Nuclear War: A Scenario

Nuclear War: A Scenario is a 2024 book by American journalist Annie Jacobsen, published by Dutton and Transworld. The book combines historical analysis of U.S. nuclear war planning with a minute-by-minute account of a hypothetical first strike by North Korea against the United States, showing how the conflict escalates to global thermonuclear war within 72 minutes, leading to nuclear winter and 5 billion deaths. The work examines both the historical development of American nuclear doctrine since the 1960s and contemporary protocols that would govern U.S. response to a nuclear attack.

Summary

The book presents a fictional but fact-based nuclear war scenario, constructed from expert interviews and declassified documents. In the Prologue, Jacobsen depicts how a one-megaton thermonuclear detonation above the Pentagon would kill one million people in 90 seconds, and why such an attack would inevitably escalate into a global conflict ending human civilization.

Part I, the only historical background of the book, examines secret U.S. nuclear war planning, particularly a classified 1960 meeting at U.S. Strategic Command where military officials finalized plans for nuclear war against the Soviet Union that would have killed 600 million people.

The initial 24 minutes of the scenario form Part II. North Korea launches a surprise ICBM toward Washington, D.C. followed by a second nuclear missile targeting California's Diablo Canyon Nuclear Power Plant. U.S. defense systems fail to intercept either warhead. The president, initially evacuated for safety, eventually authorizes massive nuclear retaliation with 82 warheads against North Korea.

Communication breakdown and escalating retaliation form the core of the next 24 minutes of the scenario (Part III).