This commentary uses a fictional film to explore real-world nuclear policy issues. It reflects the author’s views and includes major spoilers for the Netflix film A House of Dynamite. It does not necessarily reflect the views of UNIDIR.
Kathryn Bigelow’s A House of Dynamite, a political thriller about the US response to a nuclear attack, has attracted a wide range of reactions from the nuclear policy community – some positive, others sharply critical.
At first, I thought the criticism might concern the depiction of missile defence – the Pentagon even issued a statement taking issue with it – or perhaps other technical details, procedural accuracy, or how people behaved under stress. To my surprise, it was none of those. It is actually a very good film.
To be fair, you can question the plausibility of the attack scenario, some of the characters’ decisions, or even the presidential line of succession (which the movie oddly gets wrong). But dismissing it for those reasons misses the point.
Borrowing the film’s own metaphor, the story is about the fact that the house we live in is made of dynamite. One could argue whether it should have been nitroglycerin instead of trinitrotoluene, but that doesn’t change the bigger picture.
A House of Dynamite takes creative liberties, but they serve a purpose: they make the viewer think about real and urgent issues surrounding nuclear weapons, deterrence, and war.
Yes, a single sea-launched ballistic missile attack on the United States is implausible. But it is also part of the rationale for US missile defence, which has long been pitched as protection not only against North Korea but also against “limited” coercive attacks (single digit launches) from Russia or China.
Yes, the US would likely be better at pinpointing the launch location. But if the missile came from an unidentified submarine, as the film suggests, that knowledge would not help much –especially within the 18 minutes the movie covers.
And yes, missile defence might have performed slightly better against a single intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) – firing four or more interceptors instead of just two. But add even a few more incoming missiles with modern countermeasures, and the outcome would probably be the same.
Finally, it is true there would be no immediate military pressure to launch a nuclear response with command and control still intact. But there could be enormous psychological and political pressure. One rationale voiced in the film – that failure to respond would be seen as weakness inviting further attacks – feels all too plausible amid today’s rhetoric of “credibility,” “resolve,” and “deterrence.”
And outside the US context, many nuclear-armed States wouldn’t even have the luxury of deliberation. They do not have robust early warning systems or strategic missile defence. The first time they would know about an incoming ICBM might be when it hits. Imagine those pressures.
Two scenes capture the film’s message perfectly, and both are brilliantly executed. In the first, after the interceptor fails, the missile-defence operator pleads, “We did everything right, right?” The second comes when the president, faced with response options, says: “If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war, right? But someone did. So, none of this makes sense.”
Nuclear deterrence seems like an intuitive and reliable system – until it fails. And if it does, every option is catastrophic. Doing everything “right” doesn’t guarantee survival.
Deterrence is often portrayed as a deliberate, rational strategy. Many treat it as the cornerstone of their country’s security and therefore something to be defended from criticism. But no one had deterrence in mind when building the atomic bomb. No one in 1945 foresaw nine nuclear-armed States, thousands of warheads dwarfing those that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki, missiles that can cross oceans in minutes, or the extension of deterrence to allies. All this evolved later, and people tried to make political and technological realities fit together. It has worked so far.
But unless we acknowledge that we’ve created a force capable of killing us all, and that all we are really doing is managing that risk, we’ll keep missing the forest for the trees.
Some people will say that having dynamite in the walls is worth it because it deters others. Others will argue that, with the right strategy, they can survive or even prevail, even if some floors of the house explode.
But for everyone else, this movie should be a wake-up call. There is dynamite in our walls, and instead of removing it, we’re currently planning to add more.
