The arms race: Causes, Facts and Results

Causes

a.  Russia’s atomic bomb, Aug 1949:

     •    When the USSR got the atomic bomb, there was bound to be a race. 

b.  The Cold War:

     •    In the 1940s: Truman Doctrine/Marshall Plan/NATO frightened Stalin; Iron Curtain/Berlin Blockade frightened the West. 

     •    In the 1950s: McCarthyism/USA nuclear weapons frightened Khrushchev; Hungary/Soviet nuclear weapons frightened the West. 

c.  Deterrent:

     •    Both sides believed that, since war was MAD (mutually assured destruction), having the ability to wipe out the enemy would prevent attack. 

d.  Fear:

     •    Both sides feared a pre-emptive strike, and sought safety in weapons . 

e.  Peaceful co-existence:

     •    Eisenhower's ‘New Look’ US foreign policy (1953), which sought to replace confrontation with espionage and deterrence, looked like de-escalation, but was really just carrying on the Cold War in different ways.. 

     •    Khrushchev’s idea of ‘peaceful coexistence’ in 1956-64 was really ‘unrestrained competition’ to see which was the better system. 

f.  Military-industrial complex:

     •    The arms race was a wonderful way for businessmen to make oodles of profit.  By 1955, the USA was spending almost a fifth of its national income on weapons – weapons manufacturers wanted an arms race. 

g.  One-upmanship:

     •    Some historians believe that by the late 1950s the Cold War had deteriorated into attempts simply to ‘come out on top’. 

Facts

a.  Atomic bomb:

     •    USA, 1945/USSR, 1949

b.  Hydrogen bomb:

     •    USA, 1952/USSR, 1953

c.  Nautilus, 1954:

     •    The first US nuclear-powered submarine (the USSR had developed nuclear submarines by 1958).

d.  Warheads:

     •    By 1955, the USA had 2000 nuclear warheads, the USSR had 200.  In 1962 the figures USA v USSR stood at 25k v 3k; in 1967: 31k v 7k; and in 1975: USA 28k v 19k.

e.  ICBMs:

     •    In 1957 both sides developed Intercontinental ballistic missile USA Atlas-A, 1957/USSR R-7, 1957 – they could destroy each other at the push of a button. 

f.  Polaris, 1960:

     •    A US nuclear warhead launched from a submarine (also fitted on British subs).

g.  Soviet superiority in conventional forces:

     •    By 1980, the Warsaw Pact had 70,000 tanks, NATO had 30,000.

h.  Overkill:

     •    By 1967, the USA had over 30,000 warheads, and the total US-USSR stockpile was over 38,000 – more than 100 times what would be needed to destroy human civilization, and more than 30 times the number needed to kill every human being.

Results

Political Results

a.  Superpower tensions:

     •    eg the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962) was a stand-off about the deployment of nuclear weapons which nearly led to a nuclear war. 

b.  Proxy wars:

     •    Unable to go to war directly, both sides built global alliances (NATO v Warsaw Pact) and fought proxy wars, providing military aid to the different sides in conflicts in Korea (1950-53), Vietnam (1955-75), and others

c.  Arms Control Agreements & Détente:

     •    The Cuban Missile Crisis led to the Hotline Agreement (1963) to prevent nuclear miscalculations.  the shift towards détente in the 1970s led to treaties like SALT I (1972) and the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (1968) to slow the arms race. 

Societal Results

a.  Public Fear:

     •    There was a continual fear of Armageddon, heightened by ‘duck and cover’ drills, films such as Threads and Raymond Briggs’s book When the Wind Blows.  There were anti-nuclear protest movements such as the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND). 

b.  Scientific & Technological Developments:

     •    Spin-offs from the Arms race included satellite technology, the Space Race and nuclear power (eg., the first nuclear power plants in the 1950s). 

c.  Impact on Culture:

     •    Popular culture reflected nuclear anxieties (eg the film Dr.  Strangelove 1964 and Nevil Shute’s book On the Beach 1957).  A Hippy counterculture grew up wishing to ‘make love not war’. 

Economic Results

a.  US Military-Industrial dominance:

     •    In the US, defence contractors like Lockheed, Boeing, and General Dynamics became politically powerful, demanding ever-greater budgets.  The Vietnam War saw the end of President Johnson’s ‘Great Society’ welfare projects.  By the 1970s, defence overspending had created a ‘stagflation’ crisis (high inflation with high unemployment). 

b.  Soviet decline:

     •    Soviet arms spending led to economic problems, diverting investment from agriculture and consumer goods, worsening living standards.  The economic strain would eventually lead to the collapse of the USSR in the 1980s.