Content Warning: This section of the guide includes depictions of graphic violence, war, and the effects of nuclear attack.

“A nuclear strike on the Pentagon is just the beginning of a scenario the finality of which will be the end of civilization as we know it. This is the reality of the world in which we all live. The nuclear war scenario proposed in this book could happen tomorrow. Or later today. ‘The world could end in the next couple of hours,’ warns General Robert Kehler, the former commander of the United States Strategic Command.”

While most manage to go through their lives without thinking extensively about the prospect of nuclear war. However, the threat still looms, as the world’s major powers are all poised, at every minute of every day, to obliterate one another in a matter of hours. By integrating this quote from General Robert Kehler, Jacobsen establishes the severe, material threat nuclear attacks pose to humanity’s existence and survival.

“Humans created the nuclear weapon in the twentieth century to save the world from evil, and now, in the twenty-first century, the nuclear weapon is about to destroy the world. To burn it all down.”

Much time has elapsed since the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan. This has led many to believe that nuclear weapons, precisely because of their incredible destructive capacity, are ultimately a force for peace. Whether or not this fact is true in the abstract, Jacobsen highlights that it does not change the material facts surrounding nuclear weapons and the catastrophic destruction they would inflict if used.

“How, and why, do U.S. defense scientists know such hideous things, and with such exacting precision? How does the U.S. government know so many nuclear effects-related facts, while the general public remains blind? The answer is as grotesque as the questions themselves because, for all these years, since the end of World War II, the U.S. government has been preparing for, and rehearsing plans for, a General Nuclear War. A nuclear World War III that is guaranteed to leave, at minimum, 2 billion dead.”

In this passage, Jacobsen raises questions about disparities between the knowledge US defense scientists and government officials have regarding nuclear effects and what the general public knows. This quote highlights that out of the public view, the government has and continues to make extensive preparations for nuclear war, including actions that could, at any moment, sacrifice a massive number of its citizens while prioritizing its own functions.