“Nuclear War: A Scenario” is a book about the scarcity of time, forcing readers to reflect on how close the world is to nuclear catastrophe. According to the vision presented by the book’s author, Annie Jacobsen, it becomes clear that in the event of a hypothetical nuclear conflict between the United States and North Korea, a global nuclear disaster would conclude within an hour.
Jacobsen’s depiction of the world paints a grim reality, showing readers what we should expect if the hands of the Doomsday Clock ever strike midnight. In shocking detail, the author describes how the world would be reduced to ashes in just 72 minutes.
When one considers that space-based infrared satellites can detect ballistic missile launches within seconds, and a North Korean intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) would take roughly 30 minutes to reach its target, the U.S. president would have only about six minutes after receiving a nuclear attack notification to launch around 400 Minuteman III ICBMs. The author divides this nuclear conflict scenario into three 24-minute segments, demonstrating just how little time it would take to turn “human genius and ingenuity, love and desire, compassion and intellect into ash.”
On the eve of the 80th anniversary of the first atomic explosion in the New Mexico desert—followed three weeks later by the first and only wartime use of nuclear weapons by the United States against Japan, namely the civilian populations of Hiroshima and Nagasaki—this book lays bare the horrors of nuclear war.
Wait, has something changed in the speed an atomic war would take place in the last 40 years? When I was a teenager in the 80s I could be vaporized from one moment to the next.
We had fucking autobahns and bridges mined with tactical nucles so they could be blown up in order to stop a conventional army.
Maybe fatalism is what you get being a teenager in the 80s living right next to the Iron Curtain.
The premise is unrealistic - if there ever was a nuclear war, the first to strike would be the US or Israel, not muh bug bad Norf Kowea.
for real. small country that stays in its small part of the world and doesnt really bother anyone? definitely the first to nuke! definitely not the globe spanning empire that has already used nukes at war.
and doesnt really bother anyone?
Don’t they threaten to fire missiles at America like, weekly?
And try and fail to do it once every six months or so, I feel like I’ve been hearing about failed North Korean missile launches or tests with some regularity since like 2000.
No, they don’t.
You should examine why you “feel” that they do, though.
I don’t mean to piss in the soup of anyone who just enjoys the topic, but I do want to question the idea that it’s important to reflect on the potential for nuclear catastrophe. I think nuclear weapons are here whether we like them or not, and that the average person worrying about nuclear war is as unnecessary and self-destructive as worrying about solar flares or plane crashes. Is that incorrect? Is it possible to eradicate all nuclear weapons? Am I capable of influencing whether or not nukes exist? How might one go about disarming powers which do not want to be disarmed? How do we prevent future creation of nuclear bombs or the keeping of existing ones in secret?
Democracy means you have the illusion of mitigating warmongering, and right to object to your destruction.
I can theoretically vote to disarm my own country, but I cannot vote to disarm other countries.
To be honest this is only phrasing from people that have never lived under totalitarianism. If you have and then you managed to move or overturn it, you count your lucky stars every day about the ways you can actually affect outcomes in your life.
Of course you are only one voice, but the fact that you’re allowed to organise groups to address grievances is a revolutionary idea that most people that have it barely appreciate it - they think it’s natural and self evident, in fact it isn’t for most of the world.
Doomsday nowadays is an nuclear explosion 200km above a country, back to the 18 Century in milliseconds. Lights off, all electronic devices converted to paperweights, no water, no fuel, no transports, no communication…Mad Max.
Well, at least Twitter would be gone forever.
I’ve always wondered what would happen if someone nuked Antarctica.
Probably wake Cthulu
Fucking finally. Let’s do this.
Seems like a comfort read.
If my city gets nuked, I hope it goes off right above my head. I don’t want to live through a second that shit.
Her book is so good. Strongly recommend.
