Cold War Legacies: Systems, Theory, Aesthetics

From futures research, pattern recognition algorithms, nuclear waste disposal and surveillance technologies, to smart weapons systems, contemporary fiction and art, this book shows that we are now living in a world imagined and engineered during the Cold War. Drawing on theorists such as Jean Baudrillard, Jacques Derrida, Michel Foucault, Luce Irigaray, Friedrich Kittler, Michel Serres, Peter Sloterdijk, Carl Schmitt, Bernard Stiegler and Paul Virilio this collection makes connections between Cold War material and conceptual technologies, as they relate to the arts, society, and culture.

The British Army of the Rhine: Turning Nazi Enemies into Cold War Partners

Between 1945 and 1957, West Germany made a dizzying pivot from Nazi bastion to Britain's Cold War ally against the Soviet Union. Successive London governments, though faced with bitter public and military opposition, tasked the British Army of the Rhine (BAOR) to serve as a protecting force while strengthening West German integration into the Western defense structure. Peter Speiser charts the BAOR's fraught transformation from occupier to ally by looking at the charged nexus where British troops and their families interacted with Germany's civilian population. Examining the relationship on many levels, Speiser ranges from how British mass media representations of Germany influenced BAOR troops to initiatives taken by the Army to improve relations. He also weighs German perceptions, surveying clashes between soldiers and civilians and comparing the popularity of the British services with that of the other occupying powers. As Speiser shows, the BAOR's presence did not improve the relationship between British servicemen and the German populace, but it did prevent further deterioration during a crucial and dangerous period of the early Cold War. An incisive look at an under-researched episode, The British Army of the Rhine sheds new light on Anglo-German diplomatic, political, and social relations after 1945, and evaluates their impact on the wider context of European integration in the postwar era.

Congressional acquiescence to presidentialism in the US ‘War on Terror’

Congressional dominance theory holds that not only can the US Congress control the executive, it does. The terrorist attacks on New York and Washington on 11 September 2001 and the Bush administration's ensuing global 'war on terror' suggest a different result. Bush's response to 9/11 signalled not only new directions in US foreign and domestic policy but a new stage in the aggrandisement of presidential power in the United States and a further step in the marginalisation of the Congress. Informed by a constitutional doctrine unknown to the framers of the US Constitution, the Bush administration pursued a presidentialist or 'ultra-separationist' governing strategy that was disrespectful to the legislature's intended role in the separated system. Using its unilateral powers, in public and in secret, claiming 'inherent' authority from the Constitution, and exploiting the public's fear of a further terrorist attack and of endangering the lives of US troops abroad, the administration skilfully drove its legislation through the Congress. Occasionally, the Congress was able to extract concessions - notably in the immediate aftermath of 9/11, when partisan control of the government was split - but more typically, for most of the period, the Congress acquiesced to administration demands, albeit with the consolation of minor concessions. The administration not only dominated the lawmaking process, it also cowed legislators into legitimating often highly controversial (and sometimes illegal) administration-determined definitions of counter-terrorism and national security policy. Certainly, the Congress undertook a considerable amount of oversight during the period of the 'war on terror'; lawmakers also complained. But the effects on policy were marginal. This finding held true for periods of Democratic as well as Republican majorities.

Evaluating the use of an urban consolidation centre and electric vehicles in central London

The paper focuses on the role that can be played by urban consolidation centres (UCCs) in reducing freight traffic and its environmental impacts in towns and cities. It is based on the before and after evaluation of a trial led by a major stationery and office supplies company in which urban freight deliveries in central London made from a depot in the suburbs using diesel vehicles were replaced with the use of an urban micro-consolidation centre located in the delivery area together with the use of electrically-assisted cargo tricycles and electric vans. The results show that the total distance travelled and the CO2eq emissions per parcel delivered fell by 20% and 54% respectively as a result of this delivery system. However, the evaluation has also indicated that the distance travelled per parcel rose substantially in the City of London delivery area as a result of the electric vehicles having far smaller load limits in both weight and volume compared with diesel vans. But, at the same time, the trial system was able to virtually eliminate CO2eq emissions per parcel delivered in the City of London. The trial proved successful from the company's perspective in transport, environmental and financial terms. The company therefore decided to continue the operation beyond the end of the trial with it being officially launched during 2010.