Minute by painstaking minute, exactly what would happen if America is nuked

Hundreds of deadly missiles streaking through the air from silos and nuclear submarines.

American cities burning and millions vaporized, instantly, with millions more soon to die in agony from burns and radiation poisoning.

How it could happen in a matter of minutes is the subject of the new book Nuclear War: A Scenario, by Pulitzer-nominated investigative journalist Annie Jacobsen.

The chilling play-by-play is based on exclusive interviews with high-ranking military officials, political figures and leading experts including nuclear weapon designers.

It takes about 30 minutes for an ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) to travel from one side of the world – say Beijing, Moscow or North Korea – to another. 

America, under the sole authority of one person, the president, would then launch a counter offensive. Chillingly, she says it would take just 72 minutes to wipe out five billion people if the worst comes to pass.

Jacobsen writes: ‘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.’

She adds: ‘On top of the initial flash of thermonuclear light, which is 180 million degrees, which catches everything on fire in a nine mile diameter radius; on top of the bulldozing effect of the wind and all the buildings coming down and more fires igniting on top of the radiation poisoning people to death in minutes and hours and days and weeks, if they happen to have survived, on top of all of that, each one of these fires creates a mega fire that is 100 or more square miles and so.’

The author said if the world went into nuclear war you would ‘want to die instantly’ because ‘there is no more law and order.’

The book includes interviews with former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon E Panetta, and Robert Kehler, former United States Secretary of Defense, along with former senior commanders from United States nuclear forces.

This, according to them and others, is how it could happen: 

3.03PM 

In a field outside Pyongyang, a North Korean Hwasong-17 ICBM known as ‘the Monster’ launches from a 22-wheeled vehicle.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un views the launch of an ICBM (Reuters)

3.03PM, 6 seconds later

Defense Department satellites remain ‘parked’ over North Korea – and imagery is relayed to the National Military Command Center beneath the Pentagon. 

It has been six seconds since the ICBM’s launch.

3.03PM, 15 seconds after launch

At the Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado, fighter pilots run towards their jets waiting on the tarmac. 

Satellite sensors are monitoring the ICBM as it travels through the air.

Buckley Space Force Base, Colorado 

3.04PM 

In the U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM) Headquarters, a 916,000-square-foot complex of bunkers and command centers, leaders begin discussing launch plans – as the US policy is to ‘launch on warning’.

3.04PM 

At Peterson Space Force Base Colorado, the leadership begin the process to communicate with the President.

3.05PM 

The National Military Command Center at the Pentagon

Inside the National Military Command Center at the Pentagon, leaders prepare their response, and prepare to contact the president.

3.06PM 

The Secretary of Defense tells the President: North Korea has launched an attacking missile at the U.S. and the missile has been validated by NORAD and STRATCOM commanders.

3.10PM 

At Fort Greely Alaska, Interceptor missiles are fired into space in a desperate attempt to stop the incoming ICBM from reaching its target. They fail as intercepting an ICBM is a hit-and-miss affair.

3.12 PM

At Clear Space Force Station in Alaska, radar stations get their first clear view of the incoming missile and confirm it is an ICBM targeted at Washington.

3.13PM

Inside the White House, the President is met by an aide with the ‘nuclear football’ – which contains the codes needed to authorize a retaliatory strike. 

The president is shown a ‘Decisions Handbook’ with options for nuclear strikes, and makes the decision to order bombers to take off and move the U.S. military to DEFCON-1, the highest nuclear alert.

A military aide carries the Presidential Emergency Satchel – aka the ‘nuclear football’

3.15PM

Andersen Air Force Base, Guam: B-2 bombers, each armed with sixteen nuclear weapons take off from the base.

3.17PM

The President is moved to a Sikorsky helicopter by members of the Counter Assault Team to keep him safe from the incoming nuclear attack.

3.20PM

A second submarine-launched missile is detected – a KN-23, a North Korean short-range ballistic missile, flying towards Southern California at six times the speed of sound.

3.22PM 

At the Diablo Power Plant Nevada, the KN-23’s nuclear warhead detonates on its target, creating a vast fireball and mushroom cloud, and triggering a nuclear core meltdown.

3.24PM 

Air Force Global Strike Command unarmed Minuteman III intercontinental ballistic missile launches during a test

In the White House, the President orders a nuclear counter strike with 50 Minuteman III ICBMs and eight Trident submarine-launched weapons, totaling 82 warheads aimed at North Korea, targeting its leadership, war facilities and nuclear launch sites.

3.27PM 

From missile facilities buried in the soil in Wyoming, 50 Minuteman nuclear missiles blast into the air from silos, aiming for North Korea.

3.36PM 

The North Korean nuclear missile strikes the Pentagon, sending a fireball three miles into the air and killing more than a million people instantly, with many more soon to die.

3.37PM 

In the Serpukhov-15 satellite control in Kaluga Oblast in Russia, the American ICBM launches are detected and relayed to military command. 

America’s ICBMs have to overfly Russian territory to target North Korea.

3.39PM 

Nebraska, the STRATCOM commander leaves the facility to board the Doomsday Plane – officially known as the E-4B Nightwatch, a military Boeing 747 with command facilities on board. 

This will enable U.S. commanders to keep issuing orders even if many bases and cities are destroyed. 

Doomsday Plane – officially known as the E-4B Nightwatch, a military Boeing 747

3.40PM 

The USS Nebraska – a nuclear submarine capable of unleashing 20 times more destruction than all the bombs of World War II, launches its missiles towards North Korea.

3.41PM 

U.S. military have lost touch with the President after he is forced to parachute from his helicopter after his helicopter is hit by the electromagnetic pulse from a nearby nuke.

The Secretary of Defense touches down at the Raven Rock Mountain Complex nuclear command post, Pennsylvania to assume command.

3.42PM 

In NATO Headquarters, NATO leaders meet to discuss their response to the attacks on North America.

3.42PM 

Inside the war room of the National Defense Management Center, Moscow, staff watch the response of NATO at air bases across Europe.

3.43PM 

Eight Trident missiles fly through the air above the Pacific ocean at 13,600 miles, aiming at the North Korean capital Pyongyang.

3.46PM 

The president in the Russian Federation is in a nuclear command-and-control center, several floors underground in a bunker designed to ride out a nuclear war. 

Wrongly believing the U.S. missiles are targeting Russia, he selects the most extreme launch option from Russia’s nuclear ‘Black Book’, the Cheget. 

From bunkers and submarines, missiles prepare to strike the continental United States and Europe.

Russia testing its deadly new hypersonic 208-ton 15,880 ‘Satan-2’ intercontinental ballistic missil

3.48PM 

More than 5,000 miles from Washington, in the Dombarovsky ICBM complex in southwestern Siberia, silo lids open as Russia’s ICBM’s prepare for launch.

3.48PM 

Satellites in space see hundred of Russian ICBMs launch from silos and mobile launcher and flash a warning to the Aerospace Data Facility in Colorado.

3.51PM

Three Russian submarines surface in the Arctic Sea to launch ICBMs towards the United States.

3.53PM 

The STRATCOM commander relays launch information to order a massive, all-out nuclear counterattack against Russia in response to Russia’s attack.

3.54PM 

At NATO airbases in Germany, the Netherlands, Italy, and Turkey, pilots scramble to planes armed with nuclear ‘gravity bombs’ to fulfill their mission against Russia.

3.54PM 

Thirty-two submarine-launched nuclear warheads strike Pyongyang and the destruction is total, with almost all of the three million residents instantly incinerated.

The mushroom cloud from Ivy Mike, one of the largest nuclear blasts ever, during Operation IVY

4.00PM

U.S. Strategic Command headquarters along with Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska are hit by a devastating barrage of Russian nuclear weapons. A stream of 100 kiloton warheads strike military targets across America.

4.00PM 

Russian submarine-launched missiles hit targets and NATO bases across Europe.

4.14PM

More than 1,000 Russian nuclear warheads strike American targets in a 20-minute barrage which sees hundreds of cities reduced to ashes, and hundreds of millions dead across Europe. 

American submarines are signaled to keep on striking at Russian targets, even after the death of their homeland.