Twenty-four minutes.

That’s how long it would take—just 1,440 seconds—for a nuclear warhead to travel from North Korea to the largest nuclear power plant in California, where it could set off a chain reaction of events that bring human civilization back to the Stone Age. It’s a situation that may seem, to most, inconceivable. Yet, it’s one that author Annie Jacobsen plays out with disconcerting details in her new book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, which walks readers through what is known of the United States’ secret emergency protocols in the event of global Armageddon. “Since the end of World War II, the US government has been preparing for, and rehearsing plans for, a General Nuclear War,” she writes. “A nuclear World War III that is guaranteed to leave, at minimum, 2 billion dead.”

It starts, Jacobson explains, with a radar screen blip, touching off a chaotic countdown in which the president—and their uppermost military advisers—must decide if, when, where, and how to retaliate. The federal choreography from there is profound, demanding operational perfection from staff in countless agencies tasked with missile interception, international diplomacy, disaster response, and continuity of government—all in a haze of incomplete information. “Nuclear war,” as she argues, “robs man of reason.”

In an interview with Vanity Fair, which has been edited for length and clarity, Jacobsen sounds the alarm about everything from Vladimir Putin’s nuclear saber-rattling to the “gaping holes” in America’s defense technology, and the chilling implications of a second Donald Trump presidency. “If you have a ‘mad king’ ruler in office,” she tells me, “it would behoove the entire world to make clear that that mad king behavior is unacceptable.”

Vanity Fair: From my vantage point, nuclear war has been a much hotter topic this year than in the recent past. Of course, in Hollywood, we had Oppenheimer, but there’s also been a lot of nuclear fear around Russia’s war in Ukraine. You probably started researching the book well before all this. What led you to want to dive into this topic specifically?

Annie Jacobsen: How many sources have said to me with chest-swelling pride that they dedicated their lives to preventing a nuclear World War III. And this out of the mouths of, like, the now deceased first director of science and technology at the CIA. You know, very high-level, upper-echelon, top-tier national security people proud that they prevented World War III. And I would always be confronted with this idea of deterrence, also known as prevention. In the former administration with President Trump, I heard his rhetoric—“fire and fury” comes to mind—and thought for the first time in my reporting career, My God, what if deterrence failed? And it stems a little from the “madman theory,” which is sort of entwined in nuclear nonproliferation issues. So, I then put that question to some of my sources. (And again, I’m talking about people who advise the president in the event of this god-awful situation.) And I was shocked that people were very forthcoming with me. I suddenly found myself on Zoom with people like former secretary of defense Bill Perry. So, there, my reporting began. And, of course, you are absolutely right on point because, my God, I never expected it to be headline news. You know, for Vladimir Putin to be, in the most terrible way, promoting the reading of my book because my book demonstrates in appalling detail just how horrific nuclear war would be.

I want to return to something you said about the madman theory. Deterrence is predicated on the notion that the president is a rational actor with the country’s best interests in mind. What is the danger, then, when it comes to the potential reelection of Donald Trump, a man who regularly put his own interests over the country’s and even once flippantly discussed using nuclear weapons on North Korea in 2017? Can the Biden administration do anything now to guard against the mad king scenario?

I don’t think since President Kennedy has there been someone in office who has been so educated about the absolute dangers, not just of nuclear war but of rhetoric. Many other presidents have been silent, which doesn’t mean they’re necessarily educated. So whether or not anyone’s madman-type rhetoric is coming from a place of ignorance or information doesn’t matter; nuclear saber-rattling is profoundly dangerous. It isn’t just about American leaders to my eye, it is about everyone. And therefore, if you have a mad king in office, it would behoove the entire world to make clear that that mad king behavior is unacceptable. I used North Korea as an example in my scenario because North Korea is the only nuclear-armed nation that doesn’t adhere to “normal” behavior. For example, North Korea launches ballistic missile tests without notifying anyone. It’s profoundly dangerous when you read my scenario and realize what happens in the first seconds and minutes that a ballistic missile is launched anywhere around the globe: The Defense Department has eyes on it, and a massive alert system goes into effect that could lead to catastrophe, as I show.

Something that struck me was how inevitable catastrophe actually feels. You talk about the Proud Profit war game, where, in the 1980s, a bunch of defense officials played out a ton of scenarios around nuclear war. Time and again, they arrived at the same result: basically complete Armageddon. Could you walk me through why restoring deterrence is so hard once you know a country has launched an attack?

Absolutely. I can give you a concept like “escalate to de-escalate.” That is such an Orwellian concept. This is the whole paradox of nuclear weapons, nuclear war, nuclear deterrence— because you first think this is something out of Dr. Strangelove. Then you realize, Well, perhaps there’s a logic: If North Korea sends one nuclear weapon, we send 82 in return. That is escalate to de-escalate. And then you think, That’s sheer madness, 82 nuclear weapons launched at North Korea will kill tens of millions of people. So, I attempt to demonstrate that there are no good scenarios in a nuclear war scenario. There are no good answers, as the Proud Prophet shows us. We, the public, now know that no matter how nuclear war begins in various scenarios—whether NATO’s involved, whether China’s involved, whether it’s a tactical weapon or a strategic weapon—it ends in a nuclear apocalypse.

In your book, you describe the sheer breadth and meticulousness of America’s nuclear defense protocols. But as you say, it would actually happen so chaotically in real life. What were some of the most gaping holes in the federal government’s playbook? Are there obvious areas where it could improve?

Even having studied this and reported on this issue peripherally for 15 years, I had the same reaction: Oh, my God, this is all thought through. It is a systematic mechanization: A follows B follows C. Once a launch is detected, the sequence goes into effect. People are rehearsing this 24/7/365. And yet, here we are all going about our business. It is literally like an asteroid coming toward Earth, which is the only other event, as in the words of FEMA, that could end civilization in a couple of hours. Another sort of grand theme is that these war plans were originally made by a bunch of admirals and generals who believed that they could actually fight and win a nuclear war, which is such insanity. And now, we essentially allege that deterrence is such that we never have to fight and win a nuclear war. However, the protocols are still the same. The nuclear triad [the ability to launch nuclear weapons from land, air, and sea] is still the same. The number of warheads has been reduced, but there are still enough nuclear weapons on ready-to-launch status that literally can launch in seconds or minutes. There are enough of them on the planet to destroy civilization. So we are stuck with this legacy, like it or not.

The gaping holes, interestingly, exist in technology. It’s shocking that in 2024, you might think the technology would have filled in the holes—but, instead, they’ve created worse holes. And when we say “holes,” we mean the potential for disaster. The two that come to mind right off the bat are that America has this incredibly advanced satellite system in geosync parked above our enemy nations so that the hot rock exhaust on an ICBM [intercontinental ballistic missile] launch can be seen in under one second. To learn that is remarkable. If that should get any comfort, it doesn’t; when you read the scenario, you learn that’s exactly when the sequence begins, thanks to our launch-on-warning policy. But even more frightening is that, because of all this nuclear posturing over the decades, Russia alleges to have a system that is on par with our system. But I learned that their Tundra satellite system is really compromised. It does not have the same look-down capability from space as the American system. As a result, the Tundra can mistake hot rocket exhaust for clouds and sunlight.

Another thing you mention in the book is America’s nuclear interception capabilities, which seem futile technologically and financially. Your book says it’s akin to “shooting a bullet with a bullet.”

And that’s a quote from a defense scientist!

Right. Given that, do you think the federal government is better off pursuing efforts at prevention and disarmament—and that interception is just a lost cause?

The interceptor program is a brilliant example of when you go to a dinner party and say, ‘Oh, we could have a nuclear war. You should read this book,’ and then will almost immediately say, ‘That’s ridiculous. We have an interceptor system like the Iron Dome.’ That has actually happened to me. Learned people have tried to correct me. We have 44 interceptor missiles. Russia alone has over 1,670 nuclear weapons on ready-for-launch status. So, how are our 44 going to go up against them, particularly when it comes down to trying to “shoot a bullet with a bullet?”According to congressional Oversight Committee documentation, the success rate is between like 45% and 55%. And that is on a curated test. We do not have interceptor capability that means much of anything. I certainly felt and hope readers feel this after reading the book: Trying to become more supreme in the nuclear arms race only accelerates weapons development, only accelerates the threat, and does not make anyone safer. Therefore, the only solution is communication, diplomacy, and agreements.

That’s a good entry point for my next question: Is there any logic to America sharing some of its technological advances multilaterally with a nation like Russia or North Korea? Or is that strategic nonsense?

I think that it is irrational not to communicate with your partners in whatever capacity that may be. There are many people more qualified to answer that question. But fundamentally, there have been efforts in that direction. I also write about one of them in the book, with professors Ted Postol and Richard Garwin having gone to the powers that be in Washington. Both had huge, long-standing relationships with all of this: Garwin drew plans for the first thermonuclear bomb, Ivy Mike. Postol advised the Pentagon. He’s now a professor emeritus at MIT. In the early 2000s, when North Korea began building up its nuclear arsenal, they went to the powers that be and said, ‘Look, we should have a program with Russia together to look at this threat because it affects all of us.’ And that was unilaterally rejected. And I use that as an anecdote to demonstrate that, for the most part, pairing up with anybody is somehow seen as weak.

I want to discuss mutual assured destruction (MAD) a bit more. You had a great quote in the book: “The madness of MAD is that the two sides are like a mirror…a madman stares in a pond, sees his image on the surface of the water, and mistakes himself for his enemy.” Could you put this in layperson’s terms and explain why MAD is a fundamentally flawed foreign policy paradigm?

Mutual assured destruction is a very Cold War warrior concept—that we will have such a massive arsenal of weapons pointed at the other side on hair-trigger alert that no one will dare strike us. At its core, deterrence says, ‘The more nuclear weapons you have, the safer you will be.’ And so I believe the only way out is to look in the mirror. You have to really ask yourself, ‘What is going on here? What is the point of all of this?’ I think all things begin with the personal. You have the political, sure, but a person or group of people is at the core of every decision. And that’s why I use that analogy, the poetic idea of looking in the mirror. You could be like, Wow, there I am. Or you can be like, That’s my enemy trying to kill me! This is the only way through some of this madness—to move the world off the razor’s edge—and that is where we stand. The president of the United States, President Biden, said we are closer to nuclear Armageddon than we have been since the Cuban Missile Crisis. That frightens me.