Alexandru's Reviews > Nuclear War: A Scenario

This was an absolutely terrifying book to read. This was my fourth book from Annie Jacobsen, she is a fantastic journalist and writes excellent history books.

In Nuclear War she tackles what would happen to the world if a nuclear war broke out and the answer is pretty much the end of civilisation. She narrates minute by minute what would happen in the US if a North Korean nuclear attack was launched, how the US would react and how Russia would react. After that she explaims what would happen to the US civilian population, how the emergency services would react, how all of the electricity, water, internet would be cut off. Many of the scenarios have been simulated and played out numerous times by specialists and the results have always been terrible.

Annie Jacobsen interviewed lots of generals, scientists, diplomats and former security officials that were part of the US nuclear response apparatus. One of the scientists she interviewed was known as the trigger man because he personally triggered the detonators for many nuclear bombs during tests.

A few things I learned:

- Once a country launches a nuclear missile it is very likely that it will result in all out nuclear war
- The US has a launch on warning policy, this means that they will launch a retaliatory strike as soon as they receive a warning that an enemy missile has been launched. They will not wait to absorb the impact
- Due the Earth's curvature and the positioning if the US launches nuclear missiles against North Korea they will have to fly over Russia. This means Russia will need to decide if those missiles are actually meant for them or the Koreas. As such, any missile attack by North Korea and counter-attack by the US will likely result in nuclear war with Russia too
- North Korea actually has quite a large submarine fleet, they are old and have old technology but at least one is capable of carrying nuclear missiles
- submarine launched balistic missiles are the most scary because they can be launched from close proximity without being detected
- The US has only about 40 missiles capable of intercepting an ICBM, Russia has over 1,000 ICBMs and SLBMs, China has hundreds
- North Korea, Russia and China have truck mounted nuclear missiles which can be moved around, the US does not have this because the population does not like nuclear weapons being driven around the country
- due to the danger associated with misinterpreting a nuclear launch the US, Russia and China maintain open channels of communication and announce each other of nuclear tests, this continues even after the 2022 Ukraine invasion and worsening of relations. North Korea does not notify the US of the nuclear tests it does
- North Korea has a network of tunnels and nuclear bunkers designed for the leadership to survive a nuclear war
- During a nuclear war there will be several sources of death: radiation, massive fire, disease caused by all the dead bodies and finally nuclear winter caused by the nuclear clouds covering the sky and blocking the sun

After reading this book I realise even more the madness of Russia threatening the use of nuclear weapons. These sort of threats have never before been made even in the depths of the cold war because everyone knew a nuclear war meant the end of the world, the end of civilisation and of humanity.