
Each day, visitors flock to Washington, DC, from various corners of the globe to view the incredible sites of history. At the beginning of the documentary about recurring developments of war “War Game”, we watch a man seated inside his car as he attempts to photograph the Capitol building and the Washington Monument through its windows. Contrary to what one may think, that he is a typical tourist taking photographs of prominent local sights to later post them on social media he now makes phone calls, at one point persuading one of the passengers to cede and “to shoot demonstrators” who he calls patriotic Americans, while talking about setting fires at the pentagon as well. That’s disturbing. And later, when we learn why he is making those statements and what his intentions are, it becomes horrific.
On January 6th, 2021, Trump supporters invaded the Capitol building in an attempt to block Joe Biden’s election from being certified. Many people still try and say that they were just ‘visitors’ but the videos show that they forcibly broke barriers and entered through locked doors. People from the mob and some law enforcement even got injured, while some died. Members of Congress had to be ushered out and were held safe until calmness was reinstated.
This was the first instance in the remaining history of American politics that the peaceful transfer of power, which is key to a democracy, was attempted to be achieved in a violent manner. It culminated in criminal indictments issued for practices against a great number of organizers and participants and a record second impeachment of President Donald Trump who provoked the mob to march in a supposed protest but ended trying to forcibly overturn the results of the elections. It has also led, for the first time, to US investments being assessed for “political risk.”
On the day of January 6, 2023, a dozen or more veterans, as well as government current or former officials, participated in theater exercises as a simulation that a more powerful and better-organized group had successfully managed to resist the certification of the 2024 elections. The purpose of this exercise was to provide insight into the sense of the threat, the deepening degeneration of the trust in the democracy among some to confirm the government, how the elected leaders and the military ought to act, and how they actually do act.
The Mooc sets up a highly detailed, realistic, and plausible storyline. There is even a Hollywood-style reconstruction of the White House press room along with fake news reports constructed on the basis of little information, and some information that was prematurely leaked. The enemy is very clever about combining constricted social media, fake videos, and her followers’ support and you know what any attempt to strike them only makes them stronger.
As a result of winning a tight election as President just announced, Steve Bullock now has the controversial role of the Democratic Governor of Montana. His advisor is portrayed by ex-Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota). Alexander Vindman is one of the strategists who assisted in putting together the fact scenario and also actively took part in the US National Security Council as the Director for European affairs until he resigned and became famous for exposing Trump for pressuring Ukrainian President Zelenskyy to investigate the son of the Democratic presidential nominee. It is rather chilling to know that the veterans who actually devised the exercise were drawn into the military part because of their real-life military concerns about threats from within. In the words of Senator Heitkamp, ‘We have always been able to bring the country together when there is an outside threat.’ But we have also been negligent about the reality and have probably nurtured the worst kind of American exceptionalism where it is believed that the US is permanently insulated from rogue actors possessing military technology.
Two utterly rare perspectives rendered this entire exercise useful enough for deep consideration. One made me actually gasp aloud as I understood how helpless we really are the highest government officials sit at the very apex of their power armed with the shocking understanding that at one moment they have to decide to deploy military force and the next, that the body with the title of Commander in Chief may not even have the power to deploy such force.
Tons of movies already backed up that scenario: how the world is about to be destroyed and there are serious men (and one or two women as well) around the table in some sort of a bunker, the CIA and members of the army looking at computer monitors, weighing the risks and the moves. Most of the time, the drama is centered on the action: the different actors who have filled the shoes of James Bond and Jack Ryan, the various big screen heroes brought to life by Steven Seagal and Tom Cruise. We, on the other hand, munch on popcorn thinking about how the plot in such a film is going to unfold. In those films, James, Jack Steve, and Tom are always the heroes who win at the end of the day. So, the particulars of the situations of the various incidences do not matter much. We get a few facts about some McGuffin of great efficient evil, barely sufficient to give the good protagonist any excuse to undertake hair-raising, taut, and dramatic stunts to showcase their extraordinary skill, wit, technology, and courage.
There are few films that depict individuals in different positions of authority and power who deploy the heroes, perhaps most disturbingly in the farcical black comedy “Dr. Strangelove” part of the other serious drama released the same year, “Fail Safe,” and the underappreciated “Eye in the Sky,” on the ethical, political, and national security aspects of drone warfare.
“War Game” brings it all home, and in my case, to distance, which I am from Washington DC. Definitely the scariest film of the year, particularly because it wasn’t Homeland Security, the NSA, the Pentagon, or Congress that was running the exercise. This particular role was held by one of the ex-military personnel organizations VetVoice Foundation, bearing in mind their experience with extreme violence displayed by armed radicalized groupings. However, an interesting point is that it shows us how people with such experience reported their concerns to the government. One can only hope that they took heed to their warnings.
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