What is the purpose of the arms race?

Answer 1

{| |- | The arms race was a big indicator of the Cold War. Both sides wanted to insure domination over the other in the event of war. Both the US/Nato and Soviet Union/Soviet Bloc attempted to create a stockpile of weapons that could overwhelm the other side. There were enough nuclear weapons to destroy all life on Earth many times over at the end of the hostilities. |}

Answer 2

The term arms race, in its original usage, is a competition between two or more parties for the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation. Nowadays the term is commonly used to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors, essentially the goal of proving to be "better".

Contents[hide]

• 1 Examples of arms races
  • 1.1 WWI naval arms race
  • 1.2 Nuclear arms race
• 2 Other uses
• 3 See also
• 4 Literature

Examples of arms racesWWI naval arms raceFrom the dates 1891 to 1919, an arms race between several European countries, including Germany, France, Russia, and a few more took place. Specifically, Germany's envy of Britain's superior navy in the run up to World War I resulted in a costly building competition of Dreadnought-class ships. This tense arms race lasted until June 1914, when, after two antagonic power blocs were formed because of the rivalry, the World War broke out. After the war, a new arms race developed among the victorious Allies. The Washington Naval Treaty was only partly able to put an end to the race. Prior to WWI, a dreadnought arms race also took place in South America. Nuclear arms raceA nuclear arms race developed during the Cold War, an intense period between the Soviet Union and the United States. On both sides, perceived advantages of the adversary (such as the "missile gap") led to large spending on armaments and the stockpiling of vast nuclear arsenals. Proxy wars were fought all over the world (e.g. in the Middle East, Korea, Vietnam) in which the superpowers' conventional weapons were pitted against each other. After the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the end of the Cold War, tensions decreased and the nuclear arsenal of both countries were reduced. Other usesMore generically, the term "arms race" is used to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors in rank or knowledge. An arms race may also imply futility as the competitors spend a great deal of time and money, yet end up in the same situation as if they had never started the arms race.

An evolutionary arms race is a system where two populations are evolving in order to continuously one-up members of the other population. An example of this is the escalation of drug resistance in pathogens, in step with the use of increasingly powerful drugs.

This is related to the Red Queen effect, where two populations are co-evolving to overcome each other but are failing to make absolute progress.

In technology, there are close analogues to the arms races between parasites and hosts, such as the arms race between computer virus writers and antivirus software writers, or spammers against Internet service providers and E-mail software writers.

See also

• Missile gap
• Space race
• Lewis Fry Richardson for his mathematical analysis of war

Literature

• Richard J. Barnet: Der amerikanische Rüstungswahn.Rowohlt, Reinbek 1984, ISBN 3-499-11450-X (German)
• Jürgen Bruhn: Der Kalte Krieg oder: Die Totrüstung der Sowjetunion. Focus, Gießen 1995, ISBN 3-88349-434-8 (German)

[show]

• v
• t
• e

Cold War

• Participants and notable figures
• ANZUS
• NATO
• Non-Aligned Movement
• SEATO
• Warsaw Pact

1940s

• Yalta Conference
• Operation Unthinkable
• Potsdam Conference
• Gouzenko Affair
• War in Vietnam (1945-1946)
• Iran crisis of 1946
• Greek Civil War
• Corfu Channel Incident
• Restatement of Policy on Germany
• First Indochina War
• Truman Doctrine
• Asian Relations Conference
• Marshall Plan
• Czechoslovak coup d'état of 1948
• Tito-Stalin split
• Berlin Blockade
• Western betrayal
• Iron Curtain
• Eastern Bloc
• Chinese Civil War (Second round)

1950s

• Korean War
• 1953 Iranian coup d'état
• Uprising of 1953 in East Germany
• 1954 Guatemalan coup d'état
• Partition of Vietnam
• First Taiwan Strait Crisis
• Geneva Summit (1955)
• PoznaÅ„ 1956 protests
• Hungarian Revolution of 1956
• Suez Crisis
• Sputnik crisis
• Second Taiwan Strait Crisis
• Cuban Revolution
• Kitchen Debate
• Asian-African Conference
• Bricker Amendment
• McCarthyism
• Operation Gladio
• Hallstein Doctrine

1960s

• Congo Crisis
• Sino-Soviet split
• 1960 U-2 incident
• Bay of Pigs Invasion
• Berlin Wall
• Portuguese Colonial War (Angolan War of Independence
• Guinea-Bissau War of Independence
• Mozambican War of Independence)
• Cuban Missile Crisis
• Vietnam War
• 1964 Brazilian coup d'état
• United States occupation of the Dominican Republic (1965-1966)
• South African Border War
• Transition to the New Order
• Domino theory
• ASEAN Declaration
• Laotian Civil War
• Greek military junta of 1967-1974
• Six-Day War
• War of Attrition
• Cultural Revolution
• Sino-Indian War
• Prague Spring
• Goulash Communism
• Sino-Soviet border conflict
• Bunkers in Albania

1970s

• Détente
• Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
• Black September in Jordan
• Cambodian Civil War
• Realpolitik
• Ping Pong Diplomacy
• Four Power Agreement on Berlin
• 1972 Nixon visit to China
• 1973 Chilean coup d'état
• Yom Kippur War
• Carnation Revolution
• Strategic Arms Limitation Talks
• Rhodesian Bush War
• Angolan Civil War
• Mozambican Civil War
• Ogaden War
• Sino-Albanian split
• Cambodian-Vietnamese War
• Sino-Vietnamese War
• Iranian Revolution
• Operation Condor
• Bangladesh Liberation War
• Korean Air Lines Flight 902

1980s

• Soviet war in Afghanistan
• 1980 and 1984 Summer Olympics boycotts
• Solidarity
  • Soviet reaction
• Contras
• Central American crisis
• RYAN
• Korean Air Lines Flight 007
• Able Archer 83
• Star Wars
• Invasion of Grenada
• People Power Revolution
• Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
• United States invasion of Panama
• Fall of the Berlin Wall
• Revolutions of 1989
• Glasnost
• Perestroika

1990s

• Democratic Revolution in Mongolia
• Breakup of Yugoslavia
• Dissolution of the Soviet Union
• Dissolution of Czechoslovakia

Foreign policy

• Truman Doctrine
• Marshall Plan
• Containment
• Eisenhower Doctrine
• Domino theory
• Kennedy Doctrine
• Peaceful coexistence
• Ostpolitik
• Johnson Doctrine
• Brezhnev Doctrine
• Nixon Doctrine
• Ulbricht Doctrine
• Carter Doctrine
• Reagan Doctrine
• Rollback

Ideologies

• Capitalism
  • Chicago school
  • Keynesianism
  • Monetarism
  • Neoclassical economics
  • Reaganomics
  • Supply-side economics
  • Thatcherism

• Communism
  • Marxism-Leninism
  • Castroism
  • Eurocommunism
  • Guevarism
  • Hoxhaism
  • Juche
  • Left communism
  • Maoism
  • Stalinism
  • Titoism
  • Trotskyism

• Liberal democracy
• Social democracy

Organizations

• ASEAN
• CIA
• Comecon
• EEC
• KGB
• MI6
• Stasi

Propaganda

• Active measures
• Izvestia
• Pravda
• Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty
• Red Scare
• TASS
• Voice of America
• Voice of Russia

Races

• Arms race
• Nuclear arms race
• Space Race

See also

• Brinkmanship
• NATO-Russia relations
• Soviet and Russian espionage in U.S.
• Soviet Union-United States relations
• US-Soviet summits

• Category
• Portal
• Timeline

View page ratings

Rate this page

Rate this page

Page ratings

What's this?

Current average ratings.

Trustworthy

Objective

Complete

Well-written

I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional)

I have a relevant college/university degree

It is part of my profession

It is a deep personal passion

The source of my knowledge is not listed hereI would like to help improve Wikipedia, send me an e-mail (optional)We will send you a confirmation e-mail. We will not share your e-mail address with outside parties as per our feedback privacy statement.

Submit ratingsSaved successfully

Your ratings have not been submitted yet

Your ratings have expired

Please reevaluate this page and submit new ratings.

An error has occurred. Please try again later.

Thanks! Your ratings have been saved.

Please take a moment to complete a short survey.

Start surveyMaybe later

Thanks! Your ratings have been saved.

Do you want to create an account?

An account will help you track your edits, get involved in discussions, and be a part of the community.

Create an accountorLog inMaybe later

Thanks! Your ratings have been saved.

Did you know that you can edit this page?

Edit this pageMaybe later

Answer 3

the purpose it so they can both party and get really drunk

Answer 4

a never-ending effort to acquire more and more weapons