The Cold War and American Science: The Military-Industrial-Academic Complex at MIT and Stanford

Cohen, Eliot A.; Leslie, Stuart W.

doi:10.2307/20046960

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“…It described the scientific triumph over permafrost and other ‘problems’ and accorded responsibility to the ‘determination and ingenuity of the fighting forces, science, and industry to build and operate such ramparts as the Thule Base and the DEW Line’ (Office of Armed Forces Information and Education 1958, 8). Here, quite literally, the fruits of the military–industrial–academic complex (Leslie 1993) were on display. And those ‘ramparts’, while increasingly material, were, just as importantly, imaginative constructions, flexible enough to accommodate the boundaries of both scientific knowledge and geopolitical destiny.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Of course, military and scientific projects of the period were not just parallel in orientation; in many cases, they were inseparable. As historians of science have reminded us, this relationship can be found across the sites and streams of Cold War research (for influential examples, see Forman 1987; Leslie 1993). Much of the resulting discussion has dismissed the crude argument that military research determined scientific outcomes while continuing to question the types of science resulting from military support.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Frontier engineering: from the globe to the body in the Cold War Arctic

Farish¹

2006

Canadian Geographies / Géographies canadiennes

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The dual themes of sovereignty and wilderness have come to define, or at least dominate, historical discussions of the North American Arctic. This paper argues that neither adequately captures the role of the Arctic during the early Cold War, a period of unprecedented interest in northern landscapes. Political and environmental approaches, with their national undertones, were incorporated into a dominant narrative whose implications were far less abstract: the Arctic became a frontier for military science, both imaginatively and materially. Civilian institutions with military affiliations emerged to advocate for additional Arctic research in the natural and social sciences, whereas Canadian and American military agencies established laboratories and training centres, constructed complex defence networks and staged numerous military exercises across Arctic spaces, operations which tested the performance of both humans and machines. These projects actively engineered Arctic terrain in the name of scholarly advancement and military necessity. If the Cold War Arctic is to be understood geographically, then the national scale must be placed next to the broader views of geopolitics and scientific inquiry but also next to the finer perspectives of military bodies moving across ‘hostile’ terrain.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%