The history of the U.S.-Russian nuclear arms race gained relevance this week following President-elect Donald Trump's tweet about expanding the United States' nuclear capability and his comments Friday morning about being willing to let another arms race happen if necessary.
Between 1945, when the United States dropped two atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, and 1972, when the first comprehensive nuclear arms reduction treaty between the United States and the Soviet Union was signed, both nations engaged in a race to build and deploy as many nuclear weapons as possible.
Here are some questions and answers about the arms race, its history and conclusion:
Q. When did the arms race start?
A. It started in 1945, when the United States exploded its first atomic bomb onJuly 16 in Alamogordo, N.M., after a massive research campaign known as the Manhattan Project. The successful test of the bomb led to its use on two Japanese cities in August 1945, Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Soviet Union knew of the U.S. work on the atomic bomb and began work on a bomb of its own.
Q. When the Soviets get the bomb?
A. The Soviets exploded their first atomic bomb on Aug. 29, 1949, at their facility in Semipalatinsk in what is now Kazakhstan. U.S officials, who believed they would have a longer monopoly on atomic weapons, detected the Soviet explosion on Sept. 3, when a spy plane flying over Siberiadetected signs of airborne radioactive material. President Harry Truman told the American people later that month about the Soviet bomb.
Q. What is the hydrogen bomb?
A. The thermonuclear, or hydrogen bomb, which some of its developers called the "Super," was first exploded over the Pacific atoll of Eniwetak on Nov. 1, 1952. The Soviets exploded their first true hydrogen bomb on Nov. 22, 1955. Hydrogen bombs are far more powerful than atomic bombs and fuse isotopes of hydrogen to create a more powerful explosion.
Q. What is mutually assured destruction?
A. This was a policy developed during the Kennedyadministration in the 1960s in which both the United States and Soviet Union would be deterred from starting a nuclear war because of the knowledge that each side would be destroyed by the other. Neither the United States nor the Soviet Union could be assured that the side that struck first would knock out enough of the other's weapons to avoid being destroyed in a retaliatory strike.
Q. What was the peak of the arms race?
A. According to the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, the United States had 32,040 nuclear warheads in 1967, while the Soviets peaked at 45,000 in 1986.
Q. Which treaties curbed the arms race?
A. On Aug. 5, 1963, U.S., Soviet and British foreign ministers signed the Test Ban Treaty that stopped nuclear tests in the earth's atmosphere. On May 26, 1972, President Richard Nixon and Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev signed the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty, which called for the first reductions in the number of nuclear weapons. A second treaty limiting anti-ballistic missile systems was also signed that day.
Q. What is the Strategic Defense Initiative?
A. SDI, which was popularly known as Star Wars, was first proposed by President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983. It called for a series of satellites and ground-based missiles that would shoot down incoming missiles from the Soviet Union and other nations. Opponents, including the Soviets, believed it would destabilize the anti-ballistic missile treaty of 1972 and encourage the United States to believe it could launch a first strike against the Soviets. One of its major proponents was Edward Teller, the nuclear scientist who helped develop the hydrogen bomb.
Q. What did Ronald Reagan do?
A. Reagan entered the White House in 1981 after opposing the second round of SALT talks and talking tough about the Soviet Union. He proposed the Strategic Defense Initiative and also referred to the Soviet Union as the Evil Empire. By 1985, however, Reagan was talking openly about the elimination of all nuclear weapons. He met with new Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 and 1986 for highly publicized nuclear talks. They signed a treaty in December 1987 limiting intermediate- and short-range nuclear missiles.By 1988, the United States and Soviet Union had agreed to a framework calling for dramatic reductions in nuclear weapons. In July 1991, President George H.W. Bush and Gorbachev signed theStrategic Arms Reduction Treaty that locked in those reductions.
Q. What was the last major treaty between the United States and Russia?
A. On April 8, 2010, President Obama and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed the New START Treaty in Prague. It called for cutting strategic nuclear missile launchers in half and a total number of deployed nuclear warheads to 1,550. The Senate ratified the treaty in December 2010 by a 71-26 vote.
Q. How many nuclear weapons do the United States and Russia have?
A. Russia has 7,300 nuclear warheads, U.S. records show, while the United States has 6,970.
Q. Where can I learn more about the arms race?
A.The Making of the Atomic Bomb by Richard Rhodes is an excellent history about the Manhattan Project and its aftermath. Rhodes' Dark Sun: The Making of the Hydrogen Bomb details the work of Teller and others to complete that project. Command and Control: Nuclear Weapons, the Damascus Accident, and the Illusion of Safetyby Eric Schlossershows the problems of maintaining U.S. missiles and the risks of accidental nuclear war. Rhodes closed out his trilogy on nuclear history with Arsenals of Folly: The Making of the Nuclear Arms Race, which is particularly strong on Reagan's efforts to eliminate nuclear weapons.
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