What do you know about the Nuclear arms race? The Nuclear arms race of the Cold war was when everyone thought the more weapons you had, the more power you had. The Nuclear arms race caused the creation of the Hydrogen bomb, M.A.D. (Mutual assured destruction), and the Nuclear test ban treaty.
The Nuclear arms race was when every country stockpiled on weapons. The countries with the most were the U.S. and U.S.S.R. “The US had 2,032 launchers and 11,000 warheads, The USSR had 2,490 launchers and 10,000 warheads,” (Yahoo). I thought it was a complete waste of money to spend money on a bunch of weapons that we didn’t use, for example the Hydrogen bomb.
The Hydrogen bomb is a “Thermo nuclear weapon that uses the heat generated by a fission bomb to compress and ignite a nuclear, fission state,” (Wikipedia). This results in an explosion. The Hydrogen bomb was designed by Edward Teller and Stanislaw Ulam in 1951. They tested the bomb in 1952. It was called the “Ivy Mike” nuclear test.
The creation of the H-bomb scared Russia into thinking we would attack them which created the idea of M.A.D, Mutual Assured Destruction. M.A.D. meant that if one country strikes another, the other country would strike back, causing a nuclear war. An example of M.A.D., or Mutual assured destruction, would be if the U.S. attacked U.S.S.R. then U.S.S.R. would attack the U.S. This was a fear of the Cold War. So we agreed on the Nuclear test ban treaty.
The nuclear test ban treaty was an agreement to not use or test any nuclear weapons because of the fears of a Nuclear war. It was manly for the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. because we both had the most weapons in the world. This prevented the use of the Hydrogen bomb, which also put aside M.A.D.
The nuclear arms race caused the creation of the H-bomb, M.A.D., and the Nuclear test ban treaty. And who knows if the H-bomb would have been created if the Nuclear arms race never happened. Or would there be M.A.D if the Hydrogen bomb didn’t get created?Would there have been any wars? Maybe. Or maybe not…
