The Nuclear Arms Race - Essay Sample

Introduction

The nuclear arms race was a supremacy arms competition of nuclear weapons between the United States of America and the Soviet Union together with their allies which was causing tension in the world hence causing the cold war. (Burns, 2) It is during this time that these two states were stockpiling their nuclear weapons-making other powerful countries in the world to commence developing nuclear weapons as well. The nuclear arms race was initiated by the Soviet Union when it detonated an atomic bomb in 1949. The atomic bomb that was detonated by the Soviet Union was in response to the destruction that was caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan by the United States of America in August 1945. (Ham, 14). The US used an atomic bomb to destroy these two Japanese cities. The United States of America tested a new and more powerful weapon which was a hydrogen bomb in 1952. The Soviet Union in the year 1953 tested its version. This continued to increase tension in the world.

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The tension continued to increase as the world was watching the two superpowers as they seemed to be moving nearer and nearer to using the nuclear bombs in the war. With both superpower countries having powerful bombs, the United States of America deployed a different strategy which was known as Strategic Air Command. In this new strategy, the US had its airplanes in the air at all times in readiness to send a response to the threat they had of a possible attack by the Soviet Union without any need of having airplanes in the skies. The arms race remained in existence until when the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty was signed in November 1990. The whole generation of this time was growing up under great threats of a war disaster. There was fear all over the world that humanity could not survive as the aggression was an imminent threat to the life of people in the world as a whole.

The stockpiles of the nuclear weapons that were experienced in most of the world's strongest economies posed significant threats to life. If a single careless lead or a conflict rose, this would have led to a fierce war which could have erased the presence of humankind in the world. The surrender of the Japanese in 1945 was suggesting that the United States of America had the most powerful on earth. The Soviet Union perceived the attack as a way of warning them.

The Soviet Union realized that the atomic weapons were not of great value and as a result, the leadership of the Soviet Union discovered the limitations of the atomic bomb of the United States of America. The Soviet Union embarked on a mission to manufacture a powerful weapon that the atomic bomb of the US. (Herken, 96)

Later, due to the cry of people to end the war tension that was building up every day due to heavy manufacturing and stockpiling of the nuclear weapons, talk to limit production and piling of weapons was conducted. In the 1950s it was generally agreed that the nuclear war and the concept of winning were unthinkable. Pessimism was developing that after the nuclear war, the suffering due to destruction, chaos, diseases, , and famine as well as nuclear fallouts would make those surviving to wish for death. However, some steps to reduce the tension that had built up in the world were made and this gave the world the hope for life again.

Work Cited

Burns, Richard Dean, and Joseph M. Siracusa. A Global History of the Nuclear Arms Race: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics [2 volumes]: Weapons, Strategy, and Politics. ABC-CLIO, 2013.

Ham, Paul. Hiroshima Nagasaki: The Real Story of the Atomic Bombings and Their Aftermath. Macmillan, 2014.

Herken, Gregg. The Winning Weapon: The Atomic Bomb in the Cold War, 1945-1950. Vol. 926. Princeton University Press, 2014.