Nuclear Weapons In The Cold War

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.

World War II ended suddenly as America destroyed two Japanese cities not with traditional strategic bombing, yet with the extremely powerful atomic bombs. As a result of dropping the atomic bombs, the world was thrust into the nuclear age. Just a few short years after World War II, the Korean War started. The Korean War challenged many assumptions held about war within a nuclear era. Three of the assumptions challenged were that nuclear weapons would deter war, that war would not be limited, and finally, that the Soviet Union would be America’s next military enemy.

Topic: Nuclear weapons in the 1940’s to 1990’sThesis: How have nuclear weapons changed over timeNuclear weapons have changed so much since the first nuclear bomb test launch in 19451 that was when it all began they have changed a lot in the short time they dropped the first on hiroshima that one killed more than 140,000 thousand people. More people died later from radiation related illnesses. Three days later another bomb was dropped on Nagasaki and 74,000 people died in that explosion and at the time cost the US 2 billion dollars just to make one of the bombs and the tested a couple of them too.1 http://www.atomicarchive.com/Timeline/Time1950.shtml

Today, it is known everywhere that if a nuclear war is waged, it could mean the destruction of our world as we know it. Nuclear weapons were used to end World War II, and they could very well be used if WWIII occurred, it may end also using nuclear weapons, which could destroy us. Albert Einstein once said, “I know not what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones” (“I know not…”Einstein, Albert). Einstein was implying that WWIII would set humanity to the Stone Age. Our country and the rest of the countries with nuclear weapons need to get rid of them before one of us start a war.

A nuclear weapon is one that possess enormous destruction power derived from nuclear fission which is either a nuclear reaction or a radioactive decay that eventually lead to a massive release of a large amount of energy. Throughout history many nuclear weapons have been developed and used. Over time a simple scientific discovery has manifested itself into a massive and destructive yet very important piece of history that has greatly affected the world today.

Nuclear deterrence was a key component of American security during the Cold War. The nuclear stockpiles accumulated by the United States and Soviet Union throughout this time period produced a situation of mutual deterrence. The catastrophic risks of a nuclear strike kept the countries from all-out war. In the aftermath of the Cold War, both the U.S. and Soviet Union took steps to reduce their nuclear arsenal, first in the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Treaty (INF) then with START I (Pifer, Bush, et al, p. 8, 2010). New START, like its predecessors continues the bipartisan process of reducing U.S. and Russian strategic arms. In doing so, the Treaty presents several key benefits to U.S. national security.

The time period in which the Cold War occurred—roughly 1950-1990—was a tense one. Two major world superpowers were set to face off with one another on a major scale. Both the United States and the Soviet Union had built up well-documented nuclear capabilities. As tensions rose and time went on, the world was on edge. This edginess, I argue, continues to this day. In this essay, I will discuss the issues of the development and proliferation of nuclear weapons during the Cold War, as well as the downward pressure towards sub-strategic conflict and its effect on the post-Cold War world.

The picture above illustrates the devastation of nuclear weapons in war. It was a tragic day for the entire world on August 6, 1945. On this fateful day in Hiroshima was the first use of nuclear weapons in war, on innocent civilians. In less than a billionth of a second, 70,000 people were killed on impact. That is 20% of Hiroshima’s population, gone. Approximately 200,000 suffered the wrath of nuclear radiation. This is an estimated 270,000 people affected by this weapon out of a population of about 350,000 people . From this day forward these weapons of mass destruction have not only made an impact on the land it was detonated on, but have opened a can of worms on the generations of people following it. The cold war following close

Although nuclear weapons were last used in WW2, research and development of nuclear weapons have still been on-going and progressing rapidly since the initiation of the first nuclear project in 1942. However, current states that are in possession of such Weapon of Mass Destruction (WMD) to deter threats from other Nuclear-Weapon States (NWS), and to avoid an all out nuclear war, in particularly during the Cold War. Today, several noted groups and individuals supporting the abolition of nuclear weapons have revived the debate, and revaluate the roles of such weapons in the modern security environment of today. Individuals and groups such as several retired military officers who once held the highest “nuclear commands” during and after the Cold

The post World War Two nuclear arms race can arguably be seen as the defining event of the Cold War. For the first time in history a weapon had been created that had the potential to end humanity as we knew it, a weapon with such power that one single use could decisively change the course of war and reduce a potent enemy to an impotent conquest. Yet it is because of the magnitude and influence of this weapon that the nuclear arms race began and then grew, and ultimately remained just that – a race: two competing blocs chasing nuclear supremacy over the other, without ever committing to its use. The post-war nuclear arms race is therefore defined as the competition during the Cold War between the United Sates and the Soviet Union for nuclear weapon supremacy. Allies of these two countries were aligned in opposing blocs and did pursue their own nuclear weapon programmes, however none engaged in warhead production on the same scale as the US and the USSR.

If one were to believe that an official written history of North Korea during the past few years, the political developments in North Korea after 1945 and until the date entire communist movement seem to have been relatively simple.

Before the Second World War nuclear weapons did not exist, but by the end of the Second World War that was not the case. The United States initiated a top secret program coded named the Manhattan Project, which goal was to develop a nuclear bomb. The United States successfully tested its first nuclear bomb in New Mexico on July 16th, 1945. Three weeks later two atomic bombs had been dropped on the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan, which have been the only use of nuclear weapons in wartime. The atomic age had begun, and the race to acquire nuclear weapons started across the globe. Originally the United States was the only state to have access to nuclear weapons in the world, but that has changed over the last seventy years.

Nuclear weapons have vastly impacted the world, starting from the use of the atomic bomb in World War II. Simply stated, nuclear weapons are explosives that are manipulated by nuclear reactions. The improvement of nuclear weapons took years of experimentation and research dating back to the 18th century. Numerous individuals support nuclear weapons in light of their compelling capacity to serve as deterrents of war and their capacity to safeguard parity, globally. The principle safeguard for nuclear weapons originates from the thought that nuclear weapons are going about as deterrents. Various specialists have concentrated on the adequacy of this capacity and depict how the rate of the world 's populace lost to war every year dropped significantly with the onset of atomic prevention. The

Nuclear weapons are the most powerful and destructive technology ever created. From the first notion that nuclear technology could be harnessed to create a bomb, massive amounts of time and energy (as well as government funding) have been invested in further increasing the destructive yield of nuclear weapons. The process of development was carried out independently by governments worldwide. Despite the segregation of groups of scientists and secrecy surrounding their discoveries, design strategies and problems remained basically the same in all development projects with similar solutions being realized more or less concurrently. The first and most basic fission bomb quickly evolved to produce higher and higher yields. Through

Since the end of the Second World War, nuclear weapons have helped to maintain a stable peace. The bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki in the closing days of the war are, as of 2014, the only nuclear weapons ever used in battle. In the decades that followed, there was a steady buildup of nuclear arms by the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War, which lasted for nearly the entire second half of the 20th century, resolved itself peacefully with no nuclear weapons being fired. The fact that neither the United States nor the Soviet Union used their weapons during the decades-long Cold War shows that nuclear arms are an effective deterrent in times of global tension. Kenneth Waltz wrote that “deterrence operates by frightening a state out of attacking, not because of the difficulty of launching an attack and carrying it home, but because the expected reaction of the attacked will result in one 's own severe punishment” . The fear of “mutually assured destruction”, the term coined