Conceptual Metaphor and U.S. Strategic Defense

This dissertation asks how it was possible for national missile defense (NMD) in the US to have been revived in the early 1980s and approved for deployment in 2002, despite the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty of 1972, despite the end of the Cold War, and despite chronic concerns about NMD's feasibility, cost, and rationale. I argue that the survival, revival, and eventual deployment of strategic defense from 1983-2002 were facilitated by conceptual metaphors—the mental constructs that connected missile defense discourse to other meanings like SHIELD, VISION, JOURNEY, ROGUES, and PROLIFERATION. These metaphors worked in both a cognitive sense and a rhetorical sense. In cognitive terms, metaphors shaped the decision-making of policymakers, predisposing them to support NMD. On the rhetorical front, these same metaphors made it difficult for policymakers to offer socially acceptable arguments against missile defense. Thus, policymakers were ‘rhetorically coerced’ into expressing support for NMD.Ph