Nuclear weapons continued to pose threat from "summary" of The Cold War by John Lewis Gaddis
The destructive power of nuclear weapons, as evidenced by the devastation caused in Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II, continued to hang ominously over the world throughout the Cold War. The development of even more powerful and sophisticated nuclear arsenals by the United States and the Soviet Union heightened tensions and raised the stakes of any potential conflict between the two superpowers. Mutually assured destruction (MAD) became a guiding principle in nuclear strategy, as both sides knew that any nuclear conflict would result in catastrophic consequences for all parties involved. The fear of escalation and the catastrophic effects of a nuclear exchange kept the United States and the Soviet Union in a state of uneasy peace, as both sides understood that the use of nuclear weapons would lead to mutual annihilation. The Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962 brought the world to the brink of nuclear war, as the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in a tense standoff over the placement of Soviet missiles in Cuba. The crisis underscored the precarious nature of the nuclear balance of power and highlighted the potential for miscalculation or misunderstanding to lead to a catastrophic outcome. Despite efforts to control and limit the spread of nuclear weapons through arms control agreements such as the Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT), the proliferation of nuclear technology to other countries raised the specter of additional actors possessing the capability to unleash nuclear destruction. The continued presence of nuclear weapons on the world stage ensured that the threat of nuclear war remained a constant concern for policymakers and citizens alike. As the Cold War drew to a close in the late 1980s and early 1990s, the threat of nuclear war began to recede, as the United States and the Soviet Union engaged in arms reduction agreements and sought to dismantle their nuclear arsenals. However, the legacy of the nuclear arms race and the ongoing presence of nuclear weapons in the world meant that the specter of nuclear annihilation continued to loom large, reminding all of the potential consequences of allowing the threat of nuclear weapons to persist.
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