Audible Book: Nuclear War A Scenario

Well the title grabs your attention for sure. The theme tune of "Protect and Survive" rings in my ears but this is an American slant, so the melting milk bottles of Sheffield are not mentioned (see Threads, "THE" Nuclear War film). Nevertheless the scientific effects of nuclear hydrogen (H) bombs are chillingly accurate, well researched and repeats successfully what others have already stated, nuclear war is an Armageddon that you don't want to experience  (see below, the mushroom cloud cover will sell the book for sure):

Despite the warnings from history we never seem to earn and we are only happy when we are playing with fire. Annie Jacobsen then spins a scenario to draw the reader into a plausible sequence of events, albeit "unlikely" whereby a nuclear armed minor state (spoiler alert - North Korea) launches an attack on the United States of America .. twice, an ICBM and a submarine launched one. The response (because there may well be a third) is to obliterate North Korea, but because of technology defects on the Russia monitoring satellites they believe (falsely?) that this is an attack on Mother Russia and immediately fall into the "dead-man's hand" counter-strike mentality because they cannot talk to the US President (because he is "unavailable"). The Kremlin-Washington hotline goes very cold. What China would do in response to it meanwhile soaking up radioactivity by the mega-Currie is not deliberated, or India or Pakistan. The decapitation effect of not getting the President of the United States out of Washington in time is though. This is a curious thought experiment of things not going to plan. 

I have friends who are sceptical as to the plausibility of the scenario, stating that sixties-to-nineties technologies have been modernised (despite what detractors say of all things Russian) and the kind of mistakes Annie says could happen just don't add up. I do hope so. There is much that does not add up in the real world, but that is my worry. I read it (or rather listened to it) and had that morbid fascination of 'good when finished'. It did feel that Dr Strangelove had undergone a year 2000+ makeover, but highlighted that command elements of the Superpowers are (or could be) stuck in the 1970s.