4.The Climax of the Cold War PDF

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Andres Sanchez Padilla...

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Thursday, 7 February 2019

The Climax of the Cold War (1953-1962) International Relations - The Arms Race • US hydrogen bomb (November 1952) - The thermonuclear or H-bomb was exponentially • Soviet Hydrogen bomb (August 8,1953) - The Soviets successfully tested their first nuclear device in 1953 • US Nuclear deterrent (‘triad’) - Bomber based nuclear weapons - Land based nuclear weapons - Submarine-based ballistic missiles • Soviet military inferiority - Marked edge in land forces • 5,8 million troops • Exorbitant defence budget - Nuclear disparity • The Soviet strategic bomber fleet could only reach the US on one-way bombing

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missions from the artic bases • The SU did not produced its first ICBMs until the 1960 - Mutual Assured Destruction • If one superpower launched a sudden nuclear attack in the other, a first strike, the second superpower would retain enough weapons to launch a decanting counter attach or second strike - Balance of terror • Nuclear build up to deter enemy aggression • Risk of bringing nuclear war by accident Peaceful Coexistence • Meaning= a way to define the new relationship SU wished to have with the US - Term was a propaganda tool - Relations improved between US and SU after 1953 - New president, a general from wwii, eisenhower, differed from the Truman admin - Military expanding, republicans • Eisenhower Admin (slide) - Nuclear weapons were cheaper than troops - Massive retaliations • US threeten to use nuclear weapons in any case of crisis, ej Korean War - . - . - .

Thursday, 7 February 2019

- . - . - .. • Geneva Conference (1955) - The Geneva Conference confirmed both sides tacit recognition of the existing

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status quo in Europe along with the explicit understanding that neither would risk war to overturn it - Bulganin USSR - Eisenhower US - Faure France - Eden Britain • West Germany joined NATO (1955) - NATO would be the constraining framework within which German rearming should proceed, restoring West German sovereignty and terminating the US Brit French occupation The Berlin Crisis • 3Million Germans went from east to west

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