Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Annie Jacobsen

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen, is a sobering, extensively researched examination of what could happen if a nuclear war begins.

Spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well.

Jacobsen interviewed dozens of nuclear experts from the military, political, and scientific arenas. She used their insights as well as information from government documents, many of which have only recently been declassified, to weave together a minute-by-minute account of how events could unfold. The clock starts with North Korea launching a long-range nuclear missile aimed at Washington, DC. It ends with all-out nuclear war between Russia and the United States.

Truly frightening stuff.

Jacobsen bases much of her fictional scenario on non-fiction. A few examples: the survivor testimony from Hiroshima and Nagasaki; the gruesome death of a Manhattan Project physicist who was exposed to radiation; and the outcomes from a recently declassified series of nuclear war games ordered by Ronald Reagan in 1983.

To me though, the most terrifying takeaway from Nuclear War: A Scenario is the misplaced faith we have in leaders, safeguards and protocols. Leaders make mistakes, or simply can’t think fast enough to keep up with events. Safeguards fail, or never worked in the first place. And negotiated protocols are forgotten or ignored, (even simple ones such as – if the hotline rings, answer it!).

Throw in a mad despot, a few missed opportunities in the early, crucial moments of a nuclear missile launch, then compound that with hubris and alpha male chest-beating, and within an hour and twelve minutes most of humanity is dead or dying.

Yes, you read that correctly. In Jacobsen’s scenario, it takes only 72 minutes to end the world as we know it.

Jacobsen is a skilled writer and storyteller and as a result, Nuclear War: A Scenario reads like a page-turning thriller. And, like the best argument for nuclear disarmament I’ve ever read.

It’s a book I guarantee you won’t forget.