Crédits photo : Netflix
Marc Finaud, Vice-President of IDN
Kathryn Bigelow’s film A House of Dynamite realistically depicts the scenario of a nuclear attack on the United States, the failure to intercept a missile of unknown origin, and the dilemma of retaliation that could lead to suicidal escalation. According to the director, who won an Oscar for her feature film The Hurt Locker, the film’s message is simple: “This is a global problem; of course, I hope against hope that one day we will reduce our nuclear arsenal. But in the meantime, we are going to be living in a house full of dynamite. It is important that everyone is aware of this so that we can start a dialogue. The explosion we are interested in is the dialogue that viewers will engage in after seeing the film.” This production therefore offers an opportunity to highlight the nature of the nuclear risk resulting from the policy of nuclear deterrence, which is in fact based on five paradoxes.
First paradox: deterrence claims to prevent nuclear war, yet it inevitably prepares for and leads to it.
President Macron reiterated this in his latest speech on defence and deterrence strategy on 7 February 2020, stating that France’s doctrine is “strictly defensive, clear and predictable”, meaning that if the leader of a state « were to consider attacking our vital interests, whatever they may be, he must know that our nuclear forces are capable of inflicting absolutely unacceptable damage on his centres of power, i.e. his political, economic and military nerve centres. » This is the principle of deterrence, whereby the threat of a terrible retaliation should deter an adversary from attacking us. However, at the same time (and this contradiction is not unique to the current president, as it has been part of French doctrine for several decades), the head of state clearly envisages the failure of this deterrence. He thus reaffirms that « in the event of a misunderstanding about France’s determination to preserve its vital interests, a single, non-renewable nuclear warning could be issued to a state aggressor to make it clear that the nature of the conflict has changed and to re-establish deterrence. » Therefore, it would no longer be a question of a (nuclear) response in the event of aggression (even non-nuclear), but a first (nuclear) strike in the chimerical hope that the adversary will not retaliate with a nuclear strike, which would mean total nuclear war, probably suicidal for France against a far superiorly armed adversary such as Russia.
Another aspect of this paradox is that, for nuclear deterrence to be credible, the offensive capabilities of the nuclear power, whether in response to an attack or in the form of a first strike, must not only be operational, but also superior in effectiveness to those of its adversaries. The result is a never-ending arms race that is both quantitative and qualitative in nature. This is clearly evident today, despite the legal commitments of the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) to “pursue in good faith negotiations on effective measures relating to the cessation of the nuclear arms race at an early date and to nuclear disarmament”, each nuclear power, including France, is increasing its nuclear weapons budget, engaging in exorbitant modernisation programmes ($1.3 trillion over 30 years in the United States), increasing its arsenal (in China) or renouncing previous limitations (in the United Kingdom and, from the expiry of the New START Treaty in February 2026, in the United States and Russia). Thus, President Macron could state without hesitation: “I have taken and will continue to take the decisions necessary to maintain their operational credibility over time, at the level of strict sufficiency required by the international environment.”
Second paradox: deterrence requires rational behaviour on the part of adversaries, whereas, as the film shows, a nuclear attack can result from a completely irrational decision.
All experts, whether in favour of nuclear deterrence or not, agree that it only works if the actors involved act rationally. French leaders, like their counterparts, calculate – some would say gamble – that their adversary will make a sensible assessment of the pros and cons of an attack and conclude that the risk of near-total destruction by the adversary far outweighs the potential benefits of an attack against them. Common sense suggests that no leader would engage in suicidal behaviour. However, as Kathryn Bigelow’s film shows, in reality, nothing could be less certain. This scenario briefly mentions the launch of a missile by a North Korean submarine, but also that of a submarine commander who ‘lost his mind’ or an unauthorised launch. The North Korean hypothesis is also the basis for American journalist Annie Jacobsen’s bestseller Nuclear War: A Scenario. According to the author, “All it takes is one nihilistic, mad leader with a nuclear arsenal to start a war that no one can win.”
Once again, proponents of nuclear deterrence will argue that no sensible leader would launch a nuclear war, which would likely be destructive for them, by firing a single missile at a nuclear superpower such as the United States. Upon learning of the strike that threatens to destroy Chicago and kill 10 million people, the American president in the film exclaims, “This is insanity!” to which his chief of staff replies, “No, Mr President, this is reality!” Not to mention, beyond rationality, the numerous cases of accidents, misunderstandings, misinterpretations and losses of nuclear weapons that could have caused disasters, but which were most often avoided thanks to luck, as acknowledged by former US Secretary of Defence Robert McNamara, a key player in the Cuban missile crisis: “It was luck that prevented nuclear war. Rationality will be of no help to us.”
Third paradox: nuclear deterrence claims to confer unprecedented power on those who possess nuclear weapons, when in fact it reveals a total lack of confidence in their capabilities.
The appeal of nuclear weapons for some leaders stems largely from the feeling of power they are supposed to confer. In France, François Mitterrand converted to them after having fought against them, summarising his feelings in 1986 by declaring: “France’s deterrent is the Head of State, it is me”, emphasising the central role of the President of the Republic in this strategy. It is no coincidence that the command post at the Élysée Palace, where the president can launch a nuclear strike, was christened “Jupiter” by president Valéry Giscard d’Estaing, a nickname also given to Emmanuel Macron, who seemed to embrace it when he announced a “Jupiterian” presidency in 2016. It is the intoxication of power that nuclear weapons seem to provoke that today leads Putin, bogged down in Ukraine, to regularly brandish the threat of nuclear weapons to deter Westerners from supporting Kyiv.
It is also this feeling of power that is associated with the status of permanent member of the UN Security Council, systematically invoked by the leaders of the five countries recognised by the NPT as nuclear weapon-states (China, France, the United Kingdom, the United States, and Russia). However, we should remember that when the UN was created in 1945, only Washington possessed atomic weapons, which had been used against Japan. The USSR did not acquire them until 1949, the United Kingdom in 1952, France in 1960 and China in 1964. Thus, the USSR was a permanent member with veto power but without nuclear weapons for four years, the United Kingdom for seven years, and France for 15 years, while the People’s Republic of China had to wait until 1971 to replace Taiwan on the Security Council. Thus, the perfect match between nuclear powers and permanent members lasted only three years, until India’s first nuclear explosion in 1974. But it is understandable that the “Big Five” are reluctant today to expand the Security Council to include new permanent members that do not possess nuclear weapons, as this would risk weakening their argument about the legitimacy of their nuclear weapons, which symbolise their “global responsibilities”.
In fact, if we take a closer look not only at the status but also at the military capabilities of the powers possessing nuclear weapons, we realise that it is the most heavily armed powers that do not trust their conventional capabilities and deem it necessary to further strengthen them with weapons of mass destruction. Thus, according to the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI), the list of countries with the highest military budgets in 2024, out of a global total of $2.718 trillion, is headed by the United States ($997 billion), followed by China ($314 billion) in second place, Russia in third place ($149 billion), India in fifth place ($86.1 billion), the United Kingdom in sixth place ($81.8 billion), France in ninth place ($64.7 billion) and Israel in twelfth place ($46.5 billion). Of course, non-nuclear countries also feature on the list, with Germany in fourth place (£88.5 billion), Japan (No. 10), South Korea (No. 11), Italy (No. 14) and Australia (No. 15), but they are considered to be protected by the American ‘nuclear umbrella’ and even host American nuclear weapons on their territory (Germany, Italy).
In total, spending on nuclear weapons is estimated at around $100 billion per year (ca. €6 billion for France). If we add up the military budgets of the nuclear powers and their allies among the top 40 countries, we already reach a total of $2,223.8 billion, or nearly 82% of global spending. In other words, even after deducting nuclear weapons-related expenditure, these countries are over-armed and have more than enough to defend themselves, if necessary, without threatening anyone with mass destruction.
Moreover, historically, several countries, including France and Israel, have acquired nuclear weapons because they felt inferior to powers superior in conventional weapons. This led to talk of “nuclear weapons as the weapon of the poor” or the “equalising power of the atom” theorised by General Pierre-Marie Gallois. Today, this concept has lost its validity, as we have seen, due to the redundant military capabilities enjoyed by all nuclear powers. Moreover, history has shown that the possession of nuclear weapons has not prevented nuclear powers from being defeated by non-nuclear countries that are less well armed but strong in their spirit of resistance, from Vietnam to Ukraine.
Fourth paradox: deterrence relies on instilling fear in the adversary, but, in reality, leads to paralysis of action caused by fear of the adversary.
As we saw with the second paradox, nuclear deterrence consists of delegating one’s security to the adversary, in the hope that they will act rationally and refrain from any aggression for fear of retaliation. This concept of fear is therefore central to the notion of deterrence. In reality, it already inspires fear of the adversary through their capabilities, doctrine, behaviour, and direct or indirect threats. Sometimes, the adversary even succeeds in instilling fear through disinformation, as in the case of the fake tanks deployed by Saddam Hussein, whose army, supposedly the most formidable in the Middle East, was pitifully and quickly defeated by the coalition sent by the UN to liberate Kuwait.
Today, Putin, having failed in his bid to invade and subjugate the whole of Ukraine, is not shy about brandishing his entire arsenal of exotic nuclear weapons, the latest of which, the Burevestnik nuclear-powered cruise missile, has been dubbed the “flying Chernobyl”. His stated goal is to instil fear in Ukraine’s Western allies so that they will cease their military assistance, which Moscow perceives as a direct threat. Admittedly, since the Russian invasion of 2022, Kyiv’s allies have not been deterred by these threats, even if they have shown some hesitation, particularly in delivering weapons that could be used on Russian territory. But, overall, the balance of terror has generally worked: since several NATO members (including France, Germany and the United States) had opposed Ukraine’s accession to the Atlantic Alliance, the protection of Article V of the North Atlantic Treaty could not be invoked in favour of Ukraine, which would have led to direct war with Russia. Fear therefore had its effect and deterrence became self-deterrence. We can rejoice that total war has been avoided for the time being, but we can no longer conclude that NATO’s nuclear weapons serve to deter Russia without accepting that Russia’s nuclear weapons deter NATO and limit its capacity for action.
The old dialectic of sword and armour applies fully to nuclear deterrence. Kathryn Bigelow’s film demonstrates the futility and ineffectiveness of the anti-missile “shield” deployed at great expense by the United States. One of the protagonists, whose scepticism is unhidden, declares: “Intercepting a missile is like stopping a bullet with a bullet.” Reagan had to abandon his ambitious “Star Wars” plan, which was technically and financially unfeasible, but the military-industrial lobby, motivated by the lucrative contracts associated with these projects, convinced Congress and several presidents to invest considerable budgets in them without demonstrating the effectiveness of such systems. Already in 2001, George W. Bush, on the insistent advice of his adviser John Bolton, had denounced the 1972 ABM Treaty, which imposed limitations on missile defence systems in order to allow for “strategic stability” with Moscow, in other words, the disincentive of first-strike capabilities designed to neutralise the enemy’s retaliatory capabilities. In response, Russia increased its offensive capabilities, notably by multiplying the number of nuclear warheads (MIRVs) deployed on its missiles and investing in manoeuvrable hypersonic missiles capable of evading enemy defences. Even Obama had extended part of the US missile defence shield to NATO, which Russia perceived as an offensive threat and responded to by developing new offensive weapons. Today, Trump marvels at his “Golden Globe” project, which is reminiscent of Reagan’s but even more expensive. There is no doubt that the arms race that this new project will trigger will be on a par with previous ones.
Conclusion: when risk becomes uncontrollable, eliminating the cause of the risk becomes an urgent obligation.
The favourite metaphor of the late visionary Paul Quilès, former French Minister of Defence and founder of Initiatives for Disarmament (IDN), was already that of a room full of dynamite in which children were playing with matches. The risk of a nuclear explosion, whether intentional or not, resulting from the escalation of a conventional conflict, a misunderstanding, misinterpretation or miscommunication, or the rash action of an irrational, unbalanced or terrorist actor, is higher than ever, according to the highest authorities (the UN Secretary-General, the Elders, former presidents and leaders, the Doomsday Clock created by some fifteen Nobel Prize winners, etc.). We now know that even a limited war between two nuclear powers using only one per cent of the world’s arsenal would result in a nuclear winter and famine causing the death of five billion people.
Historically, when a risk has become unacceptable or uncontrollable due to its impact on human beings or the environment, humanity has found the wisdom to eliminate its cause: asbestos, CFC gases, chemical and biological weapons, anti-personnel mines, etc. Today, saving the climate requires decarbonising the economy, and protecting the planet requires reducing plastic pollution. Why should nuclear weapons, which, contrary to President Macron’s assertion, far from guaranteeing security, let alone freedom, threaten the survival of all and future generations, escape this logic ?
