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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