The Great Collapse, Democratic Paralysis and the Reception of the Bomb

Abstract

Expanding the traditional question of how and why the bomb was built when it was, this paper asks how socio-historical factors influenced the reception of the bomb in the West. It suggests that the bomb was received as the 'winning weapon' and that this view of it was linked to two historical factors: the Great Collapse, which undermined belief in historical progress and threatened the survival of the democracies; and the failure of balancing, the inability of the democracies, for a number of sociopolitical reasons, to act in their own collective security. As the winning weapon, the bomb was expected to overcome these problems. More broadly. the analysis suggests that when collective actions do not appear capable of redressing persistent threats, then leaders tend to invest their faith in technological panaceas.

“Radiation is Not New to Our Lives”: TheU.S.AtomicEnergyCommission, Continental Atmospheric Weapons Testing, and Discursive Hegemony in the Downwind Communities

“…When time is construed as scarce then critical reflection and inquiry, whether by scientists developing the first atomic bomb or residents downwind of continental testing, can appear as unreasonable and instrumentally irrational. Moreover, the elicitation of fear among the general public, Ungar (, ) observes, was a tactic employed during the Cold War to gain political leverage and thus increase spending on and expand the U.S. military‐industrial complex…”

“…The bomb symbolized the “winning weapon” in the immediate post‐war context in the West (Ungar :84). And as Carroll (, ) observes, science and the formation and expansion of the modern state are intimately intertwined.…”