A House of Dynamite: How prepared are the US and UK for a missile attack?
In Kathryn Bigelow's new film A House of Dynamite, a single intercontinental ballistic missile has been fired from an unidentified location in the Pacific, targeting the US mainland.
Washington's interceptors subsequently do not work correctly, and the characters must decide how to deal with the incoming threat.
In light of the new film's content, BFBS Forces News spoke to Keir Giles, Chatham House's expert on the Russian military, about UK and US missile defences and the 'Golden Dome'.
US interceptors and the danger of a saturation attack
The United States has interceptors to stop missile attacks that use two types of systems. One is 'hit-to-kill', where a munition hits a missile to destroy it, while the other method employs a blast fragmentation warhead, which throws shrapnel around the missile in an attempt to neutralise it.
There are 44 interceptors based at Fort Greely in Alaska and Vandenberg Air Base in California, according to the Centre for Arms Control and Non-Proliferation.
"The film does portray an anti-missile defence not succeeding, which is a distinct possibility but of course not a given," Mr Giles said.
After the US's missile defences fail in the film, it calls into question whether the US has enough defences against intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs).
Mr Giles, 57, said that Washington has not prepared for a "saturation attack"; rather, the country has imagined the threat to be from several missiles from Iran or North Korea.
"US missile ballistic missile defences have not been set up to deal with a saturation attack," he told BFBS Forces News.
"They've been set up to deal with small numbers of missiles coming from Iran or North Korea, which is appropriate to the threat that the United States saw coming from those two countries.
"They would not, for example, be in a position to deal with a mass attack, for instance."
UK missile defences
By contrast, the UK does not have a recognised integrated air and missile system like Israel's 'Iron Dome', which has been used to intercept Hamas and Hezbollah's missiles.
The Royal Navy is the sole source of ballistic missile defence capability, according to the House of the Commons Library.
"Like most Western European countries, the United Kingdom does not have an integrated air and missile defence system of the kind that would be required to defend against threats directly from Russia," Mr Giles explained.
"Whether that is ICBM or whether that is Russia's extremely long-range missiles of the kind that it has been launching consistently against Ukraine."
Defence figures call for Britain's own 'Iron Dome'
The lack of an integrated air and missile defence system in the UK has caused significant debate, after Tehran shot more than 300 drones and missiles at Jerusalem in April 2024, and given the ongoing three-and-a-half-year war between Kyiv and Moscow, where drone and missile strikes are a common occurrence.
Senior figures in defence, including former defence secretaries, the former Chief of the General Staff, a former First Sea Lord and a former Air Marshal, urged then-Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to build up the UK's air defences following Tehran's missile and drone strike.
Penny Mordaunt, then-Leader of the House of Commons in Mr Sunak's government and a Royal Navy reservist, agreed with the senior defence figures as she called for a missile defence system similar to Israel's across the UK, in an interview with the Sunday Telegraph in April 2024.
Mr Giles, who previously worked at the BBC Monitoring Service, highlighted that the UK is currently a "soft and tempting target".
"There's no doubt that the UK needs to improve its air and missile defences because, at the moment, it presents a soft and tempting target for any country that might seek to coerce or deter the UK through missile strikes," he warned.
"But exactly what system that should be, of course, is a matter for expert discussion."
He added that the UK government and military cannot protect everything that needs defending, so it is about choosing the crucial targets that need protection.
Trump's 'Golden Dome'
One of US president Donald Trump's policies is to create a 'Golden Dome' missile defence system by the end of his second term in the White House.
The Golden Dome system, which would involve "next-generation" technologies on land, sea and space, such as space-based sensors and interceptors, is aiming to be built to prevent attacks from ballistic and cruise missiles, according to the BBC.
The plan for the system has cost £25bn to start with, but could eventually cost an astronomical $175bn.
"The Trump suggestion for a so-called Golden Dome to protect the United States has yet to take shape," Mr Giles added.
"There have not been publicly released proposals for how this vision could be brought into reality, and therefore, of course, for precisely how much."
A House of Dynamite is released on Netflix on 24 October.
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