Arms Race

1. Arms Race By: Dre’ Anderson and Tanner Sinclair

2. Background • In 1946, after WWII, the Atomic Energy Act was passed to prevent nuclear weapons, but countries still made these weapons. • Countries raced to advanced in nuclear weapons and other military weapons to gain world power. • Arms race was between democratic NATO countries and communist Warsaw Pact countries. Specifically U.S. and the Soviet Union. http://www.etec.energy.gov/Regulation/Atomic-Energy-Act.html

4. Hydrogen Bombs • Americans wanted to prevent war by having the best bombs. • President Truman ordered scientist to develop a hydrogen bomb…nicknamed MIKE! • MIKE was tested on a coral island in the South Pacific in 1952. • The Soviet Union saw U.S. heavy spending for nuclear weapons and began to research on their own. • The Soviet Union built an hydrogen bomb and tested it in Siberia.

6. Hydrogen Bomb Cont. • Eisenhower worked for peace with the Soviet Union, although the arms research continued. • March 1954 the U.S. set off the biggest H-bomb it ever tested nicknamed BRAVO! • BRAVO had radioactive ash fall on 23 Japanese fishermen. They wre all sick when they got to Japan and one died a few months later. The text book

8. Deterrence • Measures taken by a state or an alliance of states to prevent hostile action by another state. • The U.S. and Soviet Union came up with the policy of deterrence, however continued to build their armed forces. • This built a vast, interwoven military establishment and arms industry from the invented stockpile of weapons. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/deterrence

10. S.A.L.T. • Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty extended from November 1969 to May 1972. • The U.S. and Soviet Union placed limits and restraints on their production of nuclear weapons. • They also put limits and restraints on central defensive weapons that would spur other countries’ competition. http://www.armscontrol.org/documents/salt