WarGames (1983)

The opening sequence of WarGames takes place in the control room of a missile silo, and explores the role of humans in U.S. national defense systems. As the film opens, two men arrive at an apparently abandoned house in the middle of nowhere, which is actually the entrance to an underground missile complex. Although these are the men in charge of launching missiles in the event of a Soviet nuclear attack, they arrive late for their shift and their conversation in the first few minutes of the sequence revolves around the best techniques for growing and cultivating marijuana. They seat themselves at the control consoles, and begin a routine check of the systems. Suddenly, a red light begins flashing:

"We have a red-light sir."
"What on?"
"Number Eight, warhead alarm."
"Give it a thump with your finger."

He taps the light a couple of times, and the light goes off. Moments later, however, they receive orders to launch the missile. They confirm the launch and security codes, and it appears to be the real thing. Both men are poised to turn their launch keys, but the one in charge breaks with procedure and demands human confirmation of the launch order. The other points a pistol at his superior’s head and orders him to turn the key. Cut to title sequence.
     As it turns out, the launch order was not real, but part of a simulation being run by a computer at NORAD, and the missiles were not launched. Hermetically sealed within their steel missile silo, with nothing but electronic relays between them and the outside world, the simulation was indistinguishable from reality. And whereas one of the officers trusted those relays unquestioningly, the other mistrusted them, demanding human confirmation before signing a death sentence for millions of people. So, human unpredictability is both a strength and a weakness, depending on your point of view. It is a good thing, after all, that the man in charge questioned the launch order, and therefore the reliability of the technology. From another perspective, however, his hesitancy--his insubordination directed at technology--is quite disturbing.
     This perspective finds its voice in the character of John McKittrich (Dabney Coleman), a NORAD computer scientist. According to McKittrich, "those men in the silos know what it means to turn the key, and they’re just not up to it." His solution, as in Colossus: The Forbin Project, is to "take the men out of the loop" by placing all of the nation’s nuclear warheads under the control of a supercomputer named "WOPR" (War Operation Plan Response). But whereas the goal of computer technology in Colossus: The Forbin Project is to prevent nuclear war, the goal in WarGames is to make nuclear war winnable. WOPR "spends all its time thinking about World War III," continually running simulations of various strategic first strike and response scenarios and calculating kill ratios (in megadeaths). WOPR, because it is not human, can think the unthinkable and has been programmed to find a way to win an unwinnable war. And, unlike humans, it doesn’t "know what it means to turn the key."
     David Lightman, a teenage computer hacker, breaks into the WOPR, and begins "playing" Global Thermonuclear War, one of WOPR’s war simulation programs, inadvertently sending NORAD to DEFCON 1. Lightman thinks he’s broken into the computer system of a video game company, and that Global Thermonuclear War is only a game—which it is, but only to WOPR. The rest of the film follows David’s attempts to teach the WOPR, not "what it means to turn the key," but that Thermonuclear War, like Tic-Tac-Toe, is a futile, unwinnable game. Thus, the dilemma set forth in the film’s opening sequence remains, for the most part, unresolved. At the end of the film, WOPR still controls the nation’s nuclear arsenal and Global Thermonuclear War, to WOPR, is still a game--perhaps an unwinnable one, but a game nonetheless.
     At first glance, the film seems to argue that humans should NOT be "taken out of the loop," that it’s crucial for those in control of nuclear missiles to "know what it means"--in human terms and not purely strategic ones--to "turn the key." At the end of the film, a collective sigh of relief resounds through NORAD as WOPR "learns" the futility of "playing" Global Thermonuclear War by playing a seemingly endless series of games of Tic-Tac-Toe with itself. WOPR announces "A strange game. The only winning move is not to play." A comforting sentiment, but it ignores the brutal fact that Tic-Tac-Toe is NOT an unwinnable game when humans play it. WOPR, after all, a powerful supercomputer immune from human considerations such as fatigue, fear, compassion, paranoia, ambition, denial, distraction, and so on, plays itself. The dilemma set up in the film’s opening sequence—are human weaknesses such as those listed above assets or liabilities in the context of our nation’s nuclear defense?--becomes irrelevant by the end of the film, precisely because humans have been taken out of the loop, and Global Thermonuclear War remains, for WOPR, a game, pure simulation.

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