answersLogoWhite

0

The Cold War was from the aftermath of World War II to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. The nuclear age had begun after the droppings of two atomic bombs, Fat Man and Little Boy, on Japan during the final weeks of World War II. Scientist refugees from the totalitarian Nazi regime and a war-ridden Europe began to work with American as well as British scientists on a project known as the Manhattan Project. The Manhattan Project, headed by an American scientist known as Oppenheimer, worked in secret in Tennessee, employing thousands of people to work on the bombs. The Americans were the only country, in 1945, to wield the atomic bombs. The Soviets, whose nation had been exalted to superpower status, decided to break America's monopoly on nuclear weapons by spying on British and American nuclear experts. In the late 1940s, the Soviets tested their first nuclear bomb. The world looked afraid and shocked. It looked like a future nuclear war was possible and going to happen between the two superpowers. However, both American and Soviet governments came up with the idea of MAD (Mass Assured Destruction) which kept them from using nuclear weapons. The idea of MAD was basically that if a nuclear war erupted, then the world would be damaged to a massive degree that nations could not be rebuilt easily to a degree they once were. The '50s gave way to the space race between the USSR and the USA along with the intrusion in long-ranged nuclear missiles. The ICBM was developed in the late '50s and it was now possible to destroy cities with the press of a button rather than to send that nuclear bomb on bombers. That is when the Soviets and Americans came up with MAD and it kept the two superpowers and the world itself in peace.

User Avatar

Wiki User

17y ago

What else can I help you with?

Related Questions

What country was at the center of the disagreement between the US and the soviet union that worsened postwar relations?

Poland


What were the postwar goals of the united States and the Soviet Union?

One postwar goal of the United Sates was to see democracies improve and flourish in Europe. A postwar goal of the Soviet Union was to defeat capitalism and spread communism.


Describe the disagreement between the us and the soviets on Eastern Europe?

Disagreement between the United States and the soviet Union about postwar Europe helped start Cold war. Match each statement about the postwar to correct country. United states soviet union - wanted to limit German to have a strong economy.


Who controlled the larges part of postwar Germany?

The Soviet Union


The origins of the Cold War lay in a fundamental disagreement between the US and the Soviet Union over postwar arrangements in?

Eastern Europe


Was the Collapse of the Soviet Union inevitable?

yes,


Churchill called postwar Soviet policy in Eastern Europe the?

Iron Curtain


Summarize the postwar goals of the US and soviet union?

01892661715 01959523095 01622832394


America's postwar containment policy was based on the assumption that the Soviet Union was fundamentally?

dangerous


The cold war was due to disagreements over postwar arrangements in what country?

soviet union


The big three allied leaders met to discuss the postwar world at yalta in?

Soviet Union


What were the major postwar peace initiatives?

Pledge of soviet union not to use nuclear weapons as the first (1982).