Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen – A Review

Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen – A Review
 
Introduction
By now, many of you are familiar with Annie Jacobsen’s books. She has won just about every accolade a writer could want, including a New York Times bestseller and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her works on nuclear war are so respected that only a few dare challenge the scenarios in her books. Jacobsen claims that Nuclear War: A Scenario is a nonfiction, realistic depiction of how cascading events could lead to an all-out nuclear war.
So why am I taking the time to comment on her latest book, Nuclear War: A Scenario? Let me explain. Annie Jacobsen lays claim to a realistic series of events about nuclear war based on interviews and consultations with former military generals, cabinet members, and self-proclaimed experts, but she has managed to belie the facts to the American public. 

Several common threads run through her dogma on nuclear warfare. I will occasionally refer to my previous article criticizing film director Kathryn Bigelow and scriptwriter Noah Oppenheim for their film A House of Dynamite, which depicts a similar scenario. 

Jacobsen, who has appeared on Joe Rogan’s podcasts several times, has a long-tenured writing career on military matters that at times gives way to a risible regard for her credibility. (See nbcnews.com/science/cosmic-log/were-soviets-behind-roswell-ufo-flna6c10403209.) Nonetheless, she is where populist America has turned for its briefing on nuclear war, primarily due to the media’s push to anoint a leader. While we need a leader for this important message, we need one with facts that are beyond question. I have some concerns about what I perceive to be inaccuracies in Jacobsen’s book. If you look behind the curtain, you will see that most if not all her advisors are ancient in terms of nuclear war where technology and strategy are changing rapidly.
 
What Air University Press Says
According to Air University Press (https://www.airuniversity.af.edu/AUPress/Book-Reviews/Display/Article/4300576/nuclear-war-a-scenario/):

Despite its strengths, the book has notable limitations. Chief among them is its speculative framing. The scenario Jacobsen presents is a worst-case trajectory with little room for de-escalation, diplomatic intervention, or fail-safes within real-world nuclear policy. While the scenario is grounded in legitimate concerns, its determinism risks reinforcing a narrative of inevitability rather than a preventable catastrophe. In doing so, it may obscure the tools that states have developed to manage escalation, such as back-channel communication, crisis signaling, and regional deconfliction.
Additionally, the book simplifies institutional complexity. Though Jacobsen references key components like US Strategic Command and the National Military Command Center, she largely omits the layers of interagency coordination, legal safeguards, and Allied engagement that shape real nuclear decision-making. Extended deterrence strategies involving Japan, South Korea, and NATO are barely addressed, even though they are central to the contemporary deterrence environment. The portrayal of nuclear authority as a linear and fast-moving chain from launch detection to retaliation glosses over the procedural and bureaucratic realities that, while imperfect, are designed to prevent rash or mistaken decisions.
 
My Comments: Nuclear War: A Scenario Is Impossible 
General Comments

1. Part I of Nuclear War: A Scenario recounts the history of the Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP)—the United States’ plan from 1961 to 2003 for a preemptive but not preventative nuclear strike. But it compares SIOP to Nazi genocide, which according to one reviewer is unseemly. Yes, SIOP was a massive overkill of an adversary that was also nuclear armed, but it was not genocide.
   
   
2. The attack in both A House of Dynamite (the movie) and Nuclear War: A Scenario (the book) is an out-of-the-blue attack that even Jacobsen admits is nonsensical. In both the movie and the book, the attack by North Korea is an extremely limited attack that certainly would not have achieved decapitation.
   
   
3. Jacobsen constantly pushes the notion that the United States must respond in a very limited time, which for Jacobsen amounts to six minutes. In the movie, the President is constantly pushed for his “orders” while pressing the idea that the retaliatory strike must be done at once or the United States will lose its ability to retaliate at all. For reasons stated in my critique of the movie, such immediacy is lunacy and only contributes to what everyone is trying to avoid—worldwide nuclear war. Russia possesses twelve nuclear-armed submarines, so in the book when the President of the Russian Federation is pushed for an order for an attack because of incoming warheads, the scenario loses credibility.
   
   
4. Jacobsen does get credit for using Space-Based Infrared System (SBIRS) satellites to detect the launch and determine its origin within one second of launch. However, in the movie, outdated Defense Support Program (DSP) satellites are mistakenly utilized, maintaining that we don’t know exactly who fired the missile. In the book, we know it is headed for the United States fifteen seconds into the launch. It takes much longer in the movie. The book is correct. The movie is not. The book knows it is going to hit the East Coast within thirty seconds of launch. The movie takes much longer to determine where the missile is headed.
   
   

Specific Reasons the Scenario Is Impossible

1. Jacobsen uses the Hwasong-17 (HWS-17) intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) to boost a 1 megaton bus (a warhead reentry vehicle that sometimes contains decoys—chaff, etc.) 6,800 miles to Washington, DC. The first problem is that the highest-yielding nuclear warhead that North Korea likely has is 10–20 kilotons (see Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists).
   
   
2. The second problem is that the HWS-17 can’t get that heavy of a bus (1 megaton) or even a 1 megaton warhead without chaff and decoys to accurately target and hit the Pentagon in Washington, DC. The circular error probability (CEP) of this missile with a warhead over 1,000 kg is hundreds of meters and not meant to be a precision weapon for taking out fortified targets. So it is unlikely that it could hit the Pentagon and destroy the National Military Command Center—a central thesis of the book—with a warhead that North Korea could build because the yield would be multiples less than 1 megaton.
   
   
3. Because of the limited supply of weapons-grade material, experts on nuclear weapons estimate that North Korea, as of 2024, has approximately fifty warheads in the 10–20 kiloton range. On July 14, 2024, the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists published the article “North Korean Nuclear Weapons, 2024” by Hans M. Kristensen, Matt Korda, Eliana Johns, and Mackenzie Knight, in which they stated: 
   
   

While North Korea’s warhead design and stockpile makeup are unknown, it is possible that most weapons would likely be single-stage fission weapons with yields possibly between 10 and 20 kilotons of TNT equivalent, akin to those demonstrated in the 2013 and 2016 tests, and a smaller number would be composite-core single-stage warheads with a higher yield. Such an arsenal would also be consistent with the understanding that North Korea has a limited plutonium supply and prioritizes shorter-range nuclear weapons capabilities over long-range strategic weapons.   https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/00963402.2024.2365013#d1e206 

1. Jacobsen believes that the four Ground-Based Interceptors would all miss. That’s possible, but very unlikely. While critics typically use the total number of interceptions since 2002 to measure effectiveness, they often ignore recent improvements and performance over the last ten years, though debated, has hit 100 percent. So, if you say the effective rate on March 30, 2024, was 60 percent, then the odds that all four would miss are about 16 in 600, or 2.6 percent. Also, this warhead does not have decoys of chaff, making interception easier.
   
   
2.  Jacobsen writes, “And so, decades later, we’re still here.” With Launch on Warning (LOW) in effect, that is just not the case. In the book, all we have is one incoming missile from North Korea and a second from a 1950s submarine. The President has time to determine if more missiles are being fired, even from offshore submarines. 
   
   

The Sub-Firing Second Missile Could Not Have Gone Undetected and Would Have Been Blown Out of the Water 
The Korean Peoples Navy (KPN) has only one or possibly two diesel electric submersible ships ballistic (SSB) that have been remodeled. The sub that Jacobsen is talking about in her book is likely the Romeo Class Hero Kim Kun Ok (Hull No. 841). It draws extra scrutiny when it leaves port because of its claimed but unproven capability to launch a Korean KN-23 with a nuclear warhead 400 miles. As of mid-2025, there haven’t been any extensive sea trials necessary to confirm its reliability and missile capability in a combat scenario. Even remodeled, it likely gives off 140 decibels when snorkeling, making it detectable for hundreds of miles.

1. Jacobsen posits that the second missile that hits the Diablo Canyon Power Plant has been launched by a modified Romeo class submarine traveling at about 5 knots per hour (5 x 1.15 = 5.75 mph) for 5,000–6,000 nautical miles. That means the sub would have to travel undetected forty-five to fifty days. Theodore Postol, professor emeritus at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), is Jacobsen’s go-to guy when she needs to legitimize an otherwise extremely unlikely event. He obliges her in many areas of the book. Throughout the years, Postol has made some controversial claims, so perhaps we need to take his claim with a grain of salt that the Romeo could have made the trip undetected. (See:  https://www.reuters.com/world/latest-north-korean-missile-sparks-new-debate-over-possible-russian-role-2023-08-18/#:~:text=SEOUL/WASHINGTON%2C%20Aug%2018%20(,technical%20cooperation%20sourced%20to%20Russia)
   
   
2. Here is why the scenario in the book has a less-than-slim chance of occurring.
   
   A. The remodeled Romeo has given up half its battery space for missile tubes. It is not equipped with a modern Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) system that enables modern diesel electric submarines to stay submerged for a week or more. That means it must snorkel to recharge its batteries for six out of every forty-eight hours. The reduction in battery power would likely reduce its cruising speed to 4 knots per hour, causing it to run out of fuel or food before it reaches its firing position.
   
   B. If indeed the trip is one where the sub hugs the coastline to avoid detection, as Postol posits, the trip is close to 6,950 nautical miles, not 5,000–6,000, making it even more likely that the crew would run out of food and fuel before reaching its destination 350 miles from Avila Beach in San Luis Obispo County, California. In shallow water the proximity of the seabed and the hull create a drag called the “confined water effect.” In addition, a submarine in shallow water experiences the “squat effect” necessitating trims by the bow or stern while moving. Finally, evasive maneuvers would often be necessary. All these factors would suck massive amounts of fuel from a boat built primarily for surface travel.
   
   C. The warhead attached to the KN-23 missile is likely a Hwasan-31 nicknamed “Olive” with a maximum yield of 20 kilotons, not a 300-kiloton warhead that is in the book.  
   
   D. The Romeo likely would be detected and followed when it left port in the Sea of Japan due to the extra scrutiny it would draw and the extraordinary capabilities of the Japanese Navy.
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3. Japanese detection: The Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) does the following:
   
   A. Maintains an extraordinary network of fixed undersea hydrophone arrays.
   
   B. Operates a dedicated class of Hibiki class ocean surveillance ships dedicated to submarine detection using a surveillance Towed Array Sensor System (SURTASS).
   
   C. Maintains an integrated system of hull-mounted sonar and towed arrays from surface ships that are connected with the US system.
   
   D. Keeps unmanned underwater vehicles (UUVs) equipped with advanced sonar suites and long-range underwater acoustic communication systems.
   
   E. Operates a robust maritime patrol that deploys helicopters (Mitsubishi SH-60K) and Kawasaki P-1 fixed wing aircraft dedicated to submarine detection. 
   
   

US Detection
Even if the 841 Romeo class makes it to Alaska undetected (highly unlikely), it still must make it undetected from Alaska to a position 350 miles from Avila Beach, California. To do that, Jacobsen says it “hugs the continental shelf along Alaska and then heads south.” It cannot cross the open ocean undetected from Alaska to within 300 miles of our California coast for several reasons.

1. The Integrated Undersea Surveillance System (IUSS), with its sensitive passive sonar that includes seabed sonar arrays and other fixed sensors, can track the Romeo’s overall acoustic signature from machinery, propellers, and pumps when it enters operational areas. Three hundred miles from our coastline means the Romeo has entered the open ocean where passive sonar configurations such as the IUSS will certainly detect it. 
   
   
2. Destroyers (US DDG 51 class) and frigates that are equipped with advanced hull-mounted and sonar array systems—such as the AN/SQQ-89. Virginia class submarines utilizing BQQ-10 sonar, Large Aperture Bow (LAB) sonar array, wide aperture lightweight fiber optic sonar array, high-frequency active sonars, and a high frequency Low Cost Conformal Array (LCCA), acting as part of the coastal US Maritime Domain Awareness (MDA) program—would detect the Romeo. A KPN sub this far from its normal waters would pique the interest of the MDA.
   
   
3. The United States deploys at least twenty-five of the deadly Virginia class and twenty-three Los Angeles class submarines specifically designed to hunt and track subs, often tailing them from their home ports.
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4. Hugging the coastline route will draw extra scrutiny. This route forces the submarine into a more confined, predictable area that is heavily monitored by coastal sensors.
   
   
5. In Jacobsen’s scenario in the book, US forces have been on high alert for nineteen minutes, and it is extremely likely that the 841 has a Virginia class attack submarine for a shadow. That means the US attack sub can hear the Romeo preparing to fire a missile and will destroy it immediately. It is even more likely that the minute North Korea is identified as the nation that fired the HS-17, the Romeo will cease to exist.
   
   

ICBM Flight Time from Wyoming to Russia – Thirty Minutes
We can’t contact Russia, but oddly enough in the book, a farmer (spy) in Wyoming gets through to the Russian Federation’s spy agency—the Main Directorate of the General Staff (GU)—to leave a message. 
For some inexplicable reason, the United States has chosen to fly its missiles over Russia, despite not being able to contact them in advance. Both the inability to contact them and then flying the missiles over Russia are unbelievable.

To make the book’s scenario plausible, we must believe that Putin is hiding in Siberia (unlikely). It is equally unlikely that the Russian counterparts hang up or refuse to exchange meaningful information with their American counterparts. And it is simply untrue that Russia’s Tundra satellites, Over-the-Horizon (OTH) radar, Don-2N, and Voronezh radar fail to give Russia time to determine the number and trajectory of the incoming warheads. 
The United States launched twenty-four minutes after the North Korean launch. By the time we get to forty-four minutes after the launch, the fifty warheads launched by the US Minuteman missiles have been in the air for eighteen to twenty minutes, which is more than enough time for the Russian Federation to determine that the Minuteman’s target is not Russia and that the number of incoming warheads is 82, not 182. 
Here is shorthand for what Russia really sees and thinks.

1. Russia knows the United States has been hit with two missiles. It believes the United States knows that a decapitation out-of-the-blue strike by Russia would involve hundreds if not thousands of sophisticated Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicle (MIRV) missiles.
   
   
2. Russia’s Tundra satellites pick up the launch of both the Minuteman and Trident missiles seconds after launch and expect they are headed for Korea.
   
   
3. Ten to fifteen minutes into the Minuteman's flight, the aforementioned radars have separated the warheads from the chaff and determined that North Korea is the target. Modern radar systems use a Doppler effect filtering that measures the relative velocity of targets and can filter out targets that do not maintain the high velocity consistent with an incoming warhead. Russia’s X-Band radars, like our AN/TPY-2, can clearly identify warheads from decoys and chaff. Multi-static networks like Russia’s also use several angles to distinguish decoys from warheads. Russia would not believe that the United States was hitting them with just 182 warheads.
   
   

While I applaud Annie Jacobsen’s effort and enjoyed reading Nuclear War: A Scenario, it needs a heavy disclaimer so readers are not misled to believe that this scenario could happen. The scenario depicted in the book is not only technologically impossible (e.g., the inability of the HWS-17 to thrust a 1 megaton bus with a warhead into an orbit that would hit the Pentagon) but also suffers from the very odd two-warhead bolt-out-of-the-blue attempt at decapitation.
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What I found intriguing in the book was the pace at which the story was told and the author’s largely accurate depiction of the devastation and dire consequences of nuclear war. Perhaps if the author had provided a geopolitical event that led to a full-scale nuclear exchange, the book would have been better.
 
Thomas J. Yeggy
Thomasjyeggy.com
[email protected]