Historically, the concept of war has followed a familiar script: one victor and one vanquished. However, there exists a scenario that defies this ancient logic — nuclear war. In such a case, writes Annie Jacobsen in Nuclear War: A Scenario (Dutton), “there is no such thing as capitulation. No such thing as surrender.” Only the scorched silence of what once was.

From the very first lines, the reader is drawn into a vortex of dread—a work of speculative fiction so meticulously constructed that it becomes indistinguishable from reality. This is not merely an intellectual exercise; it is a mirror held up to our world, one where the unthinkable remains entirely plausible—and where our ability to avoid catastrophe may depend less on preparedness than on our collective refusal to acknowledge the danger.

The scenario imagined by the author begins with a North Korean nuclear strike on the United States. Confronted with the unthinkable, the President has only six minutes –  six excruciating minutes – to respond, as Ronald Reagan warned in his memoirs. From this point of no return, events unfold with brutal logic, and everything collapses.

While leafing through a briefing and sipping coffee in the White House dining room, the fictional President is rushed to the PEOC – the Presidential Emergency Operations Center, located beneath the West Wing — before being airlifted to the Raven Rock Mountain Complex (Site R), a command bunker approximately 70 miles from Washington, D.C. However, no sooner has he left the capital than Marine One is engulfed by the shockwave of a nuclear warhead that obliterates the Pentagon. The President nevertheless survives because he jumped with his CAT (Counter Assault Team) operator, but he lies wounded, alone, and sprawled in a Maryland forest. Completely powerless.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the globe, “the president of the Russian Federation is in an undisclosed location in Siberia, in a nuclear command and control facility hidden away from the rest of the world.” He is informed that one hundred ICBMs or more have crossed over the North Pole – a trajectory that directly overflies Russia. This creates a grave strategic vulnerability, which former Secretary of Defence Leon Panetta claims has been dangerously overlooked.

With the American President incapacitated, his closest advisors – the National Security Advisor, the Secretary of Defense, and the Vice-chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – unsuccessfully attempt to establish contact with the Russian President. The latter “is furious. The president of the United States has not reached out to him. He sees this not just as an insult, but as a sign of something else. Like many leaders, the Russian leader in this scenario is also prone to paranoia. He now believes Russia is being targeted by America for a decapitation strike.” He orders a counterattack. The irreversible is now inevitable.

In under two hours, the world as we know it will be obliterated.

“There are books, procedures, steps,” Panetta explains of a time like this, “lists to tell you what to do in a crisis. But no one prepares for nuclear war.” “Many presidents come to the office uninformed about their role in a nuclear war,” [adds] former Secretary of Defense Perry. “Some seem not to want to know.”” Peace, it seems, has lulled us into a dangerous complacency – a willful blindness masquerading as virtue.

Beyond the initial chaos, the author reveals a more terrifying truth: the machinery of nuclear war is irreversible. “The idea that nuclear strategies like “tailored deterrence” and “flexible retaliation” – policies that promised nuclear war could be stopped after it began – are as full of folly as deterrence itself.” In such a conflict, there can be no victor. As Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev once put it, “The survivors would envy the dead.”

Annie Jacobsen, a Pulitzer Prize finalist, further observes that “nuclear attacks are impossible to defend against.” Perhaps most chilling of all is her assertion that “the U.S. interceptor program is mostly for show.” She precises that between “2010 to 2013, not a single one of the early interceptor tests was successful. Not one. This devastating fact, uncovered through meticulous research, also led to the declassification of sensitive details about the famous nuclear “Football” – the leather satchel that never leaves the President’s side.

Reading Nuclear War: A Scenario, I couldn’t help but recall how President Reagan was ridiculed for his Strategic Defense Initiative – dubbed as “Star Wars.” At that time, it may have seemed fanciful, but now? Perhaps not so much. Unless we’re counting on Ethan Hunt and his IMF team to swoop in and defuse the crisis, can we genuinely place our faith in leaders who are prone to volatility? In that light, even Trump’s much-maligned vision of a “Golden Dome” doesn’t seem ludicrous – quite the contrary.

Nuclear War is a harrowing read, indeed. However, it’s also an essential one – as it confronts us with a harsh truth: in today’s world, the end may not come over months or years. It could unfold in just under 120 minutes.

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Annie Jacobsen, Nuclear War: A Scenario, New York, Dutton, 2024, 400 pages.