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This volume takes the metaphorical character of the Cold War seriously and charts how the bomb was used as a symbol for nuclear war at the very heart of this conflict. The contributions consider the historical relevance of the political, cultural and artistic ramifications of nuclear weapons as signifiers for a new type of conflict. Tis understanding of the metaphorical qualities of the Cold War is encapsulated in the notion of an imaginary war, or, more precisely, a war against the imagination. As an attack against the imagination, the nuclear threat forced politicians and ordinary people to accept the notion that preparations for nuclear annihilation would contribute towards peace, and that the existence of these weapons, and the anticipation of large-scale destruction that came with them, were an inescapable corollary of security, freedom and future prosperity on both sides of the Cold war divide.
179 Conclusion In an oral history project in the late 1980s, British Korean veterans were asked if British servicemen had thought that Korea was the start of a third world war. D.R. Milbery responded: ‘I don’t think they did, no, no’.1 Frank Wisby disagreed too, adding that they were nevertheless protecting ‘a bullied people who were the third biggest rice producing country in the world’ from their ‘greedy neighbours’.2 Robin Bruford-Davies, who had joined as a regular British Army officer in 1946, said that he did not question things much at that age and that
This book examines the impact that nostalgia has had on the Labour Party’s political development since 1951. In contrast to existing studies that have emphasised the role played by modernity, it argues that nostalgia has defined Labour’s identity and determined the party’s trajectory over time. It outlines how Labour, at both an elite and a grassroots level, has been and remains heavily influenced by a nostalgic commitment to an era of heroic male industrial working-class struggle. This commitment has hindered policy discussion, determined the form that the modernisation process has taken and shaped internal conflict and cohesion. More broadly, Labour’s emotional attachment to the past has made it difficult for the party to adjust to the socioeconomic changes that have taken place in Britain. In short, nostalgia has frequently left the party out of touch with the modern world. In this way, this book offers an assessment of Labour’s failures to adapt to the changing nature and demands of post-war Britain.
humankind as a whole had become precarious. More rigorously than his contemporaries, he attempted to think through the prospects of a nuclear conflict between the superpowers. For Anders, this entailed accepting, as a principal philosophical and political task, the challenge to imagine the ‘imaginary war’.7 According decisive importance to the faculty of ‘imagination’ (Vorstellung) in meeting this challenge, he sought to bind his chilling speculations on a likely Third World War to the existing Ban-the-Bomb mobilisations of his time. Theory and practice were always
–Israeli conflict. 9 According to British assessment, Israel had no choice but to belong to the Western camp, because it would be destroyed if the Soviet Union won a third world war, and thus sought defense arrangements with the West. If a war broke out, the Soviet Union might force Israel to disavow its commitments to the West by threatening Nazi-type reprisals against Soviet Jews. The Soviets could not, however
the motherland. Furthermore, Israel could not avoid identifying with the United States in the Cold War. Ehrenburg warned that Soviet Jews would fight against Israel in a third world war. Mordechai Namir, Golda Meir’s successor, had every reason to believe that Ehrenburg was speaking for the Kremlin itself. 27 It was inevitable that relations would deteriorate. When Ben-Gurion did not include Mapam, the
Ben-Gurion’s position was that the West should base its regional defense on Turkey and Israel. 72 He maintained that the Cold War prevented the United States from fully understanding the serious nature of the Arab–Israeli conflict, and revolutionary leaders with only weak connections to the West were liable to rise among the Arabs. 73 In addition, Israel’s concerns about a third world war had reached apocalyptic
Soviet-supported and capable of taking hostage the oil pipelines running through its territory. According to the Special Estimate, the Soviet Union would not carry out its threats against the West if it meant risking the outbreak of a third world war. 12 Eisenhower was advised to issue a warning to the Kremlin and to send troops to the Middle East if the Soviets sent their army into Syria or
transform the earth into a darkened, frozen planet, posing unprecedented peril to all nations, even those far removed from the nuclear explosions. We are convinced that this makes it still more pressing to take preventive action to exclude forever the use of nuclear weapons and the occurrence of a nuclear war.27 Since the mass destruction of the United States was all but guaranteed in a nuclear war, the ensuing destruction of the non-aligned world remained, perhaps, somewhat abstract in American minds. But to those living far from ground zero of the Third World War
whole being involved’.11 He was not alone in his attitudes. The ICJP, formed by the Catholic hierarchy in October 1969, provided an organised voice for the church’s new aspirations. The following year it published The Third World War, a short booklet written by its secretary Jerome Connolly, in which he outlined the myriad problems facing the developing world. In keeping with the times, Connolly did not hold back in criticising the Irish response. The public did not realise ‘how serious their obligations were’, he warned, and mistakenly felt that ‘whatever this