Is Dr. Strangelove truly an anti-war movie? Sure, it’s one of the famous comedies created since, well, the beginning of movies, but it is unique enough from its contemporaries that I believe this classification invites challenge.

Dr. Strangelove is, at its core, a comedy, meaning that every element is designed to be ridiculous. The characters, from the president to the general, to the pilot in control of the world’s deadliest payload are shockingly incompetent. The higher a person is on the chain of command, the more self-centered and self-serving they are. This approach is veiled by a pseudo-patriotism veiled by a guise of patriotism. Nationalist fervor is used as justification for sacrificing the lives of millions of innocents by the War Council in a move which would save their own lives rather than the country they regularly proclaim allegiance to.

I think the absurdist approach that Dr. Strangelove takes towards war works because, while it lampoons international conflict, it doesn’t completely dismiss the possibility of ingenuine motivations for starting war. I read the warning at the film’s beginning that claimed the events in the movie were impossible as more of an expectation of caricature than the assurance in the stability of the world’s armed forces it was intended to invoke. The disturbing truth is that the decision to start the next world war is completely out of our hands.