The film Contact addresses the complex question of whether extraterrestrial life exists. In the beginning of the film, the idea that there could be any form of extra terrestrial life seemed ludicrous and Ellie was made a fool for believing in the possibility. Once Ellie and her fellow scientists receive a radio signal from the planet Vega, the government decided to take over the test site and the entire project. Without any information about the intent of the contact, the government made the assumption that it would be in their best interest to respond with violence. This response is not only true in the movie, the urge to respond to an unknown threat with violence can be seen in the way in which the United States solves world conflicts today. The quarrel between the United States and Iraq is an example of responding to the unknown with violence. Although the conflict between the United States and the extra terrestrial life on Vega is a very different from that of Iraq, there are many similarities. Due to the lack of common laws or ideas, a sense of the unknown emerges between both parties and as this feeling increases a feeling of fear immerges. Unless the lines of communication are opened between the nations of this planet, the United States will always be on the verge of a third world war.
             The similarities between Contact and the Iraq versus US struggle can be displayed in Paul K Huth's model of deterrence (Huth, P (1999) Deterrence and International Conflict: Empirical Findings and Theoretical debates. Annual review of political science 2, (25-48)) This model demonstrates the connection of how anarchy leads to a security dilemma and evidently an arms race. The major similarity between the two is the idea that anarchy leads to and arms race and therefore a world war. The first point of the chart is that of anarchy. The definition of anarchy in this chart is the absence of any form of common political authority. An ex...