Creating the Gray Area
Creating the Gray Area
Scholars, Soldiers, and National Security
This chapter examines the relationship between social science and Cold War militarism. During the Cold War, social scientists hoped to provide the foundations for a successful counterinsurgency doctrine. However, the synthesis of civilian and military expertise was uneasy. As social scientists mobilized to protect American national security from the communist threat, their efforts pushed them onto the front lines of militarization. Moreover, military patronage threatened scholars' intellectual autonomy and fundamentally challenged long-standing national values. Nevertheless, with militarization hidden behind social-scientific rhetoric and creative institutional configurations, scholars and soldiers tried to recast the spread of American military power as democratic reform and the militarization of social knowledge as an antidote to Cold War militarism.
Keywords: social science, Cold War militarism, Cold War, counterinsurgency, American national security, communism, militarization, military patronage, American military power
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