By Sumit Ahlawat
Hollywood has played an important role in establishing the US military as an unparalleled global force, emphasizing its professionalism, elite training, technological superiority, and unbreakable resolve in high-stakes conflicts.
Think of Top Gun: Maverick (2022), where Pete “Maverick” Mitchell (Tom Cruise) pilots a stolen Grumman F-14A Tomcat against Russia’s most advanced fighter jet, the Sukhoi Su-57 Felon. The US Air Force pilot defeats two of Russia’s fifth-generation fighters with a single Tomcat (a fourth-generation fighter from the 1970s).
However, a new Netflix movie, “A House of Dynamite,” by award-winning director Kathryn Bigelow (The Hurt Locker, Zero Dark Thirty), has so annoyed the Pentagon that it felt compelled to issue a statement denouncing the film and reminding its service members that it is a “work of fiction”.
The movie, in a nutshell (**spoiler alerts**), hinges on the US missile defense shield failing to intercept a nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missile headed for Chicago.
The nearly two-hour film traces the 18 minutes that follow the launch of the nuclear-tipped missile at the US.
“Eighteen minutes to decide the fate of the world and yet limited information [with] which to do so,” Bigelow told Netflix about the film.
“We see into the halls of power, where highly competent individuals are confronted with confusion, chaos, and helplessness.”
However, it is precisely this depiction that has annoyed the Pentagon, which believes the movie portrays the US Missile Defense Agency (MDA) in a negative light and that, in reality, the situation would have played out differently.
Russian Nuclear-Powered Cruise Missile, ‘Golden Dome’ & US Missile Defense Shield
Incidentally, the movie was released on Netflix on October 24, and on October 25, President Vladimir Putin announced that Russia has successfully tested its nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile, a nuclear-capable weapon Moscow says can pierce any defence shield.
While the timing of Russia’s nuclear-powered Burevestnik cruise missile testing just hours after the movie’s release on Netflix is purely coincidental, the Pentagon’s strong statement underlining the capabilities of the US missile defense shield program highlights the paranoia in the West amid Russian aggression in Ukraine, the capabilities of its new missile, and fears of the conflict turning into a wider NATO vs Russia conflict.
The movie also comes as US President Donald Trump is spearheading an effort to raise billions of dollars for his “Golden Dome” project, a combination of ground and space-based sensors and missile interceptors to intercept incoming aerial threats, including hypersonic and ballistic missiles.
The Pentagon Memo: Do Not Underestimate US Missile Defense Shield
According to Bloomberg, a Missile Defense Agency internal memorandum argues that the doomsday scenario depicted in the movie is inaccurate.
The document, labeled “Only For Internal MDA and Department of War use and is not public releasable,” is dated October 16.
It was prepared to “address false assumptions, provide correct facts and a better understanding” of the US’s currently deployed system, it said.
In the movie, the MDA detects a single ICBM over the Pacific (who fired the missile and why is not disclosed).
The US Army personnel at Fort Greely, Alaska, fire two missiles to intercept the incoming ICBM. One fails to fire while the other misses its target, leaving the US vulnerable.
“The fictional interceptors in the movie miss their target and we understand this is intended to be a compelling part of the drama intended for the entertainment of the audience,” but results from real-world testing “tell a vastly different story,” the Pentagon said in the memo.
The Pentagon is particularly unhappy about one scene in the movie, which depicts the system as having a 50-61% chance of intercepting a missile.
In the movie, the defense secretary, played by Jared Harris, laments that current missile defenses have a 50% chance of knocking down a missile despite their US$50 billion price tag.
A second character put that figure at 61 percent.
The Pentagon clarifies that the 50% interception rate of the missile defense shield cited in the movie is based on earlier prototypes.
The present missile defense systems “have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade,” it said.
The Pentagon also said it was not consulted on the movie, asserting that it “does not reflect the views or priorities of this administration.”
However, Bigelow stated that she sought independence but relied on tech advisers from the Pentagon.
Meanwhile, the movie’s screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, is sticking with the 50-61% figure cited in the film.
“That’s based on data from controlled tests,” Oppenheim told The Atlantic.
“So, you can imagine, those are under the best of circumstances. A lot of the folks we talked to felt that 61 percent was being very generous when it comes to the system that we have.”
“As we mention in the movie, there are fewer than 50 of these ground-based intercepts in our arsenal, so even if it were working perfectly, there are not a ton of them that we have available to use.”
The Pentagon is also unhappy with the US$50 billion price tag given to the US Missile Defense Program.
Though the cost of missile prevention systems is high, the Pentagon said, it is not “nearly as high as the cost of allowing a nuclear missile to strike our nation.”
A Government Accountability Office report in 2020 said the Pentagon had spent about US$53 billion on the ground-based system and planned to spend about US$10 billion through this year to continue developing, producing, and sustaining it.
However, the Pentagon memo acknowledges that the movie, despite its failings and wrongful depictions of US capabilities, highlights that “deterrence can fail, which reinforces the need for an active homeland missile defense system,” an apparent reference to Trump’s pet project, the ‘Golden Dome’.
In May, Trump said that the ‘Golden Dome’ would cost around US$175 billion.
However, a September report by Todd Harrison of the American Enterprise Institute estimated that the Golden Dome could cost US$252 billion to US$3.6 trillion over 20 years, depending on scope and capabilities.
A movie that depicts the current US missile defense capabilities at around 50-61% can definitely create a hostile atmosphere, making it more challenging to raise billions, perhaps even trillions of dollars, for the ambitious ‘Golden Dome’ project.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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