The Nuclear Arms Race (And Its Decline)

hello everybody welcome back to another episode of mega projects this one is all about the nuclear arms race now this one's complicated because when we do videos about nuclear stuff typically does well when we do videos about projects or non-physical objects like a race i mean a nuclear arms race even they don't do well so let's see how this video does but it's always going to do okay for me because it's brought to you by squarespace from websites and online tools to marketing tools and analytics squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business check out squarespace through the link below [Music] after world war ii the world breathed a deep sigh of relief well i mean all the people who were killed definitely didn't because they were dead but anyway cheery note let's carry on yes scientific ideological differences remained but after the carnage of the six year war in the estimated 75 million deaths surely anything that came next had to be better the united nations was formed and it seemed as if the world had finally learned its lesson that cataclysmic wars don't really help anybody but while the next 50 years are only a fraction of the deaths compared to the first half of the century it was a period when humanity looked into the mirror and for the first time saw its own total self-inflicted destruction the nuclear arms race saw the two global superpowers at the time the united states and the soviet union go toe to toe in one of the most absurd and dangerous games of one-upmanship that we've ever seen the fact that the world seemed to teeter on the brink of nuclear war on several occasions to accommodate what we can only describe as the world's greatest penis-measuring competition it tells you everything you need to know it was ludicrous dangerous and eye-wateringly expensive but it makes for one of the most intriguing stories in human history the time we nearly destroyed each other but backed down just in time [Music] while there was certainly plenty of optimism after the conclusion of world war ii in reality there were problems from day one completely out of character for a tyrannical dictator we know but joseph stalin immediately made it clear that he had no intention of pulling his soviet troops back from eastern europe the allies were weary and in the case of u.s president franklin d roosevelt close to death the uk's prime minister winston churchill appeared more focused on retaining what was left of britain's empire and in any case he would be voted out of office less than three months after peace was declared in europe it's impossible to know how things might have turned out differently but for whatever reason peace and relief soon turned to distrust and outright suspicion this soon expanded well out of the awkward setup and now occupied germany and eventually led to the nuclear arms race we had of course already entered the nuclear age by this point the bombings of hiroshima and nagasaki had revealed a level of warfare that exceeded anything we'd ever seen before for thousands of years warfare developed relatively slowly sticks eventually became clubs clubs became swords swords became guns and guns morphed into bombs the fears and power of regular ordnance dropped on cities around the world during the war had already been a huge leap forward from what was used during world war 1 but it was at the same time still manageable cities like dresden coventry berlin london and tokyo received hellish bombing campaigns but in most cases the people remained defiant in britain we love to talk about our blitz spirit but the truth is large-scale bombing campaigns almost always fail to break the resolve of those on the ground if anything it actually has a habit of solidifying the opposition but the bombs that hit those japanese cities within three days of each other were entirely different the destruction was incomparable the number of deaths unheard of in a single military strike in an instance the world changed and we now held the power of total destruction [Music] now the problem with a single country having the ability to destroy its enemies in an instant is that it creates an entirely unequal global situation i think we've all seen films when a supervillain gains a weapon capable of destroying the world only for the good guys to intervene and maintain peace and order with the u.s as the only country with nuclear weapons it gave them that all-powerful bargaining tool and one that joseph stalin knew they had to match of his country wanted to compete with the us as a global superpower the speed at which the soviet union built and tested its first nuclear weapon took the u.s by surprise the americans had reasoned that it would take five to six years until the soviets had a bomb but on the 29th of august 1949 just over four years since the attacks on hiroshima and nagasaki the soviets conducted their first nuclear test at semipalliatin's test site in modern-day kazakhstan using a device codenamed rds-1 with a yield of 22 kilotons and with that explosion the race had begun the development of the first soviet nuclear bomb had certainly been aided by several well-placed spies working in or around the manhattan project most notably klaus fox theodore hall and arskasbora just how much and what kind of information was passed on we're never going to fully know but it is clear that rds1 and the fat man bomb that hit hiroshima shared many similarities as the 1950s progressed it became plainly obvious that it was only a matter of time until the two ideological juggernauts collided the soviets had already expanded their communist sphere of influence with everything east of the berlin wall now firmly under their control albeit through barely disguised puppy governments the americans on the other hand with their swashbuckling capitalism and democracy came to symbolize the absolute antithesis to communism this might have been fine if both countries had been intent on staying home but the u.s and the ussr now seemed eager to push their own brand of ideologies on various nations around the world whether they wanted it or not now we're not going to dive into the quagmire of right and wrong here because the comment section would be insane but the 1950s saw the sight of a power play that would last decades and led to many proxy battles fought well outside both the u.s or the soviet union from angola to vietnam from chile to korea from ethiopia to guatemala [Music] the americans have been busy since the end of world war ii and it built up a large stockpile of around 300 nuclear warheads by the start of the 1950s but the soviet bomb jolted them into action president truman ordered that their number be increased and that the production and testing of what would be the world's first hydrogen bomb be accelerated on the first of november 1952 the u.s tested the first hydrogen bomb to come out of the ivy mic project because atomic bombs were not enough on an attack a small atoll in the pacific ocean the power of the bomb was 10.4 megatons of tnt and it left a tremendous cloud 160 kilometers wide and 40 kilometers high billowing up from the atoll killing all life on the surrounding islands just seven years after hiroshima the u.s had pushed the nuclear obliteration bar even higher but just eight months later the soviets surprised the world again with the testing of a thermonuclear device known as rds-6 in august 1953. this wasn't quite the three-stage hydrogen bomb that the americans had tested but with a yield of 400 kilotons and small enough to be dropped from an aircraft it was still a fearsome step forward for the soviet nuclear program the u.s upped the ante again on the 1st of march 1954 with its castle bravo test which remains the most powerful american nuclear test in history what was supposed to be a rather sedate five megaton yield actually surprised everybody by unleashing nearly 15 megatons over the bikini atoll part of the marshall islands but once again the ussr was right behind them and detonated their first true hydrogen bomb on november 22 1955 with a yield of 1.6 megatons at this point in the story fantastic both our superpowers have absolutely devastating nuclear powers but before we learn about how things went predictably downhill from there but not too downhill we've got a quick word from today's video sponsor squarespace now more than ever people are getting creative with their time they're reaching deep into their savings accounts to start a new craft business or launch a local politics blog to share their opinions with friends and neighbors because everybody loves someone like that but seriously start a good blog the world is yours and squarespace is the perfect web tool to help you fashion it into whatever you want it to be it's the platform to use when you're ready to get started on that next web project that you've been thinking about look you can either go in really quickly use 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first man-made vehicles in space the introduction of intercontinental missiles and the detonation of the biggest nuclear weapon in history when sputnik began sending back its now distinctive beeping on the 4th of october 1957 it sent shocks around the world the soviets had launched a space vehicle that could clearly be seen traveling above american skies and who knew what those devious reds would strap onto it next president dwight eisenhower did his best to downplay the event but the americans knew they'd fallen behind and well now they desperately needed to make up for it up until this point any nuclear attack would have been carried out using high altitude strategic bombers but the success of sputnik now shifted the focus firmly onto ballistic missiles early missiles had been used by the nazis during world war ii namely the v2 weapon that was commonly used against britain and belgium in the final stages of the war both the soviets and americans had helped themselves to available german engineers and scientists after the war and both sides began working on missiles that could strike targets thousands of miles away from the launch site broadly speaking today we have three kinds of ballistic missiles medium range capable of hitting targets between a thousand and three thousand kilometers away that's 620 to 1860 miles intermediate range with distances of three to five thousand five hundred kilometers that's about one thousand nine hundred to three thousand four hundred miles and intercontinental missiles with a minimum range of five thousand five hundred kilometers or three thousand four hundred miles that can effectively hit any target on the planet the first intermediate-range ballistic missile used by the u.s and britain who by the way joined the nuclear weapons party in 1952 was the pgm-17a thor a 20-meter 65-foot high missile capable of holding a thermonuclear warhead three years after the thor missiles were first deployed in 1962 the soviets again leveled up with the introduction of the 24.4 meter long r14 chuselvaya also capable of carrying a thermonuclear warhead the soviets were catching up but in some ways they had already surpassed the americans the world's first intercontinental missile was the r7 semija which made 28 test launches between 1957 and 1961 but was never deployed operationally its huge cost time consuming setup and obvious locations made them fairly impractical but again the soviet union had defied the odds and showed that the nuclear arms race was now neck and neck the sm-65 atlas was the first american intercontinental ballistic missile and it was first deployed in 1959 but like its soviet counterpart it was far from being a reliable nuclear deterrent and it soon became obsolete the final dramatic act that altered the direction of the nuclear arms race came on the 30th of october 1961. we've already done an entire video on the tsar bomber so i'm not going to go into details of it here but it was the largest nuclear explosion in history with a force of just over 50 megatons that's over 1570 times more powerful than the two bombs that were dropped on hiroshima and nagasaki combined also by the way that was also only half the yield it was designed for they decided to turn it down at the last minute crazy the test has long been seen as a way of cementing soviet prestige and power around the world it was an explosion of such force it was deemed too powerful to use in any real combat situations but it certainly announced the world that the soviets had a bomb of unfathomable proportions but this proved to be the peak in terms of earth-shattering nuclear tests by the 1960s both the u.s and the soviet union were in control of more than enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world many many times over and it was here that the two warring but not warring side settle into what came to be known as mutually assured destruction or mad essentially this meant that both sides knew that the other would be able to launch a devastating retaliatory strike if either were to launch first nuclear weapons were now so spread out and also included on submarines that it would be impossible to wipe out a nation's stockpile in a single go now simply too many as strange as this odd mutual pact seemed to be perhaps this was actually what the world needed [Music] there are various tales throughout the cold war of instances when the world seemed to come close to either nuclear war or massive nuclear accident as bad as what happened chernobyl or fukushima was it could be much much worse many of these involved mechanical accidents of some kind and thankfully it was incredibly rare that the two superpowers came close to trading blows the most notable exception was the cuban missile crisis that gripped the world over 13 days in october of 1962. the failed bay of pigs invasion by u.s backed cuban rebels aiming to overthrow the uncomfortably close communist nation of cuba had been a huge embarrassment for the u.s to make matters worse on the 14th of october 1962 a u.s spy plane traveling over cuba photographed a soviet ss4 medium-range ballistic missile being assembled for installation two days later president john f kennedy was briefed on the situation and on the 22nd of october he made a televised address informing the american people that soviet ballistic missiles now lay just 114 kilometers off the u.s coast his response was to issue an ultimatum to the soviet leader nikita khrushchev to remove the missiles while installing a naval blockade around cuba with tensions and emotions quickly escalating nobody was quite sure what would happen next things reached a crescendo when an american reconnaissance plane was shot down over cuba killing major rudolf anderson the pilot of the aircraft and the u.s raised its defense readiness to defcon 2 the highest it's ever reached but thankfully cooler heads prevailed khrushchev eventually sent a letter stating that he would remove the missiles in exchange for american promise not to invade cuba while the americans no doubt wanted nothing more than to wipe away the fidel castro problem was an offer they couldn't refuse the missiles were withdrawn and the world breathed just a little easier the two superbass had perhaps come closer than they ever had to war during the cuban missile crisis but it proved to be a turning point and a catalyst for a period of calm that is now known as tatons a phrase that was first used shortly before world war one to describe talks aimed at lowering tensions between france and germany one of the first acts of the crisis was the installation of a direct line between the white house and the kremlin it would seem as if everybody involved could see the benefit of just being able to pick up the phone and talk reasonably with your counterpart but this was just the start the datum period also sought the first of several major arms reductions treaties which began with the partial nuclear test ban treaty in 1963 prohibiting all test detonations except for those conducted underground salt 1 was next up in 1972 which effectively froze the number of strategic ballistic missile launchers at existing levels while allowing for new submarine-launched ballistic missiles only after an equal number of old intercontinental ballistic missiles have been scrapped considering where things have been just a decade before it was a huge step forward and came with the additional cooperative statement that each recognized the sovereignty of the other agreed to the principle of non-interference and sought to promote economic scientific and cultural ties of mutual benefit and enrichment salt ii signed in 1979 went even further and for the first time in the nuclear arms race both sides agreed to actively begin reducing nuclear warheads that is to a paltry 2 250 weapons on both sides it also banned most new missile programs but everything was constructed in such a way that while there was certainly a reduction both the ussr and the u.s retained the majority of what was most important to them unfortunately for everybody who worked so hard on salt too just six months later the soviet union invaded afghanistan and was found to still have a military brigade in cuba as a result u.s president jimmy carter withdrew from the salt to agreement but while the new treaty had collapsed things were never going to go back to the way things have been just two decades before while the agreement was technically never fully ratified both nations seemed to broadly comply with the continued thawing of relations and promised not to begin stockpiling weapons again the soviet war in afghanistan was the final desperate act of a nation that was quickly unraveling the conflict dragged on until 1989 leaving 15 000 soviet troops dead and anywhere between half a million and two million afghan civilians killed it was a shattering experience for the soviet union and one that showed that for all the nuclear might in the world a tenacious band of warriors armed with little more than ak-47s and rocket launchers could be more than a match for them as the last soviet soldiers limped out of afghanistan the soviet union was already circling the drain the debacle at chernobyl in 1986 had been followed by unrest and many of the republics and it now seemed only a matter of time until the union would dissolve but there was still one last treaty that helped to drive another nail into the nuclear arms race start one strategic arms reduction treaty was signed on the 31st of july 1991 and barred its two signatories from deploying more than 6 000 nuclear warheads while allowing for 1 600 intercontinental ballistic missiles and bombers once again it was far from the all-encompassing nuclear ban that many had been campaigning for but in truth that's just never going to happen on christmas day 1991 soviet premier mikhail gorbachev both officially resigned his post and made it extinct at the same time just like that the soviet union no longer existed [Music] while what we traditionally refer to as the nuclear arms race predominantly involved the usa and the soviet union the thirst for nuclear weapons has now spread to a further eight nations britain china france india pakistan israel north korea and south africa have all got in on the act over the years but as of early 2019 more than 90 percent of the world's 13 865 nuclear weapons were owned by russia and the united states which begs the question has the nuclear arms race even really finished the period between the end of world war ii and the de-escalation of the cuban missile crisis in 1962 saw the two superpowers gather more weapons than they could ever possibly hope to fire while the real peak in numbers was a little later the early 1960s saw a dramatic shift in sentiment and there appeared to be a general consensus that nuclear madness was not the way forward while it may no longer be a nuclear arms race their number and presence around the world show that competition still bubbles below the surface the major difference now is that the nuclear situation occupies our consciousness much less than in the past we rarely consider the prospect of nuclear war anymore despite obvious tensions around the world the beauty of nuclear weapons if there is one is that nobody wants to be the one to use them first so i really hope you found that video interesting if you did please do thumbs up below don't forget to subscribe support this channel by supporting our wonderful sponsor squarespace and thank you for watching [Music] you

Channel: Megaprojects

Views: 236,256

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Id: jGqQBbLA0GU

Length: 20min 30sec (1230 seconds)

Published: Fri May 07 2021