Chapter 8

COLD WAR REDUX

_Competing with the Soviets_

_Audra Wolfe_

Pham Van Duy -

01923016
Contents

• Dual Threat

• The New Academic Entrepreneurship: Biotechnology

• The Strategic Defense Initiative

• The Iron Triangle: Star Wars

• The End of an Era

 Dual threat

• The 1970s and 1980s were a period of

tremendous instability for international politics
and the global economy

• February 1972 Nixon met Mao at China

Like most compromises, détente satisfied no one

Dual threat

- The renewal of Cold War Arab Is

rae li War.
tensions was accompanied by s
dramatic increases in defense war
il
spending a civ
c
A fr i

Renewa
l ColdWa
Investment of federal for r?
defending in 1987 was higher
than it had been at any point
since 1962.

increase in military spending no

longer translated directly into Industrial Contractor diversified their products and services
corporate profits. or left the defense field altogether.
Dual threat

• The military buildup was change American economy

Recommendation took concrete policies

The Bayh-Dole Act The Economic Recovery Act

Allowed universities, small businesses, Provided tax credits for businesses

and nonprofits to file patents on that invested in scientific and
federally funded research, a privilege technical R&D.
rather than a right under previous law.
The New Academic Entrepreneurship: Biotechnology

• The era’s most dramatic advances

came from the field of biology

Inserted a specific sequence of DNA

• License of a patent play an into a target organism 1973
important role which even make
money more than its product

• Greentech of Boyer was a start up invested

strongly by capitalist, Eli Lilly
till 1980 October, the shared jumping from
35$ to 80$, made Greentech to more than
500mil$ company at that time.
Recombinant DNA technology functions by
tricking bacteria into treating a section of
spliced DNA containing a gene sequence
from a higher organism as their own
 The Strategic Defense Initiative

• High-tech military devices roundly

dismissed by leading
members of the scientific establishment.
• Commissioned by the Department of
Defense
• Using space-based lasers to mount a
defense against incoming ICBMs.
• SDI’s proponents viewed the program as
a critical investment in American defense
and economic development
• Its critics derided it as science fiction
The Iron Triangle: Star Wars

• In 1980s, the economic change

different from 1950 1960. Especially
was President Reagan’s Strategic
Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan
known to its critics as “Star Wars”.

• Reagan found out that the best

defense against a nuclear holocaust
was no defense at all. Both
superpowers had more than enough
nuclear to destroy the world.
The Iron Triangle: Star Wars
 The Starwar became official with funding
for the first year at 1.4billion$
Congress
 Defense contractor, who spent 95% to
SDI gained right to participate in election
law or political campaigns.

 Starwars got criticism, However, since

1985, under Pres Bush, USA spent over
100billion$ on high tech nuclear defense.
Defense Defense
Contractor Agencies
 Research scientists—whose opposition to
the program is well known—have not
generally been consulted
The End of an Era

• The Cold War ended peacefully in the late

1980s

• the nuclear weapons symbolized the

tensions between the two superpowers.

• Soviet Union collapsed by internal disarray

or pressure from the United State.

• USA, meanwhile, entered a brief period of

economic boom
Question

• How do you think about the impact of the meeting between Nixon and

Mao?

• What is the advantages and disadvantages of the Iron Triangle’s

establishment?

• What was the reasons that led to the collapse of the Soviets Union?