History
Why was there an escalation in the nuclear arms race in the 1950s?The nuclear arms race was a competition between the United States and the USSR to have superiority in the quantity and quality of nuclear weapons. This competition took place during the conflict between the two States in the Cold War. It is important to note that the Soviet Union was a communist state, while the United States was a democratic one. This meant that their foreign policy had to be different and thus ones would go against the others. Conflict in the future was highly probable.The first nuclear weapons had been created by the United States in the Second World War, with the main objective of using them against Germany and its allies. The first ones were made in 1945 known as the 'Fission Bombs'. These produced explosions equivalent to 20,000 tons of TNT. A nuke explosion has 1 megaton of warhead, could blind anyone looking at it within 160km and heat would melt anything within 5 km, and burn people up to 32km away. At this time, this force was unimaginable to anybody. (*Source 4)In the Second World War, the Great War Alliance existed, of which the USSR, USA and Great Britain were very much part of. However the USSR had no knowledge whatsoever of
Scientists involved in the development of the Russian bomb were given huge amounts of funding and were threaten like loyalty. They were very much associated with most of the major events that took place in the Cold War, such as the Korean Conflict. Also their size was very large for them to be hidden. It holds that if an aggressor attacks first, the defender would either retaliate with equal amount or more nuclear weapons. In response to the Hydrogen Bomb the United States came up with in 1952, the Russians, developed it too. This was a major disadvantage to the USSR. However, the United States was able to overcome this problem. In 1945, when the victory was very close and Japan was still fighting the allies, President Truman ordered the dropping of the Atomic bomb on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The two nations aimed at acquiring cheaper, and more reliable means of acquiring military strength. The Hydrogen was a much more powerful bomb and it could provide a larger explosion with smaller warheads. This is when the USSR and the rest of the world for that matter actually found out that such a destructive bomb had existed. The development of the nuclear arms race had many reasons. This was achieved with very hard work. It is important to note, as this was happening, there were many developments taking place in the USSR too.
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Acceptance Essays
