Public denial and avoidance have dulled awareness of the nuclear threat. Annie Jacobsen’s book, Nuclear War: A Scenario confronts that reality directly, challenging readers to face what has long been ignored.

As a psychologist, I have written about the psychological reactions of the public to the threat of nuclear war, i.e., why, in the face of such grave danger, are denial, avoidance and helplessness the modal response.

One reason is that many do not realise that the nuclear threat is as dangerous now as it was at the height of the Cold War. For an issue to be perceived as a threat, it has to be salient and identified as serious and realistic. But we rarely encounter information about the nuclear threat in our day-to-day lives. Although less important issues are covered endlessly in the media, this topic doesn’t garner the attention it deserves relative to its importance.

A related issue is that a “spurious normality” exists. As Jonathan Schell notes: “The spectacle of life going on as usual carried with it the strong presumption that nothing was wrong. When we observed that no one seemed to be worried, that no one was showing any signs of alarm . . . it was hard to resist the conclusion that everything was all right.”

We also haven’t developed imagery for nuclear war. As Jerome Frank puts it: “These weapons in distant places, poised to wipe us out, do not impinge on any of the senses, so it takes a constant effort of the imagination to keep them real to us.”

But this is no longer the case with the publication of Annie Jacobsen’s incredible book, _Nuclear War: A Scenario._ We now have vivid and unforgettable imagery of the consequences of a nuclear war.

If, on this second anniversary of its publication, you still haven’t read it, you definitely should. Why? Because it is without doubt the most important book you will ever read. It offers a fact-based, albeit necessarily fictional account of what has been called “the unthinkable” and it requires one to confront the most consequential issue of our time.

At the time of its publication in 2024, the book received significant acclaim, being on the New York Times best seller list for 12 weeks. It was translated into 14 languages and short-listed for several non-fiction literary prizes.

The book is meticulously researched, based on government archives and declassified documents, as well as extensive interviews with the most knowledgeable experts in nuclear policy and strategy. Jacobsen also had a number of these experts read drafts of the book and even invited generals who were not interviewed to comment. As she explains: “I wanted readers to know how deeply sourced this book was . . . that although I was writing a scenario, I have learned through these interviews what would happen if deterrence failed.”

The narrative is based on the premise that nuclear weapons are a catastrophe waiting to happen, and that their continued existence makes their eventual use inevitable.

The scenario is played out in three acts of 24 minutes, beginning with the launch by North Korea of an ICBM targeted on Washington DC – culminating in the end of the world 72 minutes later. As she explains in her prologue: “This is the reality of the world in which we live. The nuclear war scenario proposed in this book could happen tomorrow. Or later today.”

Before the scenario begins, Jacobsen provides a chilling historical account of the rush to nuclear weapons that began soon after the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and accelerated quickly once the Soviets learned how to make an atomic bomb. Since then, trillions of tax dollars have been spent on nuclear weapons, although the exact amount is unknown, since it is classified.

At the end of the book, after Jacobsen has described the utter devastation of a nuclear war, she concludes: “The enemy was not North Korea, Russia, America, China, Iran, or anyone else vilified as a nation or group. It was the nuclear weapons that were the enemy of us all. All along.”

The reviewer for _Forbes_ recounts that he read the book on holiday and, by the time his plane home hit the tarmac, he was “a converted advocate for nuclear disarmament.” “Nuclear War: A Scenario,” he writes, “should be required reading for everyone alive today.”

But when you consider reading Jacobsen’s book, you might find that you just don’t want to know. Psychologists, however, have found that exposure to what is feared helps one work through anxiety and feel more in control. As the _LA Times_ reviewer notes: “There’s a sense of accomplishment in absorbing the worst knowledge you could possibly gain and achieving a clear-eyed perspective.”

You might also have to confront what psychologists call “ learned helplessness,” whereby you don’t believe that there’s anything you can do to make a difference, so you don’t try, but this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. What I believe is needed instead is “ learned resourcefulness,” whereby one expands one’s repertoire of behaviour to reassert control over one’s environment.

Another impediment is the fear that working to prevent nuclear war will involve constant thoughts of gloom, doom and destruction. But it’s exactly the opposite – one can tap into one’s coping capacity and build a sense of self-efficacy and confidence.

In _The Abolition_, Schell writes: “Each of us is called upon to do something that no member of any generation before ours has had to do: to assume responsibility for the continuation of our kind – to choose human survival.”

If, after reading Jacobsen’s book, you’re not sure what to do next, a good place to start would be to persuade others to read it too, so that we can rebuild a public constituency for nuclear disarmament that can demonstrate “learned resourcefulness.” As Frank reminds us: “The weapons are a product of human imagination and can be gotten rid of by human imagination.”