Content of Soviet/Russian war-threat in the speech of U.S. political elites

Amid the Russia-Ukraine war, political and academic debates have intensified on whether the security situation is returning to the Cold War era. To contribute to this discourse, this research aims to explore whether U.S. officials are securitizing the Russian threat and how their rhetoric compares to the Cold War times. Theoretical framework of this research is based on the Copenhagen School of securitization developed by Wæver and Buzan. The content analysis method is applied to examine the perception of the Soviet/Russian threat in 26 speeches by U.S. senior officials on four cases: Soviet war in Afghanistan in the 1980s, Russia-Georgia war in 2008, annexation of Crimea in 2014, and full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Three main categories of threats are analysed: military, political, and economic. The findings reveal that the events of 2008, 2014, and 2022 did not bring a direct reproduction of Cold War rhetoric. Russia is not communicated by U.S. officials as a direct military threat to their country, but the U.S. could be forced into confrontation through a possible attack on a European NATO member. Economic threats are no longer linked to systemic ideological dogmas, but autocratic and conservativenationalist governments are perceived as security challenges for democracies.