American conservatives had long feared that a standoff with the Soviet Union would constitute an ongoing emergency that would justify an expansive federal state, domestic reforms, conscription, increased taxation, and an American empire. In 1944, conservative Russell Kirk predicted that the New Dealers would seek to prolong the war to avoid another depression by creating a new enemy in the Soviet Union. Similarly, Felix Morley, a cofounder of the conservative weekly Human Events, worried that “the very real threat of Soviet Russia ... will be utilized to advocate the dissolution of the American Republic [and] the establishment of an American empire in its place.”

Anticommunism proved to be an irresistible force, however, and, under the leadership of William F. Buckley, Jr., most conservatives eventually supported state-aggrandizing Cold War policies. In exchange for their support they gained a strong anticommunist nationalism that united the various competing strands of conservatism into a vibrant new political movement. But they also lost the ability to limit the scope of the federal government. Just as the Cold War forced liberals to give up their idealism and become a little more conservative, so too did it force conservatives to give up their opposition to a militarized state and become a little more liberal.