1980’s US HISTORY Arms Race - PowerPoint Presentation

Slide1

1980’sUS HISTORY

Arms Race USSR - War in AfghanistanStrategic Defense Initiative (“Star Wars”)

By Sarah NicholsSlide2

the Arms Race

Major EventsHiroshima and Nagasaki (1945)– End of war with JapanA-Bomb and H-Bomb testing by USA – 1945 and 1952 respectivelyA-Bomb and H-Bomb testing by USSR in 1949 and 1954 respectively

1960’s concept of Mutually Assured Destruction “MAD”

Estimate of 40,000 warheads in 1986

Others join in creating nuclear weapons – Britain (1952), France (1960), China (1964), India and Pakistan(1998)

Causes

-Nuclear

warhead technology,

Post WWII tensions

-Belief

that power and number of nuclear warheads were related

-Idealist

tensions between Capitalism and

Communism

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Results and consequences

Diversion of Billions of dollars into weapons systemsSALT I (1969), SALT II (1979

) which were talks to discuss disarmament

Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (2002) – Reduced nuclear to 1700 for each of USA and USSR – guess that is better than the 20,000+ weapons that existed previously for the USA and USSR

Termination of SALT II voluntary compliance in

1986 because of tensions between the US and the USSRSlide4

USSR Invades Afghanistan

CausesRussia installs communist government leader in Afghanistan which causes anger at anti-religion communist leaders in AfghanistanInability of Afghan forces to defend the Communist government in power lead to increased tensions

Installation of Kamal as a puppet USSR leader, but with no popular support

Russia was forced to provide a security force

US intervenes secretly by supplying the Rebel groups with weapons These rebel groups would later split into factions and some of them would later become what is today the Taliban and other extremist groupsSlide5

Major Events

Amin’s attempt to eliminate Muslim traditions

Declaration of Jihad against Amin’s government and the small force of Russians

Withdrawal

in 1989 when Gorbachev became convinced that the war could not be won and

Afghanistan had become the USSR’s “Vietnam”Slide6

Results and Consequences

The cold War gets ‘hot’ through a series of proxy wars, such as in Korea and VietnamUS supporting rebel groups is successful and spawns a series of other, similar endeavors that would later lead to distrust of the US gov’t and scandals

Crippled Russian economy

US Grain embargo in 1980

Covert operations by USA to arm Mujahedeen (these arms were used against the US post 2001)Slide7

Strategic Defense Initiative“Star Wars”

CausesFear of Attack

Arms Race

Tensions with the Soviet Union

Tensions in Afghanistan and the US supplies the rebels despite having no official political ties to the Afghanistan rebels

Events:

-Increasing

numbers of Nuclear Weapons and Mobility of Nuclear Weapons

-Realization

of Mutually Assured Destruction

-The US asks itself how

many warheads do we need to maintain first strike

capabilities?

(1960’s)Slide8

Results and Consequences

SALT Talks Breakdown in 1986 due to the fact that the US wouldn’t abandon the Star Wars projectContravened the Anti-Ballistic Missile section of the SALT treaties – ended adherence to SALT II (1986)Increased tensions and was thought to impact the Stand-Off of First Strike capabilities

Causes a rift between the president and Congress because its so expensive

Although the US never developed a ground or space based laser that was

successfulThe failure of the talks showed that the US had to be prepared for compromise in order to avoid warSlide9

Concluding statement

The US and the USSR’s indirect conflict with each other over weapons disarmament, idealist principles and territory set the stage for 20th and 21st century American foreign policies and conflicts such as the war in Afghanistan as well as foreign relations with Russia.