Annie Jacobsen writes in her recent book:
* As a general rule, missile tests as significant as an ICBM launch are announced, usually to neighbors — through diplomatic channels, back channels, some other kind of channel, but almost always through a channel.
The exception is North Korea.
Between January 2022 and May 2023, North Korea test – launched more than 100 missiles, including nuclear – capable weapons that can hit the continental United States.
None of them were announced.* Everyone with Space Delta 4 is hyper – focused on what appears to be an attacking intercontinental ballistic missile en route to the United States of America. The dreaded ICBM is unstoppable and nuclear capable.
Once launched, an ICBM cannot be recalled.* Once ground radar confirms that an attacking ICBM is on its way to the East Coast, an impossibly dangerous, next – step feature of U.S. nuclear warfighting strategy comes to the fore.
This feature centers around a decades – old policy called Launch on Warning.
“Once we are warned of a nuclear attack, we prepare to launch,” former secretary of defense William Perry tells us. “ This is policy. We do not wait.”
Launch on Warning policy is why — and how — America keeps a majority of its deployed nuclear arsenal on ready – for – launch status, also known as Hair – Trigger Alert.* The U.S. system centers around forty – four interceptor missiles, each one fifty – four feet tall and designed to hit a fast – flying nuclear warhead with a 140 – pound projectile called an exoatmospheric kill vehicle. The incoming North Korean warhead will be traveling at speeds of around 14,000 miles per hour, while the interceptor’s kill vehicle will be traveling at speeds of around 20,000 miles per hour, making this action, if successful, “ akin to shooting a bullet with a bullet,” according to the Missile Defense Agency’s spokesperson.
From 2010 to 2013, not a single one of the early interceptor tests was successful.* At any given time, these forty – four interceptor kill vehicles are on alert, siloed at two separate locations in the continental United States. Forty of these missiles are located in Alaska, at Fort Greely, and four are located in California, at Vandenberg Space Force Base near Santa Barbara.
* With forty – four missiles in its entire inventory, the U.S. interceptor program is mostly for show.
* Submarines are the most survivable leg of the nuclear triad because when electronic communication systems soon fail, submariners will still be able to receive launch orders from STRATCOM using very low frequency/low frequency (VLF/LF) radio wave technology developed, rehearsed, and mastered during the Cold War. These subsurface radio systems behave differently from others working in the atmosphere, systems that can easily be destroyed by electromagnetic pulse. The second reason is because submarines cannot easily be located by an enemy force.
* To defend against short – range ballistic missiles, the U.S. Navy has developed its Aegis program, an anti – ballistic missile system mounted on navy Aegis cruisers and destroyers at sea. Unlike the faulty interceptor program, Aegis missiles have a shoot – down record of 85 percent. But these battleships are out on patrol in the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, and in the Persian Gulf — defending America’s NATO and Indo – Pacific partners from attack. They are thousands of miles away from being anywhere near shooting range of America’s West Coast.
The Pentagon also operates a land – based missile defense program called the Terminal High Altitude Area Defense, or THAAD, system — one that fires anti – ballistic missiles from launchers mounted on flatbed trucks. But as with the Aegis missile defense systems, all of America’s THAAD systems are presently deployed overseas. Years back, after North Korea first successfully fired a KN – 23 missile, Congress discussed setting up THAAD systems along America’s West Coast, but as of 2024 has not done so yet.* In 1983, President Reagan ordered a simulated war game, code – named Proud Prophet, to explore the outcome and effects of a nuclear war… According to Proud Prophet, regardless of how nuclear war begins, it ends with complete Armageddon – like destruction. With the U.S., Russia, and Europe totally destroyed. With the entire Northern Hemisphere uninhabitable from fallout. With the death of, at minimum, a half billion people in the war’s opening salvo alone. Followed by the starvation and death of almost everyone who initially survived.
* Fourteen years later, Vice President Al Gore asked Professor Bracken to lead a different kind of war game simulation, not a nuclear war game, but one involving a cyberattack on Wall Street. In the late nineties, VP Gore was worried the newly popular internet was making America’s banking system vulnerable to terrorist attack… Their conclusion — drawn from the war game — was basic, Bracken contends. “Move data storage away from Manhattan. The Wall Street firms accelerated the movement of data storage to New Jersey and Long Island.” Cheaper. Safer. Great. Except: “What we didn’t figure out was the actual attack,” Bracken laments. “We didn’t think of driving an airplane into [the] building” where the game was being played. That is, flying a commercial airplane into the World Trade Center. Four years later, fifteen of the people who were playing that simulated war game were killed in the 9/11 terror attack at the World Trade Center…
* A Nuclear Regulatory Commission report finds that a small – to – medium – sized fire at a facility like Diablo Canyon would displace 3 to 4 million people. “We’d [be] talking about trillion – dollar consequences,” Frank von Hippel, professor emeritus at Princeton University and cofounder of its Program on Science and Global Security, said of such a catastrophe. But a nuclear strike against Diablo Canyon Power Plant will not produce a fire that is small or even medium – sized. It will be a radioactive inferno. The beginning of the apocalypse.
* The president confirms option Charlie. A nuclear counterstrike designed as the Launch on Warning response to a North Korean nuclear strike against America. Eighty – two targets, or “aimpoints,” that include North Korea’s nuclear and WMD facilities, its leadership, and other war – sustaining facilities. This counterstrike launches fifty Minuteman III ICBMs and eight Trident SLBMs (each Trident carries four nuclear warheads in its nose cone), for a total of eighty – two nuclear warheads at eighty – two targets on the northern half of the Korean peninsula. This mother lode of force is but a fraction of what the original SIOP for nuclear war called for in its opening salvo against Moscow. Here, in this scenario, the eighty – two nuclear warheads about to be launched all but guarantee the deaths of millions of people, or maybe even tens of millions of people, on the Korean peninsula alone.
* An ICBM can be launched — meaning the time it takes from the moment a launch order is received, to the weapon’s physical launch — faster than any other weapon system in the arsenal, including those on submarines. “They weren’t called Minutemen for nothing,” wrote former ICBM launch officer Bruce Blair. “The process of arming and targeting and firing the missiles [happens] in a grand total of 60 seconds.”
* “Northern Virginia has well over 60 percent of the world’s data centers.”
* Thousands of commercial airplanes using fly – by – wire technology systems lose wing and tail controls, lose cabin pressure and landing gear, lose instrument landing systems as they head violently toward the ground. One class of passenger aircraft is mercifully spared, namely the older model 747s, used by the Defense Department for its Doomsday Planes. “747 pilots still use a foot pedal and a yoke, mechanically linked to the control surfaces,” Yago tells us. “There’s no fly – by – wire technology there.”
The critical infrastructure systems on the ground fail in succession. Without SCADA systems controlling the more than 2.6 million miles of pipeline through which America’s oil and gas products flow, millions of valves rupture and explode. Combustion sensors on coal – fired boiler systems suffer the wrong mix of air and fuel, causing them to ignite and blow. With the motorized valves on America’s water – delivery systems no longer under anyone’s control, billions of gallons of water passing through America’s aqueducts surge uncontrollably. Dams burst. Mass flooding begins sweeping infrastructure and people away.
There will be no more fresh water. No more toilets to flush. No sanitation. No streetlights, no tunnel lights, no lights at all, only candles, until there are none left to burn. No gas pumps, no fuel. No ATMs. No cash withdrawals. No access to money. No cell phones. No landlines. No calling 911. No calls at all. No emergency communication systems except some high – frequency (HF) radios. No ambulance services. No hospital equipment that works. Sewage spills out everywhere. It takes less than fifteen minutes for disease – carrying insects to swarm. To feed on piles of human waste, on garbage, on the dead.
America’s complex system of systems comes to a sudden, apocalyptic halt. In the ensuing fear and mayhem, people revert to their most basic, mammalian instincts. To using their five senses, their hands, and their feet. People everywhere sense imminent danger all around. They sense that whatever just happened is the beginning of the savagery, not the end.
People abandon their vehicles and begin to flee on foot. They exit buildings, run down stairs, and outdoors. People in subway trains and on buses, in halted elevator cars, work to pry open emergency exits and doors. They crawl, walk, and run for their lives.* As this final blitzkrieg of SLBM warheads strikes and destroys their targets, all that remains of America’s Nuclear Command and Control are its Doomsday Planes in the air and its Trident submarines at sea.
* “The density of soot would reduce global temperatures by roughly 27 degrees Fahrenheit,” climatologist Alan Robock explains. “In America, it would be more like a drop of 40 degrees Fahrenheit, slightly less near the oceans.”
The Earth plunges into a new horror called nuclear winter.
Grok says:
Annie Jacobsen’s 2024 book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, is a meticulously researched yet polarizing work that blends investigative journalism with a speculative narrative to explore the catastrophic potential of a nuclear conflict. Drawing on over a decade of interviews with military and civilian experts, as well as declassified documents, Jacobsen constructs a minute-by-minute account of a hypothetical nuclear war initiated by a North Korean missile strike on the United States. The book has garnered significant attention—praised for its vivid detail and urgency, while criticized for its plausibility, prose, and underlying assumptions. Below is a critique addressing its strengths, weaknesses, and overall impact.
Strengths
Depth of Research: Jacobsen’s extensive interviews with nuclear experts, including former Pentagon officials, STRATCOM commanders, and weapons engineers, lend the book a veneer of authenticity. Her access to recently declassified materials enriches the narrative with granular details about nuclear command structures, missile defense systems, and the physics of thermonuclear detonation. This groundwork makes the book a compelling primer on the mechanics and stakes of nuclear war.Narrative Urgency: The ticking-clock format—unfolding over 72 minutes from launch to global annihilation—creates a cinematic tension that grips readers. By presenting the scenario from multiple perspectives (e.g., U.S. command centers, Russian early-warning systems, North Korean leadership), Jacobsen humanizes the abstract horror of nuclear policy, making it accessible to a broad audience.
Highlighting Systemic Flaws: The book effectively exposes vulnerabilities in nuclear deterrence, such as the U.S. “launch on warning” policy, the sole authority of the president to order a strike, and the fragility of missile defense systems (e.g., the 44 interceptors with a questionable success rate). Jacobsen’s critique of these elements underscores the razor-thin margin for error in nuclear decision-making, a point that resonates in an era of heightened geopolitical tension.
Public Awareness: By avoiding jargon and framing the stakes in stark terms—billions dead, civilization reduced to rubble—Jacobsen succeeds in reviving a conversation about nuclear risks that has faded since the Cold War. Her work aligns with historical efforts like The Day After (1983), which influenced public and political attitudes toward disarmament.
Weaknesses
Implausible Scenario: Critics argue that Jacobsen’s premise—a “bolt from the blue” North Korean attack escalating to global thermonuclear war—stretches credulity. While she acknowledges the rationality of deterrence (it has held for nearly 80 years), her scenario hinges on unlikely events: a paranoid Kim Jong Un launching an unprovoked strike, U.S. interceptors failing entirely, and Russia misinterpreting American retaliation as an attack despite communication attempts. This chain of failures feels contrived, undermining the book’s claim to realism.Lack of Context: Jacobsen provides little geopolitical buildup to explain why North Korea would initiate such a suicidal act. Unlike Jeffrey Lewis’s The 2020 Commission Report (2018), which offers a plausible escalation, her book dives straight into the attack without exploring motivations beyond vague notions of “paranoia.” This omission weakens the narrative’s grounding in real-world dynamics.
Overblown Prose: Stylistically, the book has been faulted for its melodramatic tone and simplistic phrasing, likened by some to pulp fiction or a Dan Brown novel. Descriptions like the president “wetting himself in a forest” or the relentless use of one-sentence paragraphs prioritize shock over substance, potentially alienating readers seeking a more measured analysis.
Misrepresentation of Nuclear Policy: Jacobsen’s portrayal of U.S. nuclear forces as being on “hair-trigger alert” oversimplifies reality. While the U.S. maintains a launch-under-attack option, it is not an automatic policy, and years of planning precede any decision. Her dismissal of missile defense efficacy also relies heavily on skeptics like Ted Postol, ignoring evidence of improving technology (e.g., Israel’s Iron Dome). This selective framing suggests a bias toward disarmament advocacy rather than a balanced critique.
Moral Shallowness: Beyond its visceral depictions of destruction, the book offers little ethical reflection or actionable insight. It shocks but doesn’t engage with the deeper human or political questions—why nations retain these weapons, how deterrence has prevented war, or what realistic steps could reduce risks. The conclusion that “nuclear weapons are the enemy” feels trite, sidestepping the complexities of geopolitics.
Overall Impact
Nuclear War: A Scenario is a double-edged sword. As a wake-up call, it succeeds brilliantly—its visceral imagery and relentless pace ensure that readers confront the unthinkable. For those unfamiliar with nuclear strategy, it’s an eye-opening, if terrifying, introduction. However, its speculative nature and stylistic excesses limit its credibility as a serious policy critique. Jacobsen’s scenario reads more like a thriller than a probable forecast, which may dilute its persuasive power among experts or skeptics who see deterrence as a flawed but effective stabilizer.
The book’s mixed reception—lauded by outlets like Forbes and The Guardian for its urgency, panned by others like The Telegraph and Global Security Review for its sensationalism—reflects this tension. It’s a valuable contribution to public discourse, especially in 2025 amid renewed nuclear saber-rattling, but it falls short of the nuanced, actionable analysis needed to shift policy. Readers seeking a gripping story will find it unforgettable; those expecting a rigorous dissection of nuclear strategy may find it wanting. Ultimately, its greatest strength—making the abstract concrete—also exposes its greatest flaw: reducing a complex issue to a singular, apocalyptic vision.
