Note: This isn't quite
a recommendation but since I do intend to read more books this year, I wanted to post any book thoughts here.
The only thing more horrifying than all the events described in this book is that, despite drawing on exclusive interviews with high-ranking US military officials and newly declassified information, nothing author Annie Jacobsen postulates in the scenario she depicts in these pages was really all that surprising. While maybe not having all the specifics, we’ve known, more or less, all this stuff since the beginning. “I am become death,” Dr. Strangelove, Threads, hell, even stuff like The Far Side and Mad Max understand the existential absurdity and near certain obliteration of humankind that would ensue in an all-out nuclear war. And, the book is quick to point out, because of the upside-down logic of deterrence, all-out nuclear war is practically inevitable once the (atomic bomb) train starts rolling.
Of course the book is certainly propaganda and, I think, dangerously uncritical of the origins of nuclear weapons in the first place (and far too quick to throw under the bus the collectivism that would certainly be the only hope at salvation for any survivors), but because the facts of the case in regards to how untenable an idea like deterrence really is and the terrifying reality of the destructive power of nuclear weapons is, the overall conclusions of the book, if any version of the breaking points are reached, are just factually correct.
I’m not sure this is necessary reading if you’re even slightly plugged into this stuff but if it has any chance of changing any minds and brings more advocates for complete nuclear disarmament into the fold, then I guess it’s an overall good. For my money though, if you need the same punch for a 1/10 of the time and much less unproductive fear mongering about North Korea, watch the fictional BBC telemovie
Threads, from 1984, which depicts in close detail the aftermath of a nuclear strike in Sheffield, England. Though I will say I have been thinking about Jacobsen's last couple points in her scenario's timeline--in which we skip forward thousands, then tens of thousands of years to see how very little of humankind could possibly remain--and find them to be as affecting as they are unsettling. I'm always a fan of the big-leap-forward time jumps to really drill down themes (see similar endings to the films
Aniara or
Don't Look Up for other examples).
At any rate, yeah, if it’s not clear enough, I am firmly in the camp that even one nuclear weapon represents an existential threat to humanity and none should exist at all. I once wrote a short review about the aforementioned
Threads that I’ll end with here: “a true nuclear apocalypse will offer no stories of heroism or redemption, just a long trail of catastrophes and slow-motion annihilation.”
