Politico-Bureaucratic Incompetence in A House of Dynamite
Displaying the Myth of National Defense with Nuclear Brinksmanship
The Netflix movie A House of Dynamite reveals the typical politico-bureaucratic tomfoolery that would ensue if ever a ballistic missile were launched at an American city. It is an expose in why politicians and bureaucrats offer little in the production of security and how principles go out the window whenever there is a crisis.
First, each individual is impacted by their own biases and personal prerogatives. By depicting the various functionaries in the military, and various government watch centers as human beings dealing with their own issues, the movie reveals that personal problems and character flaws impact their ability to perform. The Army Major having a squabble with his wife, the Combatant Commander preoccupied with the sports game he watched last night, the subject matter expert that complains about it being her day off, the Defense Secretary that is more concerned with his daughter’s safety than the activities of his department, the President that is unprepared to make a decision all betray the fact that it is not “the government” that is attending to national defense but individuals acting according to their own subjectivity. They do not execute according to plans but select from the range of available options according to limited perceptions based on their subjective slice of reality. They bristle against circumstances, resist accepting things as presented, and act according to their personal preferences before carrying out their assigned duties.
This human subjectivity is also evidenced by the situation room watch commander who violates protocols by having personal cell phones in a secure compartment so that she and her subordinate can contact loved ones at will. Standard operating procedures go out the window when people think a real emergency is unfolding. This is important to remember when thinking about “limited government” and constitutional contracts that are supposed to protect individual and constituent polity rights from political encroachment.
Equipment does not perform as expected, particularly when trying to strike a multi-warhead intercontinental reentry vehicle with an interceptor missile. That a 63% success rate amounts to an even-odds toss-up leaves decision makers bewildered and aghast when considering the cost of these Star Wars, Golden or Iron Dome type ballistic missile defense systems. The tax-paying public should take particular note of just what their national defense funds are buying and what the actual opportunity costs are when viewing such scenes. The success probabilities described in the movie are drawn from the real world, and even those are based on highly suspicious estimates generated by the same industrial complex that depends upon glimmers of hope to ensure continued congressional funding.
Governmental departments do not act in unison but are often in conflict with one another. Personalities matter, and the best opinions do not always prevail. Admirals sometimes defer to Lieutenant Commanders; the full context of conversations with foreign leaders is not accurately conveyed; Presidents do not believe the information being reported and dismiss course of action analysis as a waste of time.
The movie concludes without resolution as the President’s decision on how to respond to the attack is not shown. The runtime essentially revolves around the same twenty minutes from differing perspectives, that culminates with a fade to black while everyone awaits a retaliatory strike order from the Commander In Chief.
Some reviewers have complained about the movie not really having a point or following plot lines to a satisfying conclusion. If anything, the key takeaway from this expose is that government functions as a confused mess of individuals making decisions with imperfect information that do not necessarily intend or result in a tangible thing commonly known as national defense. The movie will be highly effective if viewers walk away impacted by the ambiguity of politics and bureaucracy in the practice of security.
Politico-bureaucratic jackassery is on display rather than the cold execution of well-rehearsed crisis response procedures. My highest hopes for the film is that citizens will wonder why their taxes go to fund such incompetence and return to the realization that security is an individual responsibility best left to be organized by private property owners and organic communities, that the federation known as the United States would best be composed of by “ward republics” that hold the preponderance of authority and that the chief security concern is arresting the corrupt ambitions of the political caste that aggravate both inter and intra-state relations.
What is not mentioned in the film, or largely understood by modern Americans, is that politicians, bureaucrats, and the factional interests they serve, use the resources at government disposal as common pool assets for their own enrichment and aggrandizement while putting the lives and fortunes of average citizens at risk. In the game of monopoly governments, there can be only one. This arrangeement puts states on a collision course in a global battle for supremacy over the prize of taxable jurisdictions. Power junkies start conflicts in hopes of gaining more territory and people to plunder. Encroachment, provocation, grey zone attacks, and aggressive brinksmanship are just tactics in the political quest for more authority, control, and access to other people’s resources.
The source of the missile launch in A House of Dynamite is never disclosed, and the confusion caused trying to find out where it came from supports the narrative for the limited time it is presented to the audience. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter. The movie is about the way people in powerful positions react to the stress of this type of impending doom.
In the real world, states compete with one another for power, prestige, and property because of the benefits conflict provides to those that live from the proceeds. Regular people are best able to increase their well-being and standards of living from peaceful cooperation and an ever-expanding division of labor. Expropriation and war are antithetical to peace and prosperity, both domestically and internationally. The German sociologist Franz Oppenheimer described these two distinct subsistence strategies as the political versus the economic means of enrichment. The political caste depends upon predation and parasitism while common people resort to production and voluntary transactions. American legal theorist Lysander Spooner described this as the dividing line between peace and war in his description of natural law and the science of justice.
Preventing situations like those depicted in A House of Dynamite requires restraining the aggressive ambitions of the political caste and curtailing the wasteful bureaucracies established to eat out the people’s substance under the false promise of national security.
Thus, again, the political caste must be made dependent upon We The People to execute the laws, repel invasions, and suppress insurrections, as constitutional order demands. They must also be surrounded by an organized, armed, and disciplined population that is engaged and able to restrain their corrupt ambitions, with force. It all comes down to the individual responsibility to be organized, armed, and disciplined as a civic duty and contribution to the security of a free state that the United States Constitution made abundantly clear.
One can hope that A House of Dynamite leads to people questioning, since the politicians and bureaucrats fail so spectacularly: What will it take to actually secure a free and prosperous commonwealth?