The speech reflected Eisenhower’s belief that while arms were certainly expensive and might have seemed wasteful, they provided the foundation for order in a disordered world. He asked Americans to accept the basic unpleasant fact about the cold war: To deter war, America must prepare for it. And that meant investing in science, technology, and education as well as arms manufacturing. For Eisenhower, the purpose of such a titanic effort was not war but peace—an armed and anxious peace, but peace nonetheless. Here lay the basic national security principles of the Age of Eisenhower.
