The U.S. already had atomic bombs. As early as 1949, the Soviet Union tried to explode its own atomic weapon. The two superpowers had become nuclear powers.Their actions in reinforcing their atomic powers and in allying countries foreshadowed a global competition.
President Truman was determined to develop an even more deadly weapon before the Soviet did. He authorized work on a thermonuclear wepon in January 1950. This hydrogen or H-bomb would be thousands of times more powerful than the A-bomb or atomic bomb. The power came from the fusion, or joining together, of atoms, rather than from the splitting of atoms. The U.S. successfully tested the first H-bomb in November 1952. By the folloeing year, the Soviets also exploded their own thermonuclear weapon.
When Dwight D. Eisenhower was the president , he appointed the firmly anti-Communist John Foster Dulles as his secretary of state. Dulles threatened that if the Soviets or its supporters attacked U.S. interests, the U.S. would retaliate instantly. This willingness to go to the brink, edge, of war became known as brinkmanship, a policy of threatening to go to war in response to any enemy aggression.
Brinkmanship required a reliable source of nuclear weapons and airplanes to deliver them. So the U.S.strengthened its air force and began producing more nuclear weapons. In response, the S.U. also made its own collection of nuclear bombs. They were both preparing for the war, but actually, the Cold War had been taking place since they faced several conflicts & different arguments over Germany. This arm race would go on for four decades.
The threats from nulear weapons didn't disappear with the end of Cold War. In some ways, these threats had become more hazardous.
The terrorists who planned and carried out the attacks on Sep. 11th showed a willingness to take innocent lives, limited only by the capacity of the weapons available to them. However, the Nuclear Threat was not yet halted today.
