Download The Arms Race - IB-History-of-the-Americas

Numerous people feared that the
thoughts were the more nuclear
weapons a country had the more
power they had.
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The United States and Russia were the
countries involved in the nuclear arms race
The main cause or start of the nuclear arms
race was the bombings of the two Japanese
cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the United
States. Thus, the USSR tried to equal the U.S in
nuclear weapon power and this is how the
nuclear arms race. Although Russia exploded
its first atomic bomb in 1949
Thus America and Russia began to build up
their supply of nuclear weapons
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The argumentation between the United States
and the USSR began near the end of World
War I. The Bolsheviks (later Communists)
overthrew the existing Russian government led
by Vladimir Lenin.
December 1922 was when the making of the
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was
made under Communist control. The United
States denied to identify the Soviet state until
1933.
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The United States produced and used its first
H-Bombs in 1952 and this ultimately changed
the world.
Russia produced its first H-Bomb in 1953 and
later China exploded its first H-Bomb in 1967
A hydrogen bomb or H-bomb is a weapon
developing a large amount of its energy from
the nuclear fusion of hydrogen isotopes is what
a hydrogen is and it was smaller in size than
the city of Hiroshima but 2500 times as
powerful.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNcQX0
33V_M
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The United States produced a bomber which
could fly 6000 miles and it could deliver a
nuclear pay-load which Russia could not afford
to make so they could not top the United States
in the bomber department.
Since Russia could not afford to create a bigger
bomb they focused on creating bigger bombs
which was more cost effective
This caused the Arms Race to escalate and
become a battle between a delivery system
battle as well
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The United States went into a plane delivery
system while the Soviets put their money into
more of rocket delivery systems
By 1981, the United States had 4,000 planes
capable of carrying nuclear weapons while
Russia had 5,000
At the end of the 1950’s American Intelligence
had predicted that if there were an attack from
the USSR that there would be twenty million
deaths and twenty-two million injured people
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Russia would focus on making more nuclear
weapons but less of a quality value in the
1960’s
While the United States focused on making
better quality nuclear weapons but it focused
on making fewer
By the year of 1961 there were so many nuclear
weapons between the two countries that they
could have destroyed the world itself
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ICBM stands for Inter-continental ballistic
missiles which are missiles that follow an
airborne route and has the range to carry a
nuclear bomb over 5,500 km
By the year of 1981 the United States had 8,000
Inter-continental ballistic missiles while Russia
had 7,000
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http://www.history.com/videos/the-spacerace#the-space-race
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In 1961, President John F. Kennedy announced
a program to build nuclear shelters for
protection in case of a nuclear war.
The Soviets became worried and were still
trying to catch up with the United States in
nuclear weapons
In this time pamphlets were passed out which
described how to survive a nuclear war and
Kennedy talked about starting a nuclear war
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A person in which Soviet scientists advised
that it would take several years to catch up to
the U.S
There was a suggestion to the Soviet Union that
they needed to make the United States
vulnerable to a nuclear attack. Khrushchev
became convinced that if the United States
knew they would suffer badly in a nuclear war,
they would not start such a war.
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In the 1950’s Russia had produced mediumrange ballistic missiles (MRBMs) and
intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs)
and these were made in order to support
troops just in case of war
If they were to be able to unleash these
powerful weapons on the United States they
would need to have a nuclear base in the US
but they had no allies in the US so this was not
possible
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The early 1980s was a ending period of
resistance between the United States and the
Russia which resulted mostly from the Soviets'
invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 which made a
Communist government. In 1983 Ronald
Reagan announced the Strategic Defense
Initiative nicknamed Star Wars, and this was
envisioned as a satellite-based nuclear
protection system which would have destroyed
any incoming missiles and weapons in space.
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In December 1987 the Soviet President Mikhail
Gorbachev and the U.S. President Reagan
signed the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces
and thus this destroyed the whole intermediate
range nuclear missile class which allowed the
world to be a safer place
In July 1991 the United States and the Soviet
Union signed the Strategic Arms Reduction Act
which ended the Arms Race.
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Simkin, J.. "Nuclear Arms Race." Nuclear arms race. Spartacus
Educational Publishers Ltd, n.d. Web. 29 Apr 2012.
<http://www.spartacus.schoolnet.co.uk/COLDnucleararms.htm
>.
. "AtomCentral.com." The cold war. N.p., n.d. Web. 29 Apr 2012.
<http://www.atomcentral.com/the-cold-war.asp&xgt;.
Trueman, C.. "The nuclear arms race." historylearningcite. N.p.,
2011. Web. 29 Apr 2012.
<http://www.historylearningsite.co.uk/nuclear_arms_race.htm>.