scholarly journals “The Struggle to Sell Survival”: Family Fallout Shelters and the Limits of Consumer Citizenship

2019 ◽  
Vol 2 (02) ◽  
pp. 117-138
Author(s):  
Thomas Bishop
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Consumer Products ◽  
Consumer Capitalism ◽  
The Public ◽  
The Family ◽  
Fallout Shelters ◽  
The Cold War

In 1961 families across the United States witnessed the sudden growth of one of the most remarkable consumer products of the Cold War: the home fallout shelter. This article charts the rise of domestic sales for home fallout shelters between 1961 and 1963, the growth in the number of shelter salesmen, the public backlash against their sales techniques, and the eventual decline of the home shelter market. The story of the family fallout shelter exposes the limitations of consumer capitalism in mobilizing and sustaining popular support for national security policy. Questioning the validity of the product being sold and the trustworthiness of the person pitching it, homeowners challenged the citizen-consumer ideal that supposedly went hand-in-hand with the state sanctioned vision of privatized survival.

7. Fighting the Cold War: The Offensive Strategies

2020 ◽  
pp. 178-202
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Berlin Crises ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Offensive Strategies

This chapter examines the offensive strategies employed by the United States and the Soviet Union in fighting the Cold War. It begins with a discussion of US covert operations and its revised national security strategy, focusing on Operation Solarium, the search for a post-Solarium national security policy, and subversion and intelligence gathering. It then considers the Berlin Crises, noting that Berlin was at the heart of the Cold War, the heart of the German question, and on several occasions became the focus of tension between the two blocs in Europe. The airlift of 1948–9 to preserve the Western position in the city, which was an island in East Germany, had become a potent Cold War symbol. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the Offshore Islands Crises and the Cuban Missile Crisis.

7. Fighting the Cold War: The Offensive Strategies

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Young ◽  
John Kent
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Intelligence Gathering ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Berlin Crises ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Offensive Strategies

This chapter examines the offensive strategies employed by the United States and the Soviet Union in fighting the Cold War. It begins with a discussion of US covert operations and its revised national security strategy, focusing on Operation Solarium, the search for a post-Solarium national security policy, and subversion and intelligence gathering. It then considers the Berlin crises, noting that Berlin was at the heart of the Cold War, the heart of the German question, and on several occasions became the focus of tension between the two blocs in Europe. The airlift of 1948–9 to preserve the Western position in the city, which was an island in East Germany, had become a potent Cold War symbol. The chapter concludes with an analysis of the Offshore Islands crises and the Cuban missile crisis.

Surveillance

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Sanders
Keyword(s):  
Data Mining ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Bush Administration ◽  
The United States ◽  
Search And Seizure ◽  
National Security Agency ◽  
Patriot Act ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Mass Surveillance

This chapter explores shifting patterns of intelligence surveillance in the United States. The Fourth Amendment protects Americans from unreasonable search and seizure without a warrant, but foreign spying is subject to few constraints. During the Cold War, surveillance power was abused for political purposes. Operating in a culture of secrecy, American intelligence agencies engaged in extensive illegal domestic spying. The intelligence scandals of the 1970s revealed these abuses, prompting new laws, notably the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. Fearing further recrimination, the national security establishment increasingly demanded legal cover. After 9/11, Congress expanded lawful surveillance powers with the PATRIOT Act. Meanwhile, the Bush administration directed the National Security Agency to conduct warrantless domestic wiretapping. To justify this program, officials sought to redefine unconstrained foreign surveillance to subsume previously protected communications. The Obama administration continued to authorize mass surveillance and data mining programs and legally rationalize bulk collection of Americans’ data.

National Security and Public Anxiety: Our Changing Perceptions

2010 ◽  
pp. 32-40
Author(s):  
Sir Richard Dearlove
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Large Scale ◽  
Security Threats ◽  
Nation States ◽  
Private Citizens ◽  
Russian Military ◽  
Full Force ◽  
The Cold War

This article discusses the changing perceptions on national security and civic anxiety. During the Cold War and its aftermath, security was rather a simple and straightforward issue. The countries knew their enemies, where they are and the threats they presented. On the event that, the enemies's secrets were unknown, probing techniques were employed to determine the weaknesses of the enemy. This formulaic situation which seeped through in to the twenty-first century left little room for innovation. In fact, in some countries, security maintained at the Cold War levels despite criticisms that new and emerging national security threats should be addressed at a new level. Of the powerful nations, America maintained the role of a world policeman and adapted its national security priorities according to its perception of a new series of strategic threats; however these new security strategies were without a sense of urgency. However, the perception of global threats and national security radically changed in the event of the 9/11 attack. The sleeping national security priorities of America came to a full force which affected the national security priorities of other nations as well. In the twenty-first globalized world, no conflict remains a regional clash. The reverberations of the Russian military action in Georgia, the Israeli intervention in Gaza, and the results of the attacks in Mumbai resonates loudly and rapidly through the wider international security system. While today, nations continue to seek new methods for addressing new security threats, the paradox of the national security policy is that nation-states have lost their exclusive grip of their own security at a time when the private citizens are assailed by increased fears for their own security and demand a more enhanced safety from the state. Nation-states have been much safer from large-scale violence, however there exists a strong sense of anxiety about the lack of security in the face of multiplicity of threats. Nations have been largely dependent on international coordinated action to achieve their important national security objectives. National policies and security theory lack precision. In addition, the internationalization of national security has eroded the distinction between domestic and foreign security. These blurring lines suggest that the understanding of national security is still at the height of transformations.

scholarly journals Transformations of the national security concepts of Belarus and Russia and historical policy: substantive aspects

2021 ◽  
pp. 87-99
Author(s):  
A.A. Mushta ◽  
◽  
T.V. Rastimehina ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
Holistic Concept ◽  
The Republic ◽  
The Cold War

The interrelated concepts of memory policy, historical policy and security policy are considered. It is shown that in Russia and in the Republic of Belarus there is a steady trend of securitization of historical policy and memory policy. The tendencies of indoctrination of the securitist model of historical policy into official documents of both states are considered. It is shown that both in Belarus and in Russia, the internal political confrontation is considered in the historicist construct of the Cold War. It is argued that in the context of the need to deepen integration within the framework of the Union State, it is necessary to search for a relatively unified holistic concept of history for all the forces of Russian and Belarusian societies.

Dreams of Freedom, Temptations of Power

2019 ◽  
pp. 243-280
Author(s):  
Melvyn P. Leffler
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Policy ◽  
September 11 ◽  
World War ◽  
Memory Culture ◽  
The World ◽  
September 11 Attacks ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter considers the end of the Cold War as well as its implications for the September 11 attacks in 2001, roughly a decade after the Cold War ended. While studying the Cold War, the chapter illustrates how memory and values as well as fear and power shaped the behavior of human agents. Throughout that struggle, the divergent lessons of World War II pulsated through policymaking circles in Moscow and Washington. Now, in the aftermath of 9/11, governments around the world drew upon the lessons they had learned from their divergent national experiences as those experiences had become embedded in their respective national memories. For policymakers in Washington, memories of the Cold War and dreams of human freedom tempted the use of excessive power with tragic consequences. Memory, culture, and values played a key role in shaping the evolution of U.S. national security policy.

Cold War diplomacy

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Beverley Hooper
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
The United States ◽  
Arab Countries ◽  
The Us ◽  
The World ◽  
Communist China ◽  
The Government ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Foreign Ministries

From the early 1970s, the US-China relationship was central to diplomatic reporting, with National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger’s visit to Peking in October 1971, President Nixon’s historic visit in February 1972, and the establishment the following year of small liaison offices in Peking and Washington. Following each of Kissinger’s further visits in 1973 and 1974, senior diplomats virtually queued up at the liaison office to find out what progress, if any, had been made towards the normalization of US-China relations. Peking’s diplomats, like some of their colleagues elsewhere in the world, did not always see eye-to-eye with their foreign ministries. There was little chance of their becoming overly attached to Communist China, as the Japanologists and Arabists were sometimes accused of doing for Japan and Arab countries. At the same time, living and breathing the PRC led some diplomats to regard Chinese Communism as being rather more nuanced—and the government somewhat less belligerent—than the Cold War images portrayed in the West, particularly the United States.

scholarly journals Bipolar Rivalry in the Early Digital Age

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (3) ◽  
pp. 313-341
Author(s):  
Yan Xuetong
Keyword(s):  
Foreign Policy ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Digital Age ◽  
The United States ◽  
Cyber Attacks ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Technological Advancement ◽  
Strategic Competition ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract The year 2019 saw the curtain rise on a US–China bipolar rivalry quite different from the Cold War US–Soviet bipolarity. The fundamental difference between the current bipolar rivalry and that during the Cold War is that ideology is no longer the main engine driving international competition, but rather the new digital dimension of strategic competition that is emerging between the United States and China. Technological advancement over the past 15 years has led world history’s entry into the early digital age. The development of digital technology has created new ways of protecting national security, of accumulating national wealth, and of obtaining international support. Cybersecurity is becoming the core of national security and the share of digital economy in major powers’ gross domestic product dramatically increases. For the leading powers, strategic competition in cyberspace in this early digital age outstrips to a crucial extent that within physical geographic boundaries. This article observes that Cold War mentality and digital mentality will have mixed impact on foreign policy-making in the digital age, and that interactions between the nations whose foreign policy is simultaneously influenced by both mentalities will shape the emerging international order into one of uneasy peace, where there is no direct war and few proxy wars. It will rather be a scenario reflecting the dark side of globalization and downside of global governance, evident in the violation of agreements, double dealing, cyber-attacks, and technology decoupling between states. Although further digital advancement will indeed change international politics in ever more aspects, US–China bipolar configuration will nevertheless remain in place for at least for two decades, or perhaps longer.

scholarly journals Making Circles of Steel and Castles of Vanity Possible: The Cold War in theLongue Duréeof “Modernity”

2016 ◽  
Vol 75 (4) ◽  
pp. 1019-1029
Author(s):  
Michael H. Bodden
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Security Council ◽  
The United States ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
National Security Council ◽  
Defense Department ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Way

Alfred McCoy's paper offers a masterful analysis of the way in which the Philippines, and more generally Southeast Asia, were used as base and laboratory for extending US dominance—its hegemony—in the twentieth century, and in particular the Cold War era and its aftermath. He offers a succinct summary of the way in which US organs of global domination—the National Security Council, the CIA, the Defense Department—worked throughout the developing world and in Europe to ensure compliant, anti-communist regimes during the Cold War period, which also meant that more than once the United States was thwarting democracy in a number of locales and thus casting its own ideology of democratic progress and prosperity into doubt.

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