Lecture 5 Ending WW II and Making Friends

The domestic impact of the atomic bomb

Science is institutinalized

Science is secret and directly linked to national security

The Way the War Ended Shapes the Next forty years

Shapes the way we regard our enemy: the Sovie Union

ideology

geopolitics

military balance of power

Might the SU have remained our friend?

The Munich Metaphor shapes the allied response

Churchill and the Iron Curtain

Truman and Containment (the Truman Doctrine)

George Kennan's memo, 1946 calling for containment

Containment turns from cold to hot in Korea in 1950

Relating to our Friends: the institutions of the liberal world order

Two different approaches to putting America first

Trump

Roosevelt, Truman Eisenhower

The key institutions

Bretton Woods Conference

Generally Accepted Agreement on Trade and Tariff GATT

World Bank

Agreement to Stbilize World Currencies pegged to U.S. dollar

Internationa Monetray Fund IMF

United Nations 1945

The Marshall Plan 1948

North Atlantic Treaty Organization NATO

Like the Domestic Institutions to ensure Science is harnessed to national security

these internationl instutions are the produce of "lessons learned" during WW II

and the geopolitical and ideological standoff when the war ended

 

Lecture 4 World War II was a "Total War"

Today I want to concentrate on the kind of War that WW II was

but first, a bit of unfinnished busines about the way WW II began

Even when Americans thought back to Munich

most ignored a crucial short-term impact

The Soviet Union felt betrayed

WW II ends with U.S. and SU as uneasy Frenemies

WW II is a Total War

whole of society effort

erases the line between civilian and military

even eradicates the individual soldier's identity

civilian targets become fair game

that is because civilians and industrial base contribute so much to the war effort

Even the line between man and nature is eradicated

Enemy seen as insects

Science and Technology is a crucial ally in the fight

not just the bomb

radar is crucial

penecillin

DDT

But bomb is the most dramatic example of power of science and tech to win the war

Is sicence a force for good, or evil force?

Americans will worry about this for much of the post-war period

The government institutions that make science a daily part of life

Because sicence can be so powerful, it is important to keep science SECRET

 

Lecture 3 Beginning WW II

This is where your parents were on 9/11

Some events are so shocking that we recall exactly where we were decades later

Pearl Harbor was such an event for a generation of Americans

It united a divided nation

it obliterated previous notions of national security

After the initial shock, many Americans think about Munich

Conclude that appeasement does not work

Only strength can deter military threats

short-term effect: not a good idea to double-cross Stalin in Soviet Union

Stalin's Non-Aggression Pact with Hitler, for a while