“If You Want Peace, Prepare for War”

Abstract

The first chapter of The Politics of Peace provides an analysis of peace within the context of the diplomatic relationship between East and West. Between the late 1940s and early 1960s, both sides in the Cold War battle used the rhetoric of peace to advance their own domestic and international political agendas. By repeating the narrative of their failure to prevent World War II, US and Western European governments promoted a strategy of peace through strength and military preparedness. The United States in particular regarded peace advocates as a threat to national security and often accused them of being either communist agents or naïve idealists who had been duped into becoming puppets of international communism. While the Soviet Union and its allies followed a similar strategy of military preparedness, they linked the rhetoric of peace to internationalism, often institutionalizing peace activism within the bureaucratic machinery of the Communist Party.