Pentagon officials dispute the Netflix thriller’s suggestion that its US$50 billion ($86b) system does not work effectively. Photo / Eros Hoagland, Netflix
Pentagon officials dispute the Netflix thriller’s suggestion that its US$50 billion ($86b) system does not work effectively. Photo / Eros Hoagland, Netflix
Warning: Contains spoilers for A House of Dynamite on Netflix
A nuclear-tipped missile hurtles towards Chicago, minutes away from wiping out one of America’s biggest cities and killing millions of people.
Ground-based interceptors (GBIs) are ready to be launched, saving the world from certain destruction. But they miss.
For now,that doomsday scenario is confined to A House of Dynamite, a new Netflix thriller. However, its creators insist such a disaster is much more plausible than we’d like to imagine.
A row has now erupted between the film-makers and the Pentagon, which insists the film’s premise rests on “false assumptions” and that its missile defences are “100% accurate”.
In A House of Dynamite, two interceptor missiles fired from Alaska to intercept a nuclear attack fail, leaving the United States defenceless just minutes before a strike on Chicago.
One character in the thriller, which stars Idris Elba and Rebecca Ferguson, compares use of the interceptor to hitting a bullet with another bullet.
However, an internal memo circulated by the Missile Defence Agency (MDA), obtained by Bloomberg, takes issue with the claim that its US$50 billion ($86b) system is ineffective.
In the film, Jared Harris, who plays the fictional US secretary of defence Reid Barker, is shocked to discover the missiles’ accuracy rate is just 60%. “So, basically, it’s like flipping a coin,” he says.
“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,” the memo stated.
However, the memo, dated October 16, claims military tests show a “vastly different story” and that the US’ missile defences “have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade”.
In the film, ground-based interceptors are launched to stop a nuclear missile bound for the US, but they fail to hit their target. Photo / Eros Hoagland, Netflix
As for the price tag, it continued, “the cost is high but not nearly as high as the cost of allowing a nuclear missile to strike our nation”.
Todd Harrison, a senior fellow with the American Enterprise Institute, pushed back on the Pentagon’s claims, saying: “No weapon system, much less a missile defence system, is ever 100% successful”.
He continued: “The actual test data is much closer to what the movie portrayed, but the way the military accommodates this is by firing multiple interceptors at each missile. This can greatly improve the overall probability of intercept.”
The scenario portrayed in A House of Dynamite, where interceptors miss their targets or fail to fire altogether, have already been seen in tests, he claimed.
“Harrison added: “The movie is perhaps the best advertisement for Golden Dome one could imagine. That makes it all the more curious why the Missile Defence Agency would attack the movie rather than embrace it.”
In May, Donald Trump pitched a US$175b “Golden Dome” missile defence system to protect the US from foreign attacks.
The movie prompted comparisons to US President Donald Trump’s proposed US$175 billion 'Golden Dome'. Photo / Getty Images
Michael Guetlein, the Space Force general, completed a blueprint for the programme in September, but the Trump Administration has yet to reveal any details.
Noah Oppenheim, writer of A House of Dynamite, told MSNBC he spoke to “many missile defence experts, all on the record” in researching the film, and concluded that “our missile defence system is highly imperfect”.
“What we show in the movie is accurate,” he insisted.
Kathryn Bigelow, the film’s director, pushed back on the Pentagon’s claims, arguing that the film was a “work of fiction” that nevertheless “lean[s] in hard on realism”.
“I just state the truth. In this piece, it’s all about realism and authenticity,” she said, claiming that multiple Pentagon advisers were “with me every day we shot”.
She told the Guardian: “Our nuclear armoury is a fallible structure. Within it are men and women working thanklessly behind the scenes, whose competence means you and I can sit and have this conversation.
