Moral Panics, The Military-Industrial Complex, and The Arms Race

Abstract

This study argues that the generalized fear of the Soviet threat was punctuated by moral panics that provided a signal impetus to the arms race. The growth of the American nuclear arsenal came in three large waves (the Truman, the Eisenhower/ Kennedy/McNamara, and the Reagan buildups), the result of panics unleashed by startling and spectacular Soviet challenges to American nuclear hegemony (the Soviet atomic bomb, the Sputnik/Cuban missile crisis, and the window of vulnerability, respectively). The initial panics were instrumental in overcoming the fiscal constraints imposed on the military by the Truman and Eisenhower administrations, creating conditions conducive to the ascendency of a military-industrial complex. More specifically, the timing of the panics was determined by authentic surges of fear that in turn provided the political leverage for large-scale nuclear buildups. The direction taken by the panics, however, was determined by the creation and dramatization of an elective affinity between nuclear supremacy and both national security and the sanctity of the American way of life. In contrast with these panics, most efforts to mobilize fear by creating the perception of gaps in the Soviet favor failed. Numerous theories have been developed to account for the dynamics of the arms race. These range from fear of the Soviet threat to the emergence of a military-industrial complex (MIC), from the action-reaction cycle to faulty intelligence and worst-case analysis (e.g., Powaski 1987). This study focuses on the fear of the Soviet nuclear threat and argues that it provides a major impetus for quantitative and qualitative leaps in the American nuclear arsenal.