A House of Dynamite

I watched this Kathryn Bigelow movie a couple of nights ago after anxiously waiting for it to hit Netflix.  It turns out that Bigelow and I are the same age and lived through the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Cold War, and the era of public and private atomic bomb shelters – all based on the idea that you can survive a nuclear war.  As I have written on this blog is a couple of places – it was also my job in my early 20s to disassemble the bomb shelter in the basement of our public library.  Nobody ever gave me a reason – but in retrospect it was probably because planners realized that there would be no survivors.  I am not talking about dying in the blast or even surviving the radioactive fallout and fires.  I am talking about the millions of tons of smoke, soot, and dirt blown up into the atmosphere and the effects of that blocking sunlight.  The direct smoke and soot effects are expected to last for 5 years and the resulting greenhouse gases for a century (1).  There will be climate change and an inability to grow crops for a very long time.  That would mark the end of civilization probably within a few years.

There are differing opinions on what it would take to create a nuclear winter. Over the past 30 years several groups have estimated the environmental effects of numbers of nuclear weapons ranging from 15-100 kilotons.  The simulations vary from a limited exchange to a large-scale exchange of several thousand nuclear weapons.

This movie is focused on the launch of a single missile from an unknown location and the people responsible for responding to that attack.  There is the suggestion that early warning systems may have been compromised by a cyberattack.  We see a cross section of military officials and civilians at Fort Greely Alaska, in the White House, and via telecommunications monitoring threats to the United States.  They detect a missile launch and initially think that it will splash down in the Sea of Japan.  They eventually see that it is on a suborbital trajectory and it will hit the continental United States.  Chicago is determined to be the target. 

The tension increases greatly when the staff involved realize that this is a nuclear attack on the United States.  There is some initial confidence that they can intercept the with Ground Based Interceptor (GBI) anti-ballistic missile missiles. The GBIs are used to deploy an Exoatmospheric Kill Vehicle (EKV) that is a kinetic energy weapon designed to seek out and destroy the ballistic missile by direct impact. In a tense dialogue between the Secretary of Defense and the Deputy National Security Adviser we learn that the success rate of the GBI system is only 61% and it cost $50 billion.  During these discussions Ft. Greely has 2 GBIs in the air and they both miss.

That leads to increased tension. The alert state is DEFCON 2 and none of the staff has been at that state in the past.  Everyone knows the gravity of the situation.  People are upset, tearful, and trying to contact their families.  A cabinet official jumps off the roof of the Pentagon.  One of the central figures calls her husband and tells him to put their child in the car and get out of town as quickly as possible.  Even though there is only one missile in the air headed for Chicago – the viewer knows only 20 minutes total have elapsed.  There is no adequate amount of time to evacuate most major metropolitan areas.

With the failed countermeasures we see the President in the final frames.  He is with his retaliatory strategy advisor – a Lieutenant Commander.  He has a large book of targets – all specified by certain codes.  The President is anxious and hyperventilating. He is contemplating the gravity of the situation – the human toll, not letting the perpetrator get away with it, what the American people will think of his response, the insanity of selecting military targets when he does not know who launched the missile, and the message it would send if the US does not respond.

This was a very good movie that I enjoyed a lot.  It was well written, directed and acted by some of my favorite actors. Most importantly it contains a solid message about nuclear war – don’t go there.  The anxiety, confusion, mayhem, and desperation portrayed as the product of a single missile launch may be the 21^st century equivalent of that atomic bomb shelter I closed in the 1970s.

But it turns out there is more.  The Pentagon apparently released a memo disputing the low accuracy of the GBI anti-missile system.  I have not been able to access the memo but apparently it claims a 100% success rate in stopping incoming ballistic missiles. 

I was able to see an interview of Joseph Cirincione (2) – a defense consultant with experience all the way back to the Reagan era and the Star Wars initiative.  He said there have been a limited number of tests of the system but you could claim a 100% success rate if you looked at the last 4 tests.  If you look at the life of the program there have been 20 tests and only 11 or 55% were successful.  He pointed out the technical difficulties of trying to shoot down long-range missiles and said the system was more of a sieve than a protective dome and that it could not be counted on to plan a defense.  Further, the total investment in antiballistic missile technology has been $453 billion and that technology in the form of lasers, rockets, or the GBI/EKV will not be adequate for another 30 years.  He alluded to a study of the technology by the American Physical Society (3) but it was not clear that was his reference for the estimate.  When asked about the most significant nuclear threat to the US, Cirincione said it was Russia and that in an attack of a thousand ballistic missiles – the US would be able to “intercept 1 or 2.”  In the Pentagon versus movie accuracy, he rated it: “House of Dynamite 1 and Pentagon zero.”      

Where does this leave us?  Here are a few considerations.  First, if anyone was serious about waste, fraud, and abuse it is far more likely to be found in the Pentagon than in health and human services.  The $453B spent on several antiballistic missile systems to end up with one that is as effective as a “sieve” says it all. And apparently a new contract has been signed even though physicists are saying the technology will not be ready for another 30 years.  Second, the current system is a coin toss in terms of intercepting ballistic missiles from a rogue state.  In an all-out attack by a nuclear power it can possibly intercept a trivial number of missiles.  It makes no sense to advertise it any other way or pretend that the United States is “protected” against a long-range missile attack.  Third, we are right back where we started when nuclear non-proliferation was the order of the day.  Having all the nuclear weapons in the world is a zero-sum game if all of humanity goes extinct during the attacks and the aftermath.  Fourth, rather than being focused on non-proliferation were currently have leaders who are bragging (4-6) about weapons systems.  Fifth, there is not even a tip of the cap to cosmopolitanism at this point.  Billions of people around the world work every day and strive to get home safely to their families every night.  In the meantime, we have a handful of old men with a limited stake in the future playing a dangerous game of brinksmanship – often for no reason other than playing the game.   

When exactly are world leaders really going to work in the interests of their people?  Nuclear war, nuclear winter, and the extinction of humans is the last thing any rational person wants.

 

George Dawson, MD, DFAPA

 

References:

1:  Toon OB, Robock A, Turco RP. Environmental consequences of nuclear war. Physics Today. 2008 Dec 1;61(12):37-42.  https://climate.envsci.rutgers.edu/pdf/ToonRobockTurcoPhysicsToday.pdf

2:  Cirincione J.  TMZ Live October 28, 2025  Link to video

3:  American Physical Society.  Strategic ballistic missile defense. Challenges to defending the U.S.  March 3, 2025  Links to 3 different reports

4:  Wittner LS.  Nuclear arms race intensified during Trump’s presidency.  The Hill. July 5, 2024  https://thehill.com/opinion/4755721-trump-nuclear-arms-race/

5:  Cancian MF, Park CH. Trump Moves “Nuclear” Subs: Negotiating Tactic or Escalatory Gamble?  August 6, 2025.  https://www.csis.org/analysis/trump-moves-nuclear-subs-negotiating-tactic-or-escalatory-gamble

6:  Megerian C.  Putin boasts about new nuclear-powered missile as he digs in over Russia’s demands on Ukraine.  October 27, 2025.  https://www.pbs.org/newshour/world/putin-boasts-about-new-nuclear-powered-missile-as-he-digs-in-over-russias-demands-on-ukraine