Nuclear War: A Scenario

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2024-10-23 21:30:02

Nuclear War: A Scenario is a 2024 nonfiction book by American journalist Annie Jacobsen. It outlines a timeline of a hypothetical first strike against the continental United States by North Korea.[ 1] [ 2]

The book covers standard American military protocol in the event of a nuclear first strike against the United States. It particularly highlights launch on warning as a dangerous and potentially catastrophic policy of nuclear armed nations, and concludes that any nuclear conflict has the potential to end in near-total human extinction.[ 3]

The book first discusses the Single Integrated Operational Plan, from a witness account by John H. Rubel, who detailed that in 1960, American military officials planned for a potential preemptive nuclear attack on the Soviet Union which would kill at least 600 million people, around half of whom would be from the Soviet Union's neighboring countries; Rubel said that America's top military officials lauded the plan, with only General David M. Shoup dissenting.

The book then shows a minute-by-minute breakdown from multiple perspectives of a scenario in 2024 where nuclear world war erupts. In minute 0, North Korea unleashes a surprise attack, launching a Hwasong-17 ICBM with a 1-megaton thermonuclear warhead at the Pentagon in Washington, D.C. America immediately detects the threat, but has no system to eliminate the North Korean ICBM during its boost phase when satellites still can detect it. America's long-range missile defenses consist of 44 interceptor missiles, of which 4 are fired from California at the Hwasong, but all miss in minute 9. The American president's evacuation delays the American nuclear response. By minute 16, North Korea launches a Pukguksong-1 SLBM with a thermonuclear warhead from 350 miles from California, but America's short-range missile defenses (Aegis and THAAD) were deployed too far from America to interfere. By minute 23, the North Korean SLBM successfully strikes the Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant in California, causing a nuclear meltdown. In minute 24, America initiates a nuclear attack on North Korea after the American president's approval, but due to a lack of travelling range, the American Minuteman III ICBMs must fly over Russia to reach North Korea.