"In Kathryn Bigelow's new movie, A House of Dynamite, the clock is ticking. The film's fictional president of the United States has less than 20 minutes and very little information to decide whether or not to retaliate against a nuclear missile, launched at the United States, from an unknown source. The story is, of course, fiction, but as with Bigelow's other war movies, it feels disturbingly plausible."
"The president is a rational-even affable-character. The military personnel follow all the correct protocol. The general in charge is reliable and unruffled. "We did everything right, right?" one of the officers asks his colleagues. The answer the movie provides is yes, but that doesn't change the underlying insanity of the situation: The house of dynamite we've built could explode in a matter of minutes and wipe out cities' worth of people."
A film places a fictional U.S. president with fewer than twenty minutes and minimal information to decide whether to retaliate against an incoming nuclear missile from an unknown source. The film portrays a calm, rational president and military personnel following correct protocol, yet emphasizes the underlying insanity and fragility of deterrence. The Cold War centered on a single adversary; the current landscape includes nine nuclear powers, increasing risks from error, rogue actors, or information vacuums while an ongoing arms race raises stakes. National-security analysis underscores real-world plausibility and varied decision-maker motivations.
Read at The Atlantic
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