The Flag Remains the Same - Part One -
At the peak of World War Two the U.S. was cranking out a Liberty ship in 8 hours, a B-24 bomber every 63 minutes, and a Sherman tank every half hour. The Military-Industrial Complex, within a few short years of its coming into existence, had become the largest war machine the world had ever seen. By the end of the war The U.S. was the global superpower, and by signing The National Security Act of 1947 into law, President Truman created the CIA and the National Security State.
War became the foundation of the economy and the Military-Industrial-Security Complex had no interest in dismantling itself. There must always be A War. There must always be An Enemy. The Soviet Union, the most valuable ally of the United States during World War II, became The Enemy, and communism became the all pervasive threat.
From Adam Curtis’s documentary Century of the Self Part Two - The Engineering of Consent:
“In 1953 the Soviet Union exploded it's first hydrogen bomb and the fear of nuclear war and communism gripped the United States.
… At this point Edward Bernays [Sigmund Freud’s nephew] was living in New York. In the 1920s he had invented the profession of Public Relations and was now one of the most powerful PR men in America. He worked for most of the major corporations and advised politicians, including President Eisenhower. … Bernays argued that instead of trying to reduce people's fears of communism, one should actually encourage and manipulate the fear.”
Fear fueled the consent given to the Military-Industrial-Security Complex, and it made certain Americans were propagandized with high-test boogeyman.