Tri-Valley CAREs hosted a virtual watch party for the new Netflix thriller A House of Dynamite on October 27! We had important conversations about topics the movie brought up, such as missile defense, the fallacy of deterrence, and the importance for arms control agreements, such as the New Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (New START). We encourage you all to watch the movie and also have these conversations with your friends and family!
About the Movie
House of Dynamite is the latest film from director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty). The movie follows this plotline: An intercontinental ballistic missile is identified over the western Pacific, heading for somewhere in mid-America. Its launch was not seen by satellite sensors, so it’s unclear what country might have initiated the attack. An effort to shoot down the missile fails and it becomes clear that—barring a technological malfunction of the missile’s warhead—Chicago will be obliterated. The United States’ response to the attack could well initiate worldwide nuclear war. It parallels the plot of the bestselling book “Nuclear War: A Scenario” by Annie Jacobson.
The movie was intense, emotional, and full of moral questions about nuclear weapons, power, responsibility, and truth.
How the Movie Explores Nuclear Weapons Issues
In the film, U.S. missile defense plays a key role in intercepting the incoming attack. A House of Dynamite correctly underlines that missile defense has been a costly project that has produced, at best, limited defensive capability. It is appropriate to refer to the chances of a successful intercept as a “coin toss” based on the system’s test record (roughly a 55% success rate). Strategic missile defenses have never been used against an actual attack by an intercontinental ballistic missile, and the limited testing was not done in real-world conditions–having been scripted in advance and without expected countermeasures that would be anticipated–and still, as mentioned, has a poor track record, so their effectiveness in a real crisis must be considered questionable at best. A House of Dynamite also correctly depicts that intercontinental ballistic missiles, due to their high speeds, are extremely difficult to hit.
However, A House of Dynamite underestimates how much the United States has spent on missile defense. Instead of the $50 billion mentioned in the film, the United States has spent more than $60 billion just on the ground-based interceptor system shown in the film and hundreds of billions more on missile defense across decades.
This hits home in Livermore as the Livermore Lab designs warheads for the nuclear stockpile, with 90% of the Lab’s budget being requested for nuclear weapons activities. Nuclear nonproliferation makes up less than 10% of the budget. The Lab is a big driver of nuclear modernization, with plans to increase the levels of plutonium at the Lab under the “Enhanced Plutonium Utilization” proposal.
The film also brings up important issues surrounding the fallacy of nuclear deterrence as our national security posture and the fact that there are no winners in nuclear war. Nuclear deterrence, a strategy where the threat of using nuclear weapons is used to prevent an adversary attack, is the cornerstone of US national security. The global nuclear stockpile is close to 13,000 weapons. The U.S. arsenal contains around 5400 of those, 1744 of which are deployed and ready to be delivered. Roughly half of the deployed weapons are maintained on hair trigger alert, able to be launched very quickly after a presidential order. These alert forces include almost all of the 400 silo-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), which can be launched within a couple minutes.
In the film, the President makes a comment of why we need to possess all these weapons if we’re still going to be attacked, critiquing the notion of deterrence. In reality, increasing our stockpile exacerbates the arms race as our adversaries react by growing their stockpile, pushing the world closer to the brink of nuclear war. As the President struggles with the decision on whether to respond with nuclear war, the Deputy National Security Advisor is pushing for communication and diplomacy, saying that the options are “surrender or suicide.” This quote was a powerful illustration of there being no winners in nuclear war. This push for negotiations shows why arms control treaties like New START are so vital.
In less than 100 days, New START, the last remaining arms control treaty between the US and Russia, the world’s two largest nuclear arsenals, is set to expire. If nothing replaces New START, both countries could rapidly expand their arsenals for the first time in 35 years.
Russia is “prepared to continue observing the … central quantitative restrictions” of New START for one year after its expiration if the United States “acts in a similar spirit,” Russian President Vladimir Putin announced on September 22 at a Russian Security Council meeting. Following the proposed one-year extension, Russia would make “a careful assessment of the situation [and] a definite decision on whether to uphold these voluntary self-limitations,” Putin said. However, there has been no confirmation on the American side to agree to Russia’s proposal.
Call to Action
You can take action by urging members of Congress to publicly encourage President Trump to negotiate a follow-on treaty that limits the spread of nuclear weapons. Congress can help steer us toward diplomacy and away from disaster. Two sets of bicameral resolutions—H.Res. 100 and H.Res. 317 in the House and S.Res. 61 and S.Res. 323 in the Senate—are the rallying points. H.Res. 100/S.Res. 61 specifically call for urgent negotiations to replace New START, continued U.S. and Russian compliance with current established limits, and separate engagement with China to reduce nuclear risks. H.Res. 317/S.Res. 323 goes further and calls for the United States to pursue a world free of nuclear weapons as a national security imperative. Click here to take action and write to your representatives!