Dr. Strangelove - Public and National Interests

Dr. Strangelove is a comedy film focusing on three environments, the President in the War Room, the General Ripper who went mad and ordered a nuclear strike, and the pilots carrying out the attack. These three perspectives, and the various ultimately unsuccessful attempts to stop the attack and save the world show a bureaucracy which has grown to the extent that it would end all life on the planet in service of the perceived security interests of the United States and Soviet Union. This film can be seen touching on the making of a seemingly inevitable decision even though it serves no practical benefit. The disconnect between politics, national interest, and the public interest has been a matter worthy of great attention for a rather long time, as this film shows. As touched on by Fixing US Politics by the Harvard Business Review, the problems of American democracy are fed by short-term, primary-winning decisions. Modern politicians enjoy a starkly divided electorate that will try to justify the political party of their choosing, and will maintain their loyalties in the general election. With general elections as a poor incentive to work for the common good, primaries then serve as the major battle for reelection in safe seats, as observable by their demographics. The conclusion of the war in Afghanistan is an interesting case for the effectiveness of US politics of managing and commanding our military in the national interest. Despite sacrifices made in the name of the national interest, we can observe the effectiveness of politics to eventually end the war. Both major political parties had run on the failures of the war to come to a successful conclusion, each promising that the war would end, but each delayed the war to avoid the appearance of being “the president who lost the war”. In a parallel way to how “winning” a nuclear war is absolute fiction, pride and politics built a status quo requiring far greater costs to the public for far less than had been promised. Politics indifferent to human cost and indifferent to realities cannot pursue the public or national interest for the simple reason that it feels no obligation to consider anything other than politics itself.