[miles]

This is hardly the first time engineered paranoia has gripped the country ... I was a kid during the mid-to-late Cold War (post "duck and cover") and somehow I was never able to take it seriously.

Unfortunately, the threat was (and still very much is) real:

Stanislav Petrov: The man who may have saved the world http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-24280831

Thank you Vasili Arkhipov, the man who stopped nuclear war https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/oct/27/vasili...

Not that paranoia is a particularly useful response, but it did not require much engineering.

[cryptarch]

I first got the impression you meant something like "the Red Menace", but I take it you meant:

Engineered paranoia is still very real and a danger to our societies because of its reality-distorting effects that can result in violent overreactions.

Did I get that right?

[gumby]

Yes, that is precisely what I meant.

[cryptarch]

Thank you!

[nkrisc]

Those events, while very real dangers, were effects of the Cold War and the associated tension and paranoia, not the cause of it.