Nuclear War: It Will Be Far Worse Than You Think

Annie Jacobsen's latest book paints a horrifying picture of what will likely happen if a nuclear war breaks out. Here's what you can do to prepare for it.

Sep 02, 2024

Nuclear War: A Scenario (Unabridged) by Annie Jacobsen on Apple Books

Today’s society is fraught with fear and anxiety. There’s an ongoing debate about whether or not climate anxiety should be an official medical diagnosis. And the U.S. surgeon general warns that loneliness is a public health crisis.

All of this is understandable. We’re living on the precipice of any number of life-altering events that won’t just change your personal life, but human civilization as a whole.

Climate change.

Artificial intelligence.

Antibacterial resistance.

The end of farming.

Over the next decade or two, life, as we know, is likely to radically change.

And yet, all of these life-altering events pale in comparison to what would happen if we found ourselves in a state of nuclear war.

As unlikely as that may seem to happen, the risk of nuclear war is greater than it’s ever been. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, we’re still 90 seconds to midnight — closer than we ever were during the height of the Cold War.

In her latest book Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobsen provides a minute-by-minute breakdown of what would happen should we find ourselves in a nuclear war. The picture she paints is beyond bleak. Those who survive will envy those who do not.

This article will look at some of the key takeaways from the book. It will put into perspective what a nuclear war means for humanity and more importantly, what it means for you as an individual. If anything is certain, it’s that worrying about a nuclear war is as futile as surviving the war itself.

Takeaway #1: There won’t be enough time to react to a nuclear attack.

After providing readers with a short history of America’s nuclear war plans, the book opens with a minute-by-minute analysis of what will happen during the first 24 minutes of an attack.

What’s important about the first 24 minutes isn’t what happens or how decisions are made at the highest levels of government, it’s that our leaders are only going to have 24 minutes to respond in the first place.

Imagine the most important decision you’ve ever made in your life. How long did you spend contemplating that decision?

Months…years…maybe even decades. Now imagine having less than 24 minutes to make a decision where the future of humanity literally hangs in the balance.

That’s what the kickoff to a nuclear war will look like.

Jacobsen’s scenario assumes Washington, DC is the target of a nuclear-armed intercontinental ballistics missile fired from North Korea. While this might not seem likely, it’s not impossible either. As she argues in the book, North Korea is actively testing missiles. The Center for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation puts the total at 36 launches in 2023 — that’s a launch every 10 days.

The intended target is the Pentagon across the river from the seat of government in Washington, DC. In the 24 minutes before the missile hits the Pentagon, a number of installations across the United States are alerted to the income threat. This includes:

Aerospace Data Facility, Buckley Space Force Base, Aurora, CO
Missile Warning Center, Cheyenne Mountain Complex, Colorado
Global Operations Center, Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska
U.S. Missile Defense Agency, Fort Belvoir, Virginia
NORAD, Peterson Space Force Base, Colorado
STRATCOM, Nebraska
U.S. Army Space and Missile Defense Command, Fort Greely, Alaska

At first glance, you might be awestruck by the thought that’s gone into defending America from nuclear attacks. But when you think about it, the complexity of it inhibits quick decision-making.

Each installation is staffed with analysts who are trained to react to a nuclear attack. This is a big deal that shouldn’t be taken lightly. It means one of two things: every single person responding to a nuclear attack will want to triple-check to make sure what they are seeing is true before launching a counterattack, or they will have become little more than Pavlovian dogs reading and willing to retaliate on command.

The latter reaction will make nuclear war an inevitability while the former could slow down a response. If a missile launch on the Pentagon is real — as Jacobsen illustrates in the book — 24 minutes isn’t enough time to react. You couldn’t make a decision about key events in your life in that amount of time, how could it possibly be enough to initiate a nuclear war?

The result: there won’t be enough time to issue any warnings. Government leaders will be forced to make important decisions about launching nuclear weapons while fleeing Washington. Their judgment will likely be clouded. If the most powerful people in our country won’t have enough time to react, what does that say about you and I?

Takeaway #2: Escalation is inevitable.

With such little time to react to a nuclear attack, it’s unlikely that whatever plans are in place will actually be followed. Instinctions bending toward self-preservation and survival will take over.

Jacobsen paints a picture of the very worst-case scenario that could happen. The President doesn’t make it out in time and is left barely alive without the means to call for help. The rest of the presidential line of succession is either dead or missing. The Secretary of Defense is alive but was blinded during the bombing. He’s unsure whether he should swear himself in as acting president, usurping power in the process.

Despite the best planning, it’s more likely than not that a power vacuum will emerge. If the attack doesn’t affect America’s leadership, the shock of it surely will.

The absence of a clear leader will lead to a breakdown in communications across the pond, specifically with Russia. Jacobsen imagines a scenario where the Russian leadership is miffed by the U.S. President refuses to speak to him not knowing he’s dying somewhere between Washington and Raven Rock in Pennsylvania.

Without an open line of communication, there will be no pathway to de-escalation. As Jacobsen notes in the book, missiles on their way to Pyongyang will first have to fly over Russian airspace. Assuming the worst, Moscow will inevitably react.

A long history of nuclear entanglement with Russia and America’s strong alliance with Europe means whatever happens will escalate into a global conflict in a matter of minutes. A single nuclear attack won’t be an isolated incident.

A scenario where there’s a breakdown in the chain of command breaks and a void in American leadership will move the world beyond brinkmanship. World War III will break out and there will be little anyone can do to stop it.

Takeaway #3: There won’t be anything to govern afterward.

One of the most interesting points made in the book is the amount of planning that goes into anticipating a nuclear attack. The military has a plan. The civilian government has a plan. FEMA has a plan.

Everyone has a plan. But plans won’t matter when there’s nothing left to govern after a nuclear war breaks out.

There won’t be people in place to carry out those plans.

But while you may think the plans that are in place are designed to save you and your family you’re in for a rude awakening. Whatever plans do exist, exist for one purpose and one purpose only: to preserve the government.

There’s very little in place to prepare the general public, much less to warn us in time. Do you think there’s a post-attack plan to make sure you have everything you need to ensure your survival? Absolutely not. Just look at the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina to realize that.

The plans that exist are intended to keep the government going. But that won’t matter when there isn’t a population left to govern.

The absence of any realistic civilian plans means should you and I miraculously survive the initial attack, we will likely be left to fend for ourselves. Whatever resources remain — energy, food, and shelter — will be directed to preserving the continuity of the government, not your life.

This paints a rather bleak picture of the state of things for the average person. There won’t be enough time for anyone to react much less preempt escalation. It’s inevitable that whatever lies on the other side of a nuclear attack will be fraught with peril and suffering as those who remain fight with one another to survive.

Takeaway #4: There won’t be just one bomb.

When a nuclear attack happens, it won’t just be a single bomb. There will be several. The world’s nuclear powers will unleash their arsenals onto population centers within a matter of minutes.

A nuclear war isn’t about one or two bombs hitting a couple of select targets. There will be thousands of bombs raining down all at once.

According to the Arms Control Association, the world’s nuclear powers have a collective arsenal of 12,512 nuclear weapons. The purpose of maintaining these weapons is to maintain a state of deterrence. So long as no one launches a nuclear weapon, deterrence holds.

But what happens when deterrence fails as Jacobsen demonstrates in her scenario?

When that happens stockpiling nuclear weapons will no longer have any value. The only value they will have is by being deployed. So that’s what’s going to happen. The nine countries that have nuclear weapons will likely deploy them.

The first three takeaways suddenly get much worse when you realize a single nuclear attack will lead to the deployment of thousands of nuclear weapons all at once. It’s not just about the United States or North Korea or even Russia for that matter.

If a nuclear war breaks out it will be total annihilation for everyone on the planet, regardless of whether or not you’re a combatant. One way or another, everyone on the planet will be affected.

Takeaway #5: There are curveballs you’re not thinking about.

The biggest surprise from the book wasn’t the sheer scale of a nuclear attack. Rather, it was all of the unknown variables that would go into such an attack.

By selecting North Korea as her antagonist, Jacobsen creates a scenario where anything goes. Given how little we know about the Hermit Kingdom, this makes her scenario all the more terrifying.

In the final 24 minutes of a 72 minute attack, Jacobsen introduces a curveball none of us are even aware could be coming our way — an EMP.

An EMP — or electromagnetic pulse — attack puts out an intense surge of electricity and magnetism in an area. All electronics would be fried. This includes vehicles and cell towers. You’d have no way to flee and no way to call for help.

But that’s not the only problem. An EMP attack that comes with a nuclear attack would throw America back into the stone age. Not only would we lose the ability to maintain modern conveniences like smartphones and air conditioning, but we’d also lose the ability to pump oil or treat water.

In an instant, everything we need to survive would disappear. And while preppers may have cultivated some skills to help them survive this kind of situation, even they will be caught off guard. If the initial attack doesn’t kill you or the fallout in the aftermath, starvation or thirst surely will.

Takeaway #6: Survival is futile.

Nuclear war is considered a mass extinction event on par with the asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs millions of years ago. While nuclear war will be a man-made catalyst for extinction, it will lead to extinction nonetheless.

Sit and ponder that for a moment.

We are the closest we’ve ever been to an event that would not just destroy the United States, the global democratic world order, or even Western civilization for that matter.

We are the closest we’ve ever been to a mass extinction event that would lead to homo sapiens being wiped off the face of the earth. A total loss of our species.

While Jacobsen’s scenario isn’t likely, it’s still possible. And that’s the truly terrifying part. By the end of the book you realize surviving might actually be a worse outcome than death itself.

Takeaway #7: Everyone loses. Everyone.

There are no winners in a nuclear war. That’s the biggest takeaway.

With nothing to govern politicians lose. With no economy to capitalize on, businessmen lose. And with no food or water to subsist on humans lose.

No one wins should a nuclear war break out. No one. And that’s what makes the proposition of a nuclear war so horrifying in the first place.

We all lose. Period.

Final takeaway.

This book reads like a horror novel. What makes it so bad is that it’s based on reality with a degree of probability that everything Jacobsen lays out could happen.

Towards the end, she shares the story of Stanislav Petrov, a Russian who ignored an early warning alert in 1983. His courage to think rationally before immediately reacting to a perceived attack saved the world from the outbreak of the very nuclear war Jacobsen predicts in the book.

The problem is men like Stanislav Petrov don’t exist anymore. Critical thinking has fallen by the wayside. Few people have the ability to challenge authority and question the veracity of data they receive.

Those in power are guided more by self-interest and less by service. This starts at the very top and trickles its way to the lowest levels of the bureaucracy. The people who could stop a nuclear war probably won’t, not if their future career advancement depends on it.

And with the rise of deep fakes and misinformation, it’s now possible to create the conditions for a nuclear war to unfold before a single missile is launched. How does anyone discern truth from fiction anymore?

But the most important takeaway from the book arguably has nothing to do with nuclear war at all.

Whatever happens in such a scenario is going to happen. There is nothing you or I can do to stop it. And there is very little we can do to survive it. If you do survive, you’ll probably wish you hadn’t. The survival of the human race will rest on your shoulders and I don’t think that’s a burden anyone wants to be tasked with.

This puts things into perspective. It reveals how shallow many of our current social issues are. Money. Gender. Fame. What car you drive. The clothing labels in your closet.

In the context of nuclear war, none of that matters.

What the book shows is how important it is to appreciate the abundance of life as it currently exists.

Even though we all have our personal challenge,s and things may seem blea, compared to what would happen in the midst of a nuclear attack, things are actually quite good right now.

We would be wise to appreciate that. After all, we’re only 90 seconds away from losing everything.

The book is Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen. It’s a book I think everyone should read to become more aware of the peril we face. Hopefully, you’ll draw the same conclusion I did. Appreciate what you have, right now, in this moment — it could be gone in an instant.

The threat of nuclear war is more important than ever before. Please share this article to spread the word.

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