The Unparalleled Effect of Nuclear Technologies and Politics on the Outcome of the Cold War

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Of all the contending issues that fed the flames of the conflict that made up the core of the Cold War, none of them affected the outcome so much as the development and testing of nuclear arms and the politics surrounding their handling. After the long years of fighting during World War II, many of the old world powers were greatly weakened. The United States’ detonation of Little Boy and Fat Man over Hiroshima and Nagasaki respectively, brought the worlds attention and showed American superiority in technological and military might (atomcentral.com). Capabilities like this were far out of reach for any other country and would come to be one of the major factors in determining the balance of world power. Other countries coveted the influence the United States had come to hold. Primarily a country with completely different world views and way of life than that of the United States. This country was the newly formed Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Widely known as the U.S.S.R., they soon began to gain with the United States in terms of nuclear technologies. A rivalry began between these two nations, to become the undisputed world power. This rivalry would be apparent on a global scale for many years into the future, surfacing through the many altercations that were the Cold War. Although the Cold War, as a whole, was made up of many facets, the one primarily effecting the outcome was the same principal reason for the United States’ original placement as a world power: the possession of advanced nuclear technologies. A deadly race began between these two countries, a race for nuclear dominance, a race that would define the Cold War.
On September 3rd, 1949, the president of the United States of America, Harry S. Truman, announce...

... middle of paper ...

...ng for ways to protect them also, to finally find resolution. Even then, their usefulness and place of influence in the final outcome of the Cold War cannot be denied. The world is a different place in many ways because of them. The United States is a world power and the Soviet Union has all but disappeared, its vast amounts of nuclear weapons scattered around the world.

Works Cited

http://www.tsarbomba.org/ http://www.nuclearweaponarchive.org/Russia/TsarBomba.html http://www.coldwar.org/articles/90s/fall_of_the_soviet_union.asp http://www.atomcentral.com/hiroshima-nagasaki.aspx United Nations General Assembly and the Conference of the Committee on Disarmament. Convention on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, and Stockpiling of Bacteriological (Biological) and Toxic Weapons and on Their Destruction.
Implementing the Decisions of the Geneva Summit (c)

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