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Showing Original Post only (View all)This is how nuclear war would begin - in terrifying detail [View all]
https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/nuclear-war-begin-terrifying-detail-060000413.htmlWhat would happen if a nuclear power station in California were hit by a nuclear weapon launched by North Korea? Many people within a nine-mile radius would be vaporised or burnt to death, and the reactor would melt down, causing a lethal rain of radioactive uranium shards. And, in this imagined chain of events, thats just the beginning. Another missile heads towards Washington DC. Images of a mushroom cloud cause panic on social media. Then again, as the Pulitzer-finalist journalist Annie Jacobsen observes in this book, the destruction of the Californian plant would also have the effect of permanently taking the social network formerly known as Twitter offline. So its not all bad news.
Nuclear War: A Scenario is a breathless, minute-by-minute description of one way in which, thanks to apparent North Korean paranoia, a global thermonuclear war could suddenly erupt. Its based on hundreds of interviews with many retired security officials and more-or-less declassified information in the public domain. What it captures brilliantly is the emotional chaos into which leaders would be plunged in such a situation: Jacobsen paints a disturbingly persuasive picture of a panicking, dithering American president, given only a few minutes to decide whether to retaliate by nuking Pyongyang before the first incoming missile even hits in other words, to obey the Launch on Warning doctrine current in the US while being shouted at by an entourage that ranges from the cautious to the insanely hawkish. These are scenes straight out of Dr Strangelove.
Jacobsens book also details the mad logic of escalating retaliation that takes hold, and the large contribution to disaster made by unreliable technology. American missile-defence simply doesnt work half the time. The president orders a massive strike on North Korea (before another Korean nuke hits Washington DC and downs his fleeing helicopter), but the trajectory of those nukes will take them over Russia to hit the target. The Russian missile-alert system is erratic and they think there are twice as many coming towards them over the Arctic Circle. They demand to speak to the president on the phone, but the president is nowhere to be found. (Hes bleeding in a forest.)
North Korea then detonates a nuke in space above the US, causing a massive electromagnetic pulse that destroys the electricity grid, and all infrastructure goes down. Finally, out of injured pride having received no call back the Russians launch their own nukes before the American ones pass them on their way to Pyongyang. Less than an hour after the first explosion at the Californian power plant, Russian bombs destroy the capitals of Europe; 14 minutes later, 1,000 Russian missiles strike targets in America. Half a billion people die. Nuclear winter looms. Soon, no food will grow in the northern hemisphere.
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Would make a great movie. And really ought to be powerful enough to get the whole world to wake the fuck up.
OAITW r.2.0
Mar 28
#1
I live in a suburb of Portland Oregon. Although we have no large military bases
neverforget
Mar 29
#47
Nah, we got Reagan's Star Wars Missile Defense system that we spent trillions on.
Midnight Writer
Mar 28
#4
Ronald Reagan/His administration was the evil inflection point. Sure, Ron gets credit for the wall coming down....
OAITW r.2.0
Mar 29
#23
As someone who spent their childhood in terror of being nuked by the USSR, I'll skip it
Hekate
Mar 28
#7
That was only a small part of it for me. My parents' house was full of post-WWII books...
Hekate
Mar 28
#15
Franky N Korea would be lucky just to hit the N American continent, much less a specific target
EX500rider
Mar 29
#42
When NORAD DSP satellites detect a thermal plume from a launch they know exactly where it launched from
EX500rider
Mar 29
#38