Nuclear Deterrence And The Soviet Union

When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.

The dropping of the atomic bomb was the first of many nuclear projects. The first project was called the Manhattan project. Three bombs were created, one was a test, and the two others were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, cities in Japan. These bombs created mass destruction for the two cities; buildings were obliterated, fires erupted, and radiation spread for miles. After foreign countries saw what the United States was capable of, countries all around the world started to develop their own nuclear weapons, creating a surplus of weapons of mass destruction. “Today, eight countries in the world have nuclear arsenals (weapon supplies). The United States and Russia (formerly part of the Soviet Union) have most of the world’s nuclear weapons. Other countries with nuclear arms include China, France, India, Israel, Pakistan, and the United Kingdom” (Kroenig). Following World War Two, the Soviet Union and the United States were leaders of nuclear weapons. This period was called the Cold War. Forty-five years of potential nuclear destruction loomed over the Soviets and Americans. It wasn’t until after the Cold War that diplomats created the Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty. The Nuclear Non Proliferation Treaty, or NPT for short, recognizes the United States, Russia, China, France, and the United Kingdom as nuclear weapon states. Nearly every country in the world is a member of the treaty, even if they do not possess nuclear weapons, by law they state that they are a nonnuclear

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

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 Cold war was a time of hardships in the mid 1900s and continued having a war between the two superpowers for which would have more of a sphere of influence on the nations worldwide. Sphere of influence, nuclear weapons, and propaganda were main ways on how the Cold war had started and were a few of the many “weapons” used in alternating ways for the war. Cold War began in many ways, but a few main ones were the nuclear weapon warfare, the sphere of influence among the two superpowers, the Soviets and the United States and the ways the two nations used propaganda to promote their ideologies on their citizens and others to gain influence. Nuclear weapons are a main source of conflict between the U.S.S.R and the U.S in the cold war.

In November, 1969, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begun. This was because of the economic impact brought by the nuclear testing and production. In May, 1972 the SALT I Treaty was signed. SALT I limited the size of the nuclear arsenals though SALT I did not limit the amount of nuclear warheads that could be placed on one missile. These were the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms and the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) the ABM treaty limited country’s to two Anti-Ballistic Missile sites, while the Interim Agreement halted each country's number of submarine-launched ballistic missiles and intercontinental ballistic missiles. This treaty lowered significantly the cost brought by the production of nuclear arms and also lowered the risk of nuclear war. A new technology, known as multiple-independently targetable re-entry vehicle allowed single missiles to launch multiple nuclear missiles at deferent targets while in mid-air. In the next 10 years, the Soviet Union and United States added 12,000 more nuclear warheads to their already built

First, the President lays out a clear desire to unilaterally pursue a reduction in arms between both the Soviet Union and the United States. Specifically, he calls for the reduction of Nuclear weapons with emphasis on medium and Long-range missile systems. Second, President Reagan calls for a complete ban on all chemical weapons. In pursuit of this goal, Reagan articulates that all countries move forward with the Intermediate Range Nuclear (IRN) Forces Treaty and make this disarmament a reality for all parties involved.

The third argument for the absence of nuclear weapons since 1945 is through the concept of deterrence. Deterrence is the measures taken by a state or an alliance of multiple states to prevent hostile action by another, in this case through nuclear weapons. Colin Gray is one theorist who believes

It has now been 53 years since the Cuban missile crisis. Even though disaster was averted, the world came too close to destroying itself to let the lessons of October 1962 played from our memories. In this paper, I will show while the nuclear strategic game between the United States and the Soviet union was so dangerous. Good intelligence is crucial to making good decisions in such a dangerous situation. Acquiring that good intelligence pros to be quite dangerous and the Cuban missile crisis. Also complicating matters was the fact that the two leaders of the crisis President Kennedy and Soviet leader Khrushchev, we 're getting catastrophically bad advice from the military experts and ancillary players

The big question for scholars may not be whether deterrence helped to prevent World War II but why leaders and lesser officials in both superpowers and so many scholars thought it was so necessary, and how, until the advent of Gorbachev, they repeatedly confirmed this belief tautologically. Such behavior has not stopped with the end of Cold War. Reputable scholars routinely claim that nuclear weapons have kept the peace between India and China and that American intervention in Iraq brought about an about-face in Libyan foreign policy. With the possible exceptions of Israel and conservative British defense analysts, the United States appears to stand alone in the faith it places in deterrence and the credit it gives it for preventing war.

The development of nuclear weapons helped to end World War II, but in turn created their own war between the United States and the Soviet Union. The development of modified military missiles such as the Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, or ICBM, by Americans and the Soviets, had an impact on the struggle of power of the Cold War. The importance of military involvement in the creation of modified missiles and engines were critical events of the Cold War. Additionally, the steps taken to get to space were a byproduct of this Arms Race and the Cold War. Because the United States and the Soviet Union feared what the other country would or could do with weapons of mass destruction and the thought of the opposing country being able to control

The historian Spencer Weart notes "You say 'nuclear bomb ' and everybody immediately thinks of the end of the world" The escalation of nuclear proliferation in and around the world, especially in the Middle East has led to the fear of nuclear war in the near future. Many countries built nuclear weapons because it felt insecure from the major nuclear states or from their neighbors conventional military or nuclear capabilities. This is the situation with China, India and Pakistan. Many other reasons encourage countries to seek nuclear weapons, but the main reason for acquiring nuclear weapons is the deterrence against any external threat and prevention external offensive that might lead to war. Nuclear weapons make such countries feel more secure, nuclear weapons can prevent war because countries will have the ability to deter any external aggression. At the same time, there is no guarantee that acquiring nuclear weapons may lead to nuclear war.

Non-Proliferation treaty (NPT) was signed in 1968 as a measure to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons capabilities. By 1986, more than 130 countries had ratified the NPT. The Test Ban Treaty was signed in 1963 to prohibit nuclear testing in the atmosphere, outer space and under water. More than 100 countries had ratified since then.

In 1945, a great technological innovation was dropped over Japan, the atomic bomb. Ever since the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the world has faced the threat of nuclear attack. In reaction to this, world governments have been forced to find a defense against nuclear attack. One solution to the danger of nuclear attack is the use of nuclear deterrence. Nuclear deterrence is the possession and launching of nuclear weapons for the sole purpose of defense and retaliation against a nuclear attack from another country. Nuclear deterrence is the best answer to the danger of nuclear war, resulting in world security and the prevention of nuclear war. However, some people believe

The American doctrine of deterrence stemmed from the development of nuclear weapons. Strategic analysts, using this development as a point of departure, recognized that a nuclear capability established a defense scenario that was, in fact,