CIAO DATE: 02/06

(Re)Writing the "National Security State"

Abstract

During the Cold War the roles and identity of those Western academics who were strategic studies and national security experts were fundamental to their sense of self. For strategic studies specialists during the Cold War, their professional identity derived from the belief that they were playing an important role in probably the most important political job of the era—containing the power of the Soviet Union. Changing identity is not easy, especially when it risks losing all the identity bearing bonuses that go with it. The conservatism that is encouraged but the pressures to maintain loyalty to a highly valued label no doubt played its part in the self-disciplining of the discipline of Cold War strategic/security studies.

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