Question

Is it reasonable to describe American capitalism of the Cold War years as nuclear capitalism? ?

Answer 1

INTRODUCTION

The race for nuclear supremacy started by the end of the second world war. The U.S and its opponent USSR were in the race. Both the countries wanted to prove the best in every aspect and adopted various strategies to do so. The Americans were the capitalists and the USSR was a communist nation.

FIRST NUCLEAR WEAPON

The first nuclear weapon was built by the U.S to be used against Nazi Germany, as soon as Joseph Stalin got the news of the nuclear bombs he ordered them to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, two Japanese cities.

In these bombings, 150,000 people died in Hiroshima and 75,000 people died in Nagasaki. Hence the US emerged as a nuclear power and the race seemed one-sided.

FIRST HYDROGEN BOMB

With this, both the powers continued to fight for world supremacy and started the researches for the hydrogen bomb.

u.s made the first hydrogen bomb in November 1942, decimating anything and everything within 100 miles. Which again proved that what u.s wants she gets it and in the first place.

INTERCONTINENTAL BALLISTIC MISSILES

In 1950's both the superpowers began to work on intercontinental ballistic missiles demonstrating that they now can target any point in the world.

CONCLUSION

The Americans always had far more missiles and nuclear weapons than soviet union but lacked confidence because no side knew what the other side is having while soviet union always exaggerated what they actually had.

In numbers of ballistic missiles, warheads, launchers, megatonnage U.S was always way ahead than soviet union. Hence American capitalism can be called as nuclear capitalism.