Doomsday Machines

How I destroyed the world

A behind-the-scenes look at the creation of "PLAN A" (2017)

Mar 12 • Alex Wellerstein

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"It is obvious that the immediate destruction of the complete list of 66 cities would have an even more devastating effect on Russia"

The earliest postwar American planning for waging a full-scale nuclear war from 1945

Mar 6 • Alex Wellerstein

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February 2026

Cutting the head off the Soviet chicken

"By Dawn's Early Light" (1990): a contrived, late-Cold War, made-for-TV nuclear thriller

Feb 27 • Alex Wellerstein

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"Launching missiles is your job."

The sublime banality of Frederick Wiseman's "Missile" (1988)

Feb 20 • Alex Wellerstein

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Hitting the jackpot

William Gibson's disturbingly plausible 21st-century slow disaster

Feb 13 • Alex Wellerstein

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Bananas for BRAVO

An early attempt to visualize the broader implications of thermonuclear war

Feb 6 • Alex Wellerstein

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January 2026

"Take me to your shelter, leader!"

Do you have what it takes to be a shelter manager after World War III breaks out? Take this quiz from 1973 and find out!

Jan 29 • Alex Wellerstein

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Playing at the End of the World

An interview with historian and game designer Malcolm Craig about post-apocalyptic tabletop role playing games in the Cold War

Jan 22 • Alex Wellerstein

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You too can survive a nuclear war — if you have a flying car

The essential contradictions of Dean Ing’s Survivalist novel “Pulling Through” (1983)

Jan 13 • Alex Wellerstein

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"Zero time was speeding toward me like a car you cannot dodge"

A gripping first-hand account of a nuclear test from 1957

Jan 1 • Alex Wellerstein

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December 2025

Christmas at Ground Zero

Weird Al Yankovic's post-apocalyptic carol (1986)

Dec 25, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

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Will the survivors envy the dead?

Tracing the origins of a popular trope about nuclear war

Dec 19, 2025 • Alex Wellerstein

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