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"For the first time humankind has the power to destroy itself." 1 The
nuclear age has changed the world, for the good and the bad. Though the bad, is
far greater than the good. We sometimes ponder to our selves, "what would happen
if we were forced in to a nuclear war ware their are now winners." The way life
would be after such an incident would change life as we know it drastically. In
the event of a nuclear war with the Soviets we would have lost approximately one
hundred and fifty million American lives. 2 The planet would be destroyed to
the extent that even thoughts who survived would have no place to live. No
Government, or persons, can win a nuclear war and as long as their are nuclear
missiles of mass destruction there will always be the risk of someone using them.
Once the first missile is unleashed their is no telling were it would stop.
Our dealings with the former Soviet Union was based on the French word,
detente, that the Russians had defined as a freedom to purchase subversion,
aggression and expansionism any were in the world. 3 The soviets have been, up
until 1990, the U.S's defacto enemies. There goal was too destroy democracy and
imposing communism. 4 This is way it was though to be inevitable for a nuclear
war with the soviets. "The dream of a non nuclear world is a great and notable
one, how ever for the foreseeable future it is unattainable in actuality and
unwise in theory." 5 Because of this harsh the United States is left with a
problem; How can we beet this so called inevitability? The answer is: space
based defense weapons. The program, brought forth by the Reagan administration,
was called the strategic defense Initiative, and some called "Star Wars." 6
Reagan's strategic defense initiative, created in the 80's, was an acceptable
for the U.S; it worked to convince the Soviets not only to reduce there nuclear
arsenal but to halt any chance for a nuclear attack by the Soviets.
" What is the worth of our society as we know it? Right now we hold an
entire population hostage." 7 Ever since the 1960's our main defense against the
soviets has been the MAD policy, Mutual Assured Destruction. Both the United
States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons at their disposal so that
if one fired at the other the one that was being fired at would fire it's
missiles at the other too. In other words, they would share the same fate.
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 a post-World War II struggle between the United States. and its allies and the group of nations led by the Soviet Union. Direct military conflict did not occur between the two superpowers, but intense economic and diplomatic struggles erupted in the country. Different interests led to mutual suspicion and hostility in a rising philosophy. The United States played a major role in the ending of the Cold War.
During the 1960s through the 1990s the United States was involved in a diplomatic standoff with the Soviet Union. Both nations were preparing nuclear weapons to immediate the other. Throughout the world communism was being spread by the power Soviet forces and the United States created the Truman Doctrine to stop the spread of communism in Turkey and Greece. They continued to combat the spread through wars and “rebellions”. Through the extent of the Cold War, the United States made it their mission to stop the spread of communism. This plan both worked and failed in diplomacy throughout Europe, Latin America, and Asia.
The United States gained supremacy by using the atomic bomb as a threat to force their enemies to surrender. After Japan led an attack on Pearl Harbor, the American forces retaliated by dropping an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and then threatening to do the same on Nagasaki. “We have just begun to use this weapon against your homeland. If you still have any doubt, make inquiry as to what happened to Hiroshima when just one atomic bomb fell on that city” (Department). This shows how the atomic bomb was used as a means of intimidation; the use of the atomic bomb forced other countries into submission by threatening them with nuclear attack. Furthermore, the United States made it clear to its enemies that they had alternative options for reconciliation before nuclear attacks were to take place. The President of the United States explained “thirteen consequences of an honorable surrender,” and urged that Japan “accept those consequences and begin the work of building a new, better, and peace loving Japan” (Department). This demonstrates the use of an ethical appeal by the United States because it arrouses ones sense of duty to preserve peace. While war was inevitable, the U.S. hoped that the threat of nuclear destruction would force other countries into negotiating peace instead of fighting. Evidently, by using nuclear threats as a form of intimidation, the U...
Scott D. Sagan, the author of chapter two of “More Will Be Worse”, looks back on the deep political hostilities, numerous crises, and a prolonged arms race in of the cold war, and questions “Why should we expect that the experience of future nuclear powers will be any different?” The author talks about counter arguments among scholars on the subject that the world is better off without nuclear weapons. In this chapter a scholar named Kenneth Waltz argues that “The further spread of nuclear weapons may well be a stabilizing factor in international relations.” He believes that the spread of nuclear weapons will have a positive implications in which the likely-hood of war decreases and deterrent and defensive capabilities increase. Although there
The end of the world. Though this seems like something that will not happen for a million years the world came close to it during the early twentieth century because of the cold war. The two most powerful nations of the time were locked in an arms race/cold war. If one of the leaders of the United States and its allies, or one of the leaders of the Soviet Union and its allies had made one wrong move, it could have caused the end of the human race. To deal with this scary time both leaders had to take action to keep their people safe, while maintaining peace. But to a leader of a country something more important than peace is the safety of the country. Khrushchev had to take actions to keep his country safe. Khrushchev did not succeed in strengthening national security because of one huge mistake he made with Cuba.
The Cold War,said to have lasted from the end of World War II to the dismantling of the Soviet Union in 1991, was one of the most significant political events of the 20th century. For nearly 40 years the world was under the constant threat of total devastation, caught between the nuclear arsenals of the United States, Great Britain, and France on one side and the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China on the other. Any crisis precipitated by the struggle between the forces of democracy and communism could trigger a nuclear exchange of such stupendous proportions and overwhelming horror and suffering that would render life on earth utterly impossible. In reality, this Cold War was a tense political period between the Democratic and Communist blocs, the East and the West, and most importantly, the United States and the Soviet Union. Although this period has now come to an end, many disputes have been raised concerning the initial conference at Yalta near the end of the Second World War, and the actual causes of the Cold War tensions involving Communist and American aggression.
Russia would have been isolated from Europe by a distance. With its advancements in technology, the Soviet Union was fast connecting with Europe. No more was it isolated, it became the center of attention. Had Russia not been ill-equipped with the political struggles of Europe, its power and interest after WW2 would have declined. Even with its nuclear capabilities, Russia would have been far less likely to use such a devastating device, had the country’s political involvement declined to pre-war levels.
...nce World War II to the present day, the technology of nuclear power has increased significantly in terms of energy output and safety. The energy efficiency of nuclear power is far superior to its counterpart fossil fuel and renewable energy. Compared to fossil fuels, tiny amounts of fuel used by nuclear reactors is equivalent to a large sum of coal. This is a no brainer. Why mine a ton of coal when a little uranium can be used to gain the same amount of energy? Not only is it efficient, it’s safe to use. Used fuel is packed away in storage safely, so there isn’t any chance of radiation leaking out. In the present day, nuclear power incidents haven’t been occurring lately. Advancements in technology and equipment used have made nuclear energy a very reliable and safe source of energy. With today’s energy needs, nuclear power has the ability to keep up in the race.
The Atomic Bomb It is agreed by many parts of our society that one of the main atrocities committed by the human being took place on August 6th and 9th, 1945 in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. Over 170,000 innocent Japanese individuals died due to the dropping of two atomic bombs created in the United States. This transcendent historical event suddenly ended the bloody Second World War and gave the start to a new one, the Cold War, which in fact led to an atomic weapons race between the Soviet Union and the United States of North America. It is constantly argued if the effect that the mentioned ending of the war had was positive or not to its resolution, and if the entire world got any benefits from it, but the action of dropping the nuclear weapons on the Japanese cities by the American government was completely unjustified, unnecessary, and unfair. Japan was the only nation that was still fighting against the allied countries when Germany surrendered, and its army was in very poor conditions: its troops were considerably weak, its amount of armament was running out, and the government was about to surrender in a matter of months.
Ronald E. Powaski, March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 106.
From the creation of nuclear weapons at the start of the Cold War to today, the world has experienced struggles fueled by the want of nuclear power. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s nuclear weapon program are some of the most important conflicts over nuclear weapons. Thanks to the use of nuclear weapons in 1945 to end World War II, the world has come extremely close to a nuclear war, and more countries have began developing nuclear power. Unmistakably, many conflicts since the start of the Cold War have been caused by nuclear weapons, and there are many more to come.
In the minds of many Americans Ronald Reagan is the president that ended the Cold War, but is this view accurate? They claim Reagan's unprecedented military spending forced the Soviets to crumble. However, many critics of the president's outspending theory claim that the Russian economy would have imploded without such spending, and a military buildup of that kind did nothing but delay peace. Although, Reagan's willingness to negotiate was a clear factor in ending the Cold War, his aggressive arms race may have done more to forestall peace than abet it. The ascendance of Mikhail Gorbachev to power, the stagnating economy of Russia, and the personal friendship forged between Gorbachev and Reagan were the clear factors that contributed to the war's end.
This is the concept behind the arms race between America and the Soviet Union, anything America did, the Soviets thought they could do better. Deliberately, once the Americans had played their hand with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Soviet Union's started to gather a hoard of nuclear bombs. This was part of the tension that was in the air, it was fuelled on by the threat of Mutually Assured Destruction. Mutually Assured Destruction, or more commonly called; M.A.D was a major point in the time period of the Cold War, as it was where both the Soviet Union and America were on equal playing fields and could wipe out each other and the world with their nuclear arsenal. It was keenly hanging over everyone’s head, not a single soul was safe. As one of the Soviet’s prominent leaders Nikita Khrushchev
New inventions are created daily; however, it is those that truly change the world that are remembered. The use and discovery of atomic energy negatively impacts the world because of the danger it entails. Many people across the world believe that the use of atomic energy is a mistake based off of past events that have occurred such as the bombings at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The abuse of atomic energy has been proven to damage society’s morale, population and could potentially destroy entire populations.