The US dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan in WWII, starting a nuclear arms race between the US and the Soviet Union. Other countries developed nuclear weapons, leading to treaties to slow proliferation. The threat of nuclear war still exists today.
The history of Cold War nuclear weapons dates back to World War II, when the United States dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan. While these were the only two nuclear bombs to be used in active warfare, their use spawned a nuclear arms race that lasted for more than half a century. The Cold War nuclear arms race was primarily a contest between the United States and the Soviet Union, although other countries developed nuclear weapons during this period.
After World War II, the struggle for world power erupted, and the United States and the Soviet Union took the lead. At the time, the United States felt it had a monopoly on nuclear weapons and access to the only stockpiles of uranium needed to make nuclear weapons. The world soon discovered that uranium wasn’t as scarce as Americans thought, and soon the Soviet Union began developing its own Cold War nuclear weapons. They completed their first nuclear weapon earlier than the United States planned, which came as a shock to the world. As the United States had been wary of the Soviets even during World War II when the countries were allies, this development caused much fear in the United States, further fueling the Cold War and Red Terror in the United States.
The Soviet Union’s first Cold War nuclear weapons were nearly identical copies of the bomb called the Fat Man, which was the American nuclear bomb dropped on Nagasaki. After this development, both sides stepped up the production of nuclear weapons, realizing that the future of nuclear weapons lay in missiles, not bombs. The missiles had a long-range impact and when the Russians launched Sputnik, showing their technological advances, the space race began and the United States recognized that Russia was at the forefront in terms of creating nuclear missiles .
However, both sides that had developed Cold War nuclear weapons had also developed “second strike” systems, which basically meant that even if one side was attacked and mostly destroyed, that side could still launch an offensive and annihilate his enemy. Therefore, both the US and the Soviets knew that if they launched an attack, it would spell devastation for both sides.
As more countries, such as France, the United Kingdom, and China, began to develop their own stockpiles of Cold War nuclear weapons, treaties began to form to slow or halt the proliferation of nuclear weapons. While many of these treaties were ineffective, the United States lacked confidence in its own weapons and was eager to slow the pace of proliferation around the world. The Soviet Union was experiencing economic problems, which led to a slowdown in nuclear proliferation eventually. When Ronald Reagan took office in the United States, the Cold War was drawing to a close and a conglomeration of treaties and agreements had slowed nuclear developments. However, in recent decades, other countries have begun building their own nuclear weapons, reawakening the question of nuclear war and its economic and humanitarian impacts.
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