MAD and Boomerst throughout the Cold War

In 1949 the US formed a mutual defense alliance with Western Europe called the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. Truman had a hard time convincing Congress that this organization was necessary on account of American sentiment previously being avoidant of entangling alliances. The NATO charter pledged that an attack on one of the member nations constituted an attack on all of the members. Stalin’s aggressive actions at Berlin accelerated the American effort to use military means to contain communism. So the implementation of this alliance represented Truman’s willingness to disregard the tradition of neutrality. The Soviets also create an alliance called the Warsaw Pact countries that had the equivalent ambitions as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

During the cold war, both nations built up massive stockpiles of nuclear weapons to achieve nuclear supremacy over the other. Both the soviets and the US hoped to use nuclear weapons as leverage against each other by assuring Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD.

The NATO, also known as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, was a military alliance that was created as a response to the Soviet Union becoming a threat to the United States. They believed that this alliance would provide them with support and stability and protect them from any threats that they get from the Soviet Union. Document 4 states, "The parties agree that an armed attack against one or more of them in

In a excerpt from the North Atlantic Treaty (NATO) that was signed by United States, Canada, and ten nations of Western Europe in 1948 states that

After the Second World War, the United States and the Soviet Union emerged as superpowers and subsequently a period of tension and hostility arose, known as the Cold War. During this time, a new possibility of complete nuclear destruction that would claim the lives of many emerged, therefore “the easing or relaxing of tensions” on both sides was needed, this period would be known as detente. Both countries had been guaranteed mutually assured destruction as they had both managed to stay ahead in the development of nuclear arsenals. By the late 1960s the Soviets had surpassed the United States in intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM) by 1,300 to 1,054. Although the U.S was still ahead

Both, the United States and the Soviet Union, developed a capability to launch a devastating attacks through submarines even after sustaining a full attack from their opponents. This policy became known as Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD) both the United States and the Soviet Union knew that an attack upon the other would be catastrophic to themselves in theory restraining themselves from attacking the other. The risks brought by the use of these weapons was so horrible that they refrained from using their nuclear weapons. Both sides did not know capacity of the enemy's arsenal being an arms race in wish the country with the biggest gun or largest arsenal is the victor not knowing the exact capabilities of your adversary led to a massive production

In 1949 the United States agreed to sign the North Atlantic Treaty. Some argue. Like Senator Robert Taft, that the choice was fallible while others, like President Truman agreed with the nation’s decision. It can be evident to some that signing the North Atlantic Treaty was good judgement in order to prevent the rise of Communism, promote peace, and promote democratic governments. The world had just been shaken by World War II. The Allies had won, but many lives were lost in exchange for peace. Peace needed to be protected, back then, and now, this is why banding together was a good option for the Allies as the Soviets were building their own coalition slowly.

NATO: North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an intergovernmental military alliance which was based around the North Atlantic Treaty which began on April 4th 1949.

In 1947, after Harry Truman took over as President, was when tensions between the USSR and the United States finally sprung into what is now known as the Cold War. The spread of communism throughout Eastern Europe, China and Korea made Americans feel threatened by their increasing power and influence. Even after the war the United States continued operation in military bases which had the initial intent to protect against further Nazi advancement into Western Europe. Post-World War II these bases seemed to serve the purpose of maintaining a presence where their greatest perceived threat continued to grow. On the opposite side of the Cold War conflict, Josef Stalin and the Soviets grew ever more wary of the United States, who still were the country with Nuclear weapon capabilities at the time. So when Stalin called for the manufacturing of Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (Gatland, Kenneth. Manned Spacecraft, Second Revision. 1976. Pg 100) a viscous cycle ensued. For every technological advancement either the United States or USSR made from 1947 until the end of the 1960’s, the other would try to match or beat it with the justification that it was in the best interests of national security. The United States had its first successful ICBM in 1957 (Hall, Rex; David J. Shayler. The Rocket Men: Vostok & Voskhod, The First Soviet Manned Spaceflights. Pg 56) and once the Soviet’s developed their first successful Nuclear weaponry in 1949,

5 Paragraph review Nato & the warsaw pact NATO was an alliance formed in 1949 between the united states and other western nations to prevent and stop communism. The warsaw pact formed in 1955 it was the alliance between communist countries to do the opposite, keep and spread communism. These two alliances started tensions that lead to what is now called the cold war. I chose this topic because it lead to the scare of ww3 and the end of the world. These pacts also helped the world because there was so much pressure to be the best that many technological advancement would come as a result of the competition.

The cold war is regarded as one of the most peaceful eras in history. Little to no violence existed between the United States and the USSR during this time period; however, the promise of violence was ever prevalent. The reason this occurred was due to the promise of mutually assured destruction between the two nations. Both sides were equally

Article 5 is perhaps the most important and highly debated article in the treaty and it generally states that an attack against one country is an attack against them all This language was, at first, unacceptable to America because it implied that an attack against another country immediately warranted military action from the other member countries. The United States did not want to be obligated to provide any aid so they were forced to reevaluate the wording of the article. In 1949, they finally agreed on the official wording for Article 5, which kept the same premise that "an attack against one... shall be considered an attack against them all" but they added the phrase that an attack warranted "such action as deemed necessary". The slight difference in wording implies that the individual countries are not obligated to provide military aid but instead can respond in whatever way that they deem fit. And so, after agreeing on the official wording of the document, the Washington Treaty, which is the treaty that signified the creation of NATO, was officially signed on April 4, 1949 and was signed by all 12 founding countries. While this ended the controversy of creating the alliance, the issues did not end

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization was formed after World War II when the North Atlantic treaty was signed in 1949. The original countries were Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, the United Kingdom, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, and the United States. Greece and Turkey joined in 1952, West Germany in 1955 and Spain in 1982. Hungary, Poland, and the Czech Republic were admitted in 1999. Today, these 19 countries make up the alliance, which may be looking to add new members. NATO was formed as an alliance in which all the members agreed to help each other defend themselves against outside threats. These main outside threats were the recently

With keeping the above description of nuclear effects in mind, one can see the driving force behind the concept known as mutually assured destruction, or MAD. As a doctrine, the concept of MAD revolves around the notion that nuclear exchange, in a world with second-strike capability, means that neither side could emerge the victor; only that each sides would be destroyed by the other. With MAD, no side has anything to gain by attacking the other as it would likely result in an un-survivable counterattack; concurrently, no side can eliminate its nuclear weapons because it could then be overpowered by the other. Simply put, if there is no expectation of survival by counterattack, there is no reason strike period. Over the years, this balance and stability has been challenged by developments that skew the possibility of post-nuclear war survival. Ballistic missile defense or even conventional weapons that can achieve strategic effects break down the foundation of MAD by reducing successful strike possibilities; if one side can shoot down some of the other side’s missiles before they become a threat, then the chances are in favor of the side with that capability. (Bradley, 2015) Further, the concept of MAD seemed to lose the potency of truth recently. As the United States has reduced focus on its nuclear weapons programs since the Cold War ended, other states have increased the focus on theirs. The Russian Federation, as well as the rest of the world, has born witness to the

Since the creation of nuclear weapons, nuclear force has only been used twice. Nuclear bombs were dropped on both Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan by the United States, ending World War II. The destruction, both material and living, produced a sudden realization of the consequences of using nuclear weapons. Following World War II, states soon realized the potential of and the dangers of nuclear weapons. With the potential to destroy entire states, people and all, in a matter of seconds, treaties and agreements were quickly drawn up to prevent the use of nuclear arms. Treaties such as the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Force Treaty (INF), the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), and the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) called for a decrease in the production and a cease in testing of nuclear weapons to prevent the possibility of nuclear world wars and unnecessary destruction to the environment. When a nuclear bomb explodes, there are immediate effects from the nuclear blast such as thermal radiation and several kinds of radiation. Long term effects also occur such as fallout which destroys the climate and atmosphere of the earth. As such, the United States and Soviet Russia entered a Cold War once both states obtained nuclear capabilities since neither one would gain anything by using nuclear force because of mutually assured destruction (MAD). MAD meant that if one state were to launch a nuclear attack, the immediate