The idea from the Cold War most similar to your "gymnast recruitment" scenario is the arms race that took place between the USA and the USSR. At the beginning of the Cold War, only the United States had the supreme weapon of war: the atomic bomb. By 1949, the Soviet Union had developed its own atomic bomb technology, and the nuclear arms race was on. Each side kept advancing its nuclear technology. They went from fission bombs to fusion bombs (hydrogen bombs). They developed better and longer-range ballistic missile systems to deliver the bombs. Each side spent billions and billions on the nuclear arms race, each trying to become more powerful than the other.
<h3>Further explanation</h3>
During the Cold War, the US and USSR each stockpiled tens of thousands of nuclear warheads -- so much so that they could have destroyed each other and the whole world if they had used the weapons. This became known as the possibility of "Mutually Assured Destruction" (MAD). The scariness of such a situation was portrayed even by children's author Dr. Seuss in a book called, <em>The Butter Battle Book. </em>
Eventually, the two sides began to negotiate with each other in a period of <em>détente </em>(or "loosening") of the tensions between them. They began to work out a series of agreements on nuclear disarmament.<em> </em>
<h3>Learn more</h3>
<h3>Answer details</h3>
- Grade: Middle school, high school
- Subject: History
- Chapter: Cold War
<h3>Keywords</h3>
- Cold War
- arms race
- atomic bomb
- hydrogen bomb
- nuclear weapons
- Mutually Assured Destruction
- <em>détente</em>
