In February 1946, a message arrived in Washington from Moscow, sent by diplomat George F. Kennan. This "long telegram", as it was called, explained in 8,000 words how the Soviets aspired to war against the United States of America (USA) and advised the American government to respond to the communist threat. Thus began the so-called Cold War, a conflict that lasted almost 50 years during which the world watched helplessly as the two great superpowers, the USSR and the United States, danced around each other without ever touching. However, there was a third guest at this equally tense and precarious ball: nuclear armament. During the Cold War, both superpowers devoted their resources to building a nuclear arsenal capable of defeating that of their enemy, so that by the end of the 20th century they could destroy Earth repeatedly. Were nuclear weapons necessary to prevent the enemy from attacking? Were they aware of what they were creating, or did they just build the weapons without any planning, without caring about how they were going to be used? Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on “Why violent video games should not be banned”? Get the original essay After the defeat of Germany and Italy, which marked the end of World War II, the Japanese government refused to surrender and continued to wage war against the Allies. American President Harry S. Truman faced a dilemma: continue to fight the Japanese army and condemn thousands of American soldiers to death; or launch the recently discovered atomic bomb to force their surrender. Truman chose the second option and dropped two atomic bombs on Hiroshima (August 6, 1945) and Nagasaki (August 9, 1946), called "Little Boy" and "Fat Man" respectively. These bombs devastated everything within a 2 kilometer radius, causing such an explosion that it was necessary to create a new unit to measure it: the kiloton (1,000 tonnes of TNT). Faced with such destructive power, the Japanese had no choice but to surrender to the United States. When the Cold War broke out, it was clear that the United States had a great advantage. The outbreak of war would have meant the total annihilation of the USSR, because of nuclear weapons. Hiroshima and Nagasaki proved that the United States had no problem dropping its atomic bombs to quickly end a conflict. And if they decided to use these weapons, what could the USSR do to stop them or to protect itself? It was necessary to create a clean nuclear arsenal as quickly as possible in order to restore the balance. This goal was finally achieved in 1949 when the Rosenbergs (Julius and Ethel Rosenberg) allegedly provided the Soviet Union with nuclear secrets from the United States. This certainly balanced the situation, while at the same time helping to create a climate of hysteria throughout the United States. This event turned an already tense situation into a crazy one. Mutually Assured Destruction, or MAD, as it was called; which meant that each superpower had the means to completely destroy the other. In fact, at the height of the nuclear arms race, both countries could have destroyed Earth many times over. This created an unstable equilibrium, the balance of terror, in which neither superpower could attack the other for fear of its arsenal. At the same time, each superpower attempted to improve its weapons in an attempt to defeat its enemy. But these weapons were not designed to be used, they were designed to deter the enemy from attacking.However, with such an arsenal, a single mistake would have resulted in the complete annihilation of the world as we know it. A clear example of this occurred in October 1962, as we will explain later. But first, what are nuclear weapons? In a conventional explosion, energy is released and the atoms vibrate. During a nuclear explosion, subatomic particles also vibrate, and the amount of energy released is several times higher. During the Cold War, two different types of nuclear bombs were used: atomic bombs and hydrogen bombs. The atomic bomb used elements such as uranium or plutonium to produce nuclear fission: the nucleus of the atom divided and released energy. The power of these bombs is measured in kilotons (1,000 tons of TNT). “Little Boy” and “Fat Man” were both atomic bombs. Later in the arms race, hydrogen bombs were created. These bombs consisted of two parts: first, they released energy through nuclear fission, then this energy was used to produce the fusion of hydrogen atoms, because nuclear fusion releases a much larger amount of energy important than nuclear fission. It is so much larger that hydrogen bombs were no longer measured in kilotons, their power was measured in megatons (1,000,000 tons of TNT). Furthermore, in addition to the destructive power of nuclear bombs, it should be noted that these weapons use radioactive elements that fill the detonation zone with harmful radiation. In addition to the bomb, a vector was needed to transport it. The first vectors used were bombers (like the “Enola Gay”, used to launch the atomic bombs of Hiroshima and Nagasaki). Later, different types of missiles were built, which allowed the superpowers to reach any part of the world with their bombs. As has been said before, any mistake could have led to a nuclear war between the two superpowers, a war where the rest of the world would have been caught in the crossfire. And there were plenty of opportunities for that to happen. For example, during the Cold War, China was divided into two: the Communist Party, the People's Republic of China, led by Mao Tse Tung; and the capitalist part, limited to the island of Taiwan, led by Chiang Kai-shek. Taiwan had a treaty with the United States, which was obligated to protect it in times of war. Mao was an ally of the USSR, which meant that the Soviets had to support Mao whenever war broke out. However, after Stalin's death, Mao refused to follow the orders of his successor, Nikita Khrushchev, whom he considered weak. Seeking a confrontation with Khrushchev, Mao decided in 1958 to bomb the islands of Matsu and Quemoy, which belonged to Taiwan. The two superpowers were on the brink of war until Mao decided to abruptly stop the bombing. About three years later, in 1961, another crisis came close to triggering nuclear war. This time the minefield was Germany. After World War II, Germany was divided into two blocs, the capitalist bloc and the communist bloc. Additionally, the capital, Berlin, was also divided in two. As Berlin was in the middle of communist territory, this meant that there was an isolated piece of capitalist land surrounded by the communist bloc. When John Fitzgerald Kennedy was named president of the United States, Khrushchev demanded a solution to the German situation. The United States was torn between those who favored handing over Berlin to the communists and those who favored keeping it. Tension between the two superpowers has intensifieduntil the Soviets took matters into their own hands and, on the night of August 12-13, built a wall to separate the two sides of Berlin. In this way, another disaster was avoided. However, the most disastrous event took place on October 14, 1962, the so-called Cuban Missile Crisis. The communists came to the conclusion that the only way to balance the situation with the United States would be to install nuclear bases in Cuba, just like the nuclear bases that the United States had in Turkey and which threatened the USSR . This is how the Soviets sent nuclear missiles to Cuba in great secrecy (it is still unclear how they managed to obtain missiles in Cuba without the United States noticing). A few days later, on October 22, a U-2 aircraft flying over Cuba detected military installations whose purpose was unknown. This information was sent to Washington, where it was determined that these were missile launch facilities. The American government panicked until another U-2 aircraft confirmed that the facilities only had the delivery systems and that the nuclear payload had not yet arrived. President Kennedy took the issue to the United Nations (UN) and demanded that the communists remove their nuclear weapons from Cuba. For a few days, it seemed like war would break out at any moment. However, the United States and the USSR eventually reached an agreement: the USSR would remove nuclear weapons from Cuba, and in exchange the United States would not attack the Cuban government and would remove its nuclear bases from Turkey. As has been explained, during the Cold War there were many occasions when the war could have escalated, but instead the balance tipped toward peace and dialogue. But if things had gone differently, the world would be a desolate radioactive waste today. Were the United States and the USSR aware of this when they invested their money in nuclear weapons? And what about the scientists who worked on these projects? As the satirical songwriter Tom Lehrer said in one of his songs (called “Wernher von Braun”): “Once the rockets are in the air, who cares where they fall? This is not my domain. » This single sentence sums up the attitude towards the nuclear bomb at the time. When these weapons were built, the only thing that mattered was that they reached their destination and exploded. What happened after the explosion was not the business of those who worked there, it was the business of the military and the president. This is how more and more powerful nuclear weapons were built every day. In fact, in the 1960s, the United States had about 27,000 nuclear bombs, while the USSR had about 7,000. However, this data changed very quickly when the USSR significantly increased its weapons production nuclear weapons, to the point that it was necessary to sign a treaty regulating the creation of nuclear weapons: SALT (Strategic Arms Limitation Talks). the two superpowers finally understood what they were up against and agreed to stop the mass production of nuclear weapons. Not quite. The treaty spoke of "limitation", not "stopping" or "reduction", which meant that the United States and the USSR could continue to produce their weapons, but not at the same rate as before. Furthermore, the treaty only applied to so-called strategic weapons, which only included SLBMs (submarine-launched ballistic missiles) and ICBMs (intercontinental ballistic missiles). Other types of missiles (short, medium range, medium range, etc.) could be produced without any restrictions. This treaty was signed in 1972, ten years after the missile crisis.Cuba. Apparently, this crisis, where the world was on the verge of a nuclear catastrophe, taught the two superpowers nothing. However, another issue has been resolved within the SALT, which is much more worrying. One of the topics discussed between the United States and the USSR was anti-ballistic missiles (ABM). These missiles were used to prevent nuclear attacks: if a bomb flew towards the United States or the USSR, the ABMs launched another missile which collided with the bomb and detonated it before it reached its destination . The United States and the USSR agreed to each have only two ABM stations. One of the stations would protect the capitals (Washington and Moscow), while the other could be placed freely. The sensible solution would have been to use this ABM station to protect as many cities as possible. However, both superpowers decided to protect their nuclear arsenal. Again, what happened when the nuclear bombs started falling from the sky was irrelevant. The most important thing was to continue making bombs and protecting them so that the enemy could not gain any advantage. It is clear that nuclear weapons are a double-edged sword. They certainly helped keep the peace after World War II for about 60 years. Without nuclear weapons, the United States and the USSR would probably have engaged in a fight that would have watered the fields with blood. In some ways, this was only prevented by the ever-present threat of the atomic bomb. But at the same time, they helped create a climate of hysteria and paranoia: citizens of both superpowers lived in constant fear of nuclear attack. Very representative is the documentary "Duck and Cover", produced by the Federal Civil Defense Administration of the United States, in which citizens are warned that a Soviet attack could occur at any time and that they must be prepared to protect yourself from nuclear explosion. It is terrifying to think that global security depended on the decisions of two men who hated each other. In traditional warfare, the army decides which weapons to use. However, in order to use nuclear weapons, the president had to expressly give it himself. To put it simply: the president of the United States or the USSR pointed, and nuclear weapons were launched wherever his finger pointed, no questions asked. Because, as has already been said, for those who were responsible for firing these weapons, where they landed was not their area of ​​expertise. To summarize: during the Cold War, the United States and the USSR had a huge nuclear arsenal. They could have fired this arsenal at any time (and there were plenty of opportunities for this to happen, such as the Cuban Missile Crisis), causing global catastrophe. However, neither superpower cared about the danger posed by nuclear weapons: they reached agreements on the number of nuclear weapons they could produce, and when tension between Washington and Moscow eased somewhat, they even agreed on a protocol to follow if ever a nuclear war were to break out. out; which makes one wonder if they took this issue seriously. How can we talk and make agreements for a certain situation when thousands of people would die and cities would be destroyed if this situation ever came to pass? Nuclear weapons were a dangerous thing to play with. Nevertheless, during the Cold War, both superpowers used them as a means to deter and discourage their enemy. It is obvious that they have achieved their goals, but at what cost? These weapons are too dangerous and too,.