Introduction

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-12
Author(s):  
David P. Hadley
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
The Core ◽  
The Press

The introduction examines the overall questions animating the core work. Using Director of Central Intelligence William E. Colby’s explanation of how opinion shaped CIA activity, it explores how the CIA both was influenced by the press and sought to influence the press to shape the environment in which it operated. The introduction also explores the previous understandings of how the press and the CIA interacted and disputes a persistent theory originated by Deborah Davis that there existed a program called Mockingbird designed by the CIA to manipulate the press. It argues also that, in addition to Cold War–related activities, the CIA was interested in the press as a way to promote its reputation and establish its security within the national security bureaucracy.

No First Use: The Next Step for U.S. Nuclear Policy

2010 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 7-47 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael S. Gerson
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Nuclear Weapons ◽  
The United States ◽  
Security Strategy ◽  
The Core ◽  
National Security Strategy ◽  
Nuclear Policy

The release of the Barack Obama administration's much-anticipated Nuclear Posture Review (NPR) concluded an intense, yearlong effort to revamp U.S. nuclear weapons policy to better address modern threats. Despite general agreement that the United States' nuclear policy and posture was in need of overhaul, there were strong disagreements over what kinds of changes should be made. At the core of these debates was the issue of U.S. declaratory policy—the stated role and purpose of U.S. nuclear weapons. Whereas some members of the administration advocated that the United States retain all of the flexibility and options afforded by the policy of calculated ambiguity, others contended that to fulfill President Obama's commitment to “put an end to Cold War thinking” and “reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. national security strategy,” the United States should adopt a more restrictive nuclear policy such as no first use (NFU), perhaps in the form of a declaration that the “sole purpose” of U.S. nuclear weapons is to deter a nuclear attack. By not adopting NFU, the NPR missed an important opportunity to reduce the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. strategy. The traditional case for NFU hinges on the argument that the threat of nuclear first use is unnecessary for deterrence. Yet the continued U.S. option to use nuclear weapons first is not only unnecessary but dangerous. Given the size and accuracy of the current U.S. nuclear arsenal, and given the variation in the nuclear capabilities of current and potential adversaries, the first-use option risks creating instabilities in a severe crisis that increase the chances of accidental, unauthorized, or deliberate nuclear use. In a future crisis with a nuclear-armed state, the fear—whether real or imagined—that the United States might attempt a disarming nuclear first-strike increases the possibility of nuclear escalation.

Reluctant Cold Warriors

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vladimir Kontorovich
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Soviet Economy ◽  
Accurate Analysis ◽  
Policy Makers ◽  
Large Numbers ◽  
The Us ◽  
Comprehensive Survey ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
The Military

The academic study of the Soviet economy in the US was created to help fight the Cold War, part of a broader mobilization of the social sciences for national security needs. The Soviet strategic challenge rested on the ability of its economy to produce large numbers of sophisticated weapons. The military sector was the dominant part of the economy, and the most successful one. However, a comprehensive survey of scholarship on the Soviet economy from 1948-1991 shows that it paid little attention to the military sector, compared to other less important parts of the economy. Soviet secrecy does not explain this pattern of neglect. Western scholars developed strained civilian interpretations for several aspects of the economy which the Soviets themselves acknowledged to have military significance. A close reading of the economic literature, combined with insights from other disciplines, suggest three complementary explanations for civilianization of the Soviet economy. Soviet studies was a peripheral field in economics, and its practitioners sought recognition by pursuing the agenda of the mainstream discipline, however ill-fitting their subject. The Soviet economy was supposed to be about socialism, and the military sector appeared to be unrelated to that. By stressing the militarization, one risked being viewed as a Cold War monger. The conflict identified in this book between the incentives of academia and the demands of policy makers (to say nothing of accurate analysis) has broad relevance for national security uses of social science.

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.

The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces

2018 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
National Security ◽  
Armed Forces ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Military Operations ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
Security Challenges ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
National Defence

The armed forces of Europe have undergone a dramatic transformation since the collapse of the Soviet Union. The Handbook of European Defence Policies and Armed Forces provides the first comprehensive analysis of national security and defence policies, strategies, doctrines, capabilities, and military operations, as well as the alliances and partnerships of European armed forces in response to the security challenges Europe has faced since the end of the cold war. A truly cross-European comparison of the evolution of national defence policies and armed forces remains a notable blind spot in the existing literature. This Handbook aims to fill this gap with fifty-one contributions on European defence and international security from around the world. The six parts focus on: country-based assessments of the evolution of the national defence policies of Europe’s major, medium, and lesser powers since the end of the cold war; the alliances and security partnerships developed by European states to cooperate in the provision of national security; the security challenges faced by European states and their armed forces, ranging from interstate through intra-state and transnational; the national security strategies and doctrines developed in response to these challenges; the military capabilities, and the underlying defence and technological industrial base, brought to bear to support national strategies and doctrines; and, finally, the national or multilateral military operations by European armed forces. The contributions to The Handbook collectively demonstrate the fruitfulness of giving analytical precedence back to the comparative study of national defence policies and armed forces across Europe.

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 Introduction: Physics, Technology, and Technics during the Interwar Period

2018 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 251-261
Author(s):  
Shaul Katzir
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Cold War ◽  
Interwar Period ◽  
Scientific Inquiry ◽  
Government Funding ◽  
World War ◽  
The Core ◽  
Historical Processes ◽  
The University ◽  
University Industry

Historians, philosophers, and physicists portray the 1920s and 1930s as a period of major theoretical breakthrough in physics, quantum mechanics, which led to the expansion of physics into the core of the atom and the growth and strengthening of the discipline. These important developments in scientific inquiry into the micro-world and light have turned historical attention away from other significant historical processes and from other equally important causes for the expansion of physics. World War II, on the other hand, is often seen as the watershed moment when physics achieved new levels of social and technical engagement at a truly industrial scale. Historians have shown that military interests and government funding have shaped physics to unprecedented degree, and according to some, to the extent of discontinuity with earlier practices of research (Forman 1987; Kevles 1990; Kaiser 2002). In this vein, Stuart Leslie wrote, “Nothing in the prewar experience fully prepared academic scientists and their institutions for the scale and scope of a wartime mobilization that would transform the university, industry, and the federal government and their mutual interrelationships” (Leslie 1993, 6). While one can never befullyready for novelties, the contributors to this issue show that developments in interwar physics did prepare participants for their cold war interactions with industry and government.

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