“This is insanity!”
“No, Sir. This is reality.”
This minor exchange between the U.S. President, played by Idris Elba, and the commander of U.S. Strategic Command (STRATCOM), played by Tracy Letts, is pretty central to the argument made by organizations like ours who want to reduce the threat posed by nuclear weapons. Because unfortunately, this “insane” nuclear system we’ve created is our reality. While not everything is accurate, there is a lot this film gets right — especially about the costliness and ineffectiveness of missile defense and the way our nuclear launch process puts only one person in charge of the world’s deadliest nuclear arsenal.
But it doesn’t have to be this way. We built this house of dynamite and we can tear it down — with your help. If A House of Dynamite scared you, angered you, or just made you want to know more about current nuclear weapons issues, welcome to our fight!
There are things you can do TODAY to get involved to make sure nuclear risks go down, not up, and that our elected officials do their job to keep us safe.
The Nuclear Threat is Real and Present
We survived a period of high nuclear danger during the Cold War, but the threat is again growing. A House of Dynamite is a fictional representation of what could happen if a long slew of things go wrong. However, there are key aspects of the film that shed light on U.S. nuclear policy and decision making that should spur every one of us to action.
Director Kathryn Bigelow and screenwriter Noah Oppenheim told the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists that they created this film to do just that — take action to once again start tearing down our house of dynamite.
“We are responsible for having created these weapons, and in a perfect world, getting rid of them… I’d like to see people decide they don’t want to live in a world that’s this volatile or this combustible. And then of course, the next step is to reach out to their representatives and try to, you know, create a movement.” -Kathryn Bigelow
We don’t live in a perfect world, but we DO live in a world in which we can take action that matters. Reach out to your Members of Congress right now and urge them to see the film then take meaningful steps to reduce nuclear risks.
Our current system to defend against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), known as the Ground-based Midcourse Defense (GMD) system, is questionable at best.
More money spent on ballistic missile defense will not make us safer, only diplomacy and risk reduction will.
The American Physical Society found in 2025 that the current system — which has cost taxpayers more than $60 billion already — “cannot be expected to provide a robust or reliable defense against more than the simplest attacks by a small number of relatively unsophisticated missiles” at any point in the next 15 years.
“From all of my conversations with people who work in missile defense… those folks are the first to acknowledge that it is a really hard physics problem at the end of the day that we may never be able to solve perfectly. And so we do need to start looking at the other piece of this, which is the size of the nuclear stockpile. And how can we reduce the number of weapons that exist in the world, and how can we reduce the likelihood that they’re ever used?” -Noah Oppenheim
As the film accurately depicts, the current system is no better than a “coin toss.” But more missile defense at an exorbitant cost to the taxpayer and without a clear way to protect the United States from an incoming nuclear attack is not the answer — more diplomacy to avoid an attack in the first place is.
EMAIL YOUR MEMBERS OF CONGRESS WITH THREE CLICKS: TELL THEM YOU WANT THEM TO PRIORITIZE ARMS CONTROL
The U.S. president is the only person who can order a nuclear strike. The president is not required to consult with anyone before doing so.
“I can go into my office and pick up the telephone, and in 25 minutes, 70 million people will be dead.” – Former U.S. President Richard Nixon, 1975 (reportedly)
“…the President is the sole nuclear launch authority…” – Former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, 2021
As seen in the film, the president is the only person who can order the launch of 1, 10, 100 or more nuclear weapons. While they may consult with others, they are not required to.
We at Council for a Livable World don’t think the president — any president — should have that pressure or that power. If you agree, tell Congress to take on the issue of the president’s sole authority to launch nuclear weapons.
Can a movie really change anyone’s mind? And can ordinary people really make a difference?
Yes and yes! At the height of the Cold War, there were tens of thousands more nuclear weapons than there are today. In 1982, when there were about 57,000 nuclear weapons worldwide, a million people came together in New York City to protest growing nuclear risks. In 1983, the film The Day After depicting a Kansas town being wiped out in a nuclear war with Russia played on televisions nationwide. President Ronald Reagan saw the film early and wrote in his diary that it was “very effective and left [him] greatly depressed.”
Two years later, in 1985, he met with Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev and the two issued a joint statement declaring that “a nuclear war cannot be won and must never be fought.”
By 1987, the global nuclear stockpile was on the decline for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age in 1945. Through a series of arms control agreements, the number has steadily declined from about 70,000 in 1986 to closer to 12,000 today.
Those declines did not happen overnight and they did not happen without people like you pushing for change.
For more than 60 years, people like you have supported our endorsed candidates and our advocacy on Capitol Hill, leading to major nuclear arms reduction treaties that have helped bring the world back from the brink.
Since 1962, we’ve endorsed and helped elect more than 400 Members of Congress — Democrats, Republicans and Independents — who have fought to constrain unnecessary Pentagon spending, vote in favor of agreements to limit nuclear threats and arsenals, and support a diplomacy-first foreign policy.
Together, we can keep going. We can finish this job. We can push for renewed arms control talks and treaties. We can push for smart policies to reduce nuclear risks. Together, we can keep tearing down the house of dynamite we live in before the walls blow. This insanity does not have to be our reality.
