Constructing National Interests: The United States and the Cuban Missile Crisis (Borderlines series)

Not simply an "event" or merely an "incident, " the 1962 standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba was a crisis, which subsequently has achieved almost mythic significance in the annals of U.S. foreign policy. Jutta Weldes asks why this occurrence in particular should be cast as a crisis, and how this so significantly affected "the national interest." Here, Weldes analyzes the so-called Cuban missile crisis as a means to rethink the idea of national interest, a notion central to both the study and practice of international relations. Why did the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba constitute a crisis for U.S. state officials and thus a dire threat to U.S. national interests? It was, Weldes suggests, more a matter of discursive construction than of objective facts or circumstances. Drawing on social theory and on concepts from cultural studies, she exposes the "realities" of the crisis as social creations in the service of a particular and precarious U.S. state identity defined within the Cold War U.S. "security imaginary." Constructing National Interests shows how this process allowed for a redefining of the identities, interests, and likely actions of various states, so that it seemed to logically serve the U.S. national interest in removing the missiles from Cuba. Not simply an event or merely an incident, the 1962 standoff between the U. S. and the Soviet Union over missiles in Cuba was a crisis, which subsequently has achieved almost mythic significance in the annals of United States foreign policy. Jutta Weldes asks why this occurrence in particular should be cast as a crisis, and how this so significantly affected the national interest. Here, Weldes analyzes the so-called Cuban missile crisis as a means to rethink the idea of national interest, a notion central to both the study and practice of international relations. Why did the presence of Soviet missiles in Cuba constitute a crisis for U.S. state officials and thus a dire threat to U.S. national interests? It was, Weldes suggests, more a matter of discursive construction than of objective facts or circumstances. Drawing on social theory and on concepts from cultural studies, she exposes the realities of the crisis as social creations in the service of a particular and precarious U.S. state identity defined within the Cold War U.S. security imaginary. Constructing National Interests shows how this process allowed for a redefining of the identities, interests, and likely actions of various states, so that it seemed to logically serve the U.S. national interest in removing the missiles from Cuba. Contents......Page 6 Acknowledgments......Page 8 Introduction: The Problem of National Interests......Page 10 1. Representing Missiles in Cuba......Page 30 2. The View from the ExComm......Page 50 3. Constructing National Interests......Page 106 4. Constructing the Cuban Missile Crisis: Cold War Representations......Page 130 5. Constructing the Cuban Missile Crisis: The Problem of Cuba......Page 174 6. Identity and National Interests: The United States as the Subject of the Cuban Missile Crisis......Page 206 7. National Interests and Common Sense......Page 234 Notes......Page 252 References......Page 290 B......Page 318 C......Page 319 H......Page 320 N......Page 321 R......Page 322 S......Page 323 U......Page 324 W......Page 325