A House of Dynamite

Yesterday I watched Kathryn Bigelow’s “A House of Dynamite”—a rare case of Hollywood liberals producing a good film.

Twenty minutes before nuclear holocaust, filmed from various angles and through the eyes of various characters—from soldiers at an Alaskan missile base to the President of the United States (an African American former basketball player—appreciate the irony!).

Civil servants preoccupied with their personal problems, a wimpy Secretary of Defense, a textbook “hawk”—the head of US Stratcom, a smart but helpless intellectual—the Deputy National Security Advisor, unsuccessfully trying to negotiate with the Russian Foreign Minister. A North Korea expert who shows up at a reenactment festival in Gettysburg just when she’s needed most. Bomber pilots, delivering vengeance to enemies—no matter who, it doesn’t matter to them.

And a complete paralysis of will at every level of the state apparatus, making Armageddon inevitable.

The Pentagon, according to Bloomberg, is extremely dissatisfied with the film, the plot of which is based on the idea that interceptor missiles launched from Alaska failed to prevent a nuclear strike on Chicago. The Missile Defense Agency, responsible for the $50 billion-plus ground-based interceptor system in Alaska and California, even issued a special memorandum arguing that the film’s doomsday scenario is untrue.

The agency is particularly concerned about the portrayal of US missile defense as ineffective, especially given President Donald Trump’s desire to spend tens of billions of dollars on missile defense, including his plans to build the Golden Dome system.

But even if the film was intended as a liberal critique of Trump’s plans, it turned out to be much more significant and profound. Its final frames make you realize that World War III is not just real, but practically inevitable.

This is partly due to the disproportionate scale of states’ military might compared to the scale of the individuals (and little people) appointed to wield that power.