No 5 (2023)

Every U.S. election, whether it's a mid-term presidential election or a four-year race for the highest office in the country, is destined to be "special." It cannot be otherwise, due to objective circumstances. There are no "non-special" choices. This is objective, because every time a new reality is created in the country, both in terms of a specific electorate, and in the nature of the current socio-economic circumstances, and in the context of a changing socio-political climate. The wisdom of the ancients has become a truism: you cannot enter the same river twice, which implies that the river of life is not a frozen swamp, unthinkably overgrown with aggressive algae and resting under its weight. What and why is typical for the interim 2022? Is it a coincidence that they are referred to as "extremely unusual"? How does the American political system operate and cope with the organization of life in the state and in society? As a result of the elections, there is a generational change of the ruling elite in the US Congress of the 118th convocation against the backdrop of the promised “red wave” that did not take place. In the meantime, the next presidential election in 2024 is already coming up.

This study is devoted to the analysis of the state and prospects of US-British cooperation in the field of the military-industrial complex after the start of the Russian special military operation in Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The paper focuses on the conceptual change in the development of the defense industry of the United States and the United Kingdom in the light of a fundamentally different nature of the conflict, which was not envisaged in the development strategies of the armed forces and Washington, and London. The study states the need to recreate complete production chains in the field of the military-industrial complex, new fundamental research to neutralize the challenges facing the national security of the two countries. The paper identifies the characteristic features for the defense industry of the UK and the USA, both advantages and disadvantages. Among the identified shortcomings, the most important are the division of production, a significant share of foreign components and the possibility of technology loss due to bankruptcy or closure of the enterprise. Ultimately, both the British and American defense industry, in order to preserve themselves and their further development, will have to make certain changes in the light of the ongoing processes in international relations and defense and security policy.

The article analyzes the approaches of the US Information Agency (USIA) to public coverage of the Apollo space program in the Soviet Union. The US government made a strong focus on space theme in its public diplomacy efforts, especially on the Apollo 11 Moon mission, thus seeking to neutralize the negative effect of the Soviet primacy in launching Sputnik and the first manned flight into space. At the same time, the space theme served as a cover for the USIA to broadcast to the Soviet audience theses about the superiority of the American economic and social model.