How Would Having Control Over Satellite States Benefit The Soviet Union If It Became

The Soviet-American Arms Race

John Swift examines a vital element of the Common cold War and assesses the motives of the Superpowers.

Nuclear weapon test, 1956 The destruction of the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki by American atomic weapons in August 1945 began an arms race between the The states and the Soviet Wedlock. This lasted until the signing of the Conventional Forces in Europe treaty of November 1990. An entire generation grew up under the shadow of imminent catastrophe. There were widespread fears that humanity could not survive. A unmarried reckless leader, or even a mistake or misunderstanding, could initiate the extinction of mankind. Stockpiles of fearsome weapons were built up to levels far beyond whatsoever conceivable purpose, and simply seemed to add to the uncertainty and instability of the historic period. Did Common cold War leaders human action irrationally through fright and distrust? Or was there a degree of rationality and reason behind the colossal artillery build-up?

A New Superweapon?

The rapid surrender of Japan in 1945 certainly suggested that the United States possessed the nigh decisive of weapons. Indeed there is reason to suspect that the real purpose in using them was less to forcefulness a Japanese defeat than to warn the Soviet Marriage to exist acquiescent to American wishes in the construction of the postwar globe. Equally an help to American diplomacy, however, the possession of atomic weapons proved of little value. The Soviet leadership quickly realised their limitations. The Americans, it was clear, would utilise them in defence of Western Europe in the face of a Soviet invasion – a step Joseph Stalin never seems to take seriously contemplated – simply no American regime could justify their utilise in gild to force political reforms on Eastern Europe. Arguably Right: The test explosion of an American nuclear flop in the Marshall Islands. John Swift examines a vital element of the Common cold War and assesses the motives of the Superpowers. Soviet leaders became even more intransigent in negotiations, determined to show they would not be intimidated. Too, it was sure that the Soviet Matrimony would develop diminutive weapons of their ain, and as rapidly every bit possible. This, the Americans assumed, would take between eight and 15 years, given the wartime devastation the Soviet Matrimony had suffered.

This left the Americans to ponder the problems of security in an atomicallyarmed world. A single weapon could destroy a city. Besides wartime experience had shown that in that location had been no defence against German V2 rockets. If, therefore, a warhead could be mounted on such a rocket, it would surely provide instant victory. Additionally, the Japanese set on on Pearl Harbor had taught that the surprise attack was the tool of aggressors. Peace-loving democracies would be terribly vulnerable. In upshot, some thought was given to international controls, under the auspices of the Un, to prevent any nation possessing these weapons. This was the basis of the Baruch Plan.

In 1946 American financier, and presidential adviser, Bernard Baruch proposed the dismantling of American weapons, international prohibition on the production of any more, and international co-functioning in developing diminutive free energy for peaceful use under the strict supervision of an international trunk. But the Soviet Wedlock would have to submit to that inspection regime, and the U.s. would not share its weapons applied science. It is unclear how seriously president Harry S. Truman and his administration took these proposals. They sounded pious, and when the Soviet Marriage rejected them, which they did, the Americans scored considerable propaganda points – which may accept been the whole point of the exercise.

Without international controls, the only defence seemed to be to threaten retaliation in kind if an atomic attack was ever made on the Us or its allies. As it proved extremely difficult to develop long-range missiles that were sufficiently reliable and accurate, initially that deterrence was provided past B36 bombers stationed in Britain and the Far East. But the Soviet Union tested its first diminutive weapon in 1949, far before than had been expected. The shock of this made American stockpiles of nuclear bombs seem unconvincing. Truman, therefore, authorised the evolution of thermonuclear weapons, or hydrogen bombs. These yielded explosions of ten megatons (equivalent to 10,000,000 tons of TNT, whereas the bomb used on Hiroshima yielded the equivalent of 12,500 tons). But by 1953, the Soviet Union had caught upwardly again. Meanwhile the United states of america began edifice its first effective long-range missile strength. These included the Atlas and Titan ICBMs (Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles), the Jupiter and Thor IRBMs (Intermediate Range Ballistic Missiles) and the Polaris SLBM (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile). The Americans maintained a technological lead over the Soviet Marriage, but this did non always appear to be the case. In October 1957 the Soviets launched Sputnik i, the world's outset artificial satellite. This shocked the American public, who were unused to the thought of being within range of Soviet weapons, which they now seemed to exist.

The Soviet leader, Nikita Khrushchev, made much of his nation's technological prowess. In fact the technological pb and the strategic remainder remained very much in America's favour – only that did non prevent the American public believing in the existence of a 'missile gap' in favour of the Soviet Union. This in turn led John F. Kennedy, when he became president in 1961, to expand American missile forces much further. Kennedy's presidency as well saw the world stand on the brink of nuclear war during the Cuba Missile Crisis of October 1962. In its wake his Defense force Secretary, Robert McNamara, moved to the strategy of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction). This was intended to provide a degree of stability by accepting the complete destruction of both sides in an atomic exchange. Nothing could be washed to prevent a devastating nuclear attack; merely the retaliation would even so be launched, and both sides would endure every bit. This idea of mutual deterrence did have some advantages. If ICBMs were dispersed to hardened silos, and the SLBM armada sufficiently undetectable, so plenty would survive to retaliate. A surprise attack would do good nobody. As well information technology would render it unnecessary to keep building e'er more than missiles, just to retain a degree of parity. It would thus surely brand some form of negotiated limits on missile numbers possible.

Criticism of Mutual Deterrence

In that location were aspects of MAD that many institute objectionable. Time to come president Ronald Reagan felt information technology was defeatist, and held that the U.s. should be dedicated, whereas proponents of MAD insisted it could but piece of work if deterrence was common and both sides remained equally vulnerable. Peace campaigners had other concerns. MAD seemed to offer only a perpetual threat of war. They feared that in such circumstances, war could not be avoided permanently. Despite the best intentions of political leaders, a mistake or an blow must at some point push button the world over the edge. Also there were arguments that deterrence did not keep the peace, only caused war. Deterrence required not only ability (the possession of the weapons), it also needed the perception of resolve (the other side must believe in the willingness to actually launch the missiles if necessary). This in plough required both sides to show resolve. The best way to show willingness to launch death and devastation on a world scale, was to launch it on a smaller scale. Thus many of the wars of the Cold War, it was argued, such as Vietnam and Afghanistan, were acquired, at least in part, by the deterrence strategy.

Peace campaigners were also among those who addressed the question of how much deterrence was needed. During the Cuba Missile Crisis, Kennedy had the pick of launching air-strikes to destroy the missiles in Cuba. Merely when he learned that a handful of them were likely to survive, he rejected that option for fearfulness they might be launched. A little deterrence plain can get a long way. However by the mid 1970s peace research groups, such as the Stockholm International Peace Research Establish, were variously reporting that enough atomic weaponry had been stockpiled to exterminate humanity 690 times. At the same time, work on chemical and biological warfare (CBW) was making rapid progress. Diseases such as anthrax and glanders, which could kill near everyone who contracted them, could easily be spread. Other biological agents could target livestock or crops to cause dearth. The risks of an epidemic destroying its originators merely added to the inherent horrors of such weapons.

Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (Common salt)

That some course of agreement over missile numbers would have to be found was obvious. The greater the stockpiles of weapons, the more horrifying the potential consequences of escalating confrontations became. Even the development of pocket-sized-yield, tactical, or battlefield nuclear weapons did fiddling to suggest that even a limited nuclear engagement would be less than catastrophic. In the 1950s the United States Army undertook military exercises, such as operations Sage Brush and Carte Blanche, to see if such weapons could be used to defend West Germany from Soviet invasion. The conclusion reached was that they might – but only after West Federal republic of germany had virtually ceased to exist. As early on as the mid 1950s it was generally accepted that in a nuclear war the concept of a victory was ludicrous. At that place developed a widespread pessimism that in a post-nuclear war world, suffering destruction, chaos, nuclear fallout, dearth and affliction, the survivors would envy the dead.

Some steps to ease tensions had been taken. Badly shaken by their nearness to disaster during the Cuba Missile Crunch, Kennedy and Khrushchev had installed a hotline (in reality a teletype line connecting the Whitehouse and the Kremlin, so that both leaders could human activity rapidly to diffuse crises). They also agreed on a Partial Test Ban Treaty, moving test detonations of nuclear weapons clandestine, which did something to reduce atmospheric radioactive contamination from such tests. Furthermore they agreed non to station nuclear missiles in infinite or on the seabed, which neither had the technology to do anyhow. Also, to forestall those countries that did not already possess nuclear weapons gaining them, in 1968 the Not Proliferation Treaty was signed. By this, nations who either lacked the applied science or the desire to ain them, agreed not to build nuclear weapons and to allow international inspection of their nuclear facilities – providing, that is, that the nuclear powers undertook to completely disarm at the primeval opportunity. Other nations who had (or hoped to gain) the technology, and had the will, such equally North korea, Israel, Pakistan and India, either refused to sign or after withdrew from information technology. All presently gained nuclear weapons that threatened to begin regional arms races.

Simply a solid agreement betwixt the two master Common cold War protagonists limiting the stockpiles of nuclear weapons proved very difficult to detect. President Eisenhower, in 1955, had urged an understanding on 'open skies'. By this, both sides would be free to over-fly each other's military machine bases. This would let the verification that both were adhering to a futurity artillery control agreement. The Soviets promptly rejected the idea. They did not possess the shipping to over-fly Us bases, and saw it as an American endeavor to legitimise spying. To the Americans, strict verification of Soviet compliance remained key to whatever agreement. Herein lay a basic problem. Both sides were convinced of their ain moral superiority. Information technology was the other side who could not exist trusted, and they reacted with astonished outrage when their ain good intentions were questioned.

But but building ever more weapons was futile, plush and unsafe. By 2000 it is thought that there had been over xxx 'broken arrows', or accidents involving nuclear weapons, and perhaps six warheads had been lost at body of water and never recovered. Besides during the 1960s a new technological evolution arose that threatened whatever stability MAD offered. This came from the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) organisation. This defensive system was designed to intercept and destroy ICBMs in flight. Despite being in its infancy and having very limited reliability, it might tempt a reckless leader to take a chance on surviving retaliation and launch a surprise attack. Deterrence would only work if information technology was mutual, and if both sides were sure the other could non survive a nuclear exchange. Yet ABM would require sophisticated radar systems and its missiles would have to exist deployed in huge numbers to defend a nation, and information technology promised to be impossibly expensive. It would too result in a new surge in constructing missiles in order to have the ability to swamp the enemy ABM system. Past 1967 therefore U.s. president Lyndon Johnson and Soviet premier Alexey Kosygin were set up to open negotiations.

The American position was that both sides should agree to abandon ABM systems, and then that both would remain defenceless and deterrence would go on to be mutual. This was non easy for the Soviet negotiators to take. They felt they had a duty to defend their citizens, and that defensive weapons were moral, while offensive weapons were immoral. It took 5 years to negotiate the outset Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty (SALT I). The United States and the Soviet Union agreed to limit themselves to 2 ABM sites each, when in that location was but i, effectually Moscow, in beingness. This was afterward reduced to ane each, and the Soviets chose to defend Moscow, while the Americans defended an ICBM site. It was further agreed there would be no new land-based ICBMs beyond agreed numbers and no new missile submarines beyond those under structure.

Superficially this might have seemed a considerable step forward, simply the understanding was reached equally newer applied science was being deployed. With the introduction of Multiple Independentlytargeted Re-entry Vehicles (MIRV), a single missile could acquit several warheads and attack several separate targets – up to 12 in the case of some American missiles. There was no limit on modernising or replacing existing missiles to carry MIRV (and later MARV, or Manoeuvrable Re-entry Vehicle, which could modify target in flying.) In fact SALT I immune for a major expansion of nuclear weapons, and the signing of SALT Two in 1979, which was ultimately to atomic number 82 to a limit of two,250 commitment systems (missiles, aircraft and submarines), did petty to alter this. Even so the The states Congress refused to ratify the latter Treaty, arguing that the Soviet Wedlock had gained too much reward in the agreement. Both sides, however, indicated they would adhere to the terms, as long as the other did. Even then, the development of cruise missile engineering, which produced cheap, easily transportable and concealable weapons, opened new problems for verification measures.

Excesses of the Nuclear Artillery Build-Up

The question addressed past peace campaigners, of how much deterrence was needed, was addressed by regime and military machine institutions on both sides. An American study considered how many 100 megaton thermonuclear weapons would exist needed to utterly destroy the Soviet Union. Information technology found that after 400 or so detonations there would be nothing left worth attacking. Farther detonations would be 'making the rubble bounciness', or targeting isolated shepherds. Unquestionably the Soviets performed a similar report and reached a very similar conclusion. Of course the state of affairs was a little more complicated. Some missiles would be destroyed in a surprise attack. Others would be intercepted or merely miss their targets. Others would fail to launch or be undergoing routine servicing. A degree of redundancy was needed, say 4-fold. Past this logic, neither side needed to go beyond the expense and inherent risks of producing more 1600 warheads. Only by 1985 the United States could deliver nearly 20,000 and the Soviet Spousal relationship well over eleven,000. Why did such an irrational state of affairs come near?

From the 1970s there was a considerable amount of research studying this question, and a number of factors take been suggested that might explain this degree of overkill. I is the competition betwixt and inside the armed services of a land. Any major arms program carries with it prestige and resources and also secures careers for the service responsible for information technology. With nuclear weapons obviously intended as the mainstay of American defence strategy for decades, if not generations to come up, all services campaigned to win a part in their deployment. Thus the United States Navy insisted on the superiority of the SLBM to prevent the United States Air Force gaining a monopoly over missile deployment. The U.s. Ground forces, for its function, clamoured for battleground nuclear weapons so as non to be excluded. Also within the army, for example, different sections demanded either nuclear artillery shells or footing launched cruise missiles.

All services lobbied regime for a larger piece of the pie. But this does non necessarily explain why the size of the pie kept growing. Governments were not obliged to concede every need made upon them by their ain military. A similar argument tin can be used when addressing the event of bureaucratic politics, where a similar process of competition for the resource, prestige and careers made bachelor by the arms race existed between authorities agencies and departments.

Another possible factor explaining the nuclear build-upwardly lies within the nature of the political and social systems involved. The fears and uncertainties of a nation can exist exploited. Governments, it has been suggested, used the arms race to fuel fears of a strange threat to heighten patriotism, national unity and their own say-so. The arms race could be seen as a contemptuous practise in social control. Both Soviet and American observers often accused their Cold War opponents of such squalid motives. But it remains a conspiracy theory based on intuition rather than fact, and should be treated with considerable caution.

A similar degree of circumspection should exist used when ascribing the arms race to the military-industrial complex. This assumes that the arms manufacturers have a mutual interest in fostering a climate of fear to increase sales to the military. They are assumed to foster moral panics of the kind that followed the launch of Sputnik, so that the public will clamour for military expansion.

In the Us nigh major weapons systems are produced by virtually viii large corporations. Betwixt them they stand for a huge investment in productive capacity and expertise. They are seen as vital and irreplaceable national avails, and cannot be immune to go bankrupt. If in trouble, the US government will always be tempted to bail them out with hefty orders. Also, within research laboratories, the development of new weapons had get the norm, and the artillery race had developed a measure of organisational momentum. They represent great investments that arrive hard to justify halting. Just how does this piece of work in the Soviet Spousal relationship, where the profitability of artillery manufacturers was no great effect?

Electoral politics can, perchance, supply some other explanation. The claim that the nation was in danger, and that the incumbent administration was imperilling the United States by allowing a 'missile gap' to develop was certainly used to groovy outcome by Kennedy in the 1960 presidential elections. It was a simple message, easily grasped by the electorate, accompanied by a simple solution – spend more money on defence. Once in role Kennedy plant in that location was no 'missile gap', merely expanded America's missile forces in office, at least, to prevent a futurity opponent levelling similar accusations against him. At a lower level, congressmen of constituencies where warships, for instance, are synthetic volition constantly stress the Soviet naval threat. The more than warships built, the more local jobs, and the more than votes that might exist won. This is maybe a more disarming argument. Only how could it be applied to the Soviet Union? As an explanation information technology is at best only partial.

Also, information technology is simply logical to respond to the actions of a potential enemy to negate any possible advantage they might gain. Thus if deterrence was to be the strategy, and then the chance posed by ABM needed to be countered by MIRV then MARV, to swamp or outfox it. Furthermore there was e'er the tantalizing possibility that inquiry might find the ultimate weapon, or the impenetrable defense. Equally the arms race progressed the chances of this happening became increasingly unlikely. But could a state take the risk of ignoring the possibility? When in 1983 Reagan unveiled his Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), which envisaged a network of orbiting lasers, particle beams and intercepting darts to destroy ICBMs in flying, it was widely treated with derision in the United States, where the press jeeringly referred to information technology equally 'Star Wars', after the science fiction moving picture. But could the Soviet Spousal relationship afford to assume information technology would never work and ignore it? Information technology certainly caused Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev considerable anxiety.

Added to this was the simple fact that, in the arms race, the Us had the much stronger economy. Office of the logic of proceeding with SDI was that, eventually, the arms race would cripple the Soviet economy. This is in fact what was happening. By the 1980s the strain of keeping abreast in the arms race was causing unsustainable strains on the Soviet Spousal relationship, paving the way for a complete re-alignment of East-West relations.

A final, perhaps even more bonny, bespeak comes if the arms race is viewed as a measure out of political will. The fact that it existed was not necessarily a sign that war must come up, but simply proof that both sides were competing. It might even be seen as a relatively low risk form of competition. Competing by building weapons is, later all, a much better than competing by using them. But it must be said, even from such a perspective, had some error or mishandled crisis ever led these weapons to exist used, the consequences for the world would accept been too terrible to contemplate. Arguably by circumscribed their contest to the sports field, or not competing at all, both sides would have served humanity far better.

Issues to Argue

Why did an arms race between the United states of america and the USSR brainstorm after 1945?
How sane was the policy of MAD?
What factors sustained the arms race for so long?