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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
dark
medium-paced
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
Devastating and honest
challenging
dark
informative
Harrowing piece of fictional IR that speculates an all out nuclear war and the Armageddon devastation it would bring.
Jacobsen’s scenario is a well researched, detailed and gruesome account of what would result from such a war.
It presents key information from various sources such as declassified US, Russian and NATO documents to interviews with US military, government and nuclear officials on how nuclear war is to be and may be waged. From laying out the chain of US presidential command, to nuclear codes protocol, to the launching of ICBM, SLBM and other nuclear weapons across North Korea, the US, NATO and Russia - it presents the inherent fallacy of MAD and deterrence, and the irrationality of having nuclear weapons.
The detail in which Jacobsen investigates nuclear policies and protocol in these countries is informative for those interested in war and security studies, nuclear weapons politics and especially nuclear disarmament issues. In its fictional IR genre, it touches on the security issues of the current political time and the conflicts they can bring about. It is a pressing and sharp call to rethink nuclear weapons policies, nuclear war, proliferation, armament and stockpiling, and to be aware of the impending destruction possible at any time.
An appreciation of Jacobsen’s message though does require an overlooking of some shortfalls in her work. Jacobsen’s scenario, while poignant, plays into harmful and negative stereotypes of North Korea and the non-Western world. The use of terms like the “mad king” to refer to the DPRK’s leader, portrayed as a trigger happy maniac, plays into the narrative of North Korea’s Kims as erratic, as irrational and crazy, as the ‘axis of evil’. While the US follows all the necessary nuclear protocols and attempts to call Pyongyang and Moscow and gets ignored by both, the leader of the DPRK wishes to get back at a USA that mocked the darkness of the North vs South Korea in a famous photo by plunging the US into similar darkness and Russia is stubborn and hard headed, refusing to take the US’s call even on the brink of nuclear war.
Another minor issue I had is in the worldview within which Jacobsen’s language resides. The author speaks of an end of the world, a nuclear world war, of human civilisation brought to its end, yet does not adequately delve into possible impact of all-out nuclear war on the rest of the world. While we know the minute by minute fates of those in the immediate conflict ( the US, Russia, the Korean Peninsula, NATO), what immediate and long-terms impacts would this have on the South Americas and Africa and its peoples? What would it mean for these non-nuclear states, as the world, in a nuclear third world war? From the Savannah climates to Peru to the Sahel or Saudi Arabia to the dependant economies of other regions, will the radiation reach there or will they mostly suffer from the nuclear winter? How would economies globally fall apart. While it may not have been within Jacobsen’s scope, it would be interesting to have these avenues explored more too.
Despite these shortfalls, the scenario is a urgent call to disarm nuclear weapons, rethink nuclear policies and be confront how easily and quickly (in this scenario just over an hour) destructive, earth shattering wars can come to pass.
dark
informative
sad
fast-paced
dark
informative
sad
tense
slow-paced
informative
tense
fast-paced
Re-reminder that we are screwed.
The tech is all rather cool though.
The tech is all rather cool though.
challenging
dark
informative
fast-paced
I read Nuclear War: A Scenario during the recent Israel-Iran war, when it genuinely felt like we might be one bad decision away from the abyss. Partly (but by no means entirely) because of that context, I don’t think I’ve ever read anything more sobering or more necessary in a long time. Annie Jacobsen doesn’t do melodrama or political editorializing; she just walks you, minute by minute, through how a nuclear exchange might actually unfold. The result is terrifying precisely because it’s so calm, clinical, and plausible.
This isn’t speculative fiction – it’s a war game with real-world inputs, down to the command protocols, satellite blind spots, and human fallibility built into every step. You can feel the dread ratcheting up with each chapter, not because of shock value, but because you realize how little room there is for error. And how often error is exactly what happens.
Reading this while the headlines were full of real-world escalation made it hit like a punch to the chest. It’s not just a cautionary tale, it’s a map of how we destroy ourselves while still insisting we’re in control. I give it a solid five stars not because I enjoyed it, but because I needed to read it. We all do.
dark
emotional
tense
medium-paced