Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber
Coming to UK television later this year; in select US cinemas
Today, I want to talk about a film. This is a diversion from our usual small-screen fare, but I recently watched a fascinating and frustrating documentary due to air on British televisions later this year 鈥� and I felt that is wiggle room enough for me to write about it. Beware a few spoilers to come.
War Game, directed by Jesse Moss and Tony Gerber, follows an unusual experiment. After the January 6 insurrection in 2021, when supporters of Donald Trump stormed the Capitol in an attempt to prevent the 2020 election result being certified, a group of officials sat down to test their preparedness for future unrest.
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This 90-minute documentary is a glimpse into their 6-hour war game, which simulates an attempted coup following another disputed election. Politicians, former generals and members of the intelligence services role-play as figures in the presidential battle cabinet. It is as if the viewer is seated among them, with interviews and newsreel spliced in.
Set on 6 January 2025, fictional President Elect John Hotham (played by former governor of Montana Steve Bullock) and his advisers are faced with an almost identical scenario to 2021鈥檚 attack on the Capitol. The key difference is that around 7 per cent of the US military is on the side of the insurrectionists, led by fictional Christian fundamentalist group the Order of Columbus, all of whom are rioting on behalf of Robert Strickland, whom Hotham has beaten by a slim margin.
The game highlights how there is a disproportionate problem with extremism in the US military. Deified as a group and abandoned as individuals, veterans have long lacked adequate mental health support, which far-right organisations have exploited. Groups like Vet Voice Foundation, the non-partisan organisation that convened this exercise, have picked up the government鈥檚 slack.
As the war game continues, we meet Kris Goldsmith, an Iraq veteran who was once a prime candidate for radicalisation. In the simulation, he role-plays as a key member of the Order of Columbus, flooding social media with disinformation to destabilise the country. Goldsmith and his team are coolly competent, especially compared with the president elect鈥檚 entourage, who ignore doctored images from the Order of Columbus for 3 hours and are ill-prepared to make key decisions, such as whether to invoke the Insurrection Act.
Chris Jones, a former marine who plays another agitator, comments that the US imagines itself particularly immune to insurrection. The abundance of guns in the country won鈥檛 solve rising discontent, he says, but addressing the underlying issues will. We don鈥檛 learn much about what those issues are, though. Nor do we see quite how the war game was devised or why certain strategies succeed or fail.
Instead, War Game apes the structure of a political thriller, but the tension is too frequently interrupted by interviews to gather steam. At one point, Hotham delivers a speech filled with barnstorming hokum, extolling the virtues of representative democracy. Set to triumphant strings, it could have been an episode of The West Wing.
Only at the debrief is the team鈥檚 ebullience punctured 鈥� Goldsmith is visibly angry at the prevailing conclusion that the US is well-prepared in real life.
I left War Game with questions about the exercise鈥檚 purpose. I didn鈥檛 learn much and I鈥檓 not sure anyone in the situation room did either. That said, for capturing the precarity of the US government in such scary circumstances, this is worth your time.
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Look, I鈥檓 not made of stone. The magic of Sorkin鈥檚 fast-talking, corridor-walking White House drama isn鈥檛 lost on me, even if parts of its politics ring hollow in the current political climate.
Bethan Ackerley is a subeditor听at New Scientist. She loves sci-fi, sitcoms and听anything spooky. She is听still upset about the ending of Game of Thrones. Follow her听on听X @鈥宨nkerley
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