By Farah Sonde
Just in time for Halloween, Netflix is dropping a new nuclear thriller that fits the “spooky season” mantra. A House of Dynamite, the new film directed by Kathryn Bigelow, will hit select theaters October 10 and will stream on Netflix starting October 24.
The film’s new trailer delivers multiple hints about what’s ahead in the film. As a self-proclaimed lover of nuclear media, I’ve broken down quotes and screenshots from the trailer to give a little context on what real-life aspects of nuclear weapons policy are brought to life on screen even before I see the film on October 10.*
- “I always thought just being ready is the point. It keeps the world straight. If they see how prepared we are, no one starts a nuclear war.”
This quote describes the modern-day basis of nuclear deterrence, but being prepared hasn’t always kept us from the brink of nuclear war. On the contrary, it has sometimes caused us to inch closer. Take, for example, the “broken arrows” (also known as nuclear accidents) that litter our post-World War history. Being highly prepared to launch a nuclear weapon has meant, at times when radars have warned of incoming intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that weren’t there, nuclear-armed countries have been ready to launch missiles in response. This is the big risk of having nuclear weapons and associated military personnel on high alert: even when there’s a mistake, we risk nuclear war as a response.
- “We’re talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet.” “So it’s a f-cking coin toss? That’s what 50 billion dollars buys us?”
Missile defense has always been an expensive endeavor that has underdelivered on results. From the days of the Cold War to the recent proposals for a “Golden Dome,” billions of dollars (far more than the movie’s $50 billion price tag — in fact, most reliable estimates range from $300 -400 billion) have produced little actual protection. “Golden,” by the way, is an apt adjective, as gold is costly but as a soft metal, a poor choice for protection. The current system protecting the continental United States from ballistic missiles of the type depicted in the film has an estimated success rate of just over 50% (a “coin toss”) when facing fast moving ballistic missiles. “Hitting a bullet with a bullet” is a common analogy, but the chance of success is still less than in some movies (or my favorite example, Community’s paintball episode).
- The Nuclear Handbook
Blink and you’ll miss the flash of the Nuclear Decision Handbook, aka the “Black Book.” The book holds a range of attack options for the President. A review references that Idris Elba’s character, the U.S. President, says it looks like a “diner menu.”
That’s not far from the truth. There are limited firsthand accounts of its contents: naturally, the government considers nuclear plans highly restricted information. But the real book does contain pictures of potential nuclear retaliation options, which are designed to help the President make a quick choice about where to deploy nuclear weapons, and which areas will suffer the consequences of his decision.
This should be the key lesson of the film: one can do, or intend to do, all the right things, or follow all proper procedures, and still see things go horribly wrong. With nuclear weapons involved, the danger of a world-altering catastrophe is present. Yes, deterrence has worked and world leaders are most likely to want to avoid nuclear devastation, but the possibility is always there that events could take an unexpected turn. No deterrent or missile defense can fully eliminate the danger. We will only be safe from such a possibility without nuclear weapons.
Although it may seem a difficult proposition at the moment, we should be developing strategies to use all available means to reduce the danger of nuclear weapons. This will require hard-nosed diplomacy leading to arms control agreements, arsenal reductions and increased transparency between nuclear powers. Such diplomatic agreements have brought the total global arsenal down from about 70,000 at its peak at the height of the Cold War to about 12,000 today. Those agreements signify tremendous progress but there is still more work to do to finish the job.
I am excited to see a major film tackle these ideas, but don’t subscribe to the doom and gloom just yet. A House of Dynamite is fiction, intended to entertain audiences, not serve as a blueprint for the end of humanity. I am hopeful that this film will get people talking and asking questions. We all have a role to play in ensuring that the worst-case scenario does not happen.
At the times of greatest tension, we’ve seen big strides toward arms control and a world with fewer nuclear threats. For example, the United States and Russia are considering maintaining the limits of the last remaining arms control treaty between the world’s two largest nuclear powers for an additional year. If this film piques your interest in nuclear weapons, get involved today by learning more about what you can do to push for a future without the nuclear sword hanging over our heads. It’s not too late to make nuclear threats a thing of the past.
*Having now seen the film, the context of some of the above quotes is different than I had previously imagined. However, all of my points still stand.
