Nuclear Consequences Of Nuclear War

In the aftermath of World War II, tensions heightened between the two dominant powers: America and the USSR. The differences between the ideologies of the communist USSR and the capitalist United States led to a rapid deterioration in relations. The era between 1945, which marked the end of World War II, to 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved, became known as the Cold War due to the fact that despite the lack of large scale conflict, both sides still feared a nuclear holocaust. Both the United States and the Soviet Union followed the military strategy of mutually assured destruction (MAD), meaning that neither side was willing to risk first attack lest the other nation retaliate massively . The fundamental tenet behind MAD that enabled it to serve as an effective deterrent was the idea of secondary strike capability. In essence, it was the ability of a nation to launch a counterattack and thereby ensure mutual destruction. Submarine launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) fulfilled this criteria admirably due to their ability to stay submerged for extended periods of time, the difficulty involved with locating a submarine, and their invulnerability to nuclear missile attacks when submerged. As a result, the United States attempted to corner this leg of the nuclear triad.

Since the invention of nuclear weapons, they have presented the world with a significant danger, one that was shown in reality during the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. However, nuclear weapons have not only served in combat, but they have also played a role in keeping the world peaceful by the concept of deterrence. The usage of nuclear weapons would lead to mutual destruction and during the Cold War, nuclear weapons were necessary to maintain international security, as a means of deterrence. However, by the end of the Cold War, reliance on nuclear weapons for maintaining peace became increasingly difficult and less effective (Shultz, et. al, 2007). The development of technology has also provided increasing opportunities for states

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

During the Cold War, the United States and the Soviet Union each constructed a supply of nuclear weapons. Soviet policy rested on the principle that a nuclear war could be fought and won. The United States embraced nuclear deterrence, the reliable threat of reprisal to prevent enemy attack. To make its threat substantial, the United States during the 1950s established and positioned several types of delivery structures for attacking the Soviet Union with nuclear weapons. Each one of these systems came to be known as the Strategic Triad. One part of the triad was a long range manned bomber that would deliver the nuclear warhead. The second would be land based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM’s). The third part of this triad was nuclear

While Nuclear energy may have been beneficial to the American government and its citizens in some ways, it reshaped the way Americans and the United States Government thought of the role of citizens in Nuclear America. Americans could not rely on their government to keep them safe anymore and the government, through misguided attempts at preserving and improving the citizens’ lives, were putting those very lives at risk.

Throughout all of history, humans have been creating weapons for waging war against one and another or to protect something that is important to them. Over time, the weapons that humans use have gone from just a simple wooden club, to a forged sword, and to high power firearms. However, throughout history none of the weapons created led to a stalemate among any of the world’s super powers until the mid twentieth century with the development of the atomic bomb by the United States and the Soviet Union. The reason why the development of the atomic bomb led to a stalemate has to do with the idea of mutually assured destruction. The idea behind mutually assured destruction is that if one-country attacks with atomic weapons then the country being

It is an ordinary Monday morning in New York City and you wake up to begin your day. Emergency alarms suddenly fill the air and you rush outside to see what could possibly be happening. Your neighbors are packing their cars and fleeing in a panic; you then hurry back inside to watch the news. The emergency broadcast system appears on the screen and informs you that nuclear missiles have been launched at the United States one of which is headed to your city. Reality strikes you as you realize that there is nothing you can do except await the impending death and destruction that is headed your way. The following was a possible scenario that could happen to a world with nuclear weapons. The possibility of nuclear war could be eliminated with the disarmament of nuclear weapons.

The real-life scenario mentioned above is just a prime example of what could happen, but the true dilemma is whether nuclear weapons should be a deterrence or a nuclear disarmament. “Nuclear deterrence is the threat of nuclear retaliation for a proscribed behavior, generally an attack upon the threatening state. The theory of nuclear deterrence posits that such threat, if perceived as real and likely to cause sufficient devastation, will prevent an attack or other proscribed behavior from occurring” (Krieger, 2011). The dilemma of nuclear weapons all began when the United States dropped atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. In doing so, it sent a nuclear deterrent message to other countries, particularly the Soviet Union, that the United States possessed nuclear weapons and was willing to use them (Krieger, 2011). In turn, the Soviets started their own nuclear program to deter the United States. This also led other countries, such as China, Britain, France, India, Pakistan and North Korea, to follow suit and build nuclear arsenals to deter the United States and the Soviet Union. Today this alternative seems to work, but the question remains for how long?

In Korea, the U.S. found itself unprepared to fight a conventional war having put far too much stock and time into the creation of nuclear weapons. Up to that point, two dominant views had prevailed in the U.S in regards to the future of war. One view held that the threat of a nuclear war would abolish warfare altogether through mutually assured destruction while the other reaction was that any new war would be a nuclear one and would lead to the destruction of the human race. The Korean war illustrated to Americans their previous miscalculations regarding the new face of war and also affirmed their fears of an inhuman and cruel communist enemy. It drew the Americans attention to the Soviet-Chinese-Korean effort that seemed to signal the drive

The Atomic and Nuclear bombs are weapons of mass destruction. Even before their use there was, "a petition among the scientists opposing the use of the bomb on moral grounds" (p 5, Simkin). Since there was no singling out a certain person in their use, both types of bombs will destroy everything and anything in their way. It's why they can be so useful. The use of an atomic bomb is a message to the rest of society, a statement of power and having the will to use it. Yet, it comes at the cost of thousands of civilian lives. People thought of it afterwards as, "a great atrocity: a mass killer of women, children and the aged, a cynical Cold War gambit, the blinding dawn of a tense and troubled half-century known as the Atomic Age" (p 2, Lifton and Putnam). The only way to combat this, is the threat of mutual destruction. The Cold War is a perfect example of this. There the Soviet Union and the United States threatened the use of nuclear weapons. If both sides had attacked each other, the world would have been doomed to suffer a nuclear winter for hundreds of years killing millions if not billions of people in the process. With the dissolvement of the Soviet Union in 1991, the "Red Menace" was mostly gone. Though to say the threat of nuclear war was over would be false. Until recently, North Korea

What would happen if the most powerful countries in the world started a nuclear war? In society, many people will agree that nuclear bombs are a threat to humankind and the all life on Earth. To this day, several countries still have nuclear bombs and weapons. This can affect the world because countries with nuclear weapons have even threatened to use these against other countries, which could start a third, more deadly, world war.

Nuclear deterrence was the lynchpin of United States national security policy during the Cold War. This strategy was particularly successful in containing the Soviet Union and offsetting its conventional military advantages in Europe. For many analysts, nuclear deterrence was directly responsible for keeping the Cold War “cold” by preventing World War III. Nuclear deterrence theory itself rests on several basic assumptions. First, deterrence can be used to prevent an international actor from pursuing a particular course of action by threatening significant harm if/when said actor follows through with an undesirable military course of action.

The term “Mutual Assured Destruction” was created when the Soviet Union began to become equal with the United States in terms of nuclear weapons. The theory

Nuclear weapons are the most dangerous weapons on earth. One can demolish a whole city, potentially killing millions, and exposed the natural environment and lives of future generations through its long-term catastrophic effects. According to the UNODA- United Nations Office for Disarmament Affairs (2011), “Although nuclear weapons have only been used twice in warfare- in the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945-about 22,000 reportedly remains in our world today and there have been over 2,000 nuclear tests conducted to date.” Nuclear weapons have been viewed as a threat to peace by world leaders. There have been debates of whether to let Iran and North Korea acquire nuclear weapons, leaders all around the world along with Liberals believe that it is a threat to peace and should limit the spread whereas neo realist have another belief that nuclear weapon can make the world a peaceful place. Because states would fear to attack each other. For example the Cuban missile crisis in 1962 and cold war- there were only threats and war did not happen because of nuclear deterrence. The Cuban missile crisis has frequently been portrayed as the only time where the world stood in the point of nuclear war between the superpowers. This is an example of how nuclear weapons were used to threaten the rival. Another examples would be that of India and Pakistan before they acquire nuclear weapon , they fought three bloody wars after having their independence but since 1998, after acquiring

The Cold War is over and some people believe that we do not need nuclear deterrence anymore. The U.S.S.R has fallen and Russia poses little threat to launch a nuclear attack on the United States. Because of this, Russia and the United States have begun disarming their nuclear weapons. The United States has reduced its nuclear stockpile of warheads from 31,265 in 1965 to about 10,455 in 2002, enough to use for deterrence ("Table of . . . "). This disarming agreement is only between these two countries and they will continue to keep a minimum number of these nuclear warheads to deter other countries. They realize that they are not a threat to each other,