“At the end of the Cold War, global powers reached the consensus that the world would be better off with fewer nuclear weapons. That era is now over.”
That is the chilling opening line of Kathryn Bigelow’s new film, “A House of Dynamite.” It sets the stage for what follows, and spoiler alert — there’s no Hollywood ending. The cold, hard truth it illuminates is that after a half century of work to lower the threat of nuclear catastrophe, we are heading in the wrong direction.
Unsettling and intense, this film envisions just one of the ways millions of people could be wiped off the face of the Earth in the span of a single morning. Military experts and nuclear insiders will no doubt quibble with some of the details and dialogue, but this film is not for them, it is for everyone else. And we hope it serves as a warning that we are speeding closer to the brink.
Despite these dangers, the vast majority of political leaders, foreign policy and defense experts, and for-profit news organizations exited the nuclear conversation a few decades ago. Apart from Christopher Nolan’s 2023 biopic “Oppenheimer,” Hollywood did, as well. Yet, this lack of attention did nothing to reduce the nuclear threat, which, in many ways, is worse than it has ever been.
Bigelow and writer Noah Oppenheim have done the world an incredible service by putting front and center the true and awful nature of nuclear weaponry, while raising key questions about presidential authority, chain of command, disaster planning, changes in technology and even the concept of deterrence itself.
The film’s treatment of missile defense is also timely, though estimates for the accuracy of our current system may be overly optimistic. As the Trump administration pushes forward with a potential “Golden Dome” missile defense system, we need a scientifically sound review of what the technology can and cannot do. Trying to “hit a bullet with a bullet” is a gamble, and the stakes could not be higher. The public also needs to understand that even if homeland missile defense became reliable, which is unlikely, our adversaries can just build more offensive missiles or missiles that can evade defenses, something in which the Russians have already invested.
The only real way to protect this country — and the world — from nuclear war is through fearless diplomacy. “A House of Dynamite” shows that even after decades of theorizing, planning and spending billions on more accurate nuclear weaponry, the fate of the planet ultimately rests on trust between adversaries and the mutual recognition that nuclear war is suicidal.
Building trust among leaders of nuclear-armed states today may seem naive, but sustained dialogue and political will, underpinned by vigorous monitoring, is the only way forward. It is what brought down the number of nuclear weapons worldwide from nearly 70,000 during the Cold War to the estimated 13,000 that remain today.
We also need an honest and genuine debate on the concept of nuclear deterrence and what constitutes stable global security. Forever threatening nuclear attack with increasingly precise and capable weapons and assuming nothing will ever go wrong is reckless.
China is expanding its nuclear forces, upending the already shaky stability between the U.S. and Russia, two countries actively investing in modernizing their stockpiles. Observing this, some countries that don’t possess nuclear weapons are actually considering whether they should acquire them now. Change is needed; complacency is not an option.
But nuclear experts and political leaders alone cannot fix this mess. The public has to become engaged.
People may watch Bigelow’s new film and think they cannot help, which is understandable given the scope of the challenge. But as with most things, everyday citizens have more power than they think. Every serious reduction in nuclear threats to date was stimulated by public engagement — from mothers opposing atmospheric nuclear testing to millions of people taking to the streets to demand a freeze of nuclear weapons production during the last arms race.
Today, the public needs to reenter the conversation and start asking leaders questions they have been able to avoid for too long.
Former Secretary of Defense William Perry has warned that leaders are “sleepwalking” into a new nuclear arms race. This film is our wake-up call. If the world doesn’t change course, the nightmare that unfolds in “A House of Dynamite” will become reality.
Gov. Jerry Brown was the 34th and 39th governor of California and the executive chair of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.
Alexandra Bell is the president and CEO of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists and recently served as the deputy assistant secretary for Nuclear Affairs at the U.S. Department of State.
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