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

Jacobsen begins by pointing out that the United States government has elaborate plans to wage a nuclear war and preserve government functions in the event of such a war. While the scenario in the book is hypothetical, Jacobsen draws the facts from extensive interviews with those who have prepared for similar scenarios, and with some recently declassified information. In the event of a nuclear attack, Washington, DC is very likely to serve as a primary target, and Jacobsen highlights that this horrific attack is merely “the beginning of a scenario the finality of which will be the end of civilization as we know it” (xii). The scenario she describes could happen anytime, unfolding in a matter of minutes from the present.

In “Possibly Sometime in the Near Future” (xvii), a nuclear bomb detonates on the Pentagon, first unleashing a mile-wide fireball that reduces the entire structure to dust and instantly kills all 27,000 of its inhabitants. The fireball continues to expand, burning Arlington National Cemetery to ash and obliterating Washington, DC’s famous monuments. Most watching a baseball game at Nationals Park will die at once or suffer awful, life-threatening burns, for which medical care will be unavailable, and lethal levels of radiation will expose upwards of a million people.