Tikhon Jelvis's Reviews > Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safety

Chronicling the (lack of) safety in the United States' nuclear weapons program—interleaved with an incredibly intense retelling of a specific disaster at a nuclear missile launch site in Damascus, Arkansas—Command and Control is a thorough historical work that stays gripping while covering a substantial amount of events and topics.

Despite being one of the most thrilling non-fiction books I've ever read (especially in the final chapter about the Damascus incident) it never stays into sensationalism. It doesn't have to. The events, the accidents, the nuclear near-misses, the government's non-responses and cover-ups speak for themselves. I found myself alternately rolling my eyes and absolutely terrified at the organizational oversights and shortcomings that plagued the nuclear program. The organizational dynamics were by no means unique—all too familiar from my experience with large corporations and bureaucracies—but the context and scale really showed them off in a new light.

Ultimately, this book is a stark reminder that humans and human organizations are inescapably fallible. Or, more cynically, that large organizations can be supremely incompetent no matter how capable the individuals or how high the stakes. And the stakes do not get any higher than nuclear war!