By Peter Huessy, Senior Fellow, the National Institute for Deterrence Studies
Dynamite is a new movie about a single nuclear tipped missile attack against the United States. The attacker is not identified. It is not a terrorist group like Al Qaeda. It is not necessarily North Korea or Iran. And apparently not the real bad guys, Russia or China.
The United States finds itself in this nuclear pickle because a lot of things we might do in response to or prevent such an attack are not available. The movie producers rigged the story so the US ends up helpless only knowing one thing: our satellite systems are tracking a missile streaking over the Pacific and headed right for Chicago. But we have no idea where the missile came from.
A lot of questions immediately come to mind. Why would an enemy launch just one missile at the United States, knowing that our DSP—Defense Support Program—satellites would in all likelihood immediately know from where the missile was launched? And knowing this, the US Strategic Command in Omaha or the United States Air Force Global Strike Command in Barksdale, Louisiana would be able to retaliate at the command of the American President and take out the bad guys that launched the missile in the first place.
That is called deterrence and in the nuclear deterrent business has operated perfectly for 80 years, preventing any such missile launch against the continental United States. But the movie assumes the satellite system magically fails to work just as the attacking missile is launched so the United States has no idea what country or government or terror group launched the missile in the first place. Implicitly letting the audience know that maybe this might happen in the real world. And thus, deterrence could easily breakdown because some attacker might roll the dice and could assume the US won’t retaliate against an enemy the US can’t identify because our DSP technology failed to detect the launch in the first place.
The second question would be why doesn’t the United States missile defense command shoot down the one missile flying high over the Pacific ocean? The United States has intercepted such ballistic missiles nearly 20 times in demanding tests, including the last four in a row. The US and its allies, especially Ukraine and Israel, have also in the real world, successfully intercepted literally tens of thousands of drones, missiles and rockets with missile defenses and air defenses such as Patriot, THAAD, Aegis, Iron Dome, Arrow and David’s Sling. Israel’s military alone has knocked down and destroyed some 95% of the nearly 30,000 rockets and missiles launched by Iran, the Houthis, Hamas and Hezbollah at their country in the past two years.
Well, here is where the narrative takes another “rigged direction.” The two interceptors launched from our missile defense system in Fort Greely, Alaska don’t work—one fails to launch and the other interceptor fails to hit the incoming warhead. Even though the movie writer claims he understood that long range missile defense tests have worked 61% of the time, experts supposedly informed him the tests to date are scripted or rigged and thus not realistic.
But there is another reason for the script making sure the interceptors do not work. The movie guides published by various nuclear abolition groups in synthesis with the movie folks gave the story away: they all emphasize that while it is rationale to think missile defenses would be the right thing for the United States to deploy---like Golden Dome—such systems are too expensive, won’t work, will start an arms race, and will upset the strategic balance between the United States, Russia and China.
Thus, the deterrent Americans have built to prevent a nuclear attack on the United States, and the insurance plan of missile defense built to take down an attack should deterrence fail, both don’t work, and for the first time ever in the real world. The US has for decades known when a ballistic missile has been launched at the US or its allies. And the US has at least had some capability to intercept incoming missiles. But Dynamite—Hollywood---assumes nothing works.
So, what is the United States left with? A sense of dread and helplessness. As the US cannot do anything to stop a nuclear bomb from detonating over the city of Chicago. Depending upon one’s assumptions, some millions of people will perish or be casualties.
The movie was written by a veteran Hollywood movie maker, who has received many awards. She and the script writer recommended, when asked, that the United States should work on denuclearization, or the abolition of nuclear weapons. What first steps should be taken are not disclosed, or how to abolition nuclear weapons in even one nation let alone the nine now with such weapons. And during the time in which the abolition process takes place, the movie and its producers make no suggestions how we sustain deterrence in the meantime.
In a not dissimilar scenario, writer Annie Jacobsen in her 2023 book Nuclear War: A Scenario calls US nuclear deterrence strategy “mad” and “crazy.” In interviews, Jacobsen also appears to recommend abolition. This theme of abolition was also the theme of the July 2023 movie Oppenheimer, which was the first of this anti-nuclear trilogy of movie, book and movie.
The Oppenheimer movie theme was that some of the top creators [such as Robert Oppenheimer] of the US nuclear bomb under the Manhattan Project subsequently were determined to get rid of all such weapons. But were not allowed to do so because of war mongers like Dr. Edward Teller who are blamed for developing the H-Bomb [1952] and thus starting an arms race that has left the United States in the helpless position as portrayed by Dynamite. Not explained and left out of the movie is that the H-Bomb allowed the US to build a nuclear bomb small enough to be placed on a ballistic missile in an invulnerable submarine that while at sea gave the United States an assured second strike capability that ungirded US nuclear deterrent strategy since at least 1958 when the first Polaris submarine went to sea. And prevented nuclear war.