Nuclear arms race

Cold War nuclear arms race
Cold War nuclear arms race
Part of the Post-WWII era and the Cold War
	Left to right, nuclear bomb test Crossroads Baker; a Soviet RT-2PM Topol mobile ICBM; a flying LGM-30 Minuteman ICBM; the mushroom cloud explosion of the test Castle Romeo
Date
Date	September 28, 1942 – December 8, 1987; (45 years, 2 months, 1 week and 3 days)
Location	United States, Soviet Union, United Kingdom, China, France, India, Pakistan, atmosphere of Earth
Result	The Soviet Union begins researching nuclear arms in response to the Manhattan Project; The United States conducts Operation Crossroads soon after the end of World War II; The United States conducts the first full-scale test of a thermonuclear device, Ivy Mike; Intercontinental ballistic missiles are developed by both sides; The Soviet Union tests the Tsar Bomba thermonuclear bomb; The United States and the Soviet Union sign the INF Treaty in 1987;
Competitors
	Western Bloc (primary parties) United States United Kingdom; France Eastern Bloc (primary parties) Soviet Union(Sino-Soviet split); China South Asian Arms Race Pakistan India
Commanders and leaders
	Franklin D. Roosevelt; Dwight D. Eisenhower; John F. Kennedy; Lyndon B. Johnson; Richard M. Nixon; Gerald R. Ford; Jimmy Carter; Ronald Reagan Joseph Stalin; Nikita Khrushchev; Leonid Brezhnev; Yuri Andropov; Konstantin Chernenko; Mikhail Gorbachev
Major operations
	United States:; Manhattan Project; Operation Crossroads; Operation Greenhouse; Operation Ivy; Operation Castle; Operation Plumbob; Nike Zeus program; PGM-17 Thor program; Operation Dominic; LGM-30 Minuteman program; Strategic Defense Initiative; LGM-118 Peacekeeper program United Kingdom:; Operation Hurricane; Operation Grapple; France:; Gerboise Bleue; Canopus Soviet Union:; RDS-1; RDS-4 ("Tatyana"); RDS-6s (Joe 4); RDS-37; R-7 Semyorka program; K project; Tsar Bomba; R-14 Chusovaya program; Operation Chagan; A-35 program; R-36 program China:; Project 596; Test No. 6; Test #21 Pakistan:; Kirana-I operation; Chagai operations India:; Operation Smiling Buddha (Pokhran-I); Operation Shakti (Pokhran-II)
Costs
	Est. $5.5 trillion
Near catastrophes
	Suez Crisis alarm; 1961 Goldsboro B-52 crash; Yom Kippur War accidental false alarm 1983 Soviet nuclear false alarm incident
	Cuban Missile Crisis; Able Archer 83

The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this same period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.

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