“A House of Dynamite,” now streaming on Netflix, is a must see for anyone who appreciates a good nuclear thriller. But it’s also a must see for a nation that’s currently pursuing a missile defense shield that experts say could cost trillions of dollars and still fail to protect the United States from a nuclear attack. With the U.S. having already sunk over $400 billion into ballistic missile defenses that haven’t worked, history is poised to repeat itself. The movie challenges us to imagine what would happen in the event of a nuclear attack if missile defense failed, while painting a picture of the strong possibility that it would.
Arms control experts have lauded the movie as a timely portrayal of the dangers of nuclear weapons, the need to reduce their numbers, and the fallacy that missile defense can effectively protect us from them. The U.S. Missile Defense Agency, on the other hand, argues that the film “highlights that deterrence can fail, which reinforces the need for an active homeland missile defense system.” These are two very different takeaways. So, which is right?
“We are talking about hitting a bullet with a bullet,” said the fictional deputy national security advisor to the fictional secretary of Defense when the latter asked what the odds were of the Ground-Based Midcourse Defense system successfully intercepting an incoming nuclear missile. “Our mid-course intercept system has a success rate of 61 percent.”
While the analogy of hitting a bullet with a bullet is a useful one, the odds of successfully defending the U.S. against a nuclear attack would be more like the odds of hitting a dozen bullets with another dozen bullets. That’s because in the real world, a nuclear attack against the U.S. would likely involve many more missiles in hopes of degrading our ability to retaliate. Moreover, those missiles would likely be equipped with counter-measures — decoys meant to confuse missile defense radars and increase the odds of the warhead surviving and hitting its target. And if even one of those bullets gets through, the consequences would be catastrophic.
As for the success rate, the movie likely got its “60 percent” number from the ground-based defense system’s real-world testing history. Of 21 tests conducted on the system, the Pentagon has characterized 12 of them as a success. However, this still leaves observers with an inflated sense of the system’s efficacy.
According to a 2025 report by the American Physical Society Panel on Public Affairs, ground-based system tests “have been conducted under scripted conditions and designed for success: the Pentagon has consistently rated the … tests as low in operational realism.” In these tests, the timing of the launch is generally known in advance, and chosen to align with the sun hitting the targets, making them easier to see. And each of the tests only attempted to defeat one missile, rather than a salvo.
Although the proposed Golden Dome missile defense shield is expected to pursue a layered defense, with space-based interceptors as well as ground-based interceptors playing a role, the reality is that no missile defense system can guarantee a 100 percent success rate against nuclear weapons. There are simply too many ways of getting around them. Decoys, which are not difficult to develop, would require a missile defense system capable of differentiating between all the decoys and any debris accompanying each nuclear warhead.
A single missile can also carry multiple warheads. These would all need to be intercepted once they separate from their missile. A nuclear detonation in space, a possible result of a successful interception or a deliberate attack on space-based missile defense systems, could also disrupt the ability of missile defense radars to locate and differentiate between additional targets.
Between 1957 and 2021, the U.S. spent over $400 billion in a vain effort to defend the nation against ballistic missile threats. No system to date has demonstrated anything close to an ability to do so. According to the American Enterprise Institute, a robust architecture for just one element of the planned Golden Dome — space-based interceptors designed to take out nuclear missiles in their boost phase (before they first leave the atmosphere) — could cost $6 trillion over 20 years. And even then, there would be no guarantee that such a system could achieve a 100 percent success rate.
Moreover, the very act of pursuing such a missile defense system is already encouraging U.S. adversaries to expand their nuclear arsenals and develop additional technologies to circumvent missile defenses. So, counterintuitively, missile defense is making the world less safe.
“A House of Dynamite” leaves its audience with a well-placed sense of dread over the dangers of nuclear weapons. But sinking trillions of dollars into missile defense systems that can be easily defeated is a counterproductive response to that dread. Instead, the U.S. can reduce the nuclear threat by pursuing negotiations to limit and reduce the world’s nuclear arsenals and the unacceptable threat they pose to humankind.
The New START Treaty, which limits the number of intercontinental nuclear weapons the U.S. and Russia can deploy, is set to expire in February. Renewing it would be a good place to start. Thankfully for a nation that just surpassed $38 trillion in debt, nuclear diplomacy is also far more affordable.
Gabe Murphy is a policy analyst at Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national nonpartisan budget watchdog advocating for transparency and calling out wasteful spending.
