WARNING: This article contains spoilers.
What if you were the president of the United States and you had just minutes to decide how to respond to an impending nuclear attack?
A new film, “A House of Dynamite” — released in theaters early last month and made available on Netflix on October 24 — chronicles a chaotic, confusing, and terrifying conference call involving the president and his top advisers after U.S. military officials detect an intercontinental ballistic missile headed toward what they eventually conclude to be Chicago.
The film — directed by Kathryn Bigelow and written by Noah Oppenheim — has received positive reviews from critics and movie-goers alike. And indeed many articles have been written praising it for bringing awareness to the underappreciated reality that, despite the end of the Cold War some 30 years ago, we still live under the constant, and real, threat of nuclear armageddon.
One major criticism of “A House of Dynamite,” however, is that it never tells us what the president decided to do. Bigelow and Oppenheim have explained that their intention was for that omission to generate conversation, so we asked experts how they would have responded.
But before getting to that, we should briefly describe the situation as it is portrayed in the film.
Military officials detect a missile launch somewhere in the Pacific and initially believe it to be a test. After it has been confirmed to be a nuclear ICBM heading toward the United States, the president and his team have 19 minutes — less time than it takes the average American to commute to work — to decide how to respond.
The first point of consideration is that no one has any idea who launched the attack. Speculation about the culprit ranges from North Korea, China and Russia to a rogue captain or an unintentional launch. And ultimately, the U.S.’s feeble missile defense attempts fail.
At that point, there are seven minutes to impact and Lieutenant Commander Reeves, the Presidential Military Aide — played by Jonah Hauer-King — who carries the so-called “nuclear football” gives the president — played by Idris Elba — a black binder laying out potential response options, “select, limited, and major,” should POTUS decide on a nuclear retaliation. General Anthony Brady, head of U.S. Strategic Command — played by Tracy Letts — advises the president to act.
The STRATCOM commander points out that U.S. adversaries are already mobilizing their forces.
“Perhaps … they are simply and innocently responding to our posture. It is also possible that they've seen our homeland is about to absorb a catastrophic blow, and they are readying to take advantage of that,” he says. “Or, this is all part of a phased coordinated assault with far worse to come. I simply don't know. What I do know is this: if we do not take steps to neutralize our enemies now, we will lose our window to do so. We can strike preemptively or risk 100 ICBMs, launching our way, at which time this war will have already been lost.”
The president then asks, what if the attack on Chicago is a one-off.
“I think we’d all welcome any indication of that. As unfathomable as it was just five minutes ago, I’d accept the loss of 10 million Americans if I could be absolutely certain that it stops there,” Brady says. “Of course in absence of that certainty, we can all certainly say a prayer and rely on the goodwill of our adversaries to keep us safe. Or we can hit their command centers, silos, and bombers while they’re still on the ground, eliminating their ability to take further action against us. We’ve already lost one American city today, how many more do you want to risk?”
Within the logic of this film and the time constraints the president is under this appears to be a very compelling argument, particularly if the focus is solely on protecting the United States and ensuring that it survives. There are so many unknowns, and they have already crossed the line into a worst case scenario.
At the same time, General Brady’s recommendation is also very extreme, to say the least.
Enter deputy national security adviser Jake Baerington, played by Gabriel Basso, who has to step in because his boss is under anesthesia for a routine medical procedure that morning. With six minutes until impact, and after the Russian foreign minister in a phone call tells him Russia was not responsible, Jake advises the president against any kind of retaliation, “for now at least.”
“Sounds to me like we know nothing new,” Gen. Brady interjects, referring to the call with the Russian foreign minister.
“Wrong, general,” Baerington shoots back. “We do what he’s asking, if we hold back there’s at least a chance.”
“Jake, if I do what you’re suggesting. I let whoever did this get away with it, how is that any different from surrendering?” the president asks.
“Sir if you want to look at it that way, then I’m telling you your choices are surrender or suicide,” Baerington says.
With two minutes until impact, the president steps away from the call. And when he comes back, about to give his orders, the film ends.
Stephen Schwartz, a nonresident senior fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and an independent expert, told RS he wouldn’t be pushed around by General Brady or anyone at STRATCOM and would not order a retaliatory strike. “Yes, the American people would almost certainly demand action if Chicago was destroyed,” he said, adding, “but as president I would not be rushed into making an irrevocable decision that could easily lead to the end of the country and the world as we know it.”
Daryl Kimball, executive director of the Arms Control Association, told RS that he would have followed Baerington’s advice.
Kimball said he would remind his team that the United States has nearly 1,000 invulnerable submarine-based nuclear weapons available for him to use at any time. “In this situation, it would be impossible to destroy all or even most enemy missiles on land and sea with a pre-emptive U.S. strike,” he said. “Adversaries would launch their weapons before a U.S. counterstrike designed to ‘limit damage’ from further attacks could hit them.”
Kimball added that a counter strike of the kind that General Brady recommends in the film “would result in the destruction of empty silos, the murder of hundreds of millions of people, and a massive nuclear attack on the U.S. homeland. That would be suicide and surrender.”
Bill Hartung, senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute, which publishes Responsible Statecraft, said he would not respond immediately, which he acknowledged, “could draw harsh public backlash, but it would be far preferable to a possible counteract that could put even more U.S. residents at risk.”
Kevin Martin, president of Peace Action, said that even if we knew who did it, he would not have retaliated at all. “Nothing could bring back those 10 million deceased people in the Chicagoland area,” he said. “A counter attack would only kill more innocent people, and likely lead to an all-out nuclear war, possibly ending most if not all human and non-human life on Earth.”
Indeed, the 1983 film “War Games” famously reminded us that the only way to win a nuclear war game is not to play. And “The Day After” — the infamous made-for-TV movie that aired on ABC that same year — shocked the American consciousness about the sheer devastation a nuclear strike would bring and the chaotic, dystopian aftermath that would result. That film had such an impact that, as one observer noted, President Reagan’s “speeches had veered from warmonger to Gandhi-esque peacemaker, declaring that ‘we’re all God’s children.’”
Three years later, Reagan and Soviet leader Mikail Gorbachev signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty, the first international agreement that reduced nuclear weapons stockpiles and eliminated a class of nuclear weapons altogether.
Subsequent treaties have further limited and/or reduced Russian and American nuclear weapons arsenals. And today, New START is the only remaining international agreement legally placing limits on nuclear weapons, but it is in danger of collapse as expiration nears.
But even with New START in place, the U.S. and Russia (along with seven other countries) have thousands of nuclear weapons amassed in their arsenals, enough to literally destroy the world many times over.
Perhaps “A House of Dynamite” will help spark renewed public debate about our nuclear weapons policies that may one day finally compel our leaders to say “enough is enough.”
