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2 Rhetoric and Cold War: A Strategic Approach Martin J. Medhurst A strategic approach to Cold War rhetoric is predicated upon a realist view of the world; not the world as it ought to be or as we might wish it to be, but the world as it currently exists with its varying political systems, governmental philosophies, economic assumptions, power relationships, and dominant personalities. By adopting a realist position, one also embraces an accompanying axiom: that systems, philosophies, assumptions , relationships, and personalities change and that one's response to any given situation must change with them, reflecting reality as it currently exists or is perceived to exist rather than what existed last week, last month, or last year or what might exist tomorrow, next week, or next year. Decisions are made according to a reading of the current situational configuration. Such a reading involves the collection, analysis, and interpretation of numerous pieces of data and the weighing of that data in light of the strategic assumptions and goals held by those in decisionmaking positions. Cold War, like its "hot" counterpart, is a contest. It is a contest between competing systems as represented, for example, by the Soviet Union and the United States. It is a contest involving such tangibles as geography, markets, spheres of influence, and military alliances, as well as such intangibles as public opinion, attitudes, images, expectations, and beliefs about whatever system is currently in ascendancy. The contest, in other words, is both material and psychological in nature. The currency of Cold War combat-the tokens used in the contest-is rhetorical discourse: discourse intentionally designed to achieve a particular goal with one or more specific audience. While the weapons of a hot war are guns, bombs, missiles, and the like, Cold War weapons are words, images, symbolic actions, and, on occasion, physical actions undertaken by covert means. For the most part, however, Cold War is a matter of symbolic action, action intended to forward the accomplishment of strategic goals-social, political, economic, military, or diplomatic. 20 Martin J. Medhurst Cold War rhetoric, then, is by definition a strategic rhetoric. It comes into being for the purpose of realizing a goal or goals and is shaped and executed with these goals in mind. It seems clear, therefore, that any adequate evaluation ofCold War discourse must take as its beginning point the strategic nature of the enterprise and the specific goals that form its reason for being. To analyze Cold War rhetoric the critic must first become a strategist, seeking to understand the goals being pursued, the historical, political, economic, diplomatic, and military constraints that exist, and the precise situational configuration-the situation as it currently exists or as it existed at the time a particular decision was made or symbolic action undertaken. By understanding the goals, the constraints, and the configuration of forces that interact to form the situational context-the chess board upon which the game of superpower politics is played-the critic is in a much stronger position to analyze, interpret, and judge any particular piece of Cold War discourse. It is only when one knows what possibilities for rhetorical modification exist that one can adequately judge whether those possibilities are being most fully exploited by the practitioners of Cold War rhetoric. COLD WAR GOALS It is impossible to evaluate Cold War discourse adequately without a thorough understanding of the goals policy makers hope to achieve by employing symbolic means. Such goals are often opaque, resisting easy identification, classification, or simple explanation. In almost all cases, for example, reliance upon testimony, political ideology, or explicit language usage alone is misleading. Foreign policy goals are generally greater than their architects admit, broader than the ideology of the era might suggest, and more complex than any literary interpretation-analogical, psychoanalytic , structuralist, or literal-can reveal. The goals are the ends for which the Cold War strategy and tactics are the means. One overarching goal of the Cold War era has been, and continues to be, the avoidance of hot war between the superpowers; the prevention of World War III. Coexistent with this goal is the desire of both superpowers to maintain and, in some cases, to expand their respective spheres of influence without sacrificing the concomitant goal of avoiding world conflagration. It is these two poles-the avoidance of all-out war on the one hand and the maintenance or improvement of one's strategic position on the other-that define the broad parameters of the Cold War...

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