I can’t begin to tell you how depressing this book is.
“Parts of the bodies were missing,” she realized. “The skin and flesh were hanging from the bones. Some were carrying their own eyeballs.”
In this scenario, North Korea enacts a surprise nuclear strike on the US. It’s a limited strike. However, Jacobsen – with, I think, admirable restraint and clear sight – shows that not only can that limited strike not be defended against, but that it would undeniably trigger general nuclear world war and that we’d all be dead in an hour and a half.
I am very behind the times on general nuclear war theory, and I was not expecting that there is in fact no working defense against ICBM or submarine-launched missiles.
A nuclear-armed, nuclear-powered submarine is a nightmare weapon system. An object as dangerous to human existence as an incoming asteroid. These submarines are called many things: boomers, vessels of death, nightmare machines, handmaidens of the apocalypse.
It is all, in fact, worse than I thought. Probably worse than most people thought. There is no optimism here. Just cold hard numbers and a cold hard look at nuclear posture and the mindset it propagates. It’s as grim as THREADS. I picked this up because I read that Denis Villeneuve had optioned it for film. At the time, I thought, oh, he’d like his OPPENHEIMER. Having now read it, I can see why the end of the book might appeal to him – a speculative scene in the far future — but, damn, the rest of the book is a relentless horror and nobody will thank him for bringing that to cinematic life.
It’s an incredible read. You pretty much know from the start how it’s going to go, but it sets its hooks well and drives you through to the inevitable conclusion: that we still live in a state of utter irrationality regarding the threat of nuclear war.