MORRIS DICKSTEIN POSES his recent study of post–World War II American fiction Leopards in the Temple (2002) as a corrective to the by now standard tendency to emphasize the cold war in accounts of this period. But while Dickstein takes the critics of cold war culture to task for what he sees as their oversimplification of both art and politics, he concurs with them on at least one major point. ...

Exploring whether the Cold War was a security dilemma illuminates both history and theoretical concepts. The core argument of the security dilemma is that, in the absence of a supranational authority that can enforce binding agreements, many of the steps pursued by states to bolster their security have the effect—often unintended and unforeseen—of making other states less secure. The anarchic n...

The CIA was originally established as an agency charged with putting together information from all other intelligence agencies. However, in the midst of the Cold War and with the election of President Eisenhower, a new role for the CIA surfaced. Across the globe, in Iran, in 1951 the people had elected a Prime Minister, Mohammad Mossaddegh, who opposed British control over Iranian oil fields. T...