'War Game' documentary highlights threats of extremism to national security
A scene from "War Game," a documentary about a simulated post-election insurrection. The film screening, followed by a panel discussion, was held at ASU's Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication on Oct. 30. Photo by Charlie Leight/ASU News
The riots at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, were a wake-up call that political divisiveness can turn violent, threatening the peaceful transition of power.
Two filmmakers took that real-life scenario and asked the question, “What if members of the military broke ranks to join an insurrection?”
Their documentary, “War Game,” follows a simulation of a future election-denying revolt, with the added peril of extremist members of the armed forces threatening a military coup.
“War Game” was screened at Arizona State University on Wednesday night, followed by a panel discussion that included one of the directors. Also attending were two former U.S. officials who were among the 25 real-life public servants and military veterans who participated in the role-playing event.
The event was sponsored by several ASU units, including the new Educational Media Innovation Studio in the Mary Lou Fulton Teachers College, the Future Security Initiative, the College of Global Futures, the School of Politics and Global Studies and the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication, as well as Leadership Now Arizona and New America.
“War Game” is set over a six-hour period during the vote certification after the fictional president is re-elected. Mirroring the events of Jan. 6, 2021, supporters of the losing candidate deny the result. An extremist group incites an insurrection with inflammatory social media posts encouraging violence. Most of the film takes place in a situation room in which the president, played by former Montana Gov. Steve Bullock, and his advisors have six hours to decide what to do.
Amid the tense discussions, events escalate — including reports of an armed insurrection in Arizona in which hostages are taken, and the takeover of an Air Force base in Florida by military forces who betray their oath.
The president must decide whether to let the states try to rein in the chaos on their own or to invoke the Insurrection Act, considered a “nuclear option” because it allows the president to deploy the U.S. military to suppress disorder.
The unscripted movie, which included real footage from Jan. 6, 2021, moves briskly to a climax around the president’s decision.
The project was done in conjunction with the Vet Voice Foundation, a nonprofit that seeks to mobilize veterans to become civic leaders and policy advocates.
Janessa Goldbeck, the CEO of the Vet Voice Foundation and a Marine Corps veteran, played the game producer in “War Game.” She said she did it because she’s concerned about the targeting of military members by extremist groups. She described how her father became obsessed with conspiracy theories around the election.
“Part of my motivation is that I want my dad and people who believe what he believes to understand that this isn’t just theoretical or a game,” she said.
“It’s part of a bigger trend around denigrating our institutions. If you take away the things that bind us as a nation and give us our identity, it makes it easier for us to take up arms against each other.”
In the film, Heidi Heitkamp, former senator from North Dakota, says the exercise is “coup prevention 101.”
“It’s not about politics. It’s about security,” she said.
Mesa Mayor John Giles moderated the panel discussion. He said that after the 2021 insurrection, he saw Arizona politicians including Rusty Bowers and Bill Gates deal with harassment and threats of violence for upholding their duty.
“Four years ago, it was not hypothetical,” he said.
One of the panel participants was Elizabeth Neumann, who played the Homeland Security advisor in “War Game.” She served as assistant secretary for counterterrorism at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for the Trump administration before resigning in 2020 and she wrote the new book “Kingdom of Rage: The Rise of Christian Extremism and the Path Back to Peace.”
“One of the things that we know about why people join extremist movements is that it's not the ideology,” she said. “It’s psychosocial factors, largely summed up as the need for significance and the need for belonging.”
Society is failing at offering that, she said.
“We are not taking care of our military men and women. There's a lot of legitimate grievance that is their lived experience.
“So what do you leave when you leave the military? You leave significance and belonging. And then you're out in the real world and you don't have that anymore. That, and you have the grievance.
“That is a recipe for extremists to exploit. We need to deal with that.”
Spoiler alert: In the film, the president decides against invoking the Insurrection Act, the protests are reined in and order is restored.
However, “this particular scenario is exactly what the Insurrection Act is designed to deal with,” said Andy Gordon, a former counselor at the Department of Homeland Security who now teaches national security law at ASU’s Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law.
“This was not a hard legal question. There’s just no question that the president, no matter what you think about the Insurrection Act generally, was entitled to invoke it.”
Gordon said that as he watched the film, he was rooting for the president to do it.
“I kept thinking, ‘Pull the trigger!’”
Retired Lt. Gen. Jeffrey Buchanan, who played a military leader in the documentary, told the crowd that extremism in the military is not new.
“I remember in the 1990s looking for gang signs and ‘Heil Hitler’ tattoos,” he said.
He’s concerned that when extremists are discovered, they’re discharged with no support.
“We haven’t done a good job of taking that person and transitioning them so they’re no longer potentially radicalized or become a threat,” he said.
Tony Gerber, the documentary’s co-director along with Jesse Moss, said that he’s proud that the people who participated in the film reclaimed the term “patriot.”
“It’s been so deeply co-opted and bastardized, right? But I feel like when I watched this film and I listened to these folks, I once again believe in this notion of patriotism,” he said.
“War Game” can be streamed from several services.
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