USA propaganda in Cold War period: formation of the image of enemy in face of the USSR

Abstract

The analysis of asymmetric threats in past armed confrontations makes it possible to evaluate the risks in similar situations today. The Cold War of 1946-1991 is not an exception, because the experience of using propaganda influence by both parties in it is an inexhaustible source for generalization and predictions of the processes around the Russian-Ukrainian conflict, which are gradually described by modern military and political experts as the “Cold War of the XXI century”. Publications existing in the post-Soviet space largely suffer from the orthodoxy of their views. This limits the ability to evaluate objectively the forms and methods of forming public opinion in the United States regarding a political enemy after the Second World War, and thus impoverishes knowledge of possible options for the unfolding of events for our country in the opposition of such type, and, accordingly, the ability to predict the situation. The proposed study attempts to differentiate itself from Soviet and post-Soviet sources of information and, based solely on US publications, to identify the main cliches formed in the US information space regarding the image of the enemy in the face of the USSR.

Keywords

• the cold war
• image of the enemy
• propaganda
• read menace
• nuclear threat
• the iron curtain