ABSTRACT
To explore how Cold War ideational legacies have shaped contemporary US foreign policy towards Russia it is necessary to identify US policy-makers’ understandings and narratives of the Cold War from that era – specifically the nature of US–Soviet relations and expectations for the post-Cold War era. These understandings and expectations are key Cold War influences that combine to form the ideational legacies that shape policy. Cold War influences are ideas, understandings or experiences that developed during the Cold War or through interpretation of its conclusion. Cold War influences are primarily cognitive but a small number also address organisational issues, such as institutional origins. There is a substantial literature addressing the importance of ideology and competing systems in the Cold War and the centrality of different political systems and values was a clear feature in US policy-makers’ stated understandings of the Cold War. There are competing literatures concerning US morality in the Cold War.
