The Cold War period for the United States and indeed, the world was one of turbulence and uncertainty. The conclusion of World War II saw the clash of two major world powers, each replete with the awesome capability of nuclear weapons. For the first time in history the human race intentionally developed and produced the means to its own destruction. It was the Soviet Union versus the United States, communist doctrine against democratic capitalism. World War II had, without an iota of doubt, awoken a "sleeping giant," that spawned the early constructs of the contemporary military-industrial complex. Mills best describes this complex in his work, The Power Elite. He asserts that, "American capitalism is now in considerable part a military capitalism, and the most important relation to the big corporation to the state rests on the coincidence of interests between military and corporate needs." In essence, the military-industrial complex, hereafter referred to as MIC, is the collusion between private corporations and the State military for financial benefit. War can prove exceedingly profitable for those in certain positions, and the Cold War was no exception.
[...] nation's policy makers and military strategists stalked and feared an elusive predator based on suggestion and autosuggestion, the blurring of fact and fiction, and the projection of collective fears and desires.”[9] Uncertainty and disillusionment plagued American attitudes toward the Soviet predator. Regular citizens and policy makers were crippled by a lack of knowledge of the enemy that they feared for reasons that were superficially easily comprehended, but were vacuous in nature. Reasons or evidence that supposedly proved empirically that communism posed an imminent danger to democracy and assuaged the knowledge deficit relied on defective information. [...]
[...] Empirical evidence proving that the government elites harbored trepidation regarding the Soviet Union is difficult to procure (Ungar, Sheldon 1990, p.172), in fact, “they were aware of the need to their solution to the Soviet threat .However, the elite's awareness of the need to sell the threat in order to gain political leverage for a particular solution does not mean that the elite was immune to the fear that Sanders admits gripped the public.”[20] Despite this, it is rather difficult to refute the overwhelming evidence suggesting that certain organizations in the government and in private industry disregarded intelligence deficiencies so that they could engender in the American people fear. [...]
[...] The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Industrial Complex. Princeton, New Jersey: Princeton University Press Robin, Ron Theodore. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Industrial Complex. Robin, Ron Theodore. The Making of the Cold War Enemy: Culture and Politics in the Military-Industrial Complex. Moskos, Charles C. Jr. Concept of the Military-Industrial Complex: Radical Critique or Liberal Bogey? Social Problems, Vol No pages 498-512. University of California Press on behalf of the Society for the Study of Social Problems: 1974. [...]
[...] Shattered Peace: The Origins of the Cold War and the National Security State. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Mills, C. Wright. The Power Elite. New York: Oxford University Press Ungar, Sheldon. “Moral Panics, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Arms Race. The Sociological Quarterly, Volume 31, Number pages 165-185. JAI Press, Inc: 1990. Churchill, Winston. Iron Curtain Speech, March Modern History Sourcebook http://www.fordham.edu (accessed April 28, 2008). Ungar, Sheldon. Moral Panics, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Arms Race. Ungar, Sheldon. Moral Panics, the Military-Industrial Complex, and the Arms Race. [...]
[...] to be the greatest military power on earth for minimal cost.”[4] The Soviet Union soon ended American dominance of nuclear technology when they detonated their first fission bomb. That event further stimulated preexisting fears regarding Soviet power. The public now recognized the potential for the Soviet Union to unleash devastating weapons on American cities. It is without much difficulty then to conclude that the United States was predisposed to the fabrication of a military-industrial complex on an unprecedented scale. It is important to note that the MIC during the Cold War was essentially a product of nuclear fear. [...]
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