How far was the nuclear arms race a threat to world peace 1949-1963? The period of 1949 to 1963 saw increasing developments in nuclear technology by the Soviet Union and the Americans. The word ‘race’ meant that both superpowers aimed to match each other and gain the upper hand in terms of nuclear missile technology. Nuclear arms were seen as a form of scare tactic against the opposition as they both felt threatened by each other’s ideological capabilities. It was also used as a defence mechanism in case of future attack.
During the most turbulent time in our history, America needed to undertake it's greatest challenge with limited time and under the most secretive conditions. The challenge would require the world’s greatest minds to come together as a group to create the world’s most destructive weapon known to man. The Manhattan Project required such secrecy, that not even he scientists involved were not informed of the full scope of the project. Their knowledge would be limited to their specific areas of expertise. In order to end the conflict of the World War II, a weapon that surpassed all other conventional weapons of that time would need to be created.
Netanyahu’s illustration for his speech approximates Iran is 90 percent along the way to the creation of nuclear weapons. This potential is threatening to Israel, the United States and virtually any other nation in the world. Obama and Netanyahu have had many disagreements on the urgency of militant action against the program and Iran; they do not disagree particularly that military action will
To what extent was the nuclear arms race a stabilising factor in the Cold War between 1949 and 1963? The nuclear arms race was undoubtedly a significant factor is stabilising the relations between the superpowers of the Soviet Union and USA in the period 1949 to 1963. Although the superpowers came close to war on four occasions during this period: the Berlin Crisis, the Korean War, the Taiwan Strait Crisis and the Cuban Missile Crisis. Whilst all these crises indicate major tensions and possibly instability, the fact that the superpowers did not engage in a direct war shows that nuclear weapons created a balance of terror and therefore could be considered a major stabilising factor in the Cold War. Stalin was determined to make the Soviet Union a nuclear power, after the USA created the first atomic bombs during the Second World War, which were tested in the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945.
Without communist allies Russia needed necessities for modern warfare. This is when Stalin’s elite obsession for iron, steel and oil began. Which is ironic, as Stalin’s name in Russian is the equivalent to ‘Man of Steel.’ In his mind, without these raw materials, war would become a certain loss if it was to break out. Stalin described these materials as ‘Decisive branches of industry’ and in order for Russia to advance and industrialise these would be needed of vast quantities. He then intended for a mass increase in resource production to take place, which in fact did occur over the coming plans.
And most importantly, the economy of the Soviet Union was in ruins after the U.S.S.R had chose to spend massive amounts of money on wars and the arms race. The world saw many of the U.S.S.R's failures in Afghanistan and took immediate advantage of it. Although there could be many reasons behind the U.S.S.R invading Afghanistan, it was officially to support the government of Afghanistan against the Islamic Mujahideen Resistance. The Mujahideen were being supported by the United States, China, Saudi Arabia, and the Pakistan government and obviously the U.S.S.R would be conflicted. When the war started off, U.S.S.R didn't expect it to be a decade-long war.
With that in mind, America also had missiles in Turkey targeting the Soviet Union. In The fog of war it says “We (America) lucked out from not having a nuclear war”. In the interview it says “we went eyeball to eyeball and they blinked”, referring to the friction between the United States and the Soviet Union. JFK strongly tried to keep America out of war with the Soviet Union. Kennedy asked how many American causality’s there would be if one of the Soviet Union’s missiles would go off in the United States.
Such a poor choice this was, to split the nuclei of atoms. When the U.S. developed the first atomic bomb in the 1940s, other countries soon followed. Relations with Russia had been strained since the 1890s, even as allies in the second world war, and as the United States and then Soviet Union began building stockpiles of nuclear weapons, tension broke out again. “"Cold war" is the term given to the competition, conducted through means short of direct military conflict, between the United States and the Soviet Union since World War II.”(Foner, p. 1). The threat of “mutually assured destruction” kept everyone on edge during this time, and has since lessened since the fall of the Soviet Union and end of the Cold War.
The Soviets broke the US nuclear monopoly, and that struck fear into all americans, there is now someone just as dangerous as you are. ”Here’s my strategy of the cold war: we win, they lose.”1 Leading conflicts lead Truman to develop a “super bomb” 1000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb. With both sides power building, leaders realized, if this war was to happen there would be no victor, just total mass devastation for both parties. Peace was impossible, war improbable. 1 ― Ronald Reagan, U.S.S.R. U.S.A.
Soviet and US relations changed dramatically between 1945 and 1947, there were many reasons to explain why and how this happened. Firstly, one reason was the end of WW2. During the Second World War, America and the USSR were members of the Grand Alliance in order to oppose Hitler, but when this war finished there was nothing to bring the Communists and Capitalists together. Therefore, the two countries went from allies to progressing enemies after Germany was defeated. This developed until a confrontation, from Western and Eastern Europe, in a nuclear arms race.