Nuclear War: A Scenario
By Annie Jacobsen
Dutton, January 2026, 416pp.
The Short of It:
A terrifying nuclear scenario that could absolutely happen.
The Rest of It:
Terrifying? Yes. Realistic? Absolutely. Nuclear War: A Scenario is based on intel from retired military personnel and walks the reader through a nuclear incident as it’s happening. Second by second. In five seconds, this is the impact. Two minutes in, this is what’s happening. You get the idea.
Reading this book while our current President is building a bunker to rival no other, was chilling and infuriating because given the picture that this book paints, no one is surviving. Six floors of a bunker will not save you. This is hard to read about but factual.
In this scenario, the Pentagon is the target. This seems probable to me. Taking out the command center would be the way to go. Once the bomb is dropped, it provides several stages of destruction. There’s the detonation, the flash of thermal radiation, the blast wave, electromagnetic pulse (EMP), and the formation of a radioactive fallout plume. If you aren’t one of the lucky ones to die on impact, you face horrible burns, immediate loss of limbs, burned out lungs.
If you survived all that, then your real challenge comes next. Survival. Water and food, all contaminated. All food sources, obliterated. This goes on for a very long time.
If there is no water, the fires from the blast are left unchecked and just continue to burn which damages air quality and UV filters, creating a nuclear winter; a projected drop of about 35 degrees. That means crops and livestock are wiped out.
In this scenario, it will take approximately 25K years for the earth to recover. Read that again.
Writing this book had to be quite the undertaking. It’s fascinating and you cannot stop reading even though the outcome is so grim. It’s broken down into locations and time. What’s going on in California? Or D.C.? Or at military bases around the world? More importantly, what is the President doing? His cabinet? Held against this current administration I’d have to say that we have NO HOPE of surviving such an event.
Grim.
Source: Borrowed
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Book Chatter 
Oh very scary! Not sure I could read about nuclear war right now …. so much angst with what is going on.
I felt the same way but it was for book club so I pushed through. It was absolutely terrifying because it plays out second by second, so 2 seconds after the bomb… what’s happening and where. Four minutes later the president is being swept to safety, that sort of thing. The role of the Sec of Defense and good gawd… to think of Pete in that role during a crisis like that.
Absolutely terrifying. I had to look to see if it’s nonfiction, which it is. Reminds me of how scary it was to read Lights Out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath by Ted Koppel. I read the first few chapters of that one and had to stop. Too plausible. Ugh!!
Ohhhh. I didn’t know about Lights Out. That one seems so plausible.
Yes, this one is based on confidential intel that was shared by some retired general. I kept thinking of our President in such a crisis and it would be “fend for yourself” all the way.
Terrifying given the current political situation. I remember in 1984 watching The Day After at college. It had a similar impact. I knew then that I do not want to survive a nuclear attack.
My club discusses Nuclear War tomorrow night, but at last month’s meeting, I mentioned that part of the scenario ought to include cyanide pills or something and my club lost it! They were like, I will fight to the death and I was like, not if your lungs are burned out and you are in unbelievable pain. Nope. This book is THAT descriptive. Lungs burned out, limbs blown off, but still alive. No, thank you! Especially if my kids were involved.
Absolutely! Cyanice pills at the ready.
I don’t think that I could read this at this time.
Nuclear War was very well researched but they speak of what happens to the President five minutes, in, etc. I kept picturing our current Pres and realized we would have no hope of survival.
I spent my entire childhood waiting for this to happen. I saw movies about it happening. I read books about it happening. We practiced going out in the hall of the school with our biggest textbook covering the back of our neck as we crouched against a wall. I never expected to marry, have kids, work, or grow old. Now I have done all those things, and I’m still waiting. It feels…inevitable.
That’s touched on in the book too but the scenario very quickly brings to light that no one would survive unscathed. That bunker that he’s trying to build, the six floor one? That won’t save him. Just the devastation on the ecosystem alone is estimated to take 25K years to regenerate! It’s wild! They keep building these bombs but just one will do it.
It’s terrifying to think about the person here who might set this off.