The Arms Race Increasing Tensions Creating War Throughout the Cold War

The Arms Race, an event that happened all of the Cold war which you could call a competition between the U.S and the USSR fighting for power. Each nation wanted to be more powerful than other and the Arms Race made countries believe who ever had more weapons was more powerful. When the U.S successfully exploded the atomic bomb it brought a whole new level of competition in the Cold War. August 24, 1949 the USSR developed their first atomic bomb ending the American bomb control while bringing a new aspect of the Arms Race. U.S was still at an advantage but they still continued to make more and more weapons fearing a nuclear war and the USSR going ahead of them in the Arms Race when really they were way ahead, this event was called the Bomber Gap. When USSR starting advancing, President Truman decided to make an even more powerful weapon than the atomic bomb which was the most powerful weapon at the time. In November of 1952, the U.S. successfully tested the Hydrogen Bomb(H-Bomb) which was 1,000 times more powerful than the atomic bomb. However, only a year later the USSR caught up and built a hydrogen bomb of their own, meaning that both of the world’s superpowers were caught up causing more tensions. The Arms Race was mainly a competition to see who was more powerful as the U.S and the USSR built more and more weapons spending billions of dollars that could have been used on the citizens and the country.