History 1401E Lecture Notes - Lecture 22: Nuclear Arms Race, Cuban Missile Crisis, Mutual Assured Destruction

• School: Western University
• Department: History
• Course: History 1401E
• Professor: Karen Priestman

Document Summary

Nuclear arms race helps to keep the cold war cold because it drives the ifnluence of detente. Arms race focused on making these weapons more deployable, accurate, larger range!! Allowed soviet union and us to strike each other directly. Gets to the point of mutually assured destruction. Doesn"t matter if they built more weapons, the threshold was complete annihilation and they"d already reached it. United states had less weapons more they were more deployable (higher tech), soviet. Union had more but they were less deployable. Cuban missile crisis: kennedy and kruschev backed down (kruschev first) Us president reagan tried to create a defensive system that would intercept nuclear weapons in space/in the air before they reached their target. Soviets believed that it was possible, and because they believed it was possible they began pouring money into the arms race which they could not win.