In a week marked by both Hollywood drama and cutting-edge defense announcements, America’s vision of future warfare has come under the spotlight. On one front, the Pentagon is pushing back against Kathryn Bigelow’s new Netflix thriller, A House of Dynamite, for what it calls a misleading portrayal of the nation’s missile defense system. On another, a San Diego-based tech firm is promising to upend the calculus of air combat with an autonomous fighter jet designed to survive and strike in even the most hostile environments.
The debate over American military readiness is nothing new, but the timing of these two stories—one fictional, one very real—has ignited fresh questions about how the United States prepares for threats both on screen and off.
Bigelow’s latest film, which arrived on Netflix on October 24, 2025, after a brief theatrical run, puts viewers in the hot seat for 18 tense minutes following a nuclear missile launch at the U.S. The plot is pure adrenaline: officials scramble to identify the attacker and decide on a response, all while the clock ticks down. The drama hinges, in part, on the perceived limitations of America’s missile defense. At one point, the defense secretary, played by Jared Harris, laments that the U.S. system has only a 50 percent chance of intercepting an incoming missile—despite a staggering $50 billion investment.
That moment, and others like it, did not sit well with the real-life Missile Defense Agency (MDA). According to a memorandum obtained by Bloomberg and dated October 16, the agency took issue with the film’s suggestion that U.S. interceptors are only marginally effective. The MDA’s memo, as reported by Bloomberg, acknowledged the film’s dramatic intent but insisted, “Results from real-world testing tell a vastly different story.” The agency claims that today’s interceptors “have displayed a 100% accuracy rate in testing for more than a decade.”
Another character in the film, the deputy national security adviser played by Gabriel Basso, puts the system’s success rate at 61 percent—a figure the film’s screenwriter, Noah Oppenheim, told The Atlantic is based on “data from controlled tests.” Oppenheim explained, “You can imagine, those are under the best of circumstances. A lot of the folks we talked to felt that 61 percent was being very generous when it comes to the system that we have. As we mention in the movie, there are fewer than 50 of these ground-based intercepts in our arsenal, so even if it were working perfectly, there are not a ton of them that we have available to use.”
The Pentagon, for its part, said it was not consulted for the making of A House of Dynamite and that the film “does not reflect the views or priorities of this administration.” In a statement to Bloomberg, officials emphasized that the missile defense system “remains a critical component of our national defense strategy, ensuring the safety and security of the American people and our allies.”
Bigelow, who made history as the first woman to win an Oscar for Best Director with The Hurt Locker in 2008, took a different approach this time. She confirmed to CBS’s Sunday Morning that she intentionally avoided Pentagon consultation. “I felt that we needed to be more independent,” she said. “But that being said, we had multiple tech advisers who have worked in the Pentagon. They were with me every day we shot.”
The film’s release has sparked lively debate among viewers and critics alike. While some took issue with the ending, A House of Dynamite currently enjoys a critics’ score of 79 percent on Rotten Tomatoes. Geoffrey Macnab of The Independent awarded it four stars, calling it “the most entertaining movie about mass destruction since Dr Strangelove.” He praised Bigelow’s ability to deliver “intelligent, adrenaline-filled drama,” noting that whether or not she makes Oscar history again, her new feature proves she’s still a force in the genre.
Yet as the film stirs controversy over missile defense, real-world military strategists are grappling with a different, but equally urgent, dilemma: how to keep America’s air power in the fight in the face of evolving threats from rivals like China.
Analysts say China has spent years developing a chilling strategy for a potential conflict with the United States—one that aims to destroy American fighter jets before they even leave the ground. Drawing lessons from recent conflicts in the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia, Beijing has built a formidable arsenal of long-range precision missiles, including so-called “carrier killers” like the DF-21D and DF-26. The goal? To neutralize U.S. air power by targeting runways and airfields across the Pacific, keeping American jets grounded and vulnerable.
Enter Shield AI, a San Diego-based defense technology company that on October 25, 2025, unveiled what it hopes will be a game-changer: the X-BAT, an artificial intelligence-piloted fighter jet designed to operate without runways, GPS, or constant communications. The X-BAT can take off vertically, soar to 50,000 feet, and fly more than 2,000 nautical miles, all while executing strike or air defense missions using its onboard autonomy system, Hivemind.
“China has built this anti-access aerial denial bubble that holds our runways at risk,” Armor Harris, Shield AI’s senior vice president of aircraft engineering, told Fox News. “They’ve basically said, ‘We’re not going to compete stealth-on-stealth in the air—we’ll target your aircraft before they even get off the ground.’”
Unlike traditional jets, the X-BAT is designed to launch from ships, small islands, or even improvised sites—places inaccessible to legacy fighters. Three of the compact jets can fit in the space of a single conventional fighter or helicopter, giving commanders unprecedented flexibility. Harris emphasized that “the way to solve that problem is mobility. You’re always moving around. This is the only VTOL fighter being built today.”
The X-BAT’s Hivemind system allows it to operate in environments where communications are jammed or GPS is denied. The aircraft uses onboard sensors to interpret its surroundings, reroute around threats, and identify targets in real time. Harris explained, “It’s reading and reacting to the situation around it. It’s not flying a pre-programmed route. If new threats appear, it can reroute itself or identify targets and then ask a human for permission to engage.”
Still, Harris stressed that the human element remains essential: “It’s very important to us that a human is always involved in making the use of lethal force decision. That doesn’t mean the person has to be in the cockpit—it could be remote or delegated through tasking—but there will always be a human decision-maker.”
Shield AI says the X-BAT will be combat-ready by 2029, delivering fifth- or sixth-generation performance at a fraction of the cost of manned fighters. The company estimates a tenfold improvement in cost per effect compared to legacy jets like the F-35, aiming to keep the aircraft “affordable and attritable” enough to risk in high-end combat. Discussions are underway with the Air Force, Navy, and allied militaries about integrating the X-BAT into future combat programs and exploring joint development opportunities.
Harris likened the shift to what SpaceX did for satellite technology: “Historically, the United States had a small number of extremely capable, extremely expensive satellites. Then you had SpaceX come along and put up hundreds of smaller, cheaper ones. The same thing is happening in air power.” He predicts unmanned systems will eventually outnumber manned platforms “ten-to-one or twenty-to-one.”
As the U.S. military faces criticism on screen and innovation in the field, the debate over how best to defend the nation is more relevant than ever. Whether through Hollywood’s lens or the hangars of San Diego, America’s quest to stay ahead in the art—and science—of war continues to evolve in ways that are both contentious and compelling.
With the realities of modern conflict pressing in from all sides, both fiction and fact are forcing Americans to ask tough questions about the future of defense—and who gets to shape the narrative.
