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4.35 AVERAGE
4.35 AVERAGE
informative
reflective
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mostly parrots state department propaganda about the dprk
challenging
dark
informative
sad
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slow-paced
A look at just how close we are to the end of the world at any given moment. Incredibly challenging to read but impossible to put down. Clear anti-nuclear, anti-military bias throughout, but the attention to detail make this a must-read.
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This might be a difficult book to rate just because it made me feel horribly anxious which means it did a good job accurately explaining the decimation that would occur if this event was unleashed. However, it also made me feel negatively towards the book unfortunately because it was so terrible to come to terms with the facts. I continually had issues with wrapping my mind around why there are so many WMDs in existence if we all are 'agreeing not to use them'. My logical brain just implodes at that statement. Additionally, I cannot handle how ridiculously short sighted the response plans for this planet altering process is. Overall, I would say this content is a 'consume and immediately trash' type because I can't have those kinds of burdensome/uncontrollable things rolling around in my noggin for long!
Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen. Here’s a scary thought: the United States’ nuclear deterrence policy is based on the concept of Launch on Warning. Our nuclear weapons, consisting of some 1,700 deployed weapons among a stockpile of 5,000, are designed to be fired as soon as our constellation of satellites and radar stations detect a launch of a nuclear weapon delivery platform and confirmation of US interests as the target. Essentially, if one nuclear-armed missile is fired in our direction, potentially hundreds of weapons will be launched in retaliation in an effort to “restore deterrence.” While one nuclear detonation in a major US city would kill millions, the retaliatory strike and the consequences thereof - further escalation, fallout and radiation, fires and famine - would ensure the deaths of billions. Fear of these consequences is said to force nuclear powers toward rational decision-making, but what if an irrational power decided to risk the consequences and launched a thermonuclear weapon at Washington DC? Jacobsen starts with this premise in Nuclear War: A Scenario and uses it to explore the US nuclear weapons program and the policies, procedures, and protocols governing their use in a minute-by-minute play-by-play of an imagined but all-too-realistic nuclear holocaust that destroys life as we know it in about seventy-two minutes, exactly as our policies proscribe. Diligently researched and authoritative, Jacobsen’s thesis is this: there is no such thing as limited nuclear war and in nuclear war, everyone loses. If the bombs don’t kill you immediately, everything that follows - chemical contamination, ecosystem collapse, the destruction of the global economic systems - will. Nuclear technology is one of our most important discoveries, but we just might be too stupid for it. Highly Recommended.
challenging
dark
emotional
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challenging
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This is fine. It’s more a break down of how the American empire/bureaucracy would continue and end up a player Alison in nuclear war. But it has a clear bias towards the USA and are the only leads and people she humanizes. I understand her point but it is basically that nuclear war is bad and we need disarmament.
challenging
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informative
sad
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got a bit to hypothetical to me that i lost track of the plot. balanced between being a hypothetical and general situation that felt weird. scary situation to think about but harder to accept how scary it is when the story just feels made up (a "what-if" episode).
dark
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challenging
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Terrifying. Upsetting. Foreboding. This book was horrifying to read but so important. An illuminating look into how close we are to end of the world at any given moment. A brilliant book that should be required reading for all of humanity.