Nuclear Arms Race
About the Nuclear Arms Race
The Nuclear Arms Race began due to the possession of nuclear weaponry. At the time the United States were the only ones who had atomic weapons but little did they know Russia had some too. In 1949 Russia released their first atomic bomb and that was the beginning of the Nuclear Arms Race.
During the cold war many people believed that the amount of nuclear weapons you had, determined how powerful you are. The U.S. built and exploded the H-bomb in 1952, followed by another H-bomb built by the Russians in 1953. The United States built the B52 which could fly 6000 miles and cause massive nuclear destruction, with a bomb like that it required huge financial support from the government; which was some thing the U.S. had but not Russia. Since Russia did not have a supporting financial government, they focused on creating bigger bombs which was a cost effective procedure. During the 1960's, Russia had started put in a lot of money into creating more bombs with bad quality; while the U.S. built less bombs with better quality and by 1961 there were enough bombs to destroy the whole world. ICBM and DEW LineOn October 1957, the world feared a missile attack when sputnik was launched which lead to the development of ICBM(Inter-continental ballistic missiles). This resulted in America building the DEW (Defense and Early Warning System) line across the Arctic. The DEW line was an air defense warning of invasions from the North American Continent, many of the supplies needed to build the line was delivered to the Arctic by air, sea, and river barge. It was declared fully operational on July 31, 1957.
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MADThe MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) was developed in 1960 to assure that if a country was attacked then they would retaliate back so there would not really be any winners, its kind of like that saying "What goes around, comes around."
Cuban Missile CrisisIn October 1962, a U-2 spy plane caught pictures of Soviets building missile sites on the island of Cuba. President Kennedy did not want the Soviets to know that he had found out about their missile sight, so he met with his fellow colleagues to discuss the situation.
To solve the problem, President Kennedy sent out ships to surround Cuba and act as a blockade so that they can keep anyone or anything from entering and leaving. Although his main reason was to stop the imports of any military supplies needed to complete the building of the missile sites. No one had any idea on how the Soviets would react to the negotiation, but it turns out they agreed to it only because the U.S. wont invade Cuba in return for them dismantling their weapon sites. Turns out that for 25 years the U.S. kept a secret, they relocated their nuclear missiles from Turkey. Even though the Soviets do not have missile sites in Cuba anymore, they still strengthened their military. |