Nuclear arms race

The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear weapons between the United States and Soviet Union during the Cold War.

World War II

The first nuclear weapons were created by the American Manhattan Project during the Second World War and were developed for use against the Axis powers. Scientists in the Soviet Union, then an ally of the United States, were aware of the possibility of nuclear weapons and had been doing some work in that direction. Soviet scientists first became aware the Americans were almost certainly working on atomic weapons when all related articles disappeared from physics journals.

The Soviet Union, despite being an ally, was not informed of the American experiments until the Potsdam Conference in 1945. The Americans did not trust the Soviets to keep the information from German spies, there was also deep distrust of the Soviets and their intentions, despite the wartime partnership.

The Soviets, were well aware of the programme due to an extensive spy ring operating with the American nuclear program. The atomic spies, as they became known, kept Stalin well informed of American developments. When U.S. Vice President Harry S. Truman informed Stalin of the weapons, he was surprised at how calmly Stalin took the news and thought that the dictator had not understood what he had told him. In fact Stalin had long been aware of the programme. The American programme had been so secret that even Truman did not know about the weapons until he became president and Stalin had thus known about the Manhattan project before Truman himself did.

In August of 1945 Truman ordered two bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Some historians have alleged that this action was an attempt to awe the Soviets, but most historians see no proof of these allegations.

Early Cold War

The years immediately after the Second World War the Americans had a nuclear monopoly. While American leaders hoped the monopoly would be able to win concessions out of the Soviet Union, this proved ineffective. Stalin knew that he was at a disadvantage. However, he felt that the only solution was to bluff that he was certain the Americans would not use the weapons, and wouldn't care much if they did. Stalin guessed correctly that the American policy makers would never risk another massive war over minor issues like Berlin of Czechoslovakia.

Behind the scenes the Soviet regime was working furiously to build their own atomic weapons. During the war Soviet efforts had been limited by a lack of uranium, but new supplies in Eastern Europe were taken and provided a steady supply. Physicists were given massive funding and treated like royalty, but were also threatened with being shot if they did not make significant progress. The much feared KGB head Lavrenty Beria was put in charge of the development process. The Soviet effort was greatly aided in this effort by information provided by their spies in the United States. While American thinkers had guessed the USSR would not have nuclear weapons until the mid-1950s the first Soviet bomb was detonated on August 9, 1949, shocking the entire world.

Both governments devoted massive amounts of resources to increasing the quality and quantity if their nuclear arsenal. Both nations quickly began work on hydrogen bombs and the United States detonated the first such device on November 1, 1952. Again the Soviets surprised the Americans exploding a superior device the next August. The Soviet H-bomb was almost completely a product of domestic research.

Delivery methods, such as the bomber fleets, were also expanded. The United States began with a considerable lead in this area, but the widespread introduction of jet powered interceptor aircraft upset this balance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the US's bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command and started a program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 and B-52 were introduced, giving the US the ability to convincingly penetrate the USSR.

The most important development in terms of delivery in the 1950s was the introduction of ICBM's. Missiles had long been seen as the ideal platform for nuclear weapons and in 1957 with the launch of Sputnik the Soviet Union showed the world that they had missiles that could hit anywhere in the world. The United States launched their own missiles soon after.

The period also saw attempts begun to defend against nuclear weapons. Both powers built large radar arrays to detect incoming bombers and missiles. Fighters to use against bombers and anti-ballistic missiles to use against ICBM's were also developed. Large underground bunkers were constructed to save the leadership of the superpowers, and individuals were told to build fallout shelters and taught how to react to a nuclear attack.

Mutually Assured Destruction

All of these defensive measures were far from foolproof and by the 1950s both the US and USSR had the power to obliterate the other side. Both sides developed a "second-strike" capability, i.e. they could launch a devastating attack even after sustaining a full assault from the other side. This led to what is called Mutually Assured Destruction. Both sides knew that they could destroy each other and thus both refrained from ever using the weapons.

Both Soviet and American thinkers hoped to use nuclear weapons to extract concessions from the other side, or from other powers such as China, but the risk of any use of these weapons were so large that both sides refrained from what John Foster Dulles referred to as brinkmanship. While some like General Douglas MacArthur argued nuclear weapons should be used during the Korean War both Truman and Eisenhower disagreed.

Both sides were also unaware of how their relative arsenals compared. The Americans tended to be lacking in confidence, earlier in the 1950s they believed in a non-existent bomber gap, and the 1960 American presidential election saw accusations of a wholly spurious missile gap between the Soviets and the Americans. The Soviet government structure tended to exaggerate the power of Soviet weapons to the leadership and Nikita Khrushchev, for instance, insisted Soviet missile guidance technology was far superior to that of the Americans when in fact it was some years behind.

Cuban Missile Crisis

Brinksmanship was finally employed in one of the most tense periods of the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis. Soviet Premier Nikita Khrushchev to try and strike major prestige coup and readjust the balance of power in favour of the Soviets. The administration of John F. Kennedy decided that it would not accept missiles in Cuba and imposed quarantine on the island and made it clear it would invade if the missiles were not withdrawn. After a few tense days Khrushchev agreed to withdraw the weapons in exchange for the Americans pulling missiles out of Turkey and a promise not to invade the island.

The crisis led to improved communications between the superpowers with the introduction of the hotline. Neither side ever tried anything as risky as the causes of the crisis again.

The 1960s saw continued progress on weapons development in both states, but the Americans began to pull well ahead of the Soviets. One of the most important developments was far better intelligence gatherings by the United States. Spy satellites were taking millions of pictures per day of the USSR and American analysts now had a good idea of how many Soviet nuclear missiles there were.

The period also saw the Sino-Soviet split and increased work on the Chinese nuclear weapons program exploding their first A-bomb in 1964 and an H-bomb in 1967.

Detente

Economic problems caused by the arms race in both powers, combined with China's new role and the ability to verify disarmament led to a number of arms control agreements beginning in the 1970s. This period known as Detente allowed both states to reduce their spending on weapons systems. SALT I and SALT II and START all limited the size of the states arsenals. Bans on nuclear testing, anti-ballistic missile systems, and weapons in space all attempted to limit the expansion of the arms race.

These treaties were only partially successful. Both states continued building massive numbers of nuclear weapons, and new technologies such as MIRVs limited the effectiveness of the treaties. Both superpowers retained the ability to destroy each other many times over.

Reagan and Star Wars

During the presidency of Ronald Reagan the United States rejected disarmament and tried to restart the arms race. The central part of this strategy was the Strategic Defense Initiative, and space based anti-ballistic missile system. At this point the Soviet economy was teetering towards collapse and was unable to match American arms spending.

With the end of the Cold War the United States, and especially Russia, cut down on nuclear weapons spending. Fewer new systems were developed and both arsenals have shrunk. Both states still maintain the ability to destroy most life on Earth, however.

See also

• Nuclear warfare
• Nuclear disarmament
• Space race