The nuclear inventions during the Cold War made wars suicidal and indestructible for the first time. Initially, the breaking point of the divergence in the nuclear arms race was when President Truman tried to scare Joseph Stalin with the development of the atomic bomb. The attempts to create the atomic bomb succeeded and President Truman took advantage to frighten Stalin at the Potsdam Conference. As a result, Stalin had spies who notified him of the success of the atomic bomb. This pursued Stalin to create his own bomb (Foreign Relations). The two leaders’ realization of their conflicting political ideologies accelerated the race for nuclear weapons.
The competition to produce and invent new nuclear weapons required knowledge for chemical engineering. The start of this scientifically and mathematically focused direction of nuclear weapons nevertheless influenced education systems in the United States. President Eisenhower implanted the Education Reform, which led the students towards advance science and math applications. This in turn contributed to the nuclear arms race as it prepared the younger generation for a future arms race. So, even children at the time were aware of the Cold War influence.
The major inventions during the Cold War included the Hydrogen Bomb, the Nuclear Powered Submarine, and the Computer Guided Intercontinental Nuclear Missiles. The Hydrogen Bomb was first tested in 1952; it explodes violently when reacted with an intense amount of heat. Unlike the Atomic Bombs used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II, these Hydrogen Bombs are much stronger with intent to damage anything within a one-mile radius. Moreover, heavy particles of radiation will fall to the ground, affecting the environment and healt...
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...e Soviet Union, United States went into a panic of fear. This critical event was the peak of the war; it was the most tensed and anxious moment as both sides prepared to implement their weapons that they have been producing. For thirteen days, the United States and the Soviet Union were on high alert; the Cold War almost turned “hot”. Perhaps the fear stems from the fact that there is no defense against nuclear attacks. If the missiles placed in Cuba were to be fired, Florida would have had no defense. There is nothing that could stop a powerful missile launching its attack on a set destination. Eventually, diplomatic figures made negotiations and agreed to the 1963 Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (Blight). Despite this treaty however, the world came into fear once again when another communist nation, China, entered the scene before the imminent fall of the Soviet Union.
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
The creation of the hydrogen bomb, moreover the summoning of an arms race, spawned worldwide desire for nuclear arms, and worldwide fear for those who had them; The effects of such can be seen in the economic and diplomatic benefits exhibited by those with enough stamina and vigilance to endure its costs, and in the extreme measures taken by countries, nominally the United States, to respond to the security threat posed when other countries owned the bomb. Furthermore: For those whose economy could afford it, nominally the U.S., USSR and India, economic and diplomatic benefits followed its creation; For the U.S., following the creation of the bomb by enemies were extreme defense tactics; For all the benefits and costs compelled a worldwide
In 1945, America terrified the world by using the Atom Bomb in Hiroshima and later in Nagasaki. This fear of the most powerful weapon ever created started a cold war between America and Russia. These two great nations had started the race for the super bomb, which would have each country trying to out do the other for decades to come.
In the world there is little thing called power. Many countries want to have great power, few get it. Powers gave the Soviet Union and the U.S. the ability to dominate in wars. In the 1950’s during the Cold War these two countries had a race to se who could create the most powerful weapon the world has ever seen, the Hydrogen Bomb. Edward Teller, an atomic physicist, and Stanislaw Marcin Ulam, a mathematician, "who together developed the Teller-Ulam design in 1951" for the Hydrogen Bomb (Teller-Ulam Design). Many people had their thoughts about why or why not the Hydrogen Bomb should have been built. What this essay will talk about is why the Hydrogen Bomb was built.
A cold war is an ideological conflict with military standoffs while keeping diplomatic relations open. The Cold War consisted of two sides (or Superpowers); the first was the United States, who believed in and practiced capitalism, the opposing side was the Soviet Union, who believed in and practiced the idea of communism. Many historians dispute the start time of the conflict; however, it began some time after World War II and dragged on until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1989. The Cold War Project Group Online claims “the advancement of technology during the Cold War was greater than that of any one time period” (“The Arms Race”). The war developed nuclear missiles and many other technological advancements taking the world into a new era, the Nuclear Era. It was estimated at one time the United States and the Soviet Union could nuke the world seven times over; the governments realized the pointlessness of so many nuclear missiles and turned their attention toward other ways to get an upper hand in the conflict. Tensions ran high during this time; without military confrontation, research and resources were redirected towards other fields of technology such as detection systems, surveillance equipment, and underwater technologies.
The Cuban Missile Crisis was not only the tensest confrontation between these two nations; it was also the most controversial. There have been many different theories as to why the Soviet Union set up nuclear-armed missiles in Cuba in the first place. One theory suggests that Stalin’s successor, Nikita Khrushchev, placed these weapons in Cuba because he felt endangered by the United States’ nuclear missiles in Turkey, which were a threat to the Soviet Union. Another theory proposes that Castro feared for another US invasion in Cuba, thus enlisting the help of their communist allies. Since the unsuccessful attack at the Bay of Pigs, Castro feared for another invasion, perhaps a more successful one of Cuba. But nonetheless, the Cuban Missile Crisis proves to be successful in which we avoided a nuclear war.
When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.
On January 31st, 1950. President Harry S. Truman announces his decision for the development of the hydrogen bomb. The hydrogen bomb was theorized to be way more powerful then the atomic bombs that were dropped on Japan during World War II. Five months earlier, America lost their powerful nuclear supremacy to the Soviet Union, due to the country successfully detonating an atomic bomb at their test site in Kazakhstan. Several weeks later, Britain and the U.S. intelligence came to the conclusion that German-born Klaus Fuchs, a top ranking scientists in the U.S. nuclear program, was a spy for the Soviet Union. With the collection of these events, Truman approved the massive funding for the superpower race to complete the world’s first “superbomb”.
The Cold War is famous not only for its long engagement between the two super powers, the U.S. and the Soviet Union, but also because of the heightened physical tension that nuclear power brought to the global stage. Winning the war at the cost of human annihilation was not abnormal political conversation, and from the 1940s onward, fear of global destruction became a daily concern (Granieri, 2011). The circumstances of the Cold War made it different than previous international conflicts because it was the first conflict that could potentially lead to massive, worldwide destruction. Without the dangers of nuclear power, the Cold War wouldn't have differed much from previous historical conflicts between powerful states.
Technology has allowed for the furtherance of warfare, from the invention of gun powder to the splitting of the atom. These findings have propelled the leap of numerous nations’ in the ability to wage war against each other. Of these discoveries, the splitting atom spawned an invention that would hurl the world from conventional warfare into the nuclear age. These ideals were the brainstorming of some of the greatest minds in America and abroad. These scientists began to formulate the creation of the atomic bomb, a device that would change the world in ways that had never been imagined before.
After the United States developed the atomic at the end of World War II, interest in nuclear technology increased exponentially. People soon realized that nuclear technology could be used for electricity, as another alternative to fossil fuels. Today, nuclear power has its place in the world, but there is still a lot of controversy over the use of nuclear energy. Things such as the containment of radiation and few nuclear power plant accidents have given nuclear power a bad image. However, nuclear power is a reliable source of energy because it has no carbon emissions, energy is available at any time, little fuel is needed for a lot of energy, and as time goes on, it is becoming safer and safer.
Smirnov, Yuri, Vladislav Zubok. “Nuclear Weapons after Stalin’s Death: Moscow enters the H-Bomb Age.” Cold War International History Project. March 1994.
The incident of the Cuban Missile Crisis still connects with us today because the power nuclear weapons present, which provides incentives for countries to want them. Although nuclear technology was around prior to this incident, the power they represented didn’t fully develop till this time. Since the crisis five new countries have attained nuclear weapons, the lack of concern for the proliferation of the club is worrying. If a nuclear war broke out between India and Pakistan (both of whom have nuclear weapons) over a billion deaths would result. The burning cities would create enough smoke and ash to choke off the sun, leading to worldwide famine. Another way the Cuban incident applies to today is the possibility of nuclear terrorism. Republican Senator Richard Lugar conducted a survey of 85 national security experts which reached a similarly alarming conclusion. Although nuclear weapons were around prior to the Missile Crisis, we were never as close to the horror of nuclear war. "This Government, as promised, has maintained the closest surveillance of the Soviet military buildup on the island of Cuba," President John F. Kennedy began in what has to be counted as the scariest presidential address of the Cold War.
However, on August 29, 1949, the Soviet Union shocked the entire world with their first nuclear bomb named “First Lightning”. The world did not think that the Soviet Union was this far along in their nuclear weapons. The United States felt threatened. The nuclear arms race had began.
Carey Sublette, 15 May 1997, Nuclear Weapons Frequently Asked Questions Version 2.14 [On-line],http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Nwfaq/Nfaq5.html, 9th of April. 2006