A straightforward six-word phrase serves as a coded message for nuclear blackmail, according to an investigative journalist.

Annie Jacobsen discussed her book, Nuclear War: A Scenario, with comedian Hasan Minhaj last month – a chilling minute-by-minute account of a hypothetical nuclear incident. During their conversation, Minhaj enquired about a code phrase frequently employed by numerous U.S. presidents and leaders when discussing nuclear weapons.

“I’ve heard this phrased used by a lot of American leaders,” he said. “Is this phrase, ‘All options are on the table,’ just a very nice way to say, ‘Hey, I’m willing to burn everything down,’?”

According to Jacobsen, the response isn’t quite so straightforward. “Because if you can keep it vague and say, ‘All options are on the table,’ you’re obfuscating,” she said.

“If you say, ‘I’m going to nuke you,’ or ‘I’m going to use nuclear weapons,’ now we’re over into a different threshold.”

Jacobsen outlined that the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which represents the first legally binding international agreement to comprehensively prohibit nuclear weapons, also forbids the use of nuclear threats. “Which I think is important,” she said.

“I mean, Putin should not be threatening that he can use a nuclear weapon,” Jacobsen continued. “That’s different, to me, than ‘All options are on the table.”

Minhaj outlined his perspective, suggesting the phrase was simply a polite way of expressing the same sentiment.

“If Kim Jong-Un has a nike, or if Vladimir Putin has a nuke, we call it, ‘nuclear blackmail,’ but isn’t America essentially doing the same thing?”.

Jacobsen concurred with Minhaj, noting that blackmail was an apt term, “because it’s a real cudgel. It’s a threat.”

A clip of the exchange was posted on Minhaj’s TikTok and attracted numerous comments. “‘All options are on the table’ is definitely a way to say ‘We are considering force,’ not ‘we are considering nukes,'” wrote one person.

“That’s an insane way to hear it.”

Another individual characterised the phrase as “American or Western chauvinism.”

Chilling reality of nuclear war

In the episode’s most disturbing exchange, Jacobsen outlined that if a nuclear bomb were to strike the U.S., it would result in the end of human civilisation as we know it.

“If anyone launches on the United States, they are going to get the motherload in response,” she said, referring to the roughly 1,770 deployed warheads that are ready for launch.

“Everybody has a launch on warning capacity, or at least we and Russia do,” she said. “And so if you launch, we launch, and then we’re all dead.”

Debris from a nuclear blast would obscure the sun’s rays, triggering a nuclear winter that could persist for a decade. “You have this incredible freezing world for a decade, and then agriculture fails, and people starve to death,” said Jacobsen.

She explained that the “launch on warning” strategy exists to ensure the US does not wait to absorb a nuclear strike. “We launch on the warning that it’s coming,” she said.

Minhaj questioned why the decision is so rushed, but Jacobsen clarified that this is simply how the system has been designed. She explained that nuclear deterrence works on the basis that if a country chooses to launch a nuclear weapon, “you’re crazier than us and it’s suicide.

“And that’s precisely what has held for 75 years,” she continued. “But I wanted to know, what would happen if it didn’t hold? Because nothing lasts forever.”