January 3, 2021, was the day I first started writing about political action thrillers (Seven Days in January: This Time It Is Not a Movie). Little did I know what was about to happen three days later.
The great political action thrillers used to have a Cold War model, sometimes derived from the Cuban Missile crisis. They had a nuclear component and might involve a rogue military officer. They could even be funny like Dr. Strangelove or deadly serious like Failsafe.
Political action thrillers then seem to have gone out the style. The James Bond movies were spy stories about, well, 007. The Mission Impossible series were full of physical action, and were about, well, Tom Cruise. The Jason Bourne series also were very kinetic, full of action, and were about, well, Matt Damon.
Occasionally some movies did rise to the fore.
The Peacemaker (1997) was an American political action thriller. It starred George Clooney and Nicole Kidman. The details of the whole storyline are not important here. What is important is that a Russian nuclear weapon has been stolen. After a lot of macho action on land and in the air by Clooney, Kidman is able to determine that the purpose of the theft is to detonate the bomb at the United Nations. The action shifts to New York, where Clooney and Kidman are able to track down the carrier of the bomb before he is able to reach the United Nations. Kidman is further able to deactivate the nuclear bomb just in the nick of time. Instead, only a glass-window shattering explosion occurs and life goes on.
The movie is a bit of a nostalgia trip now. The Russian invasion of Chechnya is at the center. Serbia is mentioned a lot. Ivanna Trump even is mentioned in passing as an unlikely rider of the New York subway. The key points to remember are:
1. smuggling a nuclear weapon into the United States
2. positioning the weapon as close as possible to the target before detonating it.
Notice that Russia is not the evil empire at this point and China is absent.
Similar concerns occur in The Sum of All Fears (2002). The movie is another in the series of Jack Ryan films. In this one, Ryan is portrayed by Ben Affleck. Once again there are disaffected Russian generals involved. This time the goal is not profit but to instigate a war between Russia and the United States with a resurrected Third Reich to pick up the pieces. Once again the Russian leader is no Putin and China is not involved.
The plan is to smuggle the nuclear weapon into the United States and detonate it there. The plan succeeds and the bomb is brought to Baltimore. It explodes while the President is attending a football game. He evacuates just prior to the explosion and survives wounded. Ryan is able to save the day just as matters seem to be escalating to a point of no return. Instead, the two leaders stand down and negotiate a treaty. The movie can be dated to the interim between the Cold War and Putin when it was still possible to think a modicum of good will existed between the two nuclear countries.
The motif remains the same: smuggle a weapon as close to the enemy target in the United States as possible and then detonate it.
UKRAINE
The real world event was not based on a book. Nor does it seem likely to make one person the hero. Instead a secret project was initiated which remained secret for 18 months. Could the United States even undertake a secret mission for that long a time? Would an 18-month covert mission even be authorized for such duration? Imagine if such a project commenced under the Biden administration and then depended on the team of stupid mental morons in the Trump administration to see it through to fruition.
Casting such a mission for a movie would be near impossible. Where’s the action? The actions occurred after the drones are smuggled hundreds of miles on trucks into position, remain hidden, and then are released by signal by people not even at the scenes. Yet despite the vast difference in location, the Ukrainians are actually able to watch live the detonation of the bombs.
However as spectacular a feat as it may have been and as embarrassing as it must have been for Putin, it had no discernible effect on the war itself… except for perhaps even more extensive bombing of Ukraine to follow if that is even possible.
ISRAEL
At first glance the Ukrainian and Israeli operations might seem quite similar. But there is a human element to consider that strongly differentiates it. When I first learned of the strikes in Iran what was most noticeable was the precision. Somehow Israel was able to strike with extreme accuracy a range of people in official positions related to the Iranian nuclear weapons program. So the question becomes, how could the Israelis know so precisely where to strike?
The answer seems to be the Israelis had eyes on the ground. In other words, there are so many Iranians disaffected with life in Iran and who want to be part of the life in the West that they provided Israel with the information it needed for its pinpoint strikes. Ukraine did not have this option. Whereas the Ukrainian operation was a one-shot occurrence as far as I know, the Israeli operation is ongoing. One would think that Iranians not working with the Israelis but on the nuclear weapons project would be somewhat gun-shy and always looking over their shoulder. One such replacement already has been killed. Since Israel has control of the skies and vows to keep the campaign going, it’s too early to tell what the final results will be.
IRAN
Argo is a 2012 American espionage thriller film directed, produced by, and starring Ben Affleck. George Clooney was a producer. It is based on the true story of the rescue of six American diplomats hiding in the home of the Canadian ambassador from the Iranians. As the movie of a fairly recent event where many of the characters were still living, it received a detailed scrutiny about inaccuracies and shortchanging different people. Still the movie is an exciting watch. Plus the CIA does seem to have used the ploy of filming a science fiction movie as the cover for the rescue and the diplomats really were rescued.
What are the lessons for this review of action thrillers? Two were fictional about efforts to smuggle nuclear weapons into the United States. Two were real events involving a great deal of long term planning in on going wars. One was a real event based on a very imaginative cover story created by a CIA officer who had the luxury to think. Today he might have been a victim of the Trump Muskacre.
As for the Commander in-chief in the real world the situation is quite different. He is notorious for not being able to even read a briefing book. Apparently he even falls asleep at G7 meetings. He holds on for dear life when climbing onto and out of planes. He does not wish to stumble again with the cameras rolling. More and more he is becoming an incoherent babbling old man who needs to be managed as Joe Biden was.
The idea that he was needed for a briefing situation on Iran is laughable. Even he does not know what he is going to do from moment to moment. His MAGA loyalists are forced to play Simon Says to try to keep up. At this point there is no way to know how the American involvement will end up. In his simplemindedness, he can only think of one step at a time and lacks the mental necessities to think ahead. Since the simple-minded morons he selected for crucial positions in defense and intelligence are only capable of echoing what he says, they are of no use either. Instead everything depends on his instincts and gut at the moment, a far cry from the scenes in any of the movies involving presidential leadership above… or any leadership for that matter.
