Nuclear Race
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The nuclear arms race was an
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
competition for supremacy in
nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...
between the
United States The United States of America (USA), also known as the United States (U.S.) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It is a federal republic of 50 U.S. state, states and a federal capital district, Washington, D.C. The 48 ...
, the
Soviet Union The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...
, and their respective allies during the
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed
nuclear weapon A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission or atomic bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear weapon), producing a nuclear exp ...
s, though no other country engaged in
warhead A warhead is the section of a device that contains the explosive agent or toxic (biological, chemical, or nuclear) material that is delivered by a missile, rocket (weapon), rocket, torpedo, or bomb. Classification Types of warheads include: *E ...
production on nearly the same scale as the two
superpower Superpower describes a sovereign state or supranational union that holds a dominant position characterized by the ability to Sphere of influence, exert influence and Power projection, project power on a global scale. This is done through the comb ...
s. The race began during
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, dominated by the Western Allies'
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...
and Soviet
atomic spies Atomic spies or atom spies were people in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada who are known to have illicitly given information about nuclear weapons production or design to the Soviet Union during World War II and the early Cold W ...
. Following the
atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki On 6 and 9 August 1945, the United States detonated two atomic bombs over the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, respectively, during World War II. The aerial bombings killed between 150,000 and 246,000 people, most of whom were civili ...
, the Soviet Union accelerated its atomic bomb project, resulting in the
RDS-1 The RDS-1 (), also known as Izdeliye 501 (device 501) and First Lightning (), was the nuclear bomb used in the Soviet Union's first nuclear weapon test. The United States assigned it the code-name Joe-1, in reference to Joseph Stalin. It was de ...
test in 1949. Both sides then pursued an all-out effort, realizing deployable
thermonuclear weapons A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
by the mid-1950s. The arms race in
nuclear testing Nuclear weapons tests are experiments carried out to determine the performance of nuclear weapons and the effects of Nuclear explosion, their explosion. Nuclear testing is a sensitive political issue. Governments have often performed tests to si ...
culminated with the 1961
Tsar Bomba The Tsar Bomba (code name: ''Ivan'' or ''Vanya''), also known by the alphanumerical designation "AN602", was a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear aerial bomb, and by far the most powerful nuclear weapon ever created and tested. The Soviet phy ...
. Atmospheric testing was ended in the 1963
Partial Nuclear Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all nuclear weapons testing, test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those co ...
. Subsequent work focused on the miniaturization of warheads at
LLNL Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) is a Federally funded research and development centers, federally funded research and development center in Livermore, California, United States. Originally established in 1952, the laboratory now i ...
and VNIITF, and the
neutron bomb A neutron bomb, officially defined as a type of enhanced radiation weapon (ERW), is a low-yield thermonuclear weapon designed to maximize lethal neutron radiation in the immediate vicinity of the blast while minimizing the physical power of the b ...
. Seven other countries developed nuclear weapons during the Cold War. The UK and
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
, both
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...
members, developed fission and fusion weapons throughout the 1950s, and 1960s, respectively.
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
developed both against the backdrop of the
Sino-Soviet split The Sino-Soviet split was the gradual worsening of relations between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) during the Cold War. This was primarily caused by divergences that arose from their ...
.
Israel Israel, officially the State of Israel, is a country in West Asia. It Borders of Israel, shares borders with Lebanon to the north, Syria to the north-east, Jordan to the east, Egypt to the south-west, and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. Isr ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
,
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
, and
South Africa South Africa, officially the Republic of South Africa (RSA), is the Southern Africa, southernmost country in Africa. Its Provinces of South Africa, nine provinces are bounded to the south by of coastline that stretches along the Atlantic O ...
subsequently developed at least fission weapons.
Nuclear weapons delivery Nuclear weapons delivery is the technology and systems used to place a nuclear weapon at the position of detonation, on or near its target. All nine nuclear states have developed some form of medium- to long-range delivery system for their nu ...
vehicles were a major field of competition. Initially
strategic bombers A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...
were the only option. By 1960, both sides had developed
intercontinental ballistic missiles An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
and
submarine-launched ballistic missiles A submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) is a ballistic missile capable of being launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which carries a nuclear warhead ...
, resulting in the
nuclear triad A nuclear triad is a three-pronged military force structure of land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs), submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs), and strategic bombers with Nuclear weapon, nuclear bombs and missiles. Countrie ...
. Additionally, smaller systems for
tactical nuclear weapons A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territ ...
delivery were extensively developed and deployed. Key regions of nuclear build-up included the Eastern European
Warsaw Pact The Warsaw Pact (WP), formally the Treaty of Friendship, Co-operation and Mutual Assistance (TFCMA), was a Collective security#Collective defense, collective defense treaty signed in Warsaw, Polish People's Republic, Poland, between the Sovi ...
, NATO members
West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...
,
Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...
,
Greece Greece, officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. Located on the southern tip of the Balkan peninsula, it shares land borders with Albania to the northwest, North Macedonia and Bulgaria to the north, and Turkey to th ...
, and
Turkey Turkey, officially the Republic of Türkiye, is a country mainly located in Anatolia in West Asia, with a relatively small part called East Thrace in Southeast Europe. It borders the Black Sea to the north; Georgia (country), Georgia, Armen ...
, and US-allied
Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...
,
South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...
,
Taiwan Taiwan, officially the Republic of China (ROC), is a country in East Asia. The main geography of Taiwan, island of Taiwan, also known as ''Formosa'', lies between the East China Sea, East and South China Seas in the northwestern Pacific Ocea ...
, and the
Philippines The Philippines, officially the Republic of the Philippines, is an Archipelagic state, archipelagic country in Southeast Asia. Located in the western Pacific Ocean, it consists of List of islands of the Philippines, 7,641 islands, with a tot ...
. Confrontations with nuclear threats occurred during the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
, the
First First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...
and Second Taiwan Strait Crises, the
Berlin Crisis of 1961 The Berlin Crisis of 1961 () was the last major European political and military incident of the Cold War concerning the status of the German capital city, Berlin, and of History of Germany (1945–90), post–World War II Germany. The crisis cul ...
, and most significantly the
Cuban Missile Crisis The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis () in Cuba, or the Caribbean Crisis (), was a 13-day confrontation between the governments of the United States and the Soviet Union, when American deployments of Nuclear weapons d ...
.
Détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...
during the 1960s and 1970s limited the arms race, especially via the
Non-Proliferation Treaty The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is an international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperatio ...
and
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ball ...
. Tensions were renewed in the early 1980s, in the development and deployment to Europe of MRBMs, IRBMs, and supersonic strategic bombers, as well as the space-based
Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles. The program was announced in 1983, by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan called for a ...
. Under the leadership of
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
, the USSR negotiated the
Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty (INF Treaty) was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union (and its successor state, the Russia, Russian Federation). President of the United States, US President Ronald Rea ...
and
START I START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...
, until its dissolution in 1991 brought to an end the Cold War nuclear arms race. Russia and the US maintain the world's largest nuclear stockpiles. The 1993
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yel ...
, 1996
CTBT The Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) is a multilateral treaty to ban nuclear weapons test explosions and any other nuclear explosions, for both civilian and military purposes, in all environments. It was adopted by the United Nati ...
, and 2010
New START New START (Russian language, Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a Nuclear disarmament, ...
treaties further curtailed the arms race in the post-Cold War period. Tensions have resurged in what is sometimes called a
Second Cold War The terms Second Cold War, Cold War II, or the New Cold War has been used to describe heightened geopolitical tensions in the 21st century, usually between, on one side, the United States and, on the other, either China or Russia—the latter o ...
. The US-Russian
INF Inf or INF may refer to: Computing * INF file, a file extension (information file) used by software and hardware driver installation routines * INF help file, a binary help file created after compiling IPF help source with IBM or Open Watcom's ...
and
New START New START (Russian language, Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a Nuclear disarmament, ...
treaties broke down in 2019 and 2023, against the backdrop of the
Russia-Ukraine War The Russo-Ukrainian War began in February 2014 and is ongoing. Following Ukraine's Revolution of Dignity, Russia Russian occupation of Crimea, occupied and Annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation, annexed Crimea from Ukraine. It then ...
, and Russia announced six " nuclear super weapons". In the Pacific, the US and China are in competition over
hypersonic weapons A hypersonic weapon is a weapon capable of maneuvering at hypersonic speed, defined as above Mach 5, or above 5 times the speed of sound. Below Mach 1, weapons would be characterized as subsonic, and above Mach 1, as supersonic. At extremel ...
.


World War II

During
World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...
, four nuclear weapons research programs existed. The industrial
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...
, directed by the US military and coordinated with the UK and Canada, developed the first nuclear weapons. More limited scientific research was carried out in the
Soviet atomic bomb project The Soviet atomic bomb project was authorized by Joseph Stalin in the Soviet Union to develop nuclear weapons during and after World War II. Russian physicist Georgy Flyorov suspected that the Allied powers were secretly developing a " superwea ...
,
German nuclear program Nazi Germany undertook several research programs relating to nuclear technology, including nuclear weapons and nuclear reactors, before and during World War II. These were variously called () or (). The first effort started in April 1939, ju ...
, and Japanese nuclear program.


Allied-German rivalry

From 1934, the
Vemork Vemork is a hydroelectric power plant outside the town of Rjukan in Tinn Municipality in Telemark county, Norway. The plant was built by Norsk Hydro and opened in 1911, its main purpose being to fix nitrogen for the production of fertilizer. ...
hydroelectric station of
Norsk Hydro Rjukan Norsk Hydro Rjukan is an industrial facility operated by Norsk Hydro at Rjukan in Tinn, Norway, from 1911 to 1991. The plant manufactured chemicals related to the production of fertilizer, initially potassium nitrate from arc-produced nitric ...
entered operation as the world's only industrial-scale production site for
heavy water Heavy water (deuterium oxide, , ) is a form of water (molecule), water in which hydrogen atoms are all deuterium ( or D, also known as ''heavy hydrogen'') rather than the common hydrogen-1 isotope (, also called ''protium'') that makes up most o ...
, suitable as a moderator for atomic pile experiments leading to
nuclear reactors A nuclear reactor is a device used to initiate and control a fission nuclear chain reaction. They are used for commercial electricity, marine propulsion, weapons production and research. Fissile nuclei (primarily uranium-235 or plutonium-2 ...
. In early 1940, a French
Deuxième Bureau The ''Deuxième Bureau de l'État-major général'' ("Second Bureau of the General Staff") was France's external military intelligence agency from 1871 to 1940. It was dissolved together with the Third Republic upon the armistice with Germany. ...
agent arranged for the purchase of the entire Norwegian stock of heavy water, 187 liters. The Germans had offered the same purchase, but the French obtained the agreement of the Norwegian government after telling them of its military purpose. It was shipped to the
Collège de France The (), formerly known as the or as the ''Collège impérial'' founded in 1530 by François I, is a higher education and research establishment () in France. It is located in Paris near La Sorbonne. The has been considered to be France's most ...
nuclear laboratory in Paris prior to the German invasion of Norway in April, but during the German invasion of France in June it was shipped to England. After various secret storages it was moved to the
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
in Cambridge, for the work of refugee French nuclear physicists
Hans von Halban Hans Heinrich von Halban (24 January 1908 – 28 November 1964) was a French physicist of Austrian-Jewish descent. Family He is a descendant of Polish Jews who left Kraków for Vienna in the 1850s on his father's side. His grandfather, Heinric ...
and
Lew Kowarski Lew Kowarski (10 February 1907 – 30 July 1979) was a Russian-French physicist. He was a lesser-known but important contributor to nuclear science. He participated in the British Tube Alloys on early nuclear weapon research. After the war he wor ...
. In February 1941, the
Luftwaffe The Luftwaffe () was the aerial warfare, aerial-warfare branch of the before and during World War II. German Empire, Germany's military air arms during World War I, the of the Imperial German Army, Imperial Army and the of the Imperial Ge ...
carried out a raid on Cambridge, hitting the
Cavendish Laboratory The Cavendish Laboratory is the Department of Physics at the University of Cambridge, and is part of the School of Physical Sciences. The laboratory was opened in 1874 on the New Museums Site as a laboratory for experimental physics and is named ...
. Kowarski said in a postwar interview that his and von Halban's work there on a heavy water-moderated atomic pile was specifically targeted in retaliation for a prior British raid on
Heidelberg Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...
, where
Walther Bothe Walther Wilhelm Georg Bothe (; 8 January 1891 – 8 February 1957) was a German physicist who shared the 1954 Nobel Prize in Physics with Max Born "for the coincidence method and his discoveries made therewith". He served in the military durin ...
and Arnold Flammersfeld were working on similar pile experiments at what is now the
Max Planck Institute for Medical Research The Max Planck Institute for Medical Research in Heidelberg, Germany, is a facility of the Max Planck Society for basic medical research. Since its foundation, six Nobel Prize laureates worked at the Institute: Otto Fritz Meyerhof (Physiology), ...
. In February 1943, a
Special Operations Executive Special Operations Executive (SOE) was a British organisation formed in 1940 to conduct espionage, sabotage and reconnaissance in German-occupied Europe and to aid local Resistance during World War II, resistance movements during World War II. ...
-trained team of Norwegian commandos detonated explosive charges on the heavy-water electrolysis chambers at the
Vemork Vemork is a hydroelectric power plant outside the town of Rjukan in Tinn Municipality in Telemark county, Norway. The plant was built by Norsk Hydro and opened in 1911, its main purpose being to fix nitrogen for the production of fertilizer. ...
hydroelectric plant during
Operation Gunnerside The Norwegian heavy water sabotage (; ) was a series of Allied-led efforts to halt German heavy water (deuterium) production via hydroelectric plants in Norway in World War II, Nazi Germany-occupied Norway during World War II, involving both Nor ...
. Along with other covert and bombing raids, the Allies successfully crippled heavy water moderator production for the German nuclear program. In 1943, a US
Office of Strategic Services The Office of Strategic Services (OSS) was the first intelligence agency of the United States, formed during World War II. The OSS was formed as an agency of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) to coordinate espionage activities behind enemy lines ...
operation named Project AZUSA aimed to interview Italian physicists to learn what they knew about German nuclear physicists
Werner Heisenberg Werner Karl Heisenberg (; ; 5 December 1901 – 1 February 1976) was a German theoretical physicist, one of the main pioneers of the theory of quantum mechanics and a principal scientist in the German nuclear program during World War II. He pub ...
and
Carl Friedrich von Weizsäcker Carl Friedrich Freiherr von Weizsäcker (; 28 June 1912 – 28 April 2007) was a German physicist and philosopher. He was the longest-living member of the team which performed nuclear research in Nazi Germany during the Second World War, un ...
. In December 1944, OSS spy
Moe Berg Morris Berg (March 2, 1902 – May 29, 1972) was an American professional baseball catcher and coach in Major League Baseball who later served as a spy for the Office of Strategic Services during World War II. He played 15 seasons in the majo ...
travelled to
Zurich Zurich (; ) is the list of cities in Switzerland, largest city in Switzerland and the capital of the canton of Zurich. It is in north-central Switzerland, at the northwestern tip of Lake Zurich. , the municipality had 448,664 inhabitants. The ...
where Heisenberg was giving a lecture, with orders to shoot Heisenberg with a concealed pistol if he deemed the German atomic bomb program close to completion.


US-Soviet rivalry

In the first half of 1945, as the Western theater was coming to a close, the US and Soviets competed over the intellectual and material resources of the German nuclear program, via the
Alsos Mission The Alsos Mission was an organized effort by a team of British and United States military, scientific, and intelligence personnel to discover enemy scientific developments during World War II. Its chief focus was to investigate the progress that ...
and
Russian Alsos The Soviet Alsos or Russian Alsos is the western codename for an operation that took place during 19451946 in Germany, Austria, and Czechoslovakia, in order to exploit German atomic related facilities, intellectual materials, material resource ...
. In March, Manhattan Project leader
Leslie Groves Leslie Richard Groves Jr. (17 August 1896 – 13 July 1970) was a United States Army Corps of Engineers officer who oversaw the construction of the Pentagon and directed the Manhattan Project, a Classified information#Top_Secret_(TS), top sec ...
ordered the
Auergesellschaft The industrial firm ''Auergesellschaft'' was founded in 1892 with headquarters in Berlin. Up to the end of World War II, ''Auergesellschaft'' had manufacturing and research activities in the areas of gas mantles, luminescence, rare earths, radioa ...
plant in Oranienburg bombed, to deny the Soviets the refined natural uranium there. Nonetheless 100 tons were ultimately recovered and used for their early reactors. In April, the Western Allies captured the Haigerloch nuclear pile, showing the comparative limited nature of the German program. The majority of leading German scientists, including Werner Heisenberg and
Paul Harteck Paul Karl Maria Harteck (20 July 190222 January 1985) was an Austrian physical chemist. In 1945 under Operation Epsilon in "the big sweep" throughout Germany, Harteck was arrested by the allied British and American Armed Forces for suspicion of ...
, were captured by the Western Allies between May and June in
Operation Epsilon Operation Epsilon was the codename of a program in which Allies of World War II, Allied forces near the end of World War II detained ten Germany, German scientists who were thought to have worked on German nuclear energy project, Nazi Germany's n ...
. Alsos interrogated
Fritz Houtermans Friedrich Georg "Fritz" Houtermans (January 22, 1903 – March 1, 1966) was a Dutch-Austrian-German atomic and nuclear physicist and Communist born in Zoppot (now Sopot) near Danzig (now Gdańsk), West Prussia to a Dutch father, who was a wealt ...
, a German who had worked on nuclear research for Germany and the USSR, about the extent of the Soviet project. The Soviets captured
Nikolaus Riehl Nikolaus Vasilyevich Riehl (; 1901 — 2 August 1990) was a German nuclear chemist of Russian-Jewish descent. Before the fall of Berlin, he was director of the scientific headquarters of the Auergesellschaft AG, and was taken to the Sovie ...
, Gernot Zippe, and
Max Steenbeck Max Christian Theodor Steenbeck (21 March 1904 – 15 December 1981) was a German nuclear physicist who invented the betatron in 1934 during his employment at the Siemens AG. After the World War II, Steenbeck was taken into the Soviet custo ...
, of which the latter two were later crucial in developing the uranium hexafluoride
gas centrifuge A gas centrifuge is a device that performs isotope separation of gases. A centrifuge relies on the principles of centrifugal force accelerating molecules so that particles of different masses are physically separated in a gradient along the radiu ...
. During the
occupation of Japan Japan was occupied and administered by the Allies of World War II from the surrender of the Empire of Japan on September 2, 1945, at the war's end until the Treaty of San Francisco took effect on April 28, 1952. The occupation, led by the ...
, Alsos also interrogated nuclear physicists, but found their work was limited to unsuccessful enrichment experiments. The Soviet Union was not informed officially of the
Manhattan Project The Manhattan Project was a research and development program undertaken during World War II to produce the first nuclear weapons. It was led by the United States in collaboration with the United Kingdom and Canada. From 1942 to 1946, the ...
until
Stalin Joseph Vissarionovich Stalin (born Dzhugashvili; 5 March 1953) was a Soviet politician and revolutionary who led the Soviet Union from 1924 until Death and state funeral of Joseph Stalin, his death in 1953. He held power as General Secret ...
was briefed at the Potsdam Conference on July 24, 1945, by
U.S. President The president of the United States (POTUS) is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president directs the Federal government of the United States#Executive branch, executive branch of the Federal government of t ...
Harry S. Truman Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884December 26, 1972) was the 33rd president of the United States, serving from 1945 to 1953. As the 34th vice president in 1945, he assumed the presidency upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt that year. Subsequen ...
, eight days after the first successful test of a nuclear weapon. Despite their wartime military alliance, the United States and Britain had not trusted the Soviets enough to keep knowledge of the Manhattan Project safe from German spies; there were also concerns that, as an ally, the Soviet Union would request and expect to receive technical details of the new weapon. When President Truman informed Stalin of the weapons, he was surprised at how calmly Stalin reacted to the news and thought that Stalin had not understood what he had been told. Other members of the United States and British delegations who closely observed the exchange formed the same conclusion. In fact, Stalin had long been aware of the program,Potsdam Note (Animation)
despite the Manhattan Project's having a secret classification so high that, even as vice president, Truman did not know about it or the development of the weapons (Truman was not informed until shortly after he became president). A ring of spies operating within the Manhattan Project, (including
Klaus Fuchs Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs (29 December 1911 – 28 January 1988) was a German theoretical physicist and atomic spy who supplied information from the American, British, and Canadian Manhattan Project to the Soviet Union during and shortly a ...
and
Theodore Hall Theodore Alvin Hall (October 20, 1925 – November 1, 1999) was an American physicist and an atomic spy for the Soviet Union, who, during his work on United States efforts to develop the first and second atomic bombs during World War II (t ...
) had kept Stalin well informed of American progress. They provided the Soviets with detailed designs of the implosion bomb and the hydrogen bomb. Fuchs' arrest in 1950 led to the arrests of many other suspected Russian spies, including
Harry Gold Harry Gold (born Henrich Golodnitsky, December 11, 1910 – August 28, 1972) was a Swiss-born American laboratory chemist who was convicted as a courier for the Soviet Union passing atomic secrets from Klaus Fuchs, an agent of the Soviet Union, ...
,
David Greenglass David Greenglass (March 2, 1922 – July 1, 2014) was an American machinist who worked on the Manhattan Project and was an atomic spy for the Soviet Union. He was briefly stationed at the Clinton Engineer Works uranium enrichment facility at O ...
, and
Ethel and Julius Rosenberg Julius Rosenberg (May 12, 1918 – June 19, 1953) and Ethel Rosenberg (born Greenglass; September 28, 1915 – June 19, 1953) were an American married couple who were convicted of spying for the Soviet Union, including providing top-secret inf ...
; the latter two were tried and executed for espionage in 1951. In August 1945, on Truman's orders, two atomic bombs were dropped on Japanese cities. The first bomb was dropped on
Hiroshima is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture in Japan. , the city had an estimated population of 1,199,391. The gross domestic product (GDP) in Greater Hiroshima, Hiroshima Urban Employment Area, was US$61.3 billion as of 2010. Kazumi Matsui has b ...
, and the second bomb was dropped on
Nagasaki , officially , is the capital and the largest Cities of Japan, city of Nagasaki Prefecture on the island of Kyushu in Japan. Founded by the Portuguese, the port of Portuguese_Nagasaki, Nagasaki became the sole Nanban trade, port used for tr ...
by the
B-29 The Boeing B-29 Superfortress is a retired American four-engined Propeller (aeronautics), propeller-driven heavy bomber, designed by Boeing and flown primarily by the United States during World War II and the Korean War. Named in allusion to ...
bombers named ''
Enola Gay The ''Enola Gay'' () is a Boeing B-29 Superfortress bomber, named after Enola Gay Tibbets, the mother of the pilot, Colonel (United States), Colonel Paul Tibbets. On 6 August 1945, during the final stages of World War II, it became the Atomi ...
'' and ''
Bockscar ''Bockscar'', sometimes called ''Bock's Car'', is the United States Army Air Forces Boeing B-29 Superfortress, B-29 bomber that dropped the Fat Man, Fat Man nuclear weapon over the Japanese city of Nagasaki during World War II in the secondand ...
'' respectively. Shortly after the end of the Second World War in 1945, the
United Nations The United Nations (UN) is the Earth, global intergovernmental organization established by the signing of the Charter of the United Nations, UN Charter on 26 June 1945 with the stated purpose of maintaining international peace and internationa ...
was founded. During the United Nation's first General Assembly in London in January 1946, they discussed the future of nuclear weapons and created the
United Nations Atomic Energy Commission The United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) was founded on 24 January 1946 by the very first resolution of the United Nations General Assembly "to deal with the problems raised by the discovery of atomic energy." The General Assembly aske ...
. The goal of this assembly was to eliminate the use of all Nuclear weapons. The United States presented their solution, which was called the
Baruch Plan The Baruch Plan was a proposal put forward by the United States government on 14 June 1946 to the United Nations Atomic Energy Commission (UNAEC) during its first meeting. Bernard Baruch wrote the bulk of the proposal, based on the March 1946 Ac ...
. This plan proposed that there should be an international authority that controls all dangerous atomic activities. The Soviet Union disagreed with this proposal and rejected it. The Soviets' proposal involved universal nuclear disarmament. Both the American and Soviet proposals were refused by the UN. Some experimental scientists who worked directly with radioactive materials in this period may have been victims of
radiation poisoning Acute radiation syndrome (ARS), also known as radiation sickness or radiation poisoning, is a collection of health effects that are caused by being exposed to high amounts of ionizing radiation in a short period of time. Symptoms can start wit ...
, often dying prematurely in the 1950s. These include
Enrico Fermi Enrico Fermi (; 29 September 1901 – 28 November 1954) was an Italian and naturalized American physicist, renowned for being the creator of the world's first artificial nuclear reactor, the Chicago Pile-1, and a member of the Manhattan Project ...
,
Igor Kurchatov Igor Vasilyevich Kurchatov (; 12 January 1903 – 7 February 1960), was a Soviet physicist who played a central role in organizing and directing the former Soviet program of nuclear weapons, and has been referred to as "father of the Russian ...
, and
Frédéric Joliot-Curie Jean Frédéric Joliot-Curie (; ; 19 March 1900 – 14 August 1958) was a French chemist and physicist who received the 1935 Nobel Prize in Chemistry with his wife, Irène Joliot-Curie, for their discovery of induced radioactivity. They were t ...
.


Early Cold War


Warhead development

In the years immediately after the Second World War, the United States had a monopoly on specific knowledge of and raw materials for nuclear weaponry. American leaders hoped that their exclusive ownership of nuclear weapons would be enough to draw concessions from the Soviet Union, but this proved ineffective. Just six months after the UN General Assembly, the United States conducted its first post-war nuclear tests —
Operation Crossroads Operation Crossroads was a pair of nuclear weapon tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll in mid-1946. They were the first nuclear weapon tests since Trinity on July 16, 1945, and the first detonations of nuclear devices sinc ...
. The purpose of this operation was to test the effect of nuclear explosions on ships. These tests were performed at
Bikini Atoll Bikini Atoll ( or ; Marshallese language, Marshallese: , , ), known as Eschscholtz Atoll between the 19th century and 1946, is a coral reef in the Marshall Islands consisting of 23 islands surrounding a central lagoon. The atoll is at the no ...
in the Pacific on 95 ships, including German and Japanese ships that were captured during World War II. One plutonium implosion-type bomb was detonated over the fleet, while the other one was detonated underwater. In secrecy, the Soviet government was working on building its own atomic weapons. During the war, Soviet efforts had been limited by a lack of uranium, but new supplies discovered in
Eastern Europe Eastern Europe is a subregion of the Europe, European continent. As a largely ambiguous term, it has a wide range of geopolitical, geographical, ethnic, cultural and socio-economic connotations. Its eastern boundary is marked by the Ural Mountain ...
provided a steady supply while the Soviets developed a domestic source. While American experts had predicted that the Soviet Union would not have nuclear weapons until the mid-1950s, the first Soviet bomb was detonated on August 29, 1949. The bomb, named "First Lightning" by the West, was more or less a copy of "
Fat Man "Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) was the design of the nuclear weapon the United States used for seven of the first eight nuclear weapons ever detonated in history. It is also the most powerful design to ever be used in warfare. A Fat Man ...
", one of the bombs the United States had dropped on Japan in 1945. Both governments spent massive amounts to increase the quality and quantity of their nuclear arsenals. Both nations quickly began the development of
thermonuclear weapon A thermonuclear weapon, fusion weapon or hydrogen bomb (H-bomb) is a second-generation nuclear weapon design. Its greater sophistication affords it vastly greater destructive power than first-generation nuclear bombs, a more compact size, a lowe ...
s, which can achieve vastly greater explosive yields. The United States detonated the first hydrogen bomb on November 1, 1952, on
Enewetak Enewetak Atoll (; also spelled Eniwetok Atoll or sometimes Eniewetok; , , or , ; known to the Japanese as Brown Atoll or Brown Island; ) is a large coral atoll of 40 islands in the Pacific Ocean and with its 296 people (as of 2021) forms a leg ...
, an
atoll An atoll () is a ring-shaped island, including a coral rim that encircles a lagoon. There may be coral islands or cays on the rim. Atolls are located in warm tropical or subtropical parts of the oceans and seas where corals can develop. Most ...
in the
Pacific Ocean The Pacific Ocean is the largest and deepest of Earth's five Borders of the oceans, oceanic divisions. It extends from the Arctic Ocean in the north to the Southern Ocean, or, depending on the definition, to Antarctica in the south, and is ...
. Code-named "
Ivy Mike Ivy Mike was the code name, codename given to the first full-scale test of a Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear device, in which a significant fraction of the explosive nuclear weapon yield, yield comes from nuclear fusion. Ivy Mike was detona ...
", the project was led by
Edward Teller Edward Teller (; January 15, 1908 – September 9, 2003) was a Hungarian and American Theoretical physics, theoretical physicist and chemical engineer who is known colloquially as "the father of the hydrogen bomb" and one of the creators of ...
, a Hungarian-American nuclear physicist. It created a cloud wide and high, killing all life on the surrounding islands. Again, the Soviets surprised the world by exploding a deployable thermonuclear device in August 1953, although it was not a true multi-stage hydrogen bomb. However, it was small enough to be dropped from an airplane, making it ready for use. The development of these two Soviet bombs was greatly aided by the Russian spies Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs. On March 1, 1954, the U.S. conducted the
Castle Bravo Castle Bravo was the first in a series of high-yield thermonuclear weapon design tests conducted by the United States at Bikini Atoll, Marshall Islands, as part of ''Operation Castle''. Detonated on 1 March 1954, the device remains the most powe ...
test, which tested another hydrogen bomb on Bikini Atoll. Scientists significantly underestimated the size of the bomb, thinking it would yield 5 megatons. However, it yielded 14.8 megatons, the highest yield ever achieved by an American nuclear device. The explosion was so large the nuclear fallout exposed residents up to away to significant amounts of radiation. They were eventually evacuated, but most experienced radiation poisoning; one person was killed, a crew member on a Japanese fishing boat which was from the bomb test site when the explosion occurred. The Soviet Union detonated its first "true" hydrogen bomb on November 22, 1955, which had a yield of 1.6 megatons. On October 30, 1961, the Soviets detonated a hydrogen bomb with a yield of approximately 58 megatons. With both sides in the Cold War having nuclear capability, an
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
developed, with the Soviet Union attempting first to catch up and then to surpass the Americans.


Delivery vehicles

Strategic bombers A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range Penetrator (aircraft), penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unl ...
were the primary delivery method at the beginning of the Cold War. Missiles had long been regarded the ideal platform for nuclear weapons and were potentially a more effective delivery system than bombers. Starting in the 1950s,
medium-range ballistic missile A medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) is a type of ballistic missile with medium range (aeronautics), range, this last classification depending on the standards of certain organizations. Within the United States Department of Defense, U.S. D ...
s and
intermediate-range ballistic missile An intermediate-range ballistic missile (IRBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range between (), categorized between a medium-range ballistic missile (MRBM) and an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM). Classifying ball ...
s ("IRBM"s) were developed for delivery of tactical nuclear weapons, and the technology developed to the progressively longer ranges, eventually becoming
intercontinental ballistic missile An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range (aeronautics), range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more Thermonuclear weapon, thermonuclear warheads). Conven ...
s (ICBMs). On October 4, 1957, the Soviet Union launched the first artificial satellite,
Sputnik 1 Sputnik 1 (, , ''Satellite 1''), sometimes referred to as simply Sputnik, was the first artificial Earth satellite. It was launched into an elliptical low Earth orbit by the Soviet Union on 4 October 1957 as part of the Soviet space program ...
, into an orbit around the Earth, demonstrating that Soviet ICBMs were capable of reaching any point on the planet. The United States launched its first satellite,
Explorer 1 Explorer 1 was the first satellite launched by the United States in 1958 and was part of the U.S. participation in the International Geophysical Year (IGY). The mission followed the first two satellites, both launched by the Soviet Union duri ...
, on January 31, 1958. Meanwhile,
submarine-launched ballistic missile A submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM) is a ballistic missile capable of being launched from Ballistic missile submarine, submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles (MIRVs), each of which ...
s were also developed. By the mid-1960s, the "triad" of nuclear weapon delivery was established, with each side deploying bombers, ICBMs, and SLBMs, in order to ensure that even if a defense was found against one delivery method, the other methods would still be available. Some in the United States during the early 1960s pointed out that although all of the individual components of nuclear missiles had been tested separately (warheads, navigation systems, rockets), it was infeasible to test them all combined. Critics charged that it was not really known how a warhead would react to the gravity forces and temperature differences encountered in the upper atmosphere and outer space, and Kennedy was unwilling to run a test of an ICBM with a live warhead. The closest event to an actual test was 1962's Operation Frigate Bird, in which the submarine launched a Polaris A2 missile over to the nuclear test site at
Christmas Island Christmas Island, officially the Territory of Christmas Island, is an States and territories of Australia#External territories, Australian external territory in the Indian Ocean comprising the island of the same name. It is about south o ...
. It was challenged by, among others,
Curtis LeMay Curtis Emerson LeMay (November 15, 1906 – October 1, 1990) was a United States Air Force, US Air Force General (United States), general who was a key American military commander during the Cold War. He served as Chief of Staff of the United St ...
, who put missile accuracy into doubt to encourage the development of new bombers. Other critics pointed out that it was a single test which could be an anomaly; that it was a lower-altitude SLBM and therefore was subject to different conditions than an ICBM; and that significant modifications had been made to its warhead before testing.


Mutual assured destruction (MAD)

By the mid-1960s both the United States and the Soviet Union had enough nuclear power to obliterate their opponent. Both sides developed a capability to launch a devastating attack even after sustaining a full assault from the other side (especially by means of submarines), called a
second strike In nuclear strategy, a retaliatory strike or second-strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker. To have such an ability (and to convince an opponent of its ...
. This policy became known as
Mutual Assured Destruction Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would result in ...
: both sides knew that any attack upon the other would be devastating to themselves, thus in theory restraining them from attacking the other. Both Soviet and American experts hoped to use nuclear weapons for extracting concessions from the other, or from other powers such as
China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, but the risk connected with using these weapons was so grave that they refrained from what
John Foster Dulles John Foster Dulles (February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American politician, lawyer, and diplomat who served as United States secretary of state under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 until his resignation in 1959. A member of the ...
referred to as
brinkmanship Brinkmanship is the practice of trying to achieve an advantageous outcome by pushing dangerous events to the brink of active conflict. The maneuver of pushing a situation with the opponent to the brink succeeds by forcing the opponent to back dow ...
. While some, like General
Douglas MacArthur Douglas MacArthur (26 January 18805 April 1964) was an American general who served as a top commander during World War II and the Korean War, achieving the rank of General of the Army (United States), General of the Army. He served with dis ...
, argued nuclear weapons should be used during the
Korean War The Korean War (25 June 1950 – 27 July 1953) was an armed conflict on the Korean Peninsula fought between North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea; DPRK) and South Korea (Republic of Korea; ROK) and their allies. North Korea was s ...
, both Truman and Eisenhower opposed the idea. Both sides were unaware of the details of the capacity of the enemy's arsenal of nuclear weapons. The Americans suffered from a lack of confidence, and in the 1950s they believed in a non-existing
bomber gap A bomber is a military combat aircraft that utilizes air-to-ground weaponry to drop bombs, launch torpedoes, or deploy air-launched cruise missiles. There are two major classifications of bomber: strategic and tactical. Strategic bombing is ...
. Aerial photography later revealed that the Soviets had been playing a sort of
Potemkin village In politics and economics, a Potemkin village (Russian: ) is a construction (literal or figurative) whose purpose is to provide an external façade to a situation, to make people believe that the situation is better than it actually is. The term ...
game with their bombers in their military parades, flying them in large circles, making it appear they had far more than they truly did. The 1960 American presidential election saw accusations of a wholly spurious
missile gap In the United States, during the Cold War, the missile gap was the perceived superiority of the number and power of the USSR's missiles in comparison with those of the U.S., causing a lack of military parity. The gap in the ballistic missile arsen ...
between the Soviets and the Americans. On the other side, the Soviet government exaggerated the power of Soviet weapons to the leadership and Soviet first secretary
Nikita Khrushchev Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
.


Initial nuclear proliferation

In addition to the United States and the Soviet Union, three other nations, the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
, the
People's Republic of China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. With population of China, a population exceeding 1.4 billion, it is the list of countries by population (United Nations), second-most populous country after ...
, and
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
developed nuclear weapons during the early cold war years. In 1952, the
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Northwestern Europe, off the coast of European mainland, the continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
became the third nation to test a nuclear weapon when it detonated an atomic bomb in
Operation Hurricane Operation Hurricane was the first test of a Nuclear weapons of the United Kingdom, British atomic device. A plutonium Nuclear weapon design#Implosion-type weapon, implosion device was detonated on 3 October 1952 in Main Bay, Trimouille Island ...
on October 3, 1952, which had a yield of 25 kilotons. Despite major contributions to the Manhattan Project by both Canadian and British governments, the U.S. Congress passed the
Atomic Energy Act of 1946 The Atomic Energy Act of 1946 (McMahon Act) determined how the United States would control and manage the nuclear technology it had jointly developed with its World War II allies, the United Kingdom and Canada. Most significantly, the Act ru ...
, which prohibited multi-national cooperation on nuclear projects. The Atomic Energy Act fueled resentment from British scientists and Winston Churchill, as they believed that there were
agreements Agreement may refer to: Agreements between people and organizations * Gentlemen's agreement, not enforceable by law * Trade agreement, between countries * Consensus (disambiguation), a decision-making process * Contract, enforceable in a court of ...
regarding post-war sharing of nuclear technology and led to Britain's developing its nuclear weapons. Britain did not begin planning the development of its nuclear weapon until January 1947. Because of Britain's small size, they decided to test their bomb on the Montebello Islands, off the coast of Australia. Following this successful test, under the leadership of Churchill, Britain decided to develop and test a hydrogen bomb. The first successful hydrogen bomb test occurred on November 8, 1957, which had a yield of 1.8 megatons. An amendment to the Atomic Energy Act in 1958 allowed nuclear cooperation once again, and British-U.S. nuclear programs resumed. During the Cold War, British nuclear deterrence came from submarines and nuclear-armed aircraft. The ''Resolution''-class ballistic missile submarines armed with the American-built
Polaris missile The UGM-27 Polaris missile was a two-stage solid-fuel rocket, solid-fueled nuclear warhead, nuclear-armed submarine-launched ballistic missile (SLBM). As the United States Navy's first SLBM, it served from 1961 to 1980. In the mid-1950s the Navy ...
provided the sea deterrent, while aircraft such as the
Avro Vulcan The Avro Vulcan (later Hawker Siddeley Vulcan from July 1963) was a jet-powered, tailless, delta-wing, high-altitude, strategic bomber, which was operated by the Royal Air Force (RAF) from 1956 until 1984. Aircraft manufacturer A.V. Roe ...
,
SEPECAT Jaguar The SEPECAT Jaguar is a British-French supersonic jet attack aircraft originally used by the British Royal Air Force and the French Air Force in the close air support and nuclear strike role. As of 2025, the Jaguar remains in service with the ...
,
Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multi-role combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and Germany. There are three primary #Variants, Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS ...
and several other
Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the Air force, air and space force of the United Kingdom, British Overseas Territories and Crown Dependencies. It was formed towards the end of the World War I, First World War on 1 April 1918, on the merger of t ...
strike aircraft An attack aircraft, strike aircraft, or attack bomber is a tactical military aircraft that has a primary role of carrying out airstrikes with greater precision than bombers, and is prepared to encounter strong low-level air defenses while pres ...
carrying the WE.177 gravity bomb provided the air deterrent.
France France, officially the French Republic, is a country located primarily in Western Europe. Overseas France, Its overseas regions and territories include French Guiana in South America, Saint Pierre and Miquelon in the Atlantic Ocean#North Atlan ...
became the fourth nation to possess nuclear weapons on February 13, 1960, when the atomic bomb " Gerboise Bleue" was detonated in
Algeria Algeria, officially the People's Democratic Republic of Algeria, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered to Algeria–Tunisia border, the northeast by Tunisia; to Algeria–Libya border, the east by Libya; to Alger ...
, then still a French colony (formally a part of
Metropolitan France Metropolitan France ( or ), also known as European France (), is the area of France which is geographically in Europe and chiefly comprises #Hexagon, the mainland, popularly known as "the Hexagon" ( or ), and Corsica. This collective name for the ...
). France began making plans for a nuclear-weapons program shortly after the Second World War, but the program did not begin until the late 1950s. Eight years later, France conducted its first thermonuclear test above Fangatuafa Atoll. It had a yield of 2.6 megatons. This bomb significantly contaminated the atoll with radiation for six years, making it off-limits to humans. During the Cold War, the French nuclear deterrent was centered around the
Force de frappe The ''Force de dissuasion'' (), known as the ''Force de frappe'' ('Strike Force') prior to 1961,Gunston, Bill. Bombers of the West. New York: Charles Scribner's and Sons; 1973. p104 is the French nuclear deterrence force. The ''Force de dissua ...
, a nuclear triad consisting of
Dassault Mirage IV The Dassault Mirage IV is a French supersonic strategic bomber and deep-reconnaissance aircraft. Developed by Dassault Aviation, the aircraft entered service with the French Air Force in October 1964. For many years it was a vital part of the ...
bombers carrying such nuclear weapons as the
AN-22 The Antonov An-22 "Antei" (; ; NATO reporting name: "Cock") is a heavy military transport aircraft designed by the Antonov Design Bureau in the Soviet Union. Powered by four turboprop engines, each driving a pair of contra-rotating propellers, ...
gravity bomb and the ASMP stand-off attack missile,
Pluton In geology, an igneous intrusion (or intrusive body or simply intrusion) is a body of intrusive igneous rock that forms by crystallization of magma slowly cooling below the surface of the Earth. Intrusions have a wide variety of forms and com ...
and
Hades Hades (; , , later ), in the ancient Greek religion and Greek mythology, mythology, is the god of the dead and the king of the Greek underworld, underworld, with which his name became synonymous. Hades was the eldest son of Cronus and Rhea ...
ballistic missiles, and the '' Redoutable''-class submarine armed with strategic nuclear missiles.
The People's Republic of China ''The'' is a grammatical Article (grammar), article in English language, English, denoting nouns that are already or about to be mentioned, under discussion, implied or otherwise presumed familiar to listeners, readers, or speakers. It is the ...
became the fifth nuclear power on October 16, 1964, when it detonated a 25 kiloton
uranium-235 Uranium-235 ( or U-235) is an isotope of uranium making up about 0.72% of natural uranium. Unlike the predominant isotope uranium-238, it is fissile, i.e., it can sustain a nuclear chain reaction. It is the only fissile isotope that exists in nat ...
bomb in a test codenamed
596 __NOTOC__ Year 596 ( DXCVI) was a leap year starting on Sunday of the Julian calendar. The denomination 596 for this year has been used since the early medieval period, when the Anno Domini calendar era became the prevalent method in Europe for ...
at
Lop Nur Lop Nur or Lop Nor (, , from an Oirat Mongolic name meaning "Lop Lake", where "Lop" is a toponym of unknown origin) is a now largely dried-up salt lake formerly located within the ''Lop Depression'' in the eastern fringe of the Tarim Basin in ...
. In the late 1950s, China began developing nuclear weapons with substantial Soviet assistance in exchange for uranium ore. However, the Sino-Soviet ideological split in the late 1950s developed problems between China and the Soviet Union. This caused the Soviets to cease helping China develop nuclear weapons. However, China continued developing nuclear weapons without Soviet support and made remarkable progress in the 1960s. Owing to Soviet/Chinese tensions, the Chinese might have used nuclear weapons against either the United States or the Soviet Union in the event of a nuclear war between the United States and the Soviet Union. During the Cold War, the Chinese nuclear deterrent consisted of gravity bombs carried aboard H-6 bomber aircraft, missile systems such as the
DF-2 The ''Dongfeng'' () series, typically abbreviated as "DF missiles", are a family of short, medium, intermediate-range and intercontinental ballistic missiles operated by the Chinese People's Liberation Army Rocket Force (formerly the Second Art ...
,
DF-3 The DF-3A (NATO: CSS-2) is a Chinese Liquid-propellant rocket, liquid-fueled, single-stage, nuclear intermediate-range ballistic missile that entered service in 1971. In 1988 China sold several dozen (reportedly between 36 and 60) DF-3A missiles ...
, and
DF-4 The Dong Feng 4 () or DF-4 (also known as the CSS-3) is a first-generation two-stage Chinese intercontinental ballistic missile with liquid fuel (Nitric acid/Unsymmetrical dimethylhydrazine). It was thought to be deployed in limited numbers in ...
, and in the later stages of the Cold War, the Type 092 ballistic missile submarine. On June 14, 1967, China detonated its first hydrogen bomb.


Cuban Missile Crisis

On January 1, 1959, the Cuban government fell to communist revolutionaries, propelling
Fidel Castro Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz (13 August 1926 – 25 November 2016) was a Cuban politician and revolutionary who was the leader of Cuba from 1959 to 2008, serving as the prime minister of Cuba from 1959 to 1976 and President of Cuba, president ...
into power. The communist Soviet Union supported and praised Castro and his resistance, and the revolutionary government was recognized by the Soviet Union on January 10. When the United States began boycotting Cuban sugar, the Soviet Union began purchasing large quantities to support the Cuban economy in return for fuel and eventually placing nuclear ballistic missiles on Cuban soil. These missiles would be capable of reaching the United States very quickly. On October 14, 1962, an American spy plane discovered these nuclear missile sites under construction in Cuba. President Kennedy immediately called a series of meetings for a small group of senior officials to debate the crisis. The group was split between a militaristic solution and a diplomatic one. President Kennedy ordered a naval blockade around Cuba and all military forces to DEFCON 3. As tensions increased, Kennedy eventually ordered U.S. military forces to DEFCON 2. This is considered the closest the world has been to a nuclear war. While the U.S. military had been ordered to DEFCON 2, the theory of mutually assured destruction suggests that entry into nuclear war is an unlikely possibility. While the public perceived the Cuban Missile Crisis as a time of near mass destruction, the leaders of the United States and the Soviet Union were working confidentially in order to allow the crisis to come to a peaceful conclusion. Soviet First Secretary Khrushchev wrote to President Kennedy in a telegram on October 26, 1962, saying that, "Consequently, if there is no intention to tighten that knot and thereby to doom the world to the catastrophe of thermonuclear war, then let us not only relax the forces pulling on the ends of the rope, let us take measures to untie that knot." Eventually, on October 28, through much discussion between U.S and Soviet officials, Khrushchev announced that the Soviet Union would withdraw all missiles from Cuba. Shortly afterwards, the U.S. withdrew all their nuclear missiles from Turkey in secret – the presence of the missiles having threatened the Soviets. Information that the U.S. had withdrawn their Jupiter Missiles from Turkey remained confidential for decades, causing the result of the negotiations between the two nations to appear to the world as a major U.S. victory. This ultimately led to the downfall of Soviet leader Khrushchev.


Détente

By the 1970s, with the Cold War's entering its 30th year with no direct conflict between the United States and the Soviet Union, the superpowers entered a period of reduced conflict, in which the two powers engaged in trade and exchanges with each other. This period was known as
détente ''Détente'' ( , ; for, fr, , relaxation, paren=left, ) is the relaxation of strained relations, especially political ones, through verbal communication. The diplomacy term originates from around 1912, when France and Germany tried unsucces ...
. This period included negotiation of a number of arms control agreements, building with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the 1950s, but with significant new treaties negotiated in the 1970s. These treaties were only partially successful. Although both states continued to hold massive numbers of nuclear weapons and research more effective technology, the growth in number of warheads was first limited, and later, with the
START I START I (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the reduction and the limitation of strategic offensive arms. The treaty was signed on 31 July 1991 and entered into force on 5 De ...
, reversed.


Treaties

In 1958, both the U.S. and Soviet Union informally agreed to suspend nuclear testing. However, this agreement was ended when the Soviets resumed testing in 1961, followed by a series of nuclear tests conducted by the U.S. These events led to much political fallout, as well as the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962. It was felt by American and Soviet leaders that something had to be done to ease the significant tensions between these two countries, so on October 10, 1963, the Limited Test Ban Treaty (LTBT) was signed. This was an agreement between the U.S., the Soviet Union, and the U.K., which significantly restricted nuclear testing. All atmospheric, underwater, and outer space nuclear testing were agreed to be halted, but testing was still allowed underground. An additional 113 countries have signed this treaty since 1963.
SALT I The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of ...
and
SALT II The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) were two rounds of bilateral conferences and corresponding international treaties involving the United States and the Soviet Union. The Cold War superpowers dealt with arms control in two rounds of ...
limited the size of the U.S. arsenal. Bans on nuclear testing, anti-ballistic missile systems, and weapons in space all attempted to limit the expansion of the arms race through the
Partial Test Ban Treaty The Partial Test Ban Treaty (PTBT), formally known as the 1963 Treaty Banning Nuclear Weapon Tests in the Atmosphere, in Outer Space and Under Water, prohibited all nuclear weapons testing, test detonations of nuclear weapons except for those co ...
. In November 1969, Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) begun. This was primarily due to the economic impact that nuclear testing and production had on both U.S. and Soviet economies. The SALT I Treaty, which was signed in May 1972, produced an agreement on two significant documents. These were the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM Treaty) and the Interim Agreement on the Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. The ABM treaty limited each country to two ABM sites, while the Interim Agreement froze each country's number of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) at current levels for five years. This treaty significantly reduced nuclear-related costs as well as the risk of nuclear war. However, SALT I failed to address how many nuclear warheads could be placed on a single missile. A new technology, known as multiple-independently targetable re-entry vehicle (MIRV), allowed single missiles to hold and launch multiple nuclear missiles at targets while in mid-air. Over the next 10 years, the Soviet Union and U.S. added 12,000 nuclear warheads to their already built arsenals. Throughout the 1970s, both the Soviet Union and United States replaced older warheads and missiles with newer, more powerful and effective ones. On June 18, 1979, the SALT II treaty was signed in Vienna. This treaty limited both sides' nuclear arsenals and technology. However, in light of the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan in December 1979, the United States Senate never ratified the SALT II treaty. This ended the treaty negotiations as well as the era of détente. In 1991, the START (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was negotiated between the U. S. and the Soviet Union, to reduce the number and limit the capabilities of limitation of strategic offensive arms. This was eventually succeeded by the
START II START II (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a bilateral treaty between the United States and Russia on the Reduction and Limitation of Strategic Offensive Arms. It was signed by US President George H. W. Bush and Russian President Boris Yel ...
,
START III START III (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty) was a proposed bilateral arms control treaty between the United States and Russia that was meant to reduce the deployed nuclear weapons arsenals of both countries drastically and to continue the weapons ...
, and
New START New START (Russian language, Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a Nuclear disarmament, ...
treaties.


Reagan and the Strategic Defense Initiative

Despite détente, both sides continued to develop and introduce not only more accurate weapons, but weapons with more warheads ("
MIRV A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...
s"). The presidency of
Ronald Reagan Ronald Wilson Reagan (February 6, 1911 – June 5, 2004) was an American politician and actor who served as the 40th president of the United States from 1981 to 1989. He was a member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party a ...
proposed a missile defense programme tagged the
Strategic Defense Initiative The Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) was a proposed missile defense system intended to protect the United States from attack by ballistic nuclear missiles. The program was announced in 1983, by President Ronald Reagan. Reagan called for a ...
, a space-based anti-ballistic missile system derided as "
Star Wars ''Star Wars'' is an American epic film, epic space opera media franchise created by George Lucas, which began with the Star Wars (film), eponymous 1977 film and Cultural impact of Star Wars, quickly became a worldwide popular culture, pop cu ...
" by its critics; simultaneously, missile defense was also being researched in the Soviet Union. However, the SDI would require technology that had not yet been developed, or even researched. This system proposed both space- and earth-based laser battle stations. It would also need sensors on the ground, in the air, and in space with radar, optical, and infrared technology to detect incoming missiles. Simultaneously, however, Reagan initiated negotiations with
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
, ultimately resulting in the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty on reducing nuclear stockpiles. Owing to high costs and complex technology for its time, the scope of the SDI project was reduced from defense against a massive attack to a system for defending against limited attacks, transitioning into the
Ballistic Missile Defense Organization The Ballistic Missile Defense Organization (BMDO) was an agency of the United States Department of Defense that began on 20 May 1974 with the responsibility for all U.S. ballistic missile defense efforts. It was renamed the Missile Defense Agenc ...
.


The end of the Cold War

During the mid-1980s, the U.S-Soviet relations significantly improved, Mikhail Gorbachev assumed control of the Soviet Union after the deaths of several former Soviet leaders and announced a new era of "perestroika" and "glasnost," meaning restructuring and openness respectively. Gorbachev proposed a 50% reduction of nuclear weapons for both the U.S and Soviet Union at the meeting in Reykjavik, Iceland in October 1986. However, the proposal was refused due to disagreements over Reagan's SDI. Instead, the Intermediate Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty was signed on December 8, 1987, in Washington, which eliminated an entire class of nuclear weapons. Owing to the dramatic economic and social changes occurring within the Soviet Union, many of its constituent republics began to declare their independence. With the wave of revolutions sweeping across Eastern-Europe, the Soviet Union was unable to impose its will on its satellite states and so its sphere of influence slowly diminished. By December 16, 1991, all of the republics had declared independence from the Union. The Soviet leader,
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
resigned as the country's president on December 25 and the Soviet Union was declared non-existent the following day.


Post–Cold War

With the end of the Cold War, the United States and Russia cut down on nuclear weapons spending. Fewer new systems were developed, and both arsenals were reduced, although both countries maintain significant stocks of nuclear missiles. In the United States,
stockpile stewardship Stockpile stewardship refers to the United States program of reliability testing, viability, and the maintenance of its nuclear weapons without the use of nuclear testing. Because no new nuclear weapons have been developed by the United States si ...
programs have taken over the role of maintaining the aging arsenal. After the Cold War ended, large inventories of nuclear weapons and facilities remained. Some are being recycled, dismantled, or recovered as valuable substances. Large amounts of money and resources – which would have been spent on developing nuclear weapons in the Soviet Union, had the arms race continued – were instead used for repairing the environmental damage produced by the nuclear arms race, and almost all former production sites are now major cleanup sites. In the United States, the plutonium production facility at Hanford, Washington, and the
plutonium pit In nuclear weapon design, the pit is the core of an implosion nuclear weapon, consisting of fissile material and any neutron reflector or tamper bonded to it. Early pits were spherical, while most modern pits are prolate spheroidal. S ...
fabrication facility at Rocky Flats, Colorado, are among the most polluted sites. Military policies and strategies have been modified to reflect the increasing intervals without major confrontation. In 1995, United States policy and strategy regarding nuclear proliferation was outlined in the document " Essentials of Post–Cold War Deterrence", produced by the Policy Subcommittee of the Strategic Advisory Group (SAG) of the
United States Strategic Command The United States Strategic Command (USSTRATCOM) is one of the eleven unified combatant commands in the United States Department of Defense. Headquartered at Offutt Air Force Base, Nebraska, USSTRATCOM is responsible for Strategic_nuclear_weap ...
.


21st century nuclear arms race

On 13 December 2001,
George W. Bush George Walker Bush (born July 6, 1946) is an American politician and businessman who was the 43rd president of the United States from 2001 to 2009. A member of the Bush family and the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he i ...
gave
Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...
notice of the United States' withdrawal from the
Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty The Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, also known as the ABM Treaty or ABMT, was an arms control treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union on the limitation of the anti-ballistic missile (ABM) systems used in defending areas against ball ...
. This led to the eventual creation of the American
Missile Defense Agency The Missile Defense Agency (MDA) is a component of the Federal government of the United States, United States government's United States Department of Defense, Department of Defense responsible for developing a comprehensive Missile defense, defe ...
. Russian President
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
responded to the withdrawal by ordering a build-up of Russia's nuclear capabilities, designed to counterbalance U.S. capabilities. On April 8, 2010, U.S. President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
and Russian President
Dmitry Medvedev Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev (born 14 September 1965) is a Russian politician and lawyer who has served as Deputy Chairman of the Security Council of Russia since 2020. Medvedev was also President of Russia between 2008 and 2012 and Prime Mini ...
signed the
New START Treaty New START ( Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a nuclear arms reduction treaty betwee ...
, which called for a fifty percent reduction of strategic nuclear missile launchers and a curtailment of deployed nuclear warheads. The
U.S. Senate The United States Senate is a chamber of the bicameral United States Congress; it is the upper house, with the U.S. House of Representatives being the lower house. Together, the Senate and House have the authority under Article One of the ...
ratified the treaty in December 2010 by a three-quarter majority. On December 22, 2016, U.S. President
Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...
proclaimed in a tweet that "the United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes," effectively challenging the world to re-engage in a race for nuclear dominance. The next day, Trump reiterated his position to ''
Morning Joe ''Morning Joe'' is an American morning news talk show, which airs weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 10:00 a.m. Eastern Time Zone, Eastern Time on the cable news channel MSNBC. It features former United States House of Representatives, US Repr ...
'' host
Mika Brzezinski Mika Emilie Leonia Brzezinski Scarborough (; Brzezinski; born May 2, 1967) is an American talk show host who co-hosts MSNBC's weekday morning broadcast show ''Morning Joe'' alongside her husband Joe Scarborough. She was formerly a CBS News corr ...
of
MSNBC MSNBC is an American cable news channel owned by the NBCUniversal News Group division of NBCUniversal, a subsidiary of Comcast. Launched on July 15, 1996, and headquartered at 30 Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan, the channel primarily broadcasts r ...
, stating: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all." In October 2018, the former Soviet leader
Mikhail Gorbachev Mikhail Sergeyevich Gorbachev (2 March 1931 – 30 August 2022) was a Soviet and Russian politician who served as the last leader of the Soviet Union from 1985 to dissolution of the Soviet Union, the country's dissolution in 1991. He served a ...
commented that U.S. withdrawal from the INF nuclear treaty is "not the work of a great mind" and that "a new arms race has been announced". In 2019, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov warned about the risk of nuclear war, as negative dynamics had been noticeable over the previous year. He urged the nuclear states to build channels on forestalling potential incidents in order to lower the risks. According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal ''
Nature Food ''Nature Food'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by Nature Portfolio. It was established in 2020. The editor-in-chief is Anne Mullen. Abstracting and indexing The journal is abstracted and indexed in: *Science Citation Index ...
'' in August 2022, a full-scale nuclear war between the United States and Russia, which together hold more than 90% of the world's nuclear weapons, would kill 360 million people directly and more than 5 billion (80% of humanity) indirectly by starvation during a
nuclear winter Nuclear winter is a severe and prolonged anti-greenhouse effect, global climatic cooling effect that is hypothesized to occur after widespread firestorms following a large-scale Nuclear warfare, nuclear war. The hypothesis is based on the fact ...
. Roughly 99% of the people in the US, Europe, Russia and China would starve to death if they did not die of something else sooner with 95% of the fatalities being in countries not initially involved. On February 21, 2023, Russian President
Vladimir Putin Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who has served as President of Russia since 2012, having previously served from 2000 to 2008. Putin also served as Prime Minister of Ru ...
suspended Russia's participation in the
New START New START (Russian language, Russian abbrev.: СНВ-III, ''SNV-III'' from ''сокращение стратегических наступательных вооружений'' "reduction of strategic offensive arms") is a Nuclear disarmament, ...
nuclear arms reduction treaty with the United States, saying that Russia would not allow the US and NATO to inspect its nuclear facilities. In July 2024, the
Biden administration Joe Biden's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 46th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Joe Biden, his inauguration on January 20, 2021, and ended on January 20, 2025. Biden, a member of the Democr ...
announced its intention to deploy long-range missiles in
Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...
starting in 2026 that could hit Russian territory within 10 minutes. In response, Russian President Putin warned of a
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
-style missile crisis and threatened to deploy long-range missiles within striking distance of the West. US weapons in Germany would include SM-6 and
Tomahawk A tomahawk is a type of single-handed axe used by the many Native Americans in the United States, Indian peoples and nations of North America, traditionally resembles a hatchet with a straight shaft. Etymology The name comes from Powhatan langu ...
cruise missiles and
hypersonic weapons A hypersonic weapon is a weapon capable of maneuvering at hypersonic speed, defined as above Mach 5, or above 5 times the speed of sound. Below Mach 1, weapons would be characterized as subsonic, and above Mach 1, as supersonic. At extremel ...
. The United States' decision to deploy long-range missiles in Germany has been compared to the deployment of
Pershing II The Pershing II Weapon System was a solid-fueled two-stage medium-range ballistic missile designed and built by Martin Marietta to replace the Pershing 1a Field Artillery Missile System as the United States Army's primary nuclear-capable thea ...
launchers in Western Europe in 1979. Critics say the move would trigger a new
arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
. According to Russian military analysts, it would be extremely difficult to distinguish between a conventionally armed missile and a missile carrying a nuclear warhead, and Russia could respond by deploying longer-range nuclear systems targeting Germany. In August 2024, ''
The Economist ''The Economist'' is a British newspaper published weekly in printed magazine format and daily on Electronic publishing, digital platforms. It publishes stories on topics that include economics, business, geopolitics, technology and culture. M ...
'' reported that "a new nuclear arms race draws closer", as the U.S. is considering increasing its nuclear forces in response to escalating threats and rapid nuclear expansions by China and Russia, as well as North Korea's advancements in missile technology and Iran's advancement as a "threshold" nuclear state.


India and Pakistan

In
South Asia South Asia is the southern Subregion#Asia, subregion of Asia that is defined in both geographical and Ethnicity, ethnic-Culture, cultural terms. South Asia, with a population of 2.04 billion, contains a quarter (25%) of the world's populatio ...
,
India India, officially the Republic of India, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by area, seventh-largest country by area; the List of countries by population (United Nations), most populous country since ...
and
Pakistan Pakistan, officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and dependencies by population, fifth-most populous country, with a population of over 241.5 million, having the Islam by country# ...
have also engaged in a technological nuclear arms race since the 1970s. The nuclear competition started in 1974 with India detonating a device, codenamed
Smiling Buddha Smiling Buddha (Ministry of External Affairs (India), MEA designation: Pokhran-I) was the code name of India's first successful Nuclear weapons testing, nuclear weapon test on 18 May 1974. The nuclear fission bomb was detonated in the Pokhran#P ...
, at the Pokhran region of the
Rajasthan state Rajasthan (; lit. 'Land of Kings') is a state in northwestern India. It covers or 10.4 per cent of India's total geographical area. It is the largest Indian state by area and the seventh largest by population. It is on India's northwester ...
. The Indian government called this test a "
peaceful nuclear explosion Peaceful nuclear explosions (PNEs) are nuclear explosions conducted for non-military purposes. Proposed uses include excavation for the building of canals and harbours, electrical generation, the use of nuclear explosions to drive spacecraft, and a ...
", but according to independent sources, it was actually part of an accelerated covert nuclear program of India. This test generated great concern and doubts in Pakistan, with fear it would be at the mercy of its long-time arch-rival. Pakistan had its own covert atomic bomb projects in 1972 which ran for many years since the first Indian weapon was detonated. After the 1974 test, the pace of Pakistan's atomic bomb program significantly accelerated, culminating in successfully building its own atomic weapons. In the last few decades of the 20th century, India and Pakistan began to develop nuclear-capable rockets and nuclear military technologies. Finally, in 1998, India – under Atal Bihari Vajpayee's government – test detonated five more nuclear weapons. Domestic pressure within Pakistan began to build and Prime Minister
Nawaz Sharif Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif (born 25 December 1949) is a Pakistani politician and businessman who served as the 12th Prime Minister of Pakistan, prime minister of Pakistan for three non-consecutive terms, first serving from 1990 to 1993, then ...
ordered a test, detonating six nuclear weapons (
Chagai-I Chagai-I is the code name of five simultaneous underground nuclear tests conducted by Pakistan at 15:15 hrs Pakistan Standard Time, PKT on 28 May 1998. The tests were performed at Ras Koh Hills in the Chagai District of Balochistan Province. C ...
and
Chagai-II Chagai-II is the codename assigned to the second atomic test conducted by Pakistan, carried out on 30 May 1998 in the Kharan Desert in Balochistan Province of Pakistan. ''Chagai-II'' took place two days after Pakistan's first successful te ...
) in retaliation and to act as a deterrent. According to a peer-reviewed study published in the journal ''Nature Food'' in August 2022, a nuclear war between India and Pakistan could kill more than 2 billion indirectly by starvation during a nuclear winter. According to the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency’s 2025 Worldwide Threat Assessment, it was estimated that Pakistan's nuclear stockpile could grow to a total of 200 warheads in 2025, a sharp rise from an estimated 60-80 warheads in 1999. The report attributed this growth to Pakistan’s view of India as an existential threat and its strategy to counter India’s conventional superiority through tactical nuclear weapons.


Defense against nuclear attacks

From the beginning of the Cold War, The United States, Russia, and other nations have all attempted to develop
anti-ballistic missiles An anti-ballistic missile (ABM) is a surface-to-air missile designed to destroy in-flight ballistic missiles. They achieve this explosively (chemical or nuclear), or via hit-to-kill kinetic vehicles, which may also have self-maneuvering. Tact ...
. The United States developed the
LIM-49 Nike Zeus Nike Zeus was an anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system developed by the United States Army during the late 1950s and early 1960s that was designed to destroy incoming Soviet intercontinental ballistic missile warheads before they could hit their ...
in the 1950s in order to destroy incoming ICBMs. Russia has also developed ABM missiles, in the form of the
A-35 anti-ballistic missile system The A-35 anti-ballistic missile system was a USSR, Soviet military anti-ballistic missile (ABM) system deployed around Moscow to intercept enemy ballistic missiles targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The A-35 was the only Soviet ABM syste ...
and the later
A-135 anti-ballistic missile system The A-135 (NATO reporting name, NATO: ABM-4 Gorgon) is a Russian anti-ballistic missile system deployed around Moscow to intercept incoming warheads targeting the city or its surrounding areas. The system was designed in the Soviet Union and enter ...
. Chinese state media has also announced that China has tested anti-ballistic missiles, though specific information is not public. In November 2006, India – with an initiative called the
Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme The Indian Ballistic Missile Defence Programme is an initiative to develop and deploy a multi-layered ballistic missile defence system to protect India from ballistic missile attacks. It was launched in 1999 after the Kargil War by the Atal B ...
– successfully tested its Prithvi Air Defense (PAD) anti-ballistic missile, followed by testing of the Advanced Air Defense (AAD) anti-ballistic missile in December 2007.


Nuclear disarmament

Nuclear disarmament is one of four different norms in the aid of getting rid of nuclear weapons. This norm can include arms control, arms reduction to elimination, prohibition, and stigmatization. This has been a hard norm to implement. Most of the conditions, the weight, strategy, timing, conditionality, and compliance have been contested. First the United States announced on September 27, 1991, that they would be destroying the ground-launched short-range nuclear weapons. Mikhail Gorbachev, who was the President of the Soviet Union at that time, removed nuclear warheads from air defense missiles and nuclear artillery munitions. In 2017, the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons Treaty gives the representation of self-empowerment. This treaty did not involve the states or their allies that had nuclear weapons. A lot of debate has occurred about nuclear disarmament. Debates over treaties in reducing and getting rid of nuclear weapons all together have been ongoing since the Cold War ended. In 2010, there was a debate over the New Strategic Arms Reduction (START) treaty. This treaty was negotiated between the United States and Russia. Since this has been an ongoing endeavor, a lot of the non-nuclear states are fighting to get the states that do have nuclear weapons to abide by what they believe to be the most recent obligations. Both the United States and Russian Presidents agreed to destroy nuclear weapons they contained.


See also

*
Arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
*
Nuclear warfare Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...
*
Nuclear holocaust A nuclear holocaust, also known as a nuclear apocalypse, nuclear annihilation, nuclear armageddon, or atomic holocaust, is a Futures studies, theoretical scenario where the mass detonation of nuclear weapons causes widespread destruction and radi ...
*
Nuclear terrorism Nuclear terrorism is the use of a nuclear weapon or radiological weapon as an act of terrorism. There are many possible terror incidents, ranging in feasibility and scope. These include the sabotage of a nuclear facility, the intentional irrad ...
*
Space Race The Space Race (, ) was a 20th-century competition between the Cold War rivals, the United States and the Soviet Union, to achieve superior spaceflight capability. It had its origins in the ballistic missile-based nuclear arms race between t ...
*
Artificial intelligence arms race A military artificial intelligence arms race is an economic and military competition between two or more states to develop and deploy advanced AI technologies and lethal autonomous weapons systems (LAWS). The goal is to gain a strategic or tact ...
*
Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...
* Essentials of Post–Cold War Deterrence *
Deterrence theory Deterrence theory refers to the scholarship and practice of how threats of using force by one party can convince another party to refrain from initiating some other course of action. The topic gained increased prominence as a military strategy d ...
*
Nuclear disarmament Nuclear disarmament is the act of reducing or eliminating nuclear weapons. Its end state can also be a nuclear-weapons-free world, in which nuclear weapons are completely eliminated. The term ''denuclearization'' is also used to describe the pro ...
* Historical nuclear weapons stockpiles and nuclear tests by country * Brinkmanship (Cold War) * ''''


Explanatory notes


Notes


References

* Boughton, G. J. (1974). Journal of Interamerican Studies and World Affairs (16th ed.). Miami, United States of America: Center for Latin American Studies at the University of Miami. * Brown, A
Reform, Coup and Collapse: The End of the Soviet State
BBC History. Retrieved November 22, 2012
Cold War: A Brief History
(n.d.). Atomic Archive. Retrieved November 16, 2012 * Doty, P., Carnesale, A., & Nacht, M. (1976, October). The Race to Control Nuclear Arms. * Jones, R. W. (1998). Pakistan's Nuclear Posture: Arms Race Instabilities in South Asia. * Joyce, A., Bates Graber, R., Hoffman, T. J., Paul Shaw, R., & Wong, Y. (1989, February). The Nuclear Arms Race: An Evolutionary Perspective. * Maloney, S. M. (2007). Learning to love the bomb: Canada's nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Washington, D.C.: Potomac Books. * May, E. R. (n.d.)
John F Kennedy and the Cuban Missile Crisis
BBC History. Retrieved November 22, 2012 * Van, C. M. (1993). Nuclear proliferation and the future of conflict. New York, United States: Free Press. * *


Further reading


"Presidency in the Nuclear Age"
conference and forum at the JFK Library, Boston, October 12, 2009. Four panels: "The Race to Build the Bomb and the Decision to Use It", "Cuban Missile Crisis and the First Nuclear Test Ban Treaty", "The Cold War and the Nuclear Arms Race", and "Nuclear Weapons, Terrorism, and the Presidency".


External links

* Erik Ringmar,
The Recognition Game: Soviet Russia Against the West
" ''Cooperation & Conflict'', 37:2, 2002. pp. 115–136. – the arms race between the superpowers explained through the concept of recognition.
Annotated bibliography on the nuclear arms race from the Alsos Digital Library for Nuclear Issues
{{DEFAULTSORT:Nuclear Arms Race
Arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
Arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
Arms race An arms race occurs when two or more groups compete in military superiority. It consists of a competition between two or more State (polity), states to have superior armed forces, concerning production of weapons, the growth of a military, and ...
Soviet Union–United States relations India–Pakistan relations Foreign relations of the Soviet Union Technological races