An Abolitionist Approach to Nuclear Brinkmanship in Dr. Strangelove
By Jed Peterson
After starting my internship with RTT, I was trying to wrap my mind around the issue of nuclear weapons. There was no better way to try and understand the realities of nuclear “security” than watching Stanley Kubrick’s 1964 film, Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb. I was both exhilarated by the film's sense of humor and taken aback by its lasting relevance. Almost 60 years after its initial release, I found it troubling that the satire of Cold War militarism and nuclear brinkmanship could so well be understood in a contemporary context.
For those who have yet to see it, a little rundown: United States Air Force Brigadier General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) orders a first nuclear strike using a specific protocol that bypasses Presidential approval, to protect American “bodily fluids.” The audience is brought to the War Room of the Pentagon, where the President and his staff find it increasingly hopeless to call off the strike and are doomed by the prospect of nuclear war.
Fear not: Dr. Strangelove is there to tell us that, even if one strike occurs, a Soviet doomsday device (that was supposed to be revealed as a deterrent the following week) will be set off that will annihilate the entire planet and engulf it in radioactive fallout for at least 93 years. While the President makes every effort to work, surprisingly, with the Soviets to call off the strike, they are unable to, and we are left with an ending montage of mushroom clouds.
I think everyone could enjoy Dr. Strangelove as a Cold War satire, but in my time with RTT and learning about the contemporary existential threat of nuclear weapons, it is unpleasant to see how a 60 year-old political jab could still be relevant. While the United States and now-Russian Federation have stopped quantitatively adding to their respective nuclear arsenals, we still live in a world of over 14,000 nuclear weapons. After volunteering to observe a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on No First Use policy and modernization on behalf of RTT, it was jarring to hear those in the nuclear policy field justify the first use of nuclear weapons under any circumstance. If we are to believe the statement from Biden and Putin in June, that a nuclear war, “must never be fought, and can never be won,” what purpose, then, do nuclear weapons serve as a stabilizing force?
The way that Dr. Strangelove ends, with a montage of mushroom clouds that portray a melancholy, disastrous, and totally avoidable end to human civilization, the audience feels completely powerless. In that way, it reflects the truth about nuclear weapons: their development by nuclear states–such as France’s testing in Algeria, and the US’s testing on the Marshall Islands, reflects the violent power disparities of colonization and imperialism. Moreover, the chain of command for nuclear weapons, which, in the US, gives the President sole authority, shows an ultimate power imbalance between those who possess the codes and the masses who would pay the ultimate price for their decision, or inevitable miscalculation.
It’s easy to say that the youth today deeply understand the power imbalances that exist within the climate crisis. A handful of corporations have knowingly continued the use of fossil fuels despite knowing that climate change threatens billions of lives and our planet. What the youth need to realize, and what RTT seeks to facilitate, is to understand how the power imbalances present with climate change are both parallel and intertwined with the nuclear legacy.