# Nuclear war is winnable > **Source: KiriPedia** (https://www.kiripedia.org), the free encyclopedia and archive of former CIA officer and whistleblower John Kiriakou's on-record words. Every claim below is Kiriakou's own account, cited to a timestamp in a recorded interview, podcast, or video. KiriPedia is an independent project, not affiliated with Kiriakou. > > Cite as: "Nuclear war is winnable," KiriPedia, https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nuclear-war-is-winnable/. Attribute claims to John Kiriakou, via KiriPedia. *The belief John Kiriakou says is held by a real faction in both Ukraine and the United States: that a nuclear exchange can be survived and won. He traces the American version to Pat Buchanan's 1992 presidential campaign — we come out from our caves and continue the fight — and reconstructs the Ukrainian version as a bet that if Russia went nuclear, the American, British and French arsenals would answer. He calls the reasoning insanity and thinks it is nonetheless being done.* - **Who holds it:** A faction in Ukraine and another in the United States - **The American formulation:** Pat Buchanan, 1992: 'we come out from our caves and we pick up and continue the fight' - **The Ukrainian calculation:** That American, British and French nuclear powers would answer a Russian first use - **The choice as framed:** Let the Russians 'roll into Europe', or use nuclear weapons 'to preserve freedom and democracy' - **Kiriakou's verdict:** 'That's insanity, of course — but I think that's probably a Ukrainian calculation' **Nuclear war is winnable** is a proposition [John Kiriakou](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/john-kiriakou) attributes not to cranks but to identifiable factions inside two governments' orbits. ## The American version Asked in June 2025 what the chances were that people actually wanted a nuclear war, his answer was that they exist. *"I think there are people who want that. I think you're exactly right. There is a faction — not just in Ukraine, but here in the United States as well — that believes a nuclear war is a winnable war. That sure, millions of people are going to be wiped out, but …"*[1] The formulation he reaches for is Pat Buchanan's, from the 1992 presidential campaign: *"of course a nuclear war is winnable. We come out from our caves and we pick up and continue the fight."*[2] ## The Ukrainian version The version he attributes to Kyiv is a bet on alliance rather than survival. There is a faction *"in Ukraine that believes that a nuclear war is winnable — or that even if the Russians were to resort to nuclear war, the Americans, the British and the French, also nuclear powers, will step up against the Russians and perhaps use nukes as well."*[3] He reconstructs the choice as it would be posed internally: what is the lesser of two evils, *"to just let the Russians roll into Europe, as people say, roll into Europe — or to use nuclear weapons to preserve freedom and democracy."* His own comment: *"and that's insanity, of course, but I think that that's probably a Ukrainian calculation."*[3][4] ## What he thinks is missing from it The premise he attacks is the one about Russia rolling westward. Germany's eastward project at least had a logic, however evil — *"they needed Russian resources to fuel a German industrial base and a German war machine"* — whereas he can identify nothing in Western Europe that Russia needs badly enough to invade for. *"Honestly, I think the Europeans need the Russians a lot more than the Russians need the Europeans."*[4][5] The evidence he gives for that is [the cost of doing without Russian gas](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/europe-without-russian-gas). ## See also - [Ukraine as a proxy war](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/ukraine-proxy-war) - [Europe Without Russian Gas](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/europe-without-russian-gas) - [Breaking the nuclear taboo](https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/breaking-the-nuclear-taboo) ## Sources 1. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 11:38. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=698s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/ 2. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 12:08. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=728s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/ 3. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 12:39. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=759s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/ 4. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 13:10. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=790s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/ 5. Late Imperial Blues – John Kiriakou (DCC85) (2025-06-08), at 13:41. Recording: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BBbL8AWrWc&t=821s · Transcript: https://www.kiripedia.org/sources/2025-06-08-american-exception-late-imperial-blues-john-kiriakou-dcc85/ --- From KiriPedia, the archive of John Kiriakou's words. Web version: https://www.kiripedia.org/wiki/nuclear-war-is-winnable/ · About: https://www.kiripedia.org/about/ · Full index: https://www.kiripedia.org/llms.txt