Brian Mann: Also, $850 million of this money is going to go to individual victims and families harmed by OxyContin.
--:-- A Martinez: Ryan Hampton, the activist I spoke to, said he only expects to receive about $3,500.
--:-- Brian Mann: And for $3,500 to be a paycheck to absolve Purdue's role in destroying my life is a meaningless gesture.
--:-- A Martinez: But at this point, I'm ready to put this behind me.
--:-- Brian Mann: So as we near the end of this legal battle over OxyContin, Hampton and others I've been talking to say they're left with really big questions here about whether this led to any kind of real justice.
--:-- A Martinez: Brian, you've been reporting on this a long time.
--:-- Brian Mann: Really quick, you mentioned the end of this legal battle, but does this story ever really truly have an end?
--:-- A Martinez: Well, right now we're still seeing tens of thousands of people die from opioid deaths every year.
--:-- Brian Mann: And so this public health crisis continues.
--:-- A Martinez: That's NPR addiction correspondent, Brian Mann.
--:-- Brian Mann: Brian, thank you.
--:-- A Martinez: Thank you.
--:-- A Martinez: And that's up first for Tuesday, June 17th.
--:-- A Martinez: I'm E. Martinez. And I'm Steve Inskeep.
--:-- A Martinez: There's an easy way to stay connected to the news and podcasts from the NPR network, and that is the NPR app.
--:-- A Martinez: You hear community coverage from your local station, which is what makes NPR different from any other network, the local stations across this country.
--:-- A Martinez: You also hear stories from around the world and podcast suggestions based on what you like.
--:-- A Martinez: Download the NPR app in your app store.
--:-- A Martinez: We've got one more thing for you inquisitive types.
--:-- A Martinez: It's from some of the most curious folks we got here, our colleagues at NPR's shortwave podcast.
--:-- A Martinez: They've been digging into the science behind the headlines, specifically the feasibility of a U.S. missile defense system modeled after the Israeli missile defense system called Iron Dome.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Hi Shortwaivers, I'm here with NPR science correspondent Jeff Brumfield.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So Jeff, since last week Israel has been attacking Iran nuclear facilities along with many other targets around the country. What's happening there?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That right. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says he took this action because Iran has been stockpiling enriched uranium by some estimates enough to produce about 10 nuclear weapons if they chose to do so.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And Netanyahu basically said that this was a preemptive attack to stop Iran's nuclear program.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And in response, Iran has fired hundreds of missiles, many of which have struck targets in central Israel.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And the Trump administration has been following this closely in part because Israel has a pretty sophisticated missile defense system, right, Jeff?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah, that's right. Israel's missile defense system colloquially is known as Iron Dome.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And President Trump is fascinated by it.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Earlier this year, he made a speech to Congress and in it, there was a big request.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I'm asking Congress to fund a state-of-the-art Golden Dome Missile Defense Shield to protect our homeland, all made in the USA.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Golden Dome. Trump is sort of riffing off the Iron Dome name there.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And Trump has talked about Golden Dome quite a bit during his campaign.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: He wants to see it built during his second term.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: This is a very dangerous world. We should have it. We want to be protected, and we're going to protect our citizens like never before.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So today on the show, we'll talk about Israel's missile defense system and what a similar system could look like in the U.S.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Can it be done, and how much will it cost?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I'm Emily Kwong. And I'm Jeff Brumfield.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And you're listening to Shortwave, the science podcast from NPR.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Okay, Jeff, let's start by talking a little bit about what we're seeing in Israel right now.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah, so I actually want to back up a second just briefly to talk about the events after October 7th, 2023.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That was, of course, when Hamas militants attacked Israeli civilians along the Gaza border.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Along with that attack, there were thousands of rockets fired out of Gaza, and the Iron Dome missile defense system intercepted many of those rockets.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And actually, since the start of the conflict, Iron Dome has been very busy intercepting rockets from Gaza, intercepting rockets from Lebanon.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And the way it works is really interesting.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Basically, it is a network system of missile launchers that are tied to radars and computers.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And so when they see incoming missiles, they make a decision if the missile or rocket's going to fall in a populated area, Iron Dome will fire an interceptor to knock it out of the sky.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I was picturing something a little like this kind of shield over an area, but it's not a dome at all.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It sounds more like a system.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's right. It is. And it's actually part of an even larger Israeli network of missile defenses.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: There are two other systems called Arrow and David Sling.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And those systems have been front and center more recently with this attack from Iran because Iran is using much larger missiles to attack Israel.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah. These missiles are coming in from much further away.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And so they're actually intermediate range, medium range ballistic missiles that go up into space and then actually come down on Israel at very, very high speeds.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And that is something that is much more difficult to intercept than, say, a rocket fired from Lebanon or Gaza near the Israeli border.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And, you know, I think turning back to the Golden Dome now that what we're seeing coming out of Iran is actually a more sort of characteristic type of threat that America might face.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So whatever Golden Dome Trump wants to build would have to stand up to this kind of missile technology.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's right. You know, the U.S.'s main adversaries that could hit it with missiles are major superpowers, you know, Russia and China.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And the types of missiles they have are even bigger and more sophisticated than the ones held by Iran.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So now we're talking about intercontinental ballistic missiles.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: These missiles don't launch near our borders.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: They launch from halfway around the world.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: They go way up into space.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And when they come down, they are fast.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: They are coming down to Earth at hypersonic speeds.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That makes them virtually impossible to intercept.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And of course, the final complications, many of them are armed with nuclear weapons.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I spoke to Jeffrey Lewis. He's a professor at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies who tracks missile programs, and he put it this way.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Defending against an ICBM that is burning out at seven kilometers a second, where you can't make any mistakes, you can't miss any, or it's still the worst day in American history.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That is a completely different problem set.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So when Jeffrey looks at what it took to build Iron Dome and then imagines building Golden Dome.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It's the difference between a kayak and a battleship.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Where would the U.S. even start with building a battleship Golden Dome?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It really goes back to this question of how do you defend against these big intercontinental missiles?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: You know, basically the best time to go after them is right when they've launched.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: At that point, they're slow moving and big and full of fuel.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Laura Grego is a physicist with the Union of Concerned Scientists.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: She says there's just one problem.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The launch phase of those missiles really only lasts three to five minutes.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So you only have, you know, some hundreds of seconds that you have available to catch them as they're launching.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Oh, so Golden Dome would have to respond within that three to five minute window?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's right.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But remember, these missiles are being fired from half a world away.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So how do you catch a missile being launched from, say, the middle of Russia just minutes after it lifts off?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: There's really only one way to do it, and that's from space.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The idea is you have some sort of satellite in orbit that can knock out the rocket on its way up.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Now, this idea may sound familiar to you, Emily, because the sort of concept of having space-based interceptors is almost as old as the space age itself.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And I'm not sure if you remember, but Republican President Ronald Reagan famously tried to do this in the 1980s.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I know this is a formidable technical task one that may not be accomplished before the end of this century.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yet current technology has attained a level of sophistication where it reasonable for us to begin this effort.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Though clearly the dream of it is still alive.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: So what would be involved in such a project today?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: There's a number of concepts, but one way to do it would be to have a little interceptor satellite that could drop down on the missile and strike it as it's launching.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The problem is the globe is really, really big and satellites zip around it really quickly.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: so. You need a lot of things in space in order to have them in the right place at the right time.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Laura Grego was part of a panel formed by the American Physical Society that looked at missile defense recently, and they concluded.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: A constellation of about 16,000 interceptors would be needed to attempt to counter a rapid salvo of 10 solid propellant ICBMs.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Wait, wait, okay, let me slow this down for my math brain.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: You would need 16,000 of these interceptors to properly take down 10 missiles.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's a huge system you'd need to defend against just that.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah, and I should say it could be even more.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: There's a lot of different things that factor into how many interceptors you need.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: These numbers can slide around, but we're talking many thousands, possibly tens of thousands.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Until recently, that felt like it was impossible.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But now we actually do have a constellation of thousands of satellites in orbit, called Starlink.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Oh, this giant constellation that provides internet via satellite.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: We use it here on Earth right now.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah, that's right.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And I should say Starlink is not a missile defense system, but it is a proof of principle that it's possible to mass produce satellites and put them in orbit and have them communicate with each other and form a network.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Okay. So, Well, one seemed like an impossible problem is now starting to feel more possible.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Is Golden Dome actually going to work, Jeff?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Well, some people think it's at least worth a serious look.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It's a welcome development, and it's in some respects overdue.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's one of them, a guy named Tom Carrico.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: He's director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: He notes that missiles are just becoming a bigger and bigger part of warfare.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I mean, we've really seen that just in the last few days in Israel.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Missiles have become weapons of choice.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: They are what folks reach for.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: What we reach for to strike deep into our enemy's territory is what everybody reaches for, to be able to strike from a standoff position.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And he really worries that if the U.S. got into a large conflict with Russia or China, it needs to be ready to defend against missiles, which may or may not have nuclear weapons.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I don't want to just deter a nuclear exchange.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: I want to deter a conventional war with China and Russia.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And we do that by raising the threshold.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: The threshold to attack, of course.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But I think Tom and everyone I interviewed agreed that there's still a huge amount of work that would have to be done before Golden Dome could become a reality.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Okay, so lay it out for me.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Like, we can launch a lot of satellites, but then what else do we need to really make Golden Dome?
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Well, I mean, we would still need to develop satellites that can actually hit missiles.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's technology that we don't have right now.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And so, you know, there's a couple of ways to do that.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: As I mentioned, the sort of simplest architecture in some ways is to make microsats that could just slam into the missiles, drop on top of them as they launch.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Some other people I've spoken to are big fans of satellites with lasers.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: They could use directed energy to blow up missiles.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Whatever the approach, it's going to take a lot of work to design, test, and then mass produce these satellites.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And they're not going to be cheap.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: You know, the Trump administration is estimating Golden Dome could cost around $175 billion.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: But the Congressional Budget Office recently said it would be closer to half a trillion dollars.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Oh, that's a lot of money because the government annually spends in the trillions.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's right.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: This is a very expensive project.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: It probably is.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: You know, no one who really understands these systems thinks it could happen in the remaining three years of Trump's second term, to be honest with you.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And then there's one more thing to think about, Emily, and that's the old military saying that the enemy also gets a vote.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Yeah, I suppose U.S. nuclear adversaries are not just going to sit around watching Golden Dome get built and do nothing.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: That's right.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And, you know, I think, again, there's a lesson here in what we're seeing in Israel right now.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Iran has actually been probing Israel's air defenses, trying to find ways to slip through.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And, you know, Iran's ability to do this is somewhat limited, but China and Russia are major players and they do not like America's missile defense system.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Jeffrey Lewis, the missile defense expert we heard from right at the start, he thinks that Russia and China may find ways to out Fox Golden Dome, and it may ultimately end up making things worse.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: We will end up with vastly larger Russian and Chinese nuclear forces.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: We will end up with the Russians and the Chinese having all kinds of crazy sci-fi weapons.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: In short, we will end up spending tens, if not hundreds of billions of dollars to be in, at best, the same place we are today.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And most likely a much worse place.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: And, you know, again, looking to Israel as an example, I don't know what the final answer really is.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Clearly, missile defenses are important and they protect populations from harm.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: At the same time, you know, there's evidence that Russia and China are preparing for Golden Dome before it's even been built.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: Jeff Brumfield, thank you for bringing all this on.
--:-- Jeff Brumfield: You're welcome, Emily.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Shortwaivers, if you found this episode interesting or informative, follow shortwave right now on the NPR app or your favorite podcasting platform or just text it to a friend.
--:-- Emily Kwong: This episode which was produced by Rachel Carlson and edited by our showrunner Rebecca Ramirez.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Jimmy Keely was the audio engineer.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Beth Donovan is our senior director.
--:-- Emily Kwong: And Colin Campbell is our senior vice president of podcasting strategy.
--:-- Emily Kwong: I'm Emily Kwong.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Thank you for listening to Shortwave from NPR.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Thanks for joining us and keep your curiosity satisfied with Shortwave.
--:-- Emily Kwong: NPR's science podcasts available in the NPR app or wherever you get those podcasts.
--:-- [Shortwave theme music plays]
--:-- Emily Kwong: This message comes from ZipRecruiter.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Finding great candidates to hire can be like trying to find a needle in a haystack.
--:-- Emily Kwong: Unless you use ZipRecruiter.
--:-- Emily Kwong: ZipRecruiter doesn't depend on candidates finding you. It finds them for you.
--:-- Emily Kwong: That's why four out of five employers who post a job on ZipRecruiter get a quality candidate within the first day.
--:-- Emily Kwong: And right now, you can try ZipRecruiter for free at ZipRecruiter.com slash zip.
--:-- Emily Kwong: That's ZipRecruiter.com slash zip.
