The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States
The 2020 Commission Report on the North Korean Nuclear Attacks Against the United States is a speculative fiction novel by Jeffrey Lewis describing a hypothetical nuclear attack by North Korea against the United States of America, published by Mariner Books. It is written in the style of a government report written in the aftermath of the conflict, in 2023, and uses many real-world figures. Plot. The conflict begins unintentionally, with a North Korean KN-06 unit in Ongjin, near the Korean Demilitarized Zone shooting down a  civilian Air Busan Airbus A320, which was flying off-course and without a transponder due to a brief loss of power in the cockpit, having mistaken it for a U.S. stealth aircraft. South Korean President Moon Jae-in orders a retaliatory attack on North Korea without the approval of the United States, firing six missiles at the Headquarters of the Korean People's Army Air and Anti-Air Force near Pyongyang and a residence of Kim Jong-un. Following the missile attack, North Korea's leadership, lacking communications infrastructure, misinterprets Tweets from U.S. President Donald Trump so as to believe  that a decapitation strike is in-progress. North Korea launches nuclear missiles in the hopes of staving off further U.S.-South Korean attacks, with nuclear bombs detonating over Seoul, Busan, Pyeongtaek and Daegu in South Korea and Tokyo and Yokohama in Japan. Missiles launched at Guam and Okinawa fail to reach their targets. Negotiations in New York City fail to resolve the conflict. The United States launches a retaliatory conventional strike on North Korea, but fail to locate the vehicle-mobile intercontinental ballistic missiles in North Korea's arsenal. North Korea proceeds to launch 13 nuclear-tipped missiles at the United  States. The Ground-Based Interceptors at Fort Greely fail to intercept the incoming ICBMs, which detonate over Honolulu, Hawaii, Jupiter, Florida, Arlington County, Virginia, and Manhattan, New York. President Trump evacuates from Mar-a-Lago aboard Air Force One, narrowly avoiding the nuclear explosion. Kim Jong-un subsequently commits suicide at a bunker in Myohyangsan, and Mike Pence succeeds Trump as President of the United States. Characters. American North Korean South Korean Development. Lewis drew inspiration from John Hersey's reporting on the atomic bombing of Hiroshima when depicting the casualties of nuclear war. Reception. The book received positive reviews , with Julian Borger of "The Guardian" comparing it to nuclear war stories "Dr. Strangelove" and "On the Beach". "The Economist" observed that "The terrifying thing about “The 2020 Commission Report” is how much of it is real". The "Los Angeles Review of Books" described it as "the gut punch everyone needs".