The Arms Race and How it Changed the United States of America

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.

Starting in the 1949 with the explosion of an atomic bomb(RDS-1) in Russia and ending with the dissolvement of the Soviet Union, the nuclear arms race was an extremely tense few decades that forever changed the United States in many ways. The Arms Race is exactly what it sounds like; a race to amass more advance weapons. During these four decades, the Nuclear Arms Race affected Americans socially through instilling a variety of emotions ranging from fear, to awe of the power of the nuclear weapons, economically through enlarging governmental role within the economy and mostly importantly, the political impacts were more involvement required by the U.S government in world affairs and as a force against Russia.

Source C focuses on the American relationship with the Soviet Union and their indefinite competition to be better than the other, giving information about the commencement of the arms race between the two countries and their discreet battle over which country had the better security and defense system. This source contains information that is critical to one’s understanding of the American policies that were legislated at the given time period.

“There are currently 26,000 nuclear weapons in the world which is enough to destroy the entire human civilization twice” (Time for Change). The United States and Russia own 95% of them. Currently there are nine countries that obtain nukes: (US, Russia, India, China, UK, France, Israel, Pakistan, and North Korea). Before the production of nuclear weapons, war could be fought normally, could be conducted with an acceptable cost to the victor. Since most of the actual war could be fought and won on enemy grounds. After all, with the appearance of nuclear weapons and the dread of mutually assured destruction, wars happening now days are less likely to happen, because they would cause incomprehensible destruction to both the victor and the loser. Any perceived benefits of war are compensated by the possibility of astronomic costs. Serious-mindedness Nuclear weapons have assured our security for some time.

At the start of Why We Fight we are presented with President Dwight Eisenhower’s farewell address or his warning. “We now stand ten years past the midpoint of a century that has witnessed four major wars among great nations...we yet realize that America 's leadership and prestige depend, not merely upon our unmatched material progress, riches and military strength. (Eisenhower, 1961) Eisenhower states that we should be proud of our great country; however he warns us of the “military-industrial complex” that we will create and how it has now set its foot in American warfare. He urged that we build a strong national defense and create a diplomacy with the USSR. (Jarecki, 2006) His prophecy of this vast military-industrial complex was true.

The article, “Race to the Future. How America’s missile defense initiative blossomed into an international coalition,” was featured in The American Legion, a center-right publication, in August of 2015. The author of the piece is Alan Dowd. Dowd is a frequent author and head of the Center for America’s Purpose, a center-right organization. Regarding the critical eye, the article is accurate with a few pieces of misleading information. Throughout the article numerous solutions are presented and a discussion of different points of view is presented. Although the article is in favor of a national missile defense system, the author remains objective throughout the piece, and a large quantity of background information is provided, which helps the reader come to their own conclusions about a national missile defense.

With many nations around the world currently spending a great deal of capital on their military, it is evident that an arms race is recurring once again in history. This being the 21st century, many countries are becoming heavily focused on nuclear weapons more than anything else. The question is why is an arms race building up in the first place. One reason could be because of the international competition between nations. While this may be a general reasoning, different nations ostensibly have their own motives. However, one compelling factor regarding this is that it can generate an international conflict, a statement that is also addressed in the article "Is Nuclear Armageddon More Likely than Ever?" (by The Week Staff).

When you group social groupings, war and weaponry, and the economy together, there may not be an apparent similarity between the three items, however, it truly is apparent, and that similarity is the aspect of competition for power. Throughout the course of the history of the United States, the want for power has been a continuous competition. this competition has been apparent on both a national and international level over disputes of social labeling and values, a competitive industrial economy, and as well a fight to be on top in the scientific worlds of medicine and military through different examples in our past, present, and near future.

Before the weapons had been fully integrated into a comprehensive United States military strategy, there was an attempt to place them under the control of the United Nations. The reality of nuclear deterrence and strategy was based on multiple events which continued to shape and refocus the actions. The continued development of weapons with increasing yields and destructive power was coupled with the development of rockets as well as increasing sophisticated guidance systems.

In 1949, president Truman announced that Russia had successfully developed an atomic bomb, marking the beginning of a nuclear arms race; a competition between nations for superiority in the development and accumulation of weapons typically derived from political motivations. In this particular scenario, the U.S. and Russia each developed their own arsenals of nuclear weapons in an endeavor to gain dominance as the political mindsets of the countries were polar opposites; a capitalist United States in opposition to the communist Soviet Union. This political divide dragged in other countries such as Great Britain, France, and China, who also developed nuclear storages so they would be on an even playing field with those who already own nuclear

The third harmful result of nuclear weapons is that the huge amount of expenditure on nuclear weapons prevents some fundamental problems from solving, and hamper some basic services from offering. Countless fundamental and crucial problems and services, like health care, education, famine and so forth, are waiting to be solved and provided. The article “Spending on Nuclear Weapons” states that “as hundreds of millions of people across the globe go hungry, the nuclear-armed nations spend close to US$300 million a day on their nuclear forces. More specifically for the U.S., $105 billion annually– or $12 million an hour.” (International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, 2017) Being costly is not one of nuclear weapons’ drawbacks. But, rendering

“A world without nuclear weapons would be less stable and more dangerous for all of us.”(Margaret Thatcher). Although this quote sounds ridiculous, it is absolutely right. Arguments have been made by President Obama that “nuclear weapons are the greatest threat to U.S. security.” However, history proves that weapons of mass destruction whether– biological, nuclear, chemical or radioactive, are a necessary evil to sustain global stability, deter attacks from rogue nations and encourage diplomacy.

The greatest threat to the United States in today’s world is Iran’s investment in nuclear proliferation and its potential to destabilize the region. Iran has shown a history of aggression towards not only the U.S., but countries in the region as well. Acquiring nuclear weapons and the capability to deliver those weapons against the U.S. or its allies poses significant ramifications. In order to reverse Iran’s progress towards developing a nuclear bomb along with the associated delivery platforms, the U.S. must engage Iran more forcefully using containment, deterrence, and pre-emption. This paper will begin with an overview of Iran’s history with the U.S., followed by an explanation of why Iran’s nuclear ambitions are detrimental

Seventy five years prior to today, nuclear weapons were born into the world, and seventy one years ago they were first used on an opponent. The United States used nuclear weapons for the purpose of defeating the Axis Powers of the Second World War. Only to, continue their employment as deterrence against a towering Soviet Union. Thus began the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviets. The purpose, to achieve supremacy in nuclear warfare, throughout the arms race several other countries developed nuclear capabilities. Eventually, both sides held enough nuclear power to annihilate the other, regardless of a successful first hit. Halting the use of nuclear weapons, because of the fear of the capability to retaliate and suffer the same fate. Following the Cold War, several countries were left with nuclear capabilities possessing a serious threat, and the understanding of the grave consequences if chosen to employ them. Concluding nuclear weapons were a means of security and deterrence against other states.

Following World War II, the Soviet Union successfully created nuclear weapons. Now two nations, the USA and USSR both possessed these weapons. For analytical purposes, it can be assumed that these are the only two great power states, since they are the only ones in possession of nuclear weapons. One more assumption in this model needs to be made to analyze further states pursuance of nuclear weapons: The world operates under realist conditions.