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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
challenging
dark
informative
tense
slow-paced
challenging
dark
informative
tense
fast-paced
dark
informative
fast-paced
dark
informative
sad
tense
medium-paced
Good explanation of a worst-case scenario. I guess it's comforting to know that it'd be over quickly...
dark
informative
sad
medium-paced
This book is terrifying, but only if you're unfamiliar with nuclear weapons. If you're familiar with nukes, "Nuclear War" is terrifying, but for different reasons. In her ostensibly nonfiction book, Annie Jacobsen--already an investigative journalist prone to exaggeration and hyperbole--has put to paper one of the most irresponsible and reckless depictions of war I have ever read. From start to finish, "Nuclear War" is replete with inaccuracies that range from irritating to outrageous. Let me put the bottom line up front: do not read this nonsense.
From the beginning, it's obvious that Jacobsen has an agenda. This is undisclosed disarmament propaganda. (There's nothing wrong with pushing for Nuclear Zero: just acknowledge it!) Several other reviewers, including those at The New York Times, share concerns with her portrayal of nuclear Armageddon. If we are supposed to trash all our nukes, how do we do that? Jacobsen offers no advice. Throughout "Nuclear War," Jacobsen reiterates just how "evil" nuclear weapons are. Toward the beginning of her book, she compares the American nuclear plans with the Third Reich's Final Solution. This is a common trope in Jacobsen books. She frequently compares the American government with history's arch-villains. Still, I find that comparison irresponsible at best.
I thought Peter Huessy of Global Security Review wrote an excellent review and rebuttal.
Another trope at work in "Nuclear War" is Jacobsen's tendency to interview a handful of people on bureaucracy's margins and take their statements as irrefutable fact. In this case, she frontloads the book with an appeal to authority. She lists several people ostensibly familiar with the subject at hand in order to convince readers that they should trust her as a result. Some of the men and women interviewed are objectively knowledgeable folks, but several--like Bruce Blair and Ted Postol--have a well-recorded antagonistic history with the American nuclear establishment. Blair and Postol join a raft of other interviewees whose knowledge is hilariously outdated (Blair, whom she quotes throughout her sections on ICBMs, served as a missileer in the 1970s). Based on her descriptions of the post-detonation carnage, Alex Wellerstein's Nuke Map did a lot of the heavy lifting. Every time she describes a blast, it is invariably a surface detonation. Many targets would not require a surface detonation; most would be easily destroyed with an airburst, which does not create much, if any, fallout. But surface detonations make for better reading, so off she goes!
Due to the sheer number of inaccuracies, I cannot list them all. I won't even list the most egregious ones--the ones that made me put the book down, exclaim aloud, and write a note. There were 70 of those. I actually laughed out loud when, in the chapter titled "26 Minutes: National Defense Management Center, Moscow, Russia," she cited TASS--a Russian news service infamous for lying. She cited TASS while describing how much better the Russian National Defense Management Center is than its American counterpart (the National Military Command Center) beneath the Pentagon. It's allegedly superior to ours because it has a super computer smarter than a human that can predict the actions of other nations in "near real-time." (So much for that capability, by the way. After Russian satellites mistake 50 U.S. ICBMs inbound to North Korea for several hundred, Russia overreacts, throws caution to the wind, and looses all of its nuclear weapons at targets in the United States and Europe.)
Jacobsen frequently hammers the nations of the world for believing in deterrence. For the uninitiated, nuclear deterrence is simple: I promise that if you hit me, I'll burn your home to the ground with you in it. With such a disincentive, we keep the peace. If you don't hit me, we have no problem. Deterrence works, but Jacobsen has to pretend it doesn't for the purposes of her book. There is a lot of literature on this subject, and I'm convinced Jacobsen has read none of it. I like Sagan & Walz's "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate" because it presents both sides of the argument clearly and unapologetically. Chapter 7 of that book asks "Is Nuclear Zero the Best Option?" (Get yourself a copy if you're curious as to the answer.)
When I'm unfamiliar with a subject covered in media, I like to listen to the presenter describe something with which I am familiar. Fortunately, I am quite well acquainted with the strategies, tools, and mechanisms described in Jacobsen's "Nuclear War." Specifically, I know quite a bit about the United States' Missile Alert Facilities (MAFs) and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). (Jacobsen attempts to describe these in several chapters.) MAFs are nuclear alert facilities scattered throughout North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. Beneath each MAF is a subterranean facility known as a Launch Control Center (LCC). Inside the LCC is a two-person crew responsible for ten underground Launch Facilities (LFs), each of which contains a single Minuteman III ICBM. (This will change in the near future; we are replacing our Minuteman IIIs with a new ICBM--the Sentinel.) I've visited several MAFs (and LCCs), and I'm 100% confident Annie Jacobsen hasn't. Her description of these facilities is hilariously incorrect. I was already exasperated with her novel (and let's be honest, "Nuclear War" is a novel) and this tipped me over the edge. As soon as I heard her describe E-01 (a MAF staffed by personnel from F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, WY), I knew that I could safely disregard the rest of the book.
"Nuclear War" is fiction masquerading as nonfiction. She skirts this by stating this is just a "scenario," which, when translated, means "here is a collection of six one-in-a-trillion events that represent the worst-possible outcome." (Fun fact: the likelihood of six one-in-a-trillion events happening one right after another is 1 in 10^72. That's a number larger than the number of stars in the universe.) Unfortunately for science fiction enjoyers everywhere, she completely ignores what might precipitate a global nuclear war. In her mind, Kim Jong Un arbitraily decides "to hell with it" and launches a trio of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at the United States. The United States responds and then Russia decides to ignore all reason (and ignore several phone calls describing exactly what is happening) and join in on the fun. Bada-boom, we're at nuclear war. The U.S. and Russia exchange their entire stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons and the world is "over." (Her last chapter is titled "24,000 Years Later: United States of America," for heaven's sake.) To get to this bloody and terrifying conclusion (which is riddled with inaccuracies on par with the rest of the book), she hand waves all American and Allied defensive capabilities (THAAD, Aegis, and GMD either don't work or can't work in her scenario, which is irritatingly simplistic).
If you want good journalism on nuclear weapons, strategy, or survivability, I suggest you check out Garrett M. Graff's "Raven Rock," Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control," Max Hasting's "Inferno," or Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." If you're looking for science fiction, you can still do better than "Nuclear War." Check out Jeffrey Lewis' "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel." Or, better yet, go play Fallout: New Vegas.
From the beginning, it's obvious that Jacobsen has an agenda. This is undisclosed disarmament propaganda. (There's nothing wrong with pushing for Nuclear Zero: just acknowledge it!) Several other reviewers, including those at The New York Times, share concerns with her portrayal of nuclear Armageddon. If we are supposed to trash all our nukes, how do we do that? Jacobsen offers no advice. Throughout "Nuclear War," Jacobsen reiterates just how "evil" nuclear weapons are. Toward the beginning of her book, she compares the American nuclear plans with the Third Reich's Final Solution. This is a common trope in Jacobsen books. She frequently compares the American government with history's arch-villains. Still, I find that comparison irresponsible at best.
I thought Peter Huessy of Global Security Review wrote an excellent review and rebuttal.
Another trope at work in "Nuclear War" is Jacobsen's tendency to interview a handful of people on bureaucracy's margins and take their statements as irrefutable fact. In this case, she frontloads the book with an appeal to authority. She lists several people ostensibly familiar with the subject at hand in order to convince readers that they should trust her as a result. Some of the men and women interviewed are objectively knowledgeable folks, but several--like Bruce Blair and Ted Postol--have a well-recorded antagonistic history with the American nuclear establishment. Blair and Postol join a raft of other interviewees whose knowledge is hilariously outdated (Blair, whom she quotes throughout her sections on ICBMs, served as a missileer in the 1970s). Based on her descriptions of the post-detonation carnage, Alex Wellerstein's Nuke Map did a lot of the heavy lifting. Every time she describes a blast, it is invariably a surface detonation. Many targets would not require a surface detonation; most would be easily destroyed with an airburst, which does not create much, if any, fallout. But surface detonations make for better reading, so off she goes!
Due to the sheer number of inaccuracies, I cannot list them all. I won't even list the most egregious ones--the ones that made me put the book down, exclaim aloud, and write a note. There were 70 of those. I actually laughed out loud when, in the chapter titled "26 Minutes: National Defense Management Center, Moscow, Russia," she cited TASS--a Russian news service infamous for lying. She cited TASS while describing how much better the Russian National Defense Management Center is than its American counterpart (the National Military Command Center) beneath the Pentagon. It's allegedly superior to ours because it has a super computer smarter than a human that can predict the actions of other nations in "near real-time." (So much for that capability, by the way. After Russian satellites mistake 50 U.S. ICBMs inbound to North Korea for several hundred, Russia overreacts, throws caution to the wind, and looses all of its nuclear weapons at targets in the United States and Europe.)
Jacobsen frequently hammers the nations of the world for believing in deterrence. For the uninitiated, nuclear deterrence is simple: I promise that if you hit me, I'll burn your home to the ground with you in it. With such a disincentive, we keep the peace. If you don't hit me, we have no problem. Deterrence works, but Jacobsen has to pretend it doesn't for the purposes of her book. There is a lot of literature on this subject, and I'm convinced Jacobsen has read none of it. I like Sagan & Walz's "The Spread of Nuclear Weapons: An Enduring Debate" because it presents both sides of the argument clearly and unapologetically. Chapter 7 of that book asks "Is Nuclear Zero the Best Option?" (Get yourself a copy if you're curious as to the answer.)
When I'm unfamiliar with a subject covered in media, I like to listen to the presenter describe something with which I am familiar. Fortunately, I am quite well acquainted with the strategies, tools, and mechanisms described in Jacobsen's "Nuclear War." Specifically, I know quite a bit about the United States' Missile Alert Facilities (MAFs) and Inter-Continental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs). (Jacobsen attempts to describe these in several chapters.) MAFs are nuclear alert facilities scattered throughout North Dakota, Montana, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Colorado. Beneath each MAF is a subterranean facility known as a Launch Control Center (LCC). Inside the LCC is a two-person crew responsible for ten underground Launch Facilities (LFs), each of which contains a single Minuteman III ICBM. (This will change in the near future; we are replacing our Minuteman IIIs with a new ICBM--the Sentinel.) I've visited several MAFs (and LCCs), and I'm 100% confident Annie Jacobsen hasn't. Her description of these facilities is hilariously incorrect. I was already exasperated with her novel (and let's be honest, "Nuclear War" is a novel) and this tipped me over the edge. As soon as I heard her describe E-01 (a MAF staffed by personnel from F.E. Warren AFB in Cheyenne, WY), I knew that I could safely disregard the rest of the book.
"Nuclear War" is fiction masquerading as nonfiction. She skirts this by stating this is just a "scenario," which, when translated, means "here is a collection of six one-in-a-trillion events that represent the worst-possible outcome." (Fun fact: the likelihood of six one-in-a-trillion events happening one right after another is 1 in 10^72. That's a number larger than the number of stars in the universe.) Unfortunately for science fiction enjoyers everywhere, she completely ignores what might precipitate a global nuclear war. In her mind, Kim Jong Un arbitraily decides "to hell with it" and launches a trio of nuclear-tipped ballistic missiles at the United States. The United States responds and then Russia decides to ignore all reason (and ignore several phone calls describing exactly what is happening) and join in on the fun. Bada-boom, we're at nuclear war. The U.S. and Russia exchange their entire stockpiles of thermonuclear weapons and the world is "over." (Her last chapter is titled "24,000 Years Later: United States of America," for heaven's sake.) To get to this bloody and terrifying conclusion (which is riddled with inaccuracies on par with the rest of the book), she hand waves all American and Allied defensive capabilities (THAAD, Aegis, and GMD either don't work or can't work in her scenario, which is irritatingly simplistic).
If you want good journalism on nuclear weapons, strategy, or survivability, I suggest you check out Garrett M. Graff's "Raven Rock," Eric Schlosser's "Command and Control," Max Hasting's "Inferno," or Richard Rhodes' "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." If you're looking for science fiction, you can still do better than "Nuclear War." Check out Jeffrey Lewis' "The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States: A Speculative Novel." Or, better yet, go play Fallout: New Vegas.
dark
informative
fast-paced
You know going in, this will be very em tional to read. The author brilliantly presents details such as how early detection systems work, command and control for nuclear weapons, how decision makers may think and act. The details of blast results are truly hell. The scenario presented here is so dark and terrible. I found it very plausible which is terrifying.
We need to work internationally to have open inspections to reduce the nuclear weapons stockpiles. And work toward elimination. I of course don't know details of getting that done but the risks of doing nothing are too high. I have generally had these thoughts in back of my mind. Now it's brought to front.
My final thoughts on this book are to pray. Lord help us. Lord have mercy on us
We need to work internationally to have open inspections to reduce the nuclear weapons stockpiles. And work toward elimination. I of course don't know details of getting that done but the risks of doing nothing are too high. I have generally had these thoughts in back of my mind. Now it's brought to front.
My final thoughts on this book are to pray. Lord help us. Lord have mercy on us
fast-paced
informative
fast-paced
every time I start this, I ended up with a migraine so… maybe another time lol