It has become a commonplace to associate the origins of security studies
with the twin stimuli of nuclear weaponry and the cold war.5 This
approach, however, can easily give the misleading impression that security
studies was created ex nihilo sometime between 1945 and 1955.
Before one can understand the impact of the cold war on thinking
about national security, one must first examine the pre-cold war scholarship
on the subject. Was there simply a void to be filled because no
one had been studying national security or war? Were existing approaches
to the study of foreign policy and international politics too
narrow and rigid to accommodate students of the cold war? It will be
argued that each of these questions should be answered in the negative.
Indeed, in many ways the study of national security grew more narrow
and rigid during the cold war than it had been before