How nuclear technology affected the cold war
Nuclear technology played a huge role in the Cold War. It was one of the main factors why the Cold War even started. At that time, many countries that could afford to do so, started a nuclear weapons program. Eventually Russia and the US had the two largest nuclear programs. The world became a more dangerous place on November 1, 1952, when the first thermonuclear bomb (Hydrogen bomb) was tested off one of the Marshal Islands. It was the size of the Hiroshima bomb, but produced a 10.5 megaton yield. What is ironic about it is that many people who built the first atomic bomb were against building the first thermonuclear bomb, for they thought Russia would soon follow in developing their own, and it would excel, the arms race. After the first thermonuclear bomb was developed and tested, the whole world lived in fear of a nuclear war. With the US and Russia both building huge bombs both sides feared the power of the bomb and knew what it could do to them and the world. The arms race went so fast, that by 1961, there were enough bombs to destroy the world. It was also the year that the Tsar bomb was detonated. One of Albert Einstein’s famous quotes is “I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.” This represents how he worries, that harnessing the power the atom is a bad thing, and could lead to humanity's destruction. The Cuban Missile Crisis was the closest moment to nuclear war in the Cold War. It started in October of 1962, when the US found out Russia was stockpiling nuclear weapons on Cuba. The US then blockaded Cuba, and the Russians threatened to start a nuclear war. Eventually a deal made where Russia would pull its weapons out of Cuba and America had to pull theirs out of Turkey. But nuclear technology was not limited to nuclear weapons during the cold war. For the first time in 1955, the first nuclear powered submarine, the USS Nautilus, was launched. It was revolutionary. It made the originally slow and small submarines go up to speeds of 20-25 knots for weeks. The submarine wasn't the only vessel to get a nuclear reactor, the USS Enterprise got 8 nuclear reactors and stayed in service until 2012. Eventually the Russians caught on and soon both fleets had ships nuclear reactors on them. The Russians not only used the reactors for military ships, they put them on icebreakers, so they could break through thicker ice, that other ships previously could not have done. The reactors on board the ships are just reactors used on everyday power plants, but on a much smaller scale. After 1985, both superpowers came to mutual agreements to decrease their nuclear stockpiles. The Cold War then ended with the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, but the effects of nuclear technology was still profound in that period of time. Arguably though, nuclear weapons helped prevent war between the two superpowers, because any war at all could have escalated into a nuclear war, destroying both countries and the world along with them.
Pictured here is a Ohio class nuclear powered submarine