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Scientific Advantage During The Cold War

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The fight for scientific advantage embodies the Cold War. The US and USSR funded research and development projects with a variety of applications and byproducts to claim preeminence. Scientific and technological prowess on the world stage defined the USSR-US rivalry. American efforts to beat the Soviets during the Cold War emphasized that politics dominated science to make the US appear stronger in the context of new paradigms in warfare and international aid.
A political frenzy to fuel “big science”, or massive state-sponsored scientific work, expanded the domain in which the US and USSR competed because it spawned new military technologies symbolizing power. Audra Wolfe claims the US’s atom bombs forced Japan to surrender: “The sheer scale of its destruction…made…[it] an unparalleled tool for psychological intimidation” (Wolfe 2013, 21). The US Army secretly developed and monopolized this incomparable power from 1942 until 1949 (Wolfe 2013, …show more content…
The race to modernize revealed which political and economic system commanded the world and motivated the US to invest in development projects (Wolfe 2013, 93). India solicited the US for a university inspired by MIT in 1960: “$14.5 million in American aid, primarily from [the recently christened] USAID, that flowed into the institute during its first ten years…made the university the most competitive and prestigious in India” (Wolfe 2013, 109). Investment in a university exposed how state-building could further a superpower’s reputation by exporting academic expertise and norms. The Peace Corps’ new mission of sharing American know-how to developing states like Chad by building wells or in Ghana by teaching science classes also began in 1961 (Wolfe 2013, 102). New institutions like the Peace Corps and USAID spreading technology and knowledge outward promoted the US as the greatest

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