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This article argues that in the United States international relations scholars and political scientists have been significantly involved in the articulation of critical areas of state policy, especially in the arena of national security. The political significance of this is not merely a matter of individuals influencing policy; it concerns the construction of modes of discourse which legitimize aspects of state policy. In the problematic domain of nuclear strategic theory this has been pivotal in providing élites with a language which neutralized the political threat created by policies of nuclear apocalypse. Thus the power of intellectuals must be seen as more than a question of institutional location. It resides partly in the creation of discourse which constitutes the symbolic reality of political argumentation.

This article examines the emerging pattern of 19th-century warfare against the backdrop of Modernity’s expressed optimism regarding social and economic progress. The author argues that in the modern period western countries have been insufficiently conscious of the consequences of weapons of mass destruction and of their own involvement in acts of mass violence. The article identifies a modernist culture radically different from that articulated by Enlightenment narratives.

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