The Nuclear Arms Race refers to a time period between 1945 and 1989 when the soviet union and The united States were in an ugly competition dealing with the development of their nuclear weapons. The United States dropped two atomic bombs, other wise know as A-bombs, on Japan to end world war two, Joesph Stalin who was a Soviet Premier immediately gathered a team of physicists to work on Russia's own A-bombs. Although the cost was to be three times his budget, Stalin made clear to the team that they were to finish their jobs and to not worry about it. On August 29, 1949, four years later, the soviets answered the challenge by beginning work on a more powerful bomb known as the Hydrogen bomb, or the H-bomb. When The United States detonated this H-bomb on November 1, 1952 it exploded with a yield of 10.40 megatons. In other words it was about a thousand times more powerful than the bomb that was dropped on Japan. Moving faster this time the Soviets developed their first H-bomb in only nine months detonated it on August 12, 1953. Although the explosion was smaller than the United States' H-bomb, it had produced traces of lithium, which the U.S had not been able to accomplish yet.
By 1962 the united states had over 27,000 nuclear weapons, 500 long ranged weapons, and around 2,500 mid range bombers that were ready to be launched by the military at any time. During the year the Soviets began to install IBM launchers in Cuba, only 1,100 miles away from Washington D.C. But the willingness to go to war over this issue caused Soviets to remove the missile launchers from the Western Hemisphere. Because the U.S had gotten so close to war, people began to think that this nuclear war was not winnable. Over the next 25 years both of the Nations made attempts to complete nuclear arms control. But mistrust and fear got in the way of both sides, and not until the Soviet Union Collapsed in 1989 that the Nuclear Arms Race came to an end. This Nuclear Arms race cost the United States around 5.5 trillion dollars, and added another 4 trillion dollars to the Federal Government's debt in the 1980's, when spending money on Nuclear weapons skyrocketed.
http://www.wordiq.com/definition/Nuclear arms race.
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