Arms race

Arms race

The arms race was a competition between the two superpowers to build up an arsenal of weapons, especially nuclear weapons.

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• The USA was the first country to use nuclear weapons: They bombed Japan to end World War II.

• The Soviet Union soon realized that they would also have to invest in building nuclear weapons to compete with the USA.

  The Soviet Union made two major breakthroughs, namely the construction of: Hydrogen bomb and long-range missiles

1950s

In the late 1950s, the USA and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear weapons to wipe each other out in a nuclear war.

Both sides realized that any attack on the other would be self-destructive. This concept was known as MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction.

1949-1960

The cold war escalated as a result of a nuclear arms race,space race and espionage .