Examining Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario
This blog explores the power of grassroots action, the flaws of nuclear deterrence, and the vital role of local movements in Scotland in shaping a world free from nuclear weapons:
Annie Jacobsen’s chilling, well-researched book Nuclear War: A Scenario explores what a nuclear strike on the United States may entail. By presenting a hypothetical, yet deeply plausible series of events, Jacobsen explores the fragility of global security and the devastating consequences of failing to prioritize de-escalation and disarmament. The book highlights issues that are extremely pertinent to the grassroots groups in Scotland that relentlessly advocate for nuclear disarmament and the application of the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, including Secure Scotland and the Scottish Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (SCND), which are part of the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons (ICAN).
The book highlights the problems with deterrence as a policy, exposing a risky reliance on the notion that even in the most irrational situations, rational judgment will win out. This strategy is not only restrictive but also dangerously lacking in rigour since it ignores the worst-case situations that could occur, such poor judgment, a panic attack, or a communication breakdown that results in a full panic attack. Jacobsen’s narrative vividly illustrates how easily catastrophic decisions can unfold when nuclear weapons are involved. By describing the chain of command and the procedures that would be triggered in the case of a nuclear attack, the book exposes a system that is rife with technological and human weaknesses. The scenario’s plausibility serves as a stark warning: the existence of nuclear weapons inherently endangers civil society. For the nuclear disarmament movement, this reinforces the necessity of proactive measure like those championed in the TPNW, which aim to eliminate the threat as its source rather than relying on a fragile mechanism of deterrence.
It stresses the core idea that even hypothetical scenarios require practical solutions. The future of humanity depends on nuclear disarmament; it is not merely a pipe dream. Elimination and the worldwide prohibition of nuclear weapons has been the primary goal of ICAN as an absolute necessity since its inception, and Jacobsen’s book serves as a powerful reminder of why these initiatives must go forward unobstructed.
Nuclear War: A Scenario is a call to action as much as an engrossing story. Jacobsen urges readers to reconsider the present reality by exposing the horrifying ease with which nuclear weapons may wipe off human civilization. The book also gives grassroots groups like Secure Scotland and SCND a fresh perspective on the significance of their work and a renewed sense of urgency for their activism.
Watch the author interviewed here:
The book’s message on nuclear abolition underscores the importance of local action in confronting global concerns. Despite the seemingly overwhelming complexity of international politics, as shown in Jacobsen’s book, grassroots organisations can effect change from the ground up. The disarmament movement in Scotland finds great resonance in this lesson. Scotland has been a strong opponent of nuclear weapons, with communities regularly organizing against the Trident nuclear program, even though Westminster has not adopted the TPNW. Secure Scotland and SCND exemplify the role of grassroots activism in shaping public discourse and pressuring policymakers. For example, by consistently blocking nuclear installations and causing disruption that attracts public and political attention, Trident Ploughshares exemplifies the effectiveness of direct action. The movement was also significantly enhanced by the involvement of Scottish parliamentarians in these demonstrations, exhibiting a rare partnership between official government backing and grassroots initiatives.
Jacobsen’s hypothetical scenario might focus on the United States, but the implications are global. The work of these Scottish organisations demonstrates how local movements can challenge national and international norms, pushing nuclear disarmament higher on policy agendas. Together, these efforts showcase how local and national actors can come together to confront the pressing issue of nuclear weapons on a global stage.
A key meeting where signatories to the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons assess progress and plan how to further disarmament objectives is the Meeting of States Parties. There, governments and civil society have a platform to debate challenges to the treaty’s implementation and restate their commitments. With the Third Meeting of States Parties imminent, Jacobsen’s work functions as both a cautionary tale and a source of inspiration. It highlights that the struggle for nuclear disarmament transcends treaties and discussions; it is fundamentally about preserving the future of humanity. Grassroots action plays a vital part in achieving this goal, connecting local concerns with global solutions. Although Jacobsen’s scenario is hypothetical, the threat it illustrates is undeniably real, and it is a peril that we must collectively strive to eradicate.
I was about 16 years old at the time of the Cuban Crisis
I remember being at home from school for lunch.
Having heard the news on the radio I sat on the loo for a long time, shit scared.
Eventually Mum bought me the glad news that sense had reigned – JFK and Krushev made the right decisions.
I missed school that afternoon – but we all breathed a massive sigh of relief.
I fear that these days political leaders (especially western ones) are weaker and the military influence
is stronger, largely because it is where most of the investments have been made.
I found watching ‘Oppenheimer’ reawakened that fear I had back in 1962.
His face cringed and his body shook upon the the test explosion.
Even scarier was his entrance to the gathering celebrating the test’s success.
He was clearly shocked and deeply disturbed by what he had manifested.
However the crowd (super patriotic Americans) was ecstatic and gleeful.
If there ever is a nuclear war patriotism will be pointless.
These weapons must be banished.
I was 20 when Able Archer 83 brought us close to nuclear war in the northern hemisphere. Twice individual Russians have saved the world from nuclear war, we should be more grateful to them.
As a follow-on, I highly recommend The Doomsday Machine by Daniel Ellsberg, Bloomsbury (2017)ISBN 978-1-4088-8929-9
if readers want to look at this subject further.
I did watch all the interview, which is very good. Does beg some questions though.
I don’t know if it’s in her book, but the video interview overlooked that the US armed forces nuclear war fighting doctrine is one of offensive operations – ie the US is the nation most likely to start a nuclear war. Bare in mind there are nuclear/christian (delete as appropriate) zealots populating US think tanks and agencies that actually believe they can win a nuclear war!
The next one is a technological question. The author states that SLBM (submarine launched ballistic missiles, eg our Trident) navigate towards the target using star pattern data. Now then, what happens when the nav system detects some of Musks satellites and doesn’t recognise the pattern – will it then fly off course by hundreds of miles? Google states they use two stars to get a fix to enhance their own internal pre-plotted nav system. If it focuses on a passing satelite as one of the fix points….
Linked to that is the author stating most nukes are still run by analog computers, rather than digital, so that AI can’t take them over. Which raises the point most of the world’s nuclear arsenal is very old, much of it built in the Cold War. As machines get older they wear out and fall apart, there have been some scarey stories about UK Trident subs. You can only do so much with gaffer tape, WD40 and analog computer cards. I suspect a lot won’t work as intended, and end up falling in the sea or nuking targets in Finland and north Africa by accident. It’s probably not really an issue, as there is enough of the newer build stuff to make the northern hemisphere barren of humans and most other life forms.
I did come across this when looking to see if Blackpool is on the target list:
https://eprints.leedsbeckett.ac.uk/id/eprint/4727/6/Target%20North-West.pdf
It’s a bit out of date (1982) but it does have this quote:
“According to a Brookings Institution Study, prepared in co-operation with the
Department of Defence, the U. S. government threatened the use of strategic nuclear
weapons no less than 18 times between 1946 and 1970.”
-‘Counter Spy’ July/August 1982
Like I said, it is the US we should be most worried about.
My own feeling is that nuclear war by accident is as probable as a deliberately started strategy. If given enough notice of a general conflagration your best bet is to move to a city centre and be vapourised instantly, or go to the nearest hilltop and watch the fireworks display until the radiation kills you. Either way you are not going to want to be alive afterwards.
From nearby Pendle Hill I would have a good view of Preston, Warton, Manchester, Blackburn and Blackpool being hit, and even see the flashes in the distance of Liverpool, Heysham and Lancaster. As for my home town, it depends if Putin has updated his targeting lists since the Cold War (given the inertia of any state beuracracy, I do wonder) since we no longer make Harpoon missile and cluster bomb parts here. Although one of my mates works as a welder at a company that makes nuclear waste flasks for the nuclear industry – the amount of welding & ultra-sound scanning work involved is insane compared to just doing normal girders and stuff. So maybe he’s on the target list? If Putin has a few spare and is adding motorway junctions/bridges to the target list, I’m just 280m away from that ground zero, so instant vapourisation.
And whilst this isn’t to detract from the grass-roots activism advocated to get these insanities outlawed, a sanguine outlook for your own prospects and a touch of gallows humour are useful additives.
We live under a military dictatorship. How much more clearly does anyone need this spelt out? Just lose your ‘conceptual blinkers’ for a moment. You want a higher body count to prove this? Be careful what you wish for.
Unfortunately, the interview doesn’t really deal with the USAmerican first strike doctrine. It does confirm the sole authority of POTUS, though (without expanding on how nuclear command, control and communication systems plus technology plus secrecy plus security etc warp politics across areas unrelated to military).
Who still denies (as stated in the interview) that NATO is waging a proxy war against Russia in Ukraine? Who is still up for sane-washing NATO?
The systemic implications were not greatly developed, but it was interesting to hear the Dark Forest being mentioned in the context of anthropology. However, there are also religious people who may look forward to Armageddon (as Ronald Reagan did the Rapture).
Non-human life and Earth systems are not being considered here, apart from the general extinction event comparison with an asteroid.
If reality or thought experiments are too much, there are accessible models in science fiction. I’m currently reading the Star Wars based The Rise and Fall of the Galactic Empire by Chris Kempshall, which essentially covers the same ground (Emperor Palpatine and the secret Death Star weapons-of-mass-destruction programme). For the privileged demographics in the Empire, it may have been easier to pretend they weren’t living under a military dictatorship as long as other people (human or otherwise) were suffering or being terrorised.
Well, I’ll also have to return to the essays in Exterminism and Cold War, by Edward Thompson and others, for some perspective.
Sleeping Dog – I have always had deep misgivings about NATO, US military industry and the need for nuclear weapons not unlike yourself.
I also acknowledge facts when they do not suit my narrative as has happened over Ukraine eg
1)Ukraine is not a member of NATO.
2)Ukraine wants to become a member of NATO but this has been rejected.
3)Ukraine is a sovereign nation.
4)Putin’s Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022, nearly reached suburbs of Kyiv and planned to annex the country. Ukraine have subsequently made minor excursions onto Russian territory as part of their retaliatory response to the invasion.
5)Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed by Russian attacks. Very few Russian civilians have been killed by Ukrainian attacks.
6)Ukrainian infrastructure has been indiscriminately targeted and destroyed by Russian attacks.
7)Millions of Ukrainian civilians have fled the country out of fear of Russian aggression. I am not aware of any Russian civilians fleeing Russia.
8)Ukraine requested military support from west, including NATO countries, to avoid Ukraine being annexed by Russia.
9)Ukraine frequently complains that they are receiving insufficient military support from west.
In addition other Baltic countries previously neutral have applied to join NATO out of fear of Russia.
Ukraine was persuaded to give up its nuclear weapons prior to 2022. I am opposed to nuclear weapons and support reducing number of nuclear weapons but even I wonder if Russia would have invaded if Ukraine still had nuclear weapons?
Your strident rhetoric on blaming NATO for the events of last 2 years in Ukraine denies facts and frankly undermines your credibility in the eyes of myself and majority of people in Scotland.
@John, but I am not claiming that NATO is solely, or even primarily, to blame for Russian incursions into Ukraine. I suspect that NATO is largely responsible for undermining avenues towards peace, it seems likely from reports but I cannot prove that. The antagonisms of current geopolitics have long been shaped by NATO, and it was struggling to justify its existence until it conveniently found new clients. I think you need to recognise that Ukrainian views were much more diverse before the current war, and subsequent authoritarian control over media and public expressions, and a certain amount of unity that such conflict tends to bring. And NATO membership was very much touted and part of the provocation (and USAmerican base encirclement in general, look for a current map).
NATO reserves to itself the right to destroy the world’s biosphere. This is typical of the kind of perverted property rights and customary inversions that were used to justify the actions of monarchs and European colonialists; the inversion that if ownership conferred the right to destroy, then the ability to destroy property inferred (fallaciously) ownership:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ius_abutendi
So NATO claims the world as its property on the basis of being able to destroy it. This is deeply, twistedly, evilly insane. And yet part of our everyday consciousness.