The pope quickly organized a meeting to prepare the world for a weapon that would destroy all life on earth. "Pope Innocent II organized the conference in 11391" because of a crossbow. Approximately 800 years from this conference, the Cold War has begun. The potential of mass destruction could occur at any moment. More efforts for mining and technology went toward constructing nuclear weapons. Missiles, such as, the Tomahawk® Cruise Missile and the Trident Fleet Ballistic Missile were the new wave of nuclear weapons, in the 1980’s, used in the Cold War. Safety restrictions and treaties stopped these weapons of mass destruction from causing an Armageddon to happen.
Mining for elements that could be used as a nuclear power were very important in the Cold War. New technology and research for nuclear material was an essential part in building a nuclear weapon. The most important element for making nuclear weapons is uranium. Uranium is used to make plutonium, a very powerful element, by deuteron bombardment of uranium oxide. Uranium, a gray-colored element, is mined from the common uranium ores. Common isotopes, such as, radioactive sulfur (S35), radioactive carbon (C14), radioactive phosphorus (P32) and strontium (Sr90) were a great safety hazard towards the environment and mammals. The amount of time it takes for half the radioactive isotope to disintegrate is called half-life. "Isotopes with a short half-life, measured in seconds, hours, or days, are considered generally less dangerous to the envioronment2." Isotopes with a high half-life are very harmful to our world; for example, plutonium in one of its forms (Pu239) has a half-life of over 20,000 years. There is so much heat given off that, in power reactors, the heat is used to generate electricity. These nuclear elements, mainly plutonium, was used to make the most destructive weapons ever to be built: nuclear missiles.
In 1979, one of the most fiercest missiles was created, the Trident I (C4), and in 1990, the Trident II (D5). The Trident II (D5), slightly larger and more improved than the Trident I (C4), can go around 14,000 miles per hour3. This guided missile can be launched over 4,000 nautical miles4. The Trident missile is launched from a submarines that holds up to 24 missiles. Because of the missile’s long range and supersonic speed, this nuclear weapon had the potential of causing an Armageddon.
Probably the most important missile to the U.S. is the Tomahawk® Cruise Missile. The U.
The Trident Submarine houses twenty-four nuclear warheads with each having a range of 4,600 miles over land. If a nuclear war were to break out between the Soviet Union and the United States, virtually every major city could be destroyed in a matter of hours. The origin of these major players in modern day warfare lies in the Revolutionary and Civil Wars.
The Cold War was a period of dark and melancholic times when the entire world lived in fear that the boiling pot may spill. The protectionist measures taken by Eisenhower kept the communists in check to suspend the progression of USSR’s radical ambitions and programs. From the suspenseful delirium from the Cold War, the United States often engaged in a dangerous policy of brinksmanship through the mid-1950s. Fortunately, these actions did not lead to a global nuclear disaster as both the US and USSR fully understood what the weapons of mass destruction were capable of.
In 1945, America terrified the world by using the Atom Bomb in Hiroshima and later in Nagasaki. This fear of the most powerful weapon ever created started a cold war between America and Russia. These two great nations had started the race for the super bomb, which would have each country trying to out do the other for decades to come.
Plutonium, which is a byproduct of the fission process, can also be used for manufacturing weapons and only requires 2-10kg to develop weapons. The atom bomb that landed in Nagasaki contained plutonium fuel. Depleted uranium, which is the left over from the enrichment process, is used to make military grade armor piercing bullets. These DU penetrators have been used in wars throughout history, the most recent being the Gulf wars. This is a disadvantage because the depleted uranium is toxic and has been scientifically proven to cause birth defects, cancer, and death where it was used.
8 Galum, John, Joshua Shakon and Tan Mau Wu. “National Missile Defense – A CS91 Final Project.” < http://www.cs.swarthmore.edu/~eroberts/cs91/projects/national-missile-defense/index.html>
Perhaps it was the destructive potential that both sides possessed that caused the Cuban Missile Crisis to become remembered as the time when the world came its closest to a nuclear holocaust, rather than the events that led up to World War III. By far, the United States has been and continues to be the nation that spends the most funding on defense.
The USA’s new weapon, the Hydrogen bomb, or H-bomb, was one of the most powerful weapons of the time. In 1950, the H-bomb was tested in the Eniwetok Atoll, Marshall Islands (Cold War History). The reaction was so fierce, the explosion wiped the island off the face of the earth leaving a crater on the ocean floor. The explosion reached a range of 25 square miles and had a mushroom cloud which dropped radioactive fallout on the surrounding areas (The Cold War Museum). This new weapon scared the Soviet Union into creating their own bombs. This buildup of weapons by the two countries started The Cuban Missile Crisis (The Cuban).
When President Truman authorized the use of two nuclear weapons in 1945 against the Japanese in the cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki to end World War II, the nature of international security was changed irreversibly. At that time, the United States had what was said to have a monopoly of atomic bombs. Soon thereafter, the Soviet Union began working on atomic weaponry. In 1949, it had already detonated it first atomic bomb and tensions began to heat up between the two countries. With the information that the Soviets had tested their first bomb, the United States began work on more powerful weapons1, and a fight for nuclear superiority had begun.
It was originally assumed that the SDI program was a virtually perfect defense against a large intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, attacks, which required very competent weapons. An ICBM has three levels of flight; the boost phase, the midcourse phase, and the terminal phase. With the SDI program, a space-based directed energy, or a laser, weapon would be used to destroy ICBM’s in the boost phase. Ground-based, space-based lasers or continental weapons could be used to destroy ICBM’s in midcourse, and ground-based beam weapons and missile interceptors could be used to destroy ICBM’s in the terminal phase. But as the goals of the program have evolved toward more realistic ambitions, the requirements for highly competent weapons diminished. Therefore, the initial focus on space-based directed energy weapons gradually shifted toward interest in ground-based kinetic energy weapons.
The name of the missile program that is being developed to protect the United States is the National Missile Defense. This program...
After the United States developed the atomic at the end of World War II, interest in nuclear technology increased exponentially. People soon realized that nuclear technology could be used for electricity, as another alternative to fossil fuels. Today, nuclear power has its place in the world, but there is still a lot of controversy over the use of nuclear energy. Things such as the containment of radiation and few nuclear power plant accidents have given nuclear power a bad image. However, nuclear power is a reliable source of energy because it has no carbon emissions, energy is available at any time, little fuel is needed for a lot of energy, and as time goes on, it is becoming safer and safer.
The development and usage of the first atomic bombs has caused a change in military, political, and public functionality of the world today. The bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki revolutionized warfare by killing large masses of civilian population with a single strike. The bombs’ effects from the blast, extreme heat, and radiation left an estimated 140,000 people dead. The bombs created a temporary resolution that lead to another conflict. The Cold War was a political standoff between the Soviet Union and the United States that again created a new worldwide nuclear threat. The destructive potential of nuclear weapons had created a global sweep of fear as to what might happen if these terrible forces where unleashed again. The technology involved in building the first atomic bombs has grown into the creation of nuclear weapons that are potentially 40 times more powerful than the original bombs used. However, a military change in strategy has came to promote nuclear disarmament and prevent the usage of nuclear weapons. The technology of building the atomic bomb has spurred some useful innovations that can be applied through the use of nuclear power. The fear of a potential nuclear attack had been heightened by the media and its release of movies impacting on public opinion and fear of nuclear devastation. The lives lost after the detonation of the atomic bombs have become warning signs that changed global thinking and caused preventative actions.
The Cold War historiography, specifically the issue of nuclear deterrence has provided historians the classic dialectic of an original thesis that is challenged by an antithesis. Both then emerge in the resolution of a new synthesis. Unfortunately, each evolution of a new synthesis is quickly demolished with each political crisis and technological advance during the Cold War narrative. The traditional/orthodox views were often challenged by the conventional wisdom with the creation of synthesis or post revisionism. There appears to be a multiple historiographical trends on nuclear deterrence over the Cold War; each were dependent and shaped upon international events and technological developments. I have identified four major trends: the orthodox, the revisionist, the post revisionist, st and the New Left. Each of these different historical approaches had its proponents and opponents, both in the military as well as the political and
Ronald E. Powaski, March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present, (Oxford: OUP, 1987), 106.
The Cold War was a time of great tension all over the world. From 1945 to 1989, the United States was the leader and nuclear power and was competing with the Soviet Union to create huge stockpiles of nuclear weapons. However, even though the Cold War ended, nuclear weapons are still a threat. Countries around the world strive to create nuclear power, and they do not promise to use it for peaceful purposes. Some examples of the struggles caused by nuclear weapons include the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and Iran’s recent nuclear weapon program. Surely, nuclear weapons have created conflict all over the world since the Cold War era.