Transforming the 'enemy': A discursive analysis of the United States images of the Soviet Union

The purpose of my dissertation is to explore the processes by which an enemy is constructed and how that representation either changes or is altered when subjected to competing constructions of the enemy. The construction of the Soviet Union as enemy in the early Cold War is contrasted with the reconstruction of the Soviet identity in the Nixon administration, known as the policy of detente. In so doing I examine the processes by which this attempted reconstruction was stalled and ultimately forsaken. The rearticulated conception of the Soviet Union during the Nixon administration offers a study in how the preexisting conception of threat endures or changes when confronted with alternative conceptions of the enemy.; This is accomplished through an exploration of the construction of the United States as the self and the Soviet Union as the enemy/other. The relationship between the United States as self and the Soviet Union enemy is mutually constitutive---production of a state's identity is inextricably linked to the construction of the other. American identity was constructed in response to the differences of its perceived enemy. Soviet identity was articulated in contrast to its differences with the United States. These perceived differences provided a postwar framework of understanding about the nature and identity of each state and were retold and reconstructed with each act of government and citizen that supported these differences. Ultimately, the reconstruction of the Soviet Union as enemy/partner was abandoned. This process will be discursively explored to understand the construction of enemies and the durability of such subjects in the international system.