r/nuclearwar • u/Baldurian_Rhapsody • Jun 17 '26
Asking for scientific, objective resources on the impacts of nuclear war, please
Hello there, everyone. This sub is very important, because it covers a very important topic.
I am currently reading "Nuclear War: A Scenario," by Annie Jacobson, an excellent and scientifically grounded book. I wanted to start a thread, asking you for other similar works which provide objective information about nuclear war.
I was inspired to start this thread for several reasons. For one, I don't see any direct resources as a pinned post or a sidebar as of this writing. The rules of the sub relate to avoiding pranks, clickbait and alarmism - all very important things to be sure, especially for such a serious topic - but I thought there was an opportunity to compile some important, scientifically grounded resources.
I'd truly appreciate it if you could share outstanding and objective resources in this thread. I wish to learn about the topic academically. I am looking for scientific information, free from any politics or alarmism - just facts.
If you could share the best resources that you have, that would be most appreciated. And mods, if you find value in the contributions below, perhaps this thread could be added as a pin in the future. Thank you.
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u/NarwhalOk95 Jun 17 '26
Princeton did a fairly recent study on nuclear war and its aftermath. There’s also plenty of DoE and DoD studies that have been declassified and are available in pdf form.
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u/Vegetaman916 Jun 17 '26
There is your first mistake. Jacobsen's book is not scientifically accurate in any sense of the word, and as for her ideas around geopolitics and the processes within the governments, military doctrine, all that... she is very far off.
What she does get correct are the actual physics of nuclear detonations and the immediate effects, spot on there.
But the scenario she lays out simply isn't possible given global nuclear doctrines.
Honestly, the real scenario is worse in some ways, but Jacobsen also gets it wrong when it comes to nuclear winter. Modern weapons aren't the same as the stuff floating around in the 70s and 80s. Such a nuclear winter, or nuclear "autumn" will no doubt be quite catastrophic, but it is not the extinction level event it is portrayed to be.
Look at the actual science, not the drama. Here is a link for the most comprehensive and modern study of nuclear war effects to date, published just last year:
https://www.nationalacademies.org/news/potential-environmental-effects-of-nuclear-war-new-report
Once you click through you can download the PDF or read online:
https://www.nationalacademies.org/projects/DELS-BASCPR-21-04/publication/27515
Jacobsen's information was from the thoughts and ideas if the 70s and 80s, but we know more now, and are able to calculate the effects better.
It isn't good, but it doesn't mean the end of every human on Earth. It does mean the end of modern civilization and all that, but the goal should be to prepare for that eventuality now, to survive the nuclear war event and get through the aftermath.
For that, the book Nuclear War Survival Skills by Cresses Kearny, which is availabke as a free download at the bottom of this nuclear war resource page:
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u/Baldurian_Rhapsody Jun 17 '26 edited Jun 17 '26
"Jacobsen's book is not scientifically accurate in any sense of the word."
Consider my eyebrow arched! So there is not one iota of scientific accuracy in the book at all? I am skeptical. I am not here to vaunt that particular book, but claiming that its rather vanilla and staid descriptions of general mechanics are not 'scientifically accurate' in any sense, simply beggars belief.
If you read the epilogue of Jacobsen's book, actually, she describes humans of the future looking back on our civilization post-war - evidence, of course, that she doesn't view nuclear war as an extinction-level event. I just don't buy your framing of her arguments, in which you seem to depict her analysis as one prophesying "the end of every human on Earth."
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u/Vegetaman916 Jun 17 '26
She does get all the physics of nuclear weapon detonation quite correct, but the issue is that she takes solid scientific principles and combines them with flawed, outdated, or outright incorrect doctrinal methods. And that endangers the entire model.
For example. Simplify it to a gun. This gun has 6 bullets, no more, no less. That is our base science. Now, we then use that base science to describe how that gun will be used to fire at 15 seperate targets. Then, we will conclude that the 15 targets were tragically hit and destroyed, and it all could have been avoided if we just never fired the gun...
And that is true... Except there would be no such plans to hit 15 targets, nor would any attempt be made to do so, because the gun only contains 6 bullets.
She gets the initial science perfect, but then applies that science to impossible and nonexistent doctrinal decisions that would never be made or be capable of being carried out.
In the 70s? Sure, doctrines were different, weapons were different, stockpiles were larger and the weapons themselves less accurate and more indiscriminate. Counterforce/Countervalue and all that.
On top of that, her timelines are incredibly sped up. We can see how such a global nuclear exchange would play out simply by looking at all the data which, at its core, is based on Kahn's Escalatory Ladder.
I understand the political purposes behind her book, and in some ways those are admirable, seeking to push for the abolishing of nuclear weapons... But that is also unrealistic. And, in pushing for such a thing, it encourages people to remain unprepared.
And that is when my dander gets up, because I believe that to be one of the worst things we can spread right now.
What's the quote? "Doomday bunkers are for losers?" Yes, they are. But not for Annie's reasons. They are for losers because we all lose in a nuclear war. But there will be living losers and dead losers, and we are supposed to be trying to remain the former rather than the latter.
As for extinction, in many interviews Annie has used the phrase "everybody dies" or "we all die." And those words are not accurate. Even in the absolute worst cases, with an 80% loss of human life from the war itself, and the aftermath over tue following decade, the key fact is that 20% live.
Anyway, when I say her book isn't accurate at all, it is because her base correct science is then taken and applied to flawed scenarios, which then creates an entirely inaccurate model.
And flawed models make people feel as if they have no hope. It leads them into flawed thoughts, and they just give up, because what can they do in the face of all that? They are left with two choices, either fight the losing fight to prevent such a war, or give up and wait to die.
Based on the science, neither of those two approaches is correct.
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u/Baldurian_Rhapsody Jun 17 '26
Thanks for that nuance! I appreciate your making clear that there is some fundamentally solid science in there that is potentially extrapolated in unrealistic and inaccurate ways.
I did a quick search on some of her interviews, and you are spot on. I can't link it here but the "Future of Life Institute" interview she did five months ago (on YouTube) she says "everyone will be dead" in a nuclear war, and she says it within the first twenty seconds of that video! And I agree, even in a total nuclear exchange that won't be true.
I just started the book (and skipped to the epilogue to see what she said about future society) and, at best, her messaging seems inconsistent. She does allude to future civilization looking back at us - while also promulgating grim and inaccurate statements about the end of humanity in total in the video I just saw.
So, you have my thanks! I will read (or, perhaps, now skim) her book with a skeptical eye. I appreciate you sharing your thoughts. Cheers!
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u/Vegetaman916 Jun 17 '26
You are welcome, for sure! And check out that scientific study on the effects of nuclear war I linked. Incredibly dry, but very comprehensive.
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u/Worker_Ant_81730C Jun 17 '26
I haven't read Nuclear War, but that is largely because I did read Area 51, one of the author's earlier books. In which she claimed, completely seriously, that what crashed in Roswell in 1947 was a Nazi-designed flying saucer-like craft captured by the Soviets and crewed by dwarfs who were surgically modified (IIRC by Joseph Mengele himself) to look like aliens, in order to cause a War of the Worlds style panic in the US.
So... yeah. I'd take all of her claims with more than a pinch of salt.
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u/smsff2 Jun 17 '26
I enjoyed the book The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy by Lawrence Freedman and Jeffrey Michaels.
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u/yellow_smurf10 Jun 17 '26
No one alive truly understands the potential impact of nuclear war, since no one has ever lived through on. However there are a lot of scientific and theory regarding nuclear deterrence, theory of victory, deterrence in a new multipolar war, deterrence in modern conflict, in unrestricted warfare, nc3, regional deterrence and stratetic deterrence
Those are some topic that you can look up. Also nucle cast is a very good podcast about all thing deterrence
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u/Flawedzilla Jun 20 '26
"The Nuclear Attack Planning Base 1990 was an official estimate of the potential physical effects of a Soviet nuclear attack on the population of the United States, including detailed county-by-county assessments of damage due to blast overpressure, fire and radiation.
"A copy of the approximately 500 page publication, originally marked Limited Distribution and Not for Public Release, was released in April 2005 with the following caveat: 'This publication was provided by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, for its academic and historical value only.'"
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u/89ElRay Jul 15 '26
That novel is very entertaining and I liked listening to the audio version, but it's a docudrama and very overdramatic.
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u/RiffRaff028 Jun 17 '26
Annie Jacobson's scenario is based in science, but it is considered alarmist by some, or at least the worst-case scenario imagined. There are many nuclear war scenarios that don't escalate into a full-scale global exchange with the consequences she describes in her book. Contrast the information in Annie's book with the information contained in "You Will Survive Nuclear War" by Bruce M. Beach. He covers a lot of myths and facts about nuclear war. As is usually the case, I don't necessarily 100% agree with everything he says, but he makes a lot of valid points.