GVPT 200 Study Guide - Midterm Guide: Intercontinental Ballistic Missile, Cuban Missile Crisis, Treaty On The Non-Proliferation Of Nuclear Weapons

• School: University of Maryland
• Department: Government and Politics
• Course: GVPT 200
• Professor: Calvert Jones

Document Summary

Lecture 1: nuclear weapons and the concept of deterrence. Nuclear weapons first used in japan: hiroshima & nagasaki. Soviet scientists are trying to develop nuclear weapons. Development of weapons seen as a trigger of the cold war perhaps. Graduate to hydrogen bombs -> more lethal. New delivery system icbm (intercontinental ballistic missile) First-strike capability: ability to strike another state w/ nuclear weapon, so that the other state cannot strike back w/ a nuclear weapon. States want this because they hit once and destabilize. Madd: mutually assured destruction -> disrupts the balance of power. Second-strike capability: ability to withstand a nuclear attack from another state, and launch a retaliatory nuclear attack in response. Cuban missile crisis (1962) us had missiles in turkey aimed at ussr. Ussr had missiles in cuba aimed at us. Salt halted the building of nuclear weapons and reduced the number of them. 1968; liberal approach to preventing war and conflict on the basis of nuclear weapons.