Here is no protection against a nuclear attack
I appreciate the Netflix movie “House of Dynamite” for trying to show the outcome of a nuclear war. However, it failed to clearly show that there is no defense against a massive nuclear attack. I am a veteran U.S. Army Air Defense Missile officer, and in my opinion, it is also essential to clearly and accurately demonstrate this fact. The U.S. and Russia still possess thousands of nuclear warheads. Even a small fraction of these could end civilization as we know it. Yet, we continue to rely on a doctrine called Mutually Assured Destruction, which assumes no one will initiate a nuclear war because it would destroy everyone. That’s not a strategy — it’s a gamble on human sanity.
Movies like the House of Dynamite suggest that the U.S. believes it can stop incoming nuclear attacks using “interceptor missiles.” As a missile defense veteran, I can confirm how unlikely that defense truly is. Intercontinental ballistic missiles can travel over 15,000 miles per hour and can release multiple warheads and decoys. Our missile systems — such as Raytheon’s SM-3 Block IIA — are claimed to be able to track and destroy one or two missiles with radar-guided intercepts and bullet-hitting-bullet software. However, a large-scale attack presents an entirely different challenge. In my view, even our most advanced “interceptor” systems could never stop hundreds, let alone thousands, of them in time to prevent the total destruction of the United States and the planet. The same applies to President Trump’s “Golden Dome.”
We must urgently return to the decades of restraint and diplomacy that have led to disarmament and prevented global catastrophe. We will not get a second chance.