Fear mongering is the key mechanism that sustains vast imperial infrastructure

Evidence

To move ahead with postwar plans, it would become necessary to pursue a Cold War posture that was both much more militaristic and more third world oriented and that ultimately depended on “scar[ing] the hell out of the American public.” Fear mongering has been central to the Cold War and the war on terror; it is an important mechanism through which a vast imperial infrastructure is maintained. — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 734

Categorization

• XREF: Extends the vault’s core causal claim that manufactured fear sustains empire — confirms continuity from Cold War to war on terror. — connects to: Imperial expansion is legitimized as defensive and sustained by manufactured fear.; Fear of an internal enemy is manufactured to secure consent for empire — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491; Hyping a dangerous world drives populations toward authoritarian leaders (+3 more)
• ADDENDUM: Supports the thesis that moral-panic imagery of threat drives policy — usable as corroborating precedent for the sacrifice/immodesty moral-panic dynamics too.
• corroborated: 3 independent passages support this claim — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of…, 734

Broader Connections

• Imperial expansion is legitimized as defensive and sustained by manufactured fear. #corroborates (0.95)
• Fear of an internal enemy is manufactured to secure consent for empire #corroborates (0.95) — Deepa Kumar, Islamophobia and the Politics of Empire, 491
• Hyping a dangerous world drives populations toward authoritarian leaders #exemplifies (0.80)
• Political fear generalizes intimate fears into societal threats and loops back. #expands (0.80) — Eddie S. Glaude Jr., Democracy in Black, 202
• The War on Terror functions as an imperial project spreading Islamophobia globally #expands (0.80) — Khaled A. Beydoun, The New Crusades_ Islamophobia and the…, 43
• The flexible terrorist category is repurposed against domestic movements threatening empire #exemplifies (0.75)