scholarly journals The New Frontier: Religion in America’s National Space Rhetoric of the Cold War Era

Religions ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 11 (11) ◽  
pp. 592 ◽  
Author(s):  
Glen E. Swanson
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Postwar America ◽  
National Space ◽  
New Frontier ◽  
Religious Imagery ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Media ◽  
The Cold War

The origins and use of national space rhetoric used by NASA, the US government, and the media in America began during the Cold War era and relied, in part, on religious imagery to convey a message of exploration and conquest. The concept of space as a “New Frontier” was used in political speech, television, and advertising to reawaken a sense of manifest destiny in postwar America by reviving notions of religious freedom, courage, and exceptionalism—the same ideals that originally drove expansionist boosters first to the New World and then to the West. Using advertisements, political speeches, NASA documents, and other media, this paper will demonstrate how this rhetoric served to reinforce a culture held by many Americans who maintained a long tradition of believing that they were called on by God to settle New Frontiers and how this culture continues to influence how human spaceflight is portrayed today.

Interests Aligned but Not Integrated

2020 ◽  
pp. 134-150
Author(s):  
Howard G. Coombs
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Professional Learning ◽  
Air Force ◽  
Graduate School ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Air Force Academy ◽  
Us Air Force ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

This chapter explores the inception of the USAF's two educational institutions: the Air University (AU), and the US Air Force Academy (USAFA). The chapter shows that the AU, building on the interwar experience of the ACTS (Air Corps Tactical School), was able as a graduate school to go beyond expectations by becoming a fertile hub for professional learning. Conversely USAFA by mirroring Army and Navy institutions, established an undergraduate school with a solid curriculum, if not innovative in its approach. Tied to the rise of an independent air force service, the establishment of AU and USAFA sponsored by important military figures such as Billy Mitchell and Dwight Eisenhower heralded the rise of airpower theory in the Cold War era.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 26 The US Hostage Rescue Operation in Iran—1980

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Forteau Mathias ◽  
Ying Xiu Alison See
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Organizations ◽  
Present Contribution ◽  
Rescue Operation ◽  
Customary International Law ◽  
Self Help ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Cold War

The present contribution discusses the US hostage recuse operation in Iran in 1980. After the presentation of the relevant facts and context of the (eventually aborted) operation, including the official positions of the US and Iran as publicly expressed at that time, the present contribution assesses the legality of the operation, taking into account the reactions of other states and competent international organizations. The legality of the operation is assessed under Article 2(4) and 51 of the UN Charter and other possible exceptions under customary international law such as self-help. It concludes that it is doubtful that the operation was in conformity with international law.

Part 1 The Cold War Era (1945–89), 18 The Mayaguez Incident—1975

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ronzitti Natalino
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Vietnam War ◽  
Legal Issues ◽  
Armed Force ◽  
Coastal State ◽  
The Us ◽  
Cold War Era ◽  
The Law ◽  
The Cold War

This Chapter takes into consideration the Mayaguez incident, which occurred on 12 May 1975, immediately after the end of Vietnam war. The Mayaguez was a US cargo vessel accused by Cambodia of carrying out an espionage mission during its navigation off the Cambodia coast and for this reason boarded and captured by the Cambodian gunboats. The US, after having erroneously qualifying the capture as an act of piracy, intervened in rescue of their nationals and recovered the ship. The precedent raises several legal issues ranging from the law of espionage to the legality of forceful measures taken by the coastal State in its territorial sea and/or in its adjacent waters. However, the main legal value of the Mayaguez incident arises from the fact that it is considered a precedent for testing the validity of the doctrine of using armed force for rescuing nationals abroad.

Removing the Mask of Sanity: McCarthyism and the Psychiatric–Confessional Foundations of the Cold War National Security State

2017 ◽  
Vol 52 (04) ◽  
pp. 1066-1094
Author(s):  
ROBERT GENTER
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
Sexual Behaviors ◽  
Personal Lives ◽  
Political Beliefs ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Psychiatric Discourse ◽  
National Security State ◽  
The Cold War

In the early Cold War, the US government institutionalized a national security program, centered on the investigation into the political beliefs of federal employees, to safeguard the nation from Communist subversion. Often interpreted as the result of a partisan battle between New Deal Democrats and conservative Republicans, the national security program had deeper origins, reflecting the influence of psychiatric discourse on public understandings of deviancy. Framed by a metonymical logic that linked radical political beliefs, deviant sexual behaviors, and other illicit behaviors under the category of psychopathology, the security program sought to guard against the threat posed by potentially dangerous individuals, a form of protection that necessitated the public disclosure by those deemed security risks of all aspects of their personal lives.

Strategies of Decolonization: Economic Sovereignty and National Security in Libyan–US Relations, 1949–1971

2021 ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Christopher R. W. Dietrich
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
National Security ◽  
International Law ◽  
International Political Economy ◽  
Oil Industry ◽  
Deep Foundations ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Arab League ◽  
The Cold War

Abstract This article examines Libyan–US relations through the historical lenses of decolonization, international law, the Cold War, and the international political economy. The Libyan government exercised its newfound sovereignty in the postwar era through the negotiation of ‘base rights’ for the US government and ‘oil rights’ for corporations owned by US nationals. They did so in conjunction with other petrostates and through international organizations such as the United Nations, the Arab League, and the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries. Libyan leaders’ strategy of using sovereignty to promote corporate competition relied on connections with similarly situated nations, and it was through global circuits of knowledge that they pressed the outer limits of economic sovereignty. At the same time, the US government consistently accommodated Libyan policies through Cold War arguments that linked the alliance with Libya to US national security. Those deep foundations of sovereignty and security created the conditions for the transformation of the global oil industry after Libya’s 1969 revolution.

The Accidental Political Advantages of a Nonpolitical Book Program

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Victoria M. Grieve
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
Soviet Union ◽  
Cultural Diplomacy ◽  
The United States ◽  
Early Years ◽  
The Soviet Union ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
Written Word ◽  
The Cold War

In the early years of the Cold War, the US government devoted substantial energy and funds to using books as weapons against the Soviet Union. Books and the principles they represented were to counter Soviet accusations of American materialism and spread American ideals around the globe. Founded in 1952, Franklin Books Program, Inc. was a gray propaganda program that operated at the nexus of US public–private cultural diplomacy efforts. USIA bureaucrats believed Franklin successfully carried out diplomatic objectives by highlighting the positive aspects of American culture and those who ran Franklin emphasized the “nonpolitical” aspects of cultural diplomacy, many of which directly targeted children. Franklin’s textbooks and juvenile science books cultivated a literate population friendly to the United States, reaching out to foreign young people through books, which like art, seemed to transcend the written word and represent abstract ideals of freedom and democracy.

Introduction

2020 ◽  
pp. 11-36
Author(s):  
Victoria Phillips
Keyword(s):  
Cold War ◽  
The United States ◽  
Diplomatic History ◽  
Martha Graham ◽  
The Us ◽  
Us Government ◽  
The Government ◽  
Us Diplomatic History ◽  
The Cold War ◽  
Over Time

“When they sensed internal mayhem / They sent out Martha Graham / That’s what we call cultural exchange,” wrote Dave and Iola Brubeck with Louis Armstrong for the opera The Real Ambassadors. Graham disavowed political attachments: indeed, understanding what she said she was not is often a way to understand Graham as an actor in US diplomatic history. Allegedly not political, she also disavowed herself as a modernist, feminist, and American missionary. Rather than proving that she was what she said she was not, the introduction outlines the methodology to understand why Graham made these pronouncements while touring for the US government during the Cold War. While Graham initially was a part of the targeting of the elite in “trickle-down diplomacy,” over time she grew older and modernism ossified, just as the government sought to target the youth. In response, Graham posed for pictures that billed her as “Forever Modern,” with dances that were “Too Sexy for Export?” featuring a troupe of young, technically brilliant dancers to represent the United States. Graham passed away in 1991, the same year as the official Cold War end.

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