The national security state is the protection of citizens and the economy of the United States of America. Meaning to protect what runs the country and what is the foundation of working America. The national security state is to protect in any way possible, by getting citizens aware of the threat or even relocating people who may be endangered to a safe location. National security has many different subsections that monitor categories for potential threats, such as physical security, political security, economic security, and even the security of natural resources. Their sole purpose is the protection of the states and to stop any threats to the U.S.A. The cultures of secrecy are what was deemed the national security state was formed during the cold war. They were not always telling the country what they were doing nor were they telling citizens their plans during the cold war. There was a lot of illegal spying on citizens during the cold war and a lot of inhumane tests being done.
The national security state chose Nevada and Utah as their testing zones due to the low population of citizens and the fact that there was no environmental damage done due to it being mostly desert. Their idea was to run their nuclear tests in an area where spies could not hide in a crowd and survey what they were doing and to hide from the overall public of the U.S.A. so nothing could spread through the press. Their overall thought was flawless but was the start of many conspiracy theories and distrust in the government. Even though the cold war ended, the national security state is still thriving today. There are plenty of surveillance techniques being done through technology and cameras. There are even more categories of protection within the country. There are still threats to the country and there probably will never not be threats to the U.S.A. A national security state always will always be in service and constantly monitoring the citizens to contain any possible threats to the country.
I believe the intentions of the government were in the right place during the cold war. The government always wants to keep its citizens away from harm and living a happy life. But they went about it terribly wrong, spying on their own citizens and falsely jailing people because they feared they were Russian spies. It caused many people to start to really distrust the government, and I believe that it started creating hate towards the government that was not really there before the cold war. People feared they would be falsely accused as a spy and many people did not want to be seen in public due to this fact. Testing nuclear weapons without really telling the people what was going on was not the right idea either. It created many conspiracy theories and led people to wonder what other tests were being done behind the public eye. Overall the government had good intentions but again went about it poorly and recklessly.
Will Wright 
Kyle,
I thought you made really thoughtful comments about the purpose of the national security state and how it operates, whether that be in a moral or unmoral way. I found it interesting how you focused on how the national security state is ultimately for the benefit and safety of the people. In my post, I tended to focus on the harmful elements of this practice so it is nice that you can see both sides of story.
In your third paragraph, you touch both on the good intention of the United States while also their bad execution. While I understand that the political climate of the Cold War led the government to make decisions that were tough, I do not entirely agree that the United States’ intention was in good faith to begin with. There are so many precautions that could’ve taken place to put the lives and livelihood of our citizens first but at every turn, citizens were disregarded. I believe there could have been a better middle ground of national security and the rights of citizens.
I agree with you that the practice of national security is still in the works today. Something that I did not focus on in my post that you brought forward is the use of surveillance. The morality of surveillance is a very interesting topic to me, so I think it really adds to everything we read about in the essays.
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