The responsibilities of a Nuclear Submarine Captain in the movie Crimson Tide.

Politics and Popular Culture Movie Review

"Crimson Tide"

In "Crimson Tide," the primary political issue being presented to the general audience is whether a United States nuclear submarine should strike a Russian target during a very tense, Cold-War like time.

The Russians are basically facing a civil war in their country and a nuclear missile silo is captured by rebel forces. The rebels are threatening to arm and fire a nuclear missile at the United States. The situation in the movie is very similar to the Cuban Missile Crisis, in that the United States knows that whoever strikes first, whether it is the United States or Russia, will face definite nuclear retaliation. This particular threat many of those like it loomed over the United States and its citizens for decades until the 80's when the Cold War ended.

In today's world the United States doesn't have to be concerned just for one primary super-power nation, yet the U.S.

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Washington DC

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now is concerned about numerous countries and terrorist groups that have possession of nuclear power. With these types of concerns, both Presidents Bush and Reagan have discussed about plans or ideas to at least some reasonable extent about anti-missile defense that could ultimately offer protection against nuclear attack. President Reagan spoke of what became to be known as "Star Wars," an anti-warhead missile defense system that would from space have the ability to use laser beams to destroy nuclear warheads while in space before they would enter back into the earth's atmosphere. President George W. Bush's policy didn't really help much with tension for his defense systems. Yet, his choice of using anti-missile defense or shield from the ground wasn't very helpful in easing any tension between the U.S. and the rest of the world. This is because many other leaders...