I watched “A House of Dynamite” twice this weekend.

For the most part, I enjoyed it. Some parts seemed a bit unrealistic to me—the deputy national security adviser was a nitwit and, while I have actually known nitwit deputy national security advisers, I don’t think his role would have been as central in real life as depicted onscreen—but it was pretty well-paced and I get what they were doing with the structure to reveal the multiple layers of how we might react in the face of a nuclear crisis.

But there is a more important dimension to consider. In some ways, it is related to the controversy over the film’s ending, which I will not address here in any way that might produce spoilers—let’s just say it may well have triggered conversations and debates among viewers about nuclear war.

Click through to David Rothkopf’s Substack, Need to Know, for an expanded version of this column.

There are two reasons that the issues raised by the movie strike me as especially timely.

One is that the risks posed by nuclear weapons and nuclear conflict are increasing. There was a period, in the wake of the end of the Cold War and following some considerable breakthroughs in diplomatic accords to contain or limit nuclear threats, that we may have thought they were receding. No longer.

Geopolitical tensions are high. The U.S., China, and Russia are engaged in a new arms race that could radically change the nature of not just nuclear weapons but of their delivery system, of how space-based weapons may be employed, and, especially disturbingly, how artificial intelligence and........

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