Though most people have never thought much about it, mankind nearly became extinct in a war that had no actual fighting; this war got the name the Cold War (SV; SV). The Cold War was the building tension between the United States and the Soviet Union some years following WWII. Nuclear weapons had a substantial influence on the Arms Race during the Cold War. At its peak, the two super-powers had enough nuclear weapons to kill everyone on Earth! Though the Cold War had many different aspects during the stockpiling of weapons, the most influential was the invention of nuclear weapons.
Nuclear Weapons research started in the United States with the creation of the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project was started when a scientist from the UK came to the United States with the idea of creating a new, more powerful bomb. The first test was done in Alamogordo, New Mexico on July 16, 1945. This test showed the world that we had new technology that could be extremely dangerous for our enemies. The Soviets tested their first nuclear bomb four years later in 1949 (“Nuclear Warfare”).
The Arms race continued and soon the weapons started to become much more deadly than anyone could have every predicted. “From 1951-1965 the U.S. averaged producing 2,108 nuclear weapons a year,” (Lindley). On May 12, 1951 the first Thermonuclear Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was tested in the United States; this bomb was so much stronger than the atomic bomb that research stopped soon after its invention (SV;SV). Soon the research shifted to submarine-launched ballistic missiles called SLBMs that were first tested in 1960 but were soon to be outclassed by a new, more advanced type of weapon (“Nuclear Warfare”).
Inter-continental ballistic missiles began to beco...
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...ton, an entire civilization could be destroyed within the blink of an eye.
Works Cited
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Kristensen, Hans M., and Robert S. Norris. “Global Nuclear Weapons Inventories, 1945-
2013.” Bulletin of The Atomic Scientists 69.5 (2013): 75-81. Academic Search Premier. Web 20 Feb. 2014.
Lindley, Dan, and Kevin Clemency. “Low-Cost Nuclear Arms Races.” Bulletin of The
Atomic Scientists 65.2 (2009): 44-51. Academic Search Premier Web. 27 Feb. 2014.
“Nuclear Warfare.” Hutchinson Encyclopedia. 2011 eLibrary. Web 28 Feb. 2014.
Weiss, Ann E. The Nuclear Arms Race: Can We Survive It? Boston, Massachusetts,
Houghton Mifflin Company, 1983. Print.
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 Cold War was the most important historic event in the 20th century after the Second World War, from 1945 till 1991 between two most powerful countries in that period – Soviet Union and USA. The Cold War invested a lot in world politics. What is the Cold War? This was a war for dominance in the world. In 1945 the USA was the only one country in the world that had the nuclear weapons. But in the 1949 USSR started to learn their nuclear weapons. In further developments forced the USSR was soon created by nuclear, and then thermonuclear weapons. (Isaacs J, 2008) Fight has become very dangerous for all.
The super bomb in which America and Russia were trying to build was in fact the Hydrogen Bomb. This bomb had an unlimited blast potential and for the country who possessed it unlimited power. The A-bomb’s explosion was based on the principal of fission (the splitting of atoms), however the H-bomb’s explosion was base on fusion (the coming together of atoms). In August of 1945 Russian President Stalin, turns up the nuclear project in Russia. He put Barria whom was in charge of the secret police, to head the Russian Nuclear program. An American scientist named Edward Teller solicited the American government to build the H-bomb. He was born in Hungary and had learned to fear the communists and the Russians. In April of 1946 the Super Conference was held. Klaus Fuchs was a scientist that worked for Teller at Los Alamos, he told the Russians how to build the A-bomb, and also about Tellers ideas of the H-bomb. He was arrested for spying for the Russians. By chance the Americans found out that there were traces of radioactive material in the air over Russia. They pieced together that Russia had the A-bomb they decided to go ahead with plans to build the super bomb. President Truman came to the conclusion that no matter how bad of a weapon the H-bomb was if was better if we had if first. America had lost some of its power and wanted to gain a new edge. General Curtis Lamay was put in charge of Strategic Air Command to protect America from the threat of nuclear war. Lamay was the ranking Air Force General over the Skies of the pacific and was the man for the job. His strategy was to have an abundant amount of bombers ready to strike every major city in the Soviet Union. He wanted everyone in the Army and Air Force to act as if war was not far away.
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.
As a conclusion, the development of the nuclear atomic bomb “First Lighting”, was an overall great success for the USSR and improved the security system. This would not have happened if everyone would have not worked together. As the years passed the inventions of nuclear weapons has gotten every time they create a new one.
According to Dwight D. Eisenhower‘s statement, nuclear warfare caused widespread panic throughout the globe about the possibilities of a nuclear holocaust. He stated, “If men can develop weapons that are so terrifying as to make the thought of global war include almost a sentence for suicide, you would think that man's intelligence and his comprehension... would include also his ability to find a peaceful solution” (“Biography of Dwight Eisenhower” ). The Cold War was nothing more than a rivalry that developed between the United States and the Soviet Union, at the...
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.
But during the Cold War, which began after the end of World War II and lasted until the early 90s , there was an arms race to ever-increasing weapons of destruction . At that time focused on the U.S. and its Western allies the power bloc of the former Soviet Union over . The fear in the population was large and early 60s the world was short of nuclear war .
In 1940, the US began to fund its own program for atomic bombing after learning that research was being held in Germany on the use of nuclear weapons. The United States named their program “The Manhattan Project” which was kept in secrecy. For the next few years, the scientists involved in this program started to generate the materials needed which were uranium-235 and plutonium-239. They were sent off to New Mexico to be made into a bomb and then the first test of an atomic bomb was conducted and found to be successful at the Trinit...
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs. This buildup of weapons by the two countries started The Cuban Missile Crisis (The Cuban).
The nuclear arms race was a race for nuclear dominance between the United States and the Soviet Union. It took place during the cold war. The definition of an arms race, made famous by nuclear arms race during the Cold War is a rapid increase in instruments of military power. A nuclear arms race is one where the instruments are nuclear weapons. The designs and testing of the first nuclear weapons during WWII by the US was called the Manhattan Project. The USSR was not officially informed about the Manhattan project until about 3 years later when Stalin was briefed at the Potsdam Conference on July 24 1945, this conference was 8 days after the first successful US test of nuclear weapons. They soon regretted telling the USSR from a fear that the USSR would inform German spies of the Manhattan Project or that the USSR would expect some insight on the technology of these weapons. In August 1945 a month after the Potsdam conference President Harry Truman ordered two bombs two be dropped on Japan, one hit Nagasaki and one hit Hiroshima. In the years after WWII the US had a monopoly on information about nuclear technology. Behind the scenes the USSR began work on their nuclear weapons but they were limited because of a lack of uranium. Then, the USSR discovered uranium in Eastern Europe which boosted their technology. nuclear experts predicted the Soviets would not have their first nuclear weapons until about 1955 but they detonated their first test nuclear weapon in 1949. The US tested their first hydrogen weapons at the Bikini Atoll in 1954. Both countries spent massives amounts on the quantity and quality of their weapons. For many decades the amounts of nuclear weapons and technology for the USSR and the US went back and forth. Curre...
The cold war was named so because between the USA and Russia, there was hardly any direct combat just a pile of tension, hostility, and potential violence. They were heading towards mutually assured destruction; using weapons of mass destruction which were the nuclear bombs and assuring inevitable destruction for both sides if there bombs were to go off and ultimate victory for none at the end. Each set of alliances, the Warsaw Pact and NATO competently created nuclear weapons to threaten the other one. Just in case either one of the countries decided to attack using their fatal nuclear weapon, then the other one wouldn’t just stand empty handed. Both USA and Russia found it their first priority to keep themselves as secure as possible by creation of nuclear arms. This resulted in a competition to be the most prepared and powerful, known as The Nuclear Arms Race.
The nuclear bomb was the most devastating weapon ever created by man. It was developed between 1942 and 1945 during the second World War. The project to build the worlds first atomic weapon was called The Manhattan Project. The nuclear bomb was based on the idea of splitting an atom to create energy, this is called fission. Three bombs were created, “Trinity”, “Little Boy”, and “Fat Man”. “Trinity” was dropped on a test site in New Mexico on July 16, 1945, proving the theories, engineering and mathematics of the bomb to be correct. Shortly after that, not more than 2 months, the U.S. performed the first actual nuclear attack in the history of war. The bomb “Little Boy” was dropped on the town of Hiroshima, instantly killing thousands. “Fat Man” was dropped shortly after on the town of Nagasaki. After the bombing almost all scientist involved with the creation of the bomb regretted its construction and spoke out against the abolishment of nuclear weapons.
In 1945, such a mechanism was created. The atomic bomb was created after many years of the study of atoms. Finally, a way to split the atoms was born. Germany was the first to try making a bomb. Efforts failed, but were picked up by the United States. Albert Einstein, although credited as the father of the atomic bomb, only lent support to begin American development. As it was to be, Robert Oppenheimer was the father of the atomic bomb. He directed the laboratory at Los Alamos, where the atomic bomb was designed and built. The whole development in the making of an atomic bomb was called the Manhattan Project. The first bomb was tested on July 16, 1945 in New Mexico. The end result was the dropping of two atomic bombs by the United States on Hiroshima. People had different opinions on the bomb, but they may have come to one conclusion had they known about the history of the atomic bomb, how it was created, and the effects the bomb had in the economy.
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.