Nuclear War Expert: 72 Minutes To Wipe Out 60% Of Humans, In The Hands Of 1 Person - Annie Jacobsen

[Celerity]

Annie Jacobsen is an investigative journalist, New York Times bestselling author, and a 2016 Pulitzer Prize finalist. Her books include, ‘Area 51’, ‘Operation Paperclip’, and ‘The Pentagon’s Brain’.

00:00 Intro
01:59 Why Write This Book Now?
06:30 Are We Getting Closer to Nuclear War?
08:05 Who Is in Charge of the Nuclear Button?
12:23 The Evolution of Nuclear Weapons
16:16 Who Has Nuclear Weapons?
21:32 What Is the Football and Why Is Near the President 24/7?
24:30 How Important Is Picking the Right Leader?
28:17 What If the President Is Dead?
29:28 The Biggest Mistakes in Nuclear Detection
32:16 Nuclear War Games and Strategies
38:09 How Do the Decision Makers Cope?
40:32 How Would We Know Where the Nuclear Bomb Got Launched From?
46:02 What Happens After the First Minutes?
51:46 What Happens if the President Dies
53:23 The Aftermath
01:01:59 What Would Happen to a Country After It's Struck by Nuclear Bomb
01:06:51 How Many People Will Die?
01:07:35 Where Is Safe?
01:10:07 What Is the Solution?
01:14:02 How Did Annie's Feelings Change?
01:15:53 Conspiracy or Real?
01:26:55 The Role of the CIA
01:30:36 AI and the War Machine
01:40:55 Is Annie Optimistic?
01:43:37 The Origin of War
01:46:24 The Most Important Takeaway from Annie's Books
01:50:25 The People on Both Sides of Nuclear
01:59:18 The Impact of Your Books on You
02:00:46 Survivors of Nuclear Bomb
02:02:28 Conversations with Her Husband
02:06:18 What Have You Changed Your Mind About?

Nuclear War: A Scenario is a 2024 nonfiction book by American journalist Annie Jacobsen. It outlines a timeline of a hypothetical first strike against the continental United States by North Korea.

Read an extract from Nuclear War: A Scenario by Annie Jacobsen

In this terrifying extract from Annie Jacobsen’s Nuclear War: A Scenario, the author lays out what would happen in the first seconds after a nuclear missile hits the Pentagon

https://www.newscientist.com/article/2426549-read-an-extract-from-nuclear-war-a-scenario-by-annie-jacobsen/



A 1-megaton thermonuclear weapon detonation begins with a flash of light and heat so tremendous it is impossible for the human mind to comprehend. One hundred and eighty million degrees Fahrenheit is four or five times hotter than the temperature that occurs at the center of the Earth’s sun.

In the first fraction of a millisecond after this thermonuclear bomb strikes the Pentagon outside Washington, D.C., there is light. Soft X-ray light with a very short wavelength. The light superheats the surrounding air to millions of degrees, creating a massive fireball that expands at millions of miles per hour. Within a few seconds, this fireball increases to a diameter of a little more than a mile (5,700 feet across), its light and heat so intense that concrete surfaces explode, metal objects melt or evaporate, stone shatters, humans instantaneously convert into combusting carbon.

The five-story, five-sided structure of the Pentagon and everything inside its 6.5 million square feet of office space explodes into superheated dust from the initial flash of light and heat, all the walls shattering with the near-simultaneous arrival of the shock wave, all 27,000 employees perishing instantly.

Not a single thing in the fireball remains.

Nothing.

Ground zero is zeroed.

snip

[Midnight Writer]

1. Annie Jacobsen is a treasure.

[NNadir]

2. I have no use for journalists discussing nuclear issues, none, zero, zilch.

Their selective attention to nuclear issues, about which they know next to zero, is slowly killing the planet with climate change.

They don't know shit.

It would be interesting if they gave a shit about the death toll associated with fossil fuel powered weapons of mass destruction, which, by the way, in the only nuclear war observed, killed far more people than the nuclear war did. Indeed, where Japan and the US was concerned, it was a war started over fossil fuels.

[Eko]

4. Thanks for telling us what your opinion is.

We were all waiting with baited breath to hear your opinion. Of course nuclear weapons cant be dangerous because they are nuclear. That solar panel on your house there sir, that is way more dangerous.

[Igel]

3. GIGO.

T'is all.

[Warpy]

5. I'd get it within the first hour, so this would be it

Honestly, I have no interest in surviving an all out war. My only worry is Russia's inability to AIM. I'm terrified the damned thing would be so far off course I'd survive the blast.

However, I'm thinking the next nuclear exchange will be more limited, although just has horrfic, and take place at one of the world's other flashpoints, like India-Pakistan or China-Russia or some other as yet unanticipated war.