The four nuclear powers, and especially the United States and the Soviet Union, devoted considerable resources to building up their nuclear stockpiles and acquiring the bombers, submarines, missiles, and guns to deliver the nuclear weapons to target. The origins of the nuclear-arms race can be traced to the political rivalry between the wartime allies, the Soviet Union, the United States, and Britain. By the 1950s, nuclear threats were permanently embodied in the forces that each side deployed against the other. Each side feared that the other was seeking the capacity to launch a surprise attack and each stressed the importance of preempting such an attack if it appeared to be imminent. Nuclear threats were both a product of the Cold War and a factor contributing to the great tension of those years. Over time, the weapons laboratories, the defense industry, and the armed forces became increasingly influential in the formulation of policy. In his farewell address to the nation on January 17,1961, Eisenhower warned of the need to guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence by the military-industrial complex. A similar phenomenon became apparent in the Soviet Union at a somewhat later date.
31. The Soviet Union sharply expanded its nuclear arsenal in the 1960s; here Soviet citizens watch ICBMs in Red Square, Moscow, on the anniversary of the Bolshevik Revolution, 1969.
Nuclear weapons also helped to keep the Cold War "cold." By the mid-1960s, a situation had been created in which each side could inflict massive death and destruction on the other. A set of conventions and understandings emerged between the two sides to help them manage their nuclear relationship. The distinction between conventional and nuclear weapons provided a threshold, which helped the two sides conduct their rivalry short of the general war neither of them wanted. The idea that general nuclear war was in some profound way unacceptable became common knowledge among the political leaders of the three nuclear powers, that is, among those who had the authority to use nuclear weapons. That common knowledge constituted a basic premise of the Cold War and shaped the nuclear politics of the following years. Political leaders were willing to make nuclear threats, but they understood the difference between threat and action. Khrushchev exploited the fear of nuclear war to wage a dangerous and unsuccessful war of nerves, but he was limited in what he could threaten by the common knowledge that nuclear war was unacceptable. He knew that the other side wanted to avoid nuclear war, but they knew that he did too, and he knew that they knew he did. This was nevertheless a very dangerous period, because there was the danger that miscalculation or unauthorized acts could lead to an uncontrollable spiral toward war.
The Cuban missile crisis was a turning point in the Cold War. It drove home the lesson that crises are dangerous and should therefore be avoided. The first steps toward arms control had been taken in the late 1950s and early 1960s in talks on surprise attack and negotiations on a comprehensive test ban, but no significant agreement had been concluded before the Cuban missile crisis. That crisis gave a new impetus to efforts to make the nuclear relationship more stable and to reduce the risk of war.630
World History
