The most frightening aspect of the Cold War was the constant threat of nuclear war. The U.S. monopoly on nuclear weapons ended in 1949 when the USSR successfully tested an atomic bomb. The Soviet development of the atomic bomb led to a nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union.
In 1952, the USA tested the first hydrogen bomb which is 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb
The Soviet Union responded by detonating its own hydrogen bomb in 1953
In the 1950s, President Eisenhower escalated the Cold War by using brinkmanship: threatening to use nuclear weapons & willingness to go to the brink of war. As a result, the United States & Soviet Union began stockpiling nuclear weapons & building up their militaries. By 1959, both the USA & USSR developed rockets called intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) that could deliver nuclear warheads to distant targets. With the United States & Soviet Union in possession of large nuclear stockpiles, each side could destroy each other: this was known as Mutually Assured Destruction (MAD).
The atomic tests continued as the United States tested new and deadly weapons over the next two decades. In the summer of 1946, the first post-war atomic tests took place at Bikini Atoll. The military wanted to test the ability of the navy warships to withstand a nuclear attack. The warships were only part of the test as soldiers were also being exposed to the blast of the atomic bombs and the radiation left behind that had to be cleaned up to restore the environment. The toll on the soliders lives has now extended past the original tests and clean up as health issues related to the radiation continue to plague the soldiers.
This type of atomic weapon was developed to deliver a nuclear warhead to a distant target. __________________________ ___________________________ _______________________