Competition in the Cold War
Super Power Competition
•The United States and the Soviet Union
rarely competed with each other on the
battlefield during the Cold War, because
with nuclear weapons, a battlefield war
might turn into global destruction. So how
did the two nations compete? What was
the battlefield of the Cold War?
Arms Race
•The nuclear arms race was the centerpiece
of the superpower Cold War competition.
Both the United States and the USSR began
stockpiling nuclear weapons, and used type
and quantity as points of comparison.
•The United States tested the first
H-bomb (Hydrogen bomb) in 1952,
and the Soviets did likewise nine
months later.
•The space race provided the cover for sophisticated weapons development — specifically the development of rocket boosters
that would be used to power missiles. Thus
the panic created in the United States over
the Soviet launch of Sputnik was really
about the fact that the Soviets had created
rocket boosters that would power missiles
anywhere in the world.
•These missiles were called
Inter--Continental BalICBMs, or Inter
listic Missiles, and they were
equipped with a nuclear warhead.
•Other nations like Britain, France & China
developed nuclear weapons during the
1950s & 60s, but not to the scale of the
two superpowers.
•In the 1970s, the superpowers began to
back away from weapons production, and
actually signed Arms Limitation Treaties.
SLMS/11
Space Race
•The ‘Space Race’, or the race to put
satellites, rockets and eventually
men, into space, was one nonconfrontational and non-military way
the United States competed with the
Soviet Union in the 1950s and 1960s.
•The race officially began with the Soviet
launch of the satellite Sputnik on October 4,
1957. This event was greeted with panic, because the U.S. had no formal space program,
and therefore was way behind.
•NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration) was immediately formed to
help the United States catch up and compete with the Soviet Union’s space program.
•In April 1961, the Soviet cosmonaut Yuri
Gagarin became the first human in space,
after orbiting the earth for about two hours.
•In 1962, John Glenn became the first
American astronaut to successfully orbit
the earth. On July 21, 1969, astronaut Neil Armstrong became the
first human to walk on the moon.
Athletic Competitions
•Another interesting platform for competition was International Athletic competitions, such as World Championships and the Olympics.
•Both superpowers attempted
to prove their superiority on the playing
field. Medal counts at the Olympics became
important to national morale and to justify
their position as the supreme superpower.
•One of the most exciting and important
Olympic moments was in the 1980 winter
games when a collegiate U.S. hockey team
defeated a largely professional Soviet team.