No One Wins A Nuclear War
Annie Jacobsen's Nuclear War – A Scenario is a masterclass in understanding just how swiftly a nuclear war could ignite—and how miserably it would unravel.
Nuclear War – A Scenario
Author: Annie Jacobsen
Reviewer: Ghulam Arif Khan
E P Dutton/Transworld Publishers March 2024
400 Pages
A fragile ceasefire currently holds in the smoldering cauldron of the Middle East. The world stands at a crossroads, reeling from Israel’s brazen strike on Iran, Iran’s thunderous retaliation, and the United States' subsequent bombing of Iranian nuclear sites.
Words once confined to the pages of military manuals—nuclear bomb, first strike, mutually assured destruction—now roll off the tongues of children. Yet, only a handful truly grasp the terrifying weight these words carry.
In 2024, Investigative Journalist Annie Jacobson sent shockwaves through the literary world with her chilling book Nuclear War: A Scenario. With the precision of a surgeon and the narrative grip of a thriller, Jacobson reconstructs, minute by minute, what could unfold in the immediate aftermath of a nuclear attack.
The scenario Annie Jacobson paints is fictional in form but harrowingly plausible in spirit: a North Korean missile fired at the United States triggers a cataclysmic chain reaction, eventually engulfing Russia in a global nuclear war. This is not a book for the faint of heart; it grabs the reader by the collar and refuses to let go.
Jacobson is no ordinary journalist. She is a seasoned American investigative writer whose fearless forays into the hidden corridors of U.S. intelligence agencies and military operations have made her a force to reckon with. She handles sensitive topics—nuclear policy, covert operations, intelligence machinery—with a sharp eye and a steady hand. Her commitment to cold, hard facts over ideological posturing sets her apart in a world awash with political spin. In 2016, her fearless reporting earned her a Pulitzer Prize nomination. Through her pen, she peels back the curtain on power, secrecy, and state-sanctioned overreach.
A Countdown to Doom
Much of Jacobson’s book reads like a ticking clock—a moment-by-moment account that leaves the reader breathless. It begins with an inter continental nuclear missile launched from North Korea. Within a fraction of a second, a U.S. satellite detects the launch and relays the data to military command. At the 60-seconds, alarms scream through the Strategic Command. The gears of response begin grinding. By 3 minutes and 15 seconds, the U.S. president is in the loop. But even before that, pre-emptive countermeasures are already on standby—poised to strike at the first confirmed threat.
At the 23-minute mark, California is struck. The president gives the green light: launch on Pyongyang. In the chaos, the U.S. attempts—but fails—to alert the Russian president of its intentions. At 33 minutes, Russia misreads the retaliation as an attack on itself. At 41 minutes, hell breaks loose in Washington, D.C. Amid the smoke and fire, Jacobson methodically details the labyrinth of American defence systems and the chain of command. Every step is stitched with precision and dread.
The Anatomy of Annihilation
Jacobson doesn’t just stop at political decision-making. She ventures into the very heart of destruction—a detailed portrayal of what a one-megaton thermonuclear explosion would do. This isn’t the classical atom bomb. This is a hydrogen bomb, a demon many times more powerful.
The moment such a bomb detonates, it unleashes a blinding flash—brighter than a thousand suns—followed by a deafening crack. For a moment, the heat exceeds the surface of the sun. A tempest of high-pressure wind tears across the landscape. Entire city blocks are flattened like matchsticks. People are lifted into the air and crushed. Eardrums rupture. Lungs collapse. Skin peels. Within minutes, a million lives are snuffed out. The survivors, if they can be called that, face death by trauma, cardiac arrest, internal bleeding, or slow radiation poisoning.
And then the fires start. Gas lines explode. Asphalt on roads melt into black rivers. Radiation creeps like a silent curse. The health system crumbles. The administrative machinery grinds to a halt. Civilization, as we know it, falls to its knees.
A Future in Ashes
According to the legendary scientist Carl Sagan, a billion people could perish in the blink of an eye during a nuclear war. But the apocalypse doesn’t end there. The long-term damage is even more grotesque. The atmosphere will be thrown into chaos. Dust clouds will shroud the planet, blocking out up to 70% of the sun’s rays. Darkness and frost will reign. Crops will fail. Energy systems will collapse. It will be a nuclear winter—long, bitter, and unrelenting.
And then, after months, as the choking blackness begins to lift and sunlight returns, a new horror will dawn. The half of earth’s ozone shield will be badly destroyed. The sun’s UV rays, once filtered, will now scorch the earth. Skin cancer, birth defects, mass extinction—these will be the legacies of survival.
The Madness of the Wise
In 1945 the United States dropped the atomic bomb on Japan, it claimed 80,000 lives in a heartbeat. That single event ushered in a dark new chapter in human history. By 1949, the former Soviet Union had followed suit, stepping into the nuclear arena. One by one, many other nations joined the race, each vying for a seat at the table of destruction.
Today, nine countries are known to possess nuclear arsenal: the United States, Russia, China, France, the United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, North Korea, and Israel. Together, they hold the power to end the world multiple times over.
Just how trigger-ready is the United States? At any given moment, it has 14 intercontinental ballistic missiles on standby, 4 submarines silently patrolling the deep, 66 nuclear-capable bombers fuelled and ready, and 1,770 bombs that could be unleashed at a moment’s notice. The rest of its nuclear arsenal lies in storage—sleeping giants. Russia, too, along with the others, maintains terrifying stockpiles.
And yet the question echoes: Why so many? If a handful can turn cities into ash, why build thousands? Somewhere in the background, like a broken record, comes the answer: Deterrence, deterrence!
No One Wins in a Nuclear War
Deterrence—a word that has been turned into a magic charm. Its meaning? To stop the other side from doing the unthinkable by simply showing you can do the same. A kind of psychological poker game with doomsday as the stake.
We are told, again and again, that nuclear weapons aren’t meant to be used—they're meant to prevent their own use. That this idea, this grand bargain of fear, is what has kept the world safe all these years. Billions of dollars are poured into this illusion. But what happens if deterrence fails? After all, it is not made of steel, but of human perception—a delicate, brittle thing.
Crisis-time deterrence is a different beast from the day-to-day balance of fear. And once the first missile flies, there's no reverse gear, no soft landing, no diplomatic exit ramp. There is no such thing as winning a global nuclear war. The best we can hope for is that it never begins.
Chaos on Land and Sea
The world has long sought to put a leash on this madness. The Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) was created to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and to promote peaceful nuclear cooperation. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was tasked with overseeing this framework. Through these mechanisms, global powers pledged to reduce their arsenals and stop the domino effect of proliferation.
But in recent days, the ink of these treaties has been washed in blood. Flouting internation conventions, the US launched a strike on an Iranian nuclear facility. Until now, Iran is signatory to the NPT and well deservedits rights and safeguards. What then,remains the credibility of Nuclear Non-Proliferation regime? How will the worth of such treaties be re-established. Treaties that can be torn like old parchment in the wind?
To write Nuclear War: A Scenario, Annie Jacobson spoke to dozens of war strategists, military veterans, and civil servants. From them, she extracted the hard truths—the inner workings of systems that govern our survival, the cracks within our safeguards, and the fallibility of the humans behind the controls. Her book is a masterclass in understanding just how swiftly a nuclear war could ignite—and how miserably it would unravel.
The Rot Within
The devastation that festers on land and sea is not the work of fate—it is the harvest of our own making. The powerful are not just complicit; they are the architects. And the rest of us? We share the guilt through apathy and wilful ignorance.
We were warned from the beginning—This vicegerent of yours will shed blood on Earth. That warning now rings with terrible clarity. And when we contemplate the magnitude of the bloodshed yet to come, our very skin shudders.
May wisdom dawn upon the hearts of men. May reason overpower rage. May we step back from the abyss before it is too late.
[The writer, Ghulam Arif Khan, is a Commentator on socio-economic and political affairs, Editor, Public Speaker, Counsellor, Mentor & Entrepreneur. He is based in Mumbai. He can be contacted at arif055@gmail.com.]
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