Annie Jacobsen, author of best-selling books on America’s military, has issued a stark warning that ‘hundreds of millions would die in the first 72 minutes of nuclear war’
‘Hundreds of millions of people’ would die within the first 72 minutes of nuclear warfare as World War 3 inches closer, a leading military expert has warned.
Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Annie Jacobsen, author of Nuclear War: A Scenario, claimed that “no matter how it starts, it ends with everyone dead”.
Her hit book shares how the first 72 minutes would unfold in a hypothetical nuclear attack on the US from North Korea, but the lessons remain telling as Trump’s America, Israel and Iran embark on the latest bout of warfare that risks sucking much of the globe into it.
Should a US president take that catastrophic decision to retaliate, innumerable lives would be extinguished in less time than it takes to complete a football match. “First millions, then tens of millions, then hundreds of millions of people will die in the first 72 minutes of a nuclear war.
“And then comes nuclear winter where the billions then die from starvation.”
Jacobsen suggests that the Pentagon in Washington D.C. and a nuclear reactor in California would be the first targets in a 72-minute world-ending war.
Should Iran, or any other global force, fire nuclear weaponry at the Department of Defence offices and the nuclear base in Diablo Canyon, it would cause complete carnage for top brass and a frenzied response from Trump.
The sitting POTUS would have just six minutes to react to news of a missile headed towards the US and would likely be under pressure from his military advisors to launch a retaliatory strike.
Whatever the decision, it comes down to the president alone to press the big red button, as Jacobsen says a “volatile” commander-in-chief (we wonder who that could be?!) would be fatal for the rest of the world.
She said: “You would want to have a commander-in-chief who is of sound mind, who is fully in control of his mental capacity, who is not volatile, who is not subject to anger.
“These are significant character qualities that should be thought about when people vote for president, for the simple reason that the president has sole authority to launch nuclear weapons.”
Speaking with podcaster Lex Fridman, Jacobsen added that the present US policy of “launch on warning” means that retaliation would occur before there was an opportunity to question why the initial alarm had been activated.
“We are one misunderstanding, one miscalculation away from nuclear Armageddon and no matter how nuclear war starts, it ends with everyone dead,” she stated.
“The US Defense Department has a early warning system. And the system in space is called SBIRS, a constellation of satellites that is keeping an eye on all of America’s enemies.
“So the moment an ICBM launches, they see the hot rocket exhaust on the ICBM a fraction of a second after it launches. And so there begins this horrifying policy called launch on warning, and that’s the US counterattack.
“The reason that the United States is so ferociously watching for a nuclear launch somewhere around the globe is so that the nuclear command and control system in the US can move into action to immediately make a counterstrike.
“That policy, launch on warning, is exactly like it says, it means the United States will not wait to absorb a nuclear attack. It will launch nuclear weapons in response before the bomb actually hits.”
On more than one occasion previously, the order has been issued for Russian or American forces to launch a nuclear strike, only for it to subsequently emerge that the command was given in error. We may not be so fortunate next time.
Annie adds that at least one former US president has voiced concerns that it’s logical to trigger Armageddon based on a blip on a radar screen.
“The best sort of hitting the nail on the head statement is in President Reagan’s memoirs,” she said.
“He refers to the six-minute window and calls it irrational. He says, ‘How can anyone make a decision to launch nuclear weapons based on a blip on a radar scope?'”.
She highlights that unlike what we witness in films, a nuclear missile cannot be recalled or redirected once the launch button has been pressed – something President Reagan himself wasn’t aware of. The consequences of a nuclear blast remain poorly comprehended, she explains, and the resulting mushroom cloud would drag in individuals from miles away and launch them skyward as they burnt alive – with the terror being replicated in urban centres worldwide.
“The United States has 1,770 nuclear weapons deployed, meaning those weapons could launch in as little as 60 seconds and up to a couple minutes. Some of them on the bombers might take an hour or so,” she said.
“Russia has 1,674 deployed nuclear weapons, same scenario, their weapon systems are on par with ours. That’s not to mention the 12,500 nuclear weapons amongst the other nine nuclear-armed nations.”
When the warheads explode, 300mph gales would wreak devastation, she explains.
“You’re talking about people miles out getting sucked up into that stem. When you see the mushroom cloud, that would be people,” she said.
She reveals that she spoke with dozens of senior political and military officials regarding nuclear deterrence theory, and they all concurred on one point.
“Every source I interviewed for this book, from former Secretaries of Defence, nuclear sub force commanders, Stratcom commanders, FEMA directors, nuclear weapons engineers, they all shared with me the common denominator that nuclear war is insane,” she said.