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The fundament of the cold war was to live in a peace, assured by the knowledge that each side was able to eliminate the other. So it seemed to be a never ending armament. The arms-potential meanwhile was so high, that mankind could be eliminated with the push of one button. 12 B-52 circled over the Atlantic for 24 hours the day and 365 days the year ready to attack immediately. 182 Intercontinental rockets (at the time of the Cuba Crisis) of the type "Titan II (150t)" were ready to get shot off. 144 Polaris Rockets, which could be fired from submarines were all set. On October the 16th 1964, even China got into the circle of the nuclear powers. Now 5 countries got "the bomb".
The soviet leaders knew of the superiority of America and so concentrated on the deployment of a defence system. ABM missiles were constructed, able to destroy intercontinental rockets.
Now American scientists were faced an huge task. They developed MIRV Rockets, able to carry up to 10 warheads. Meanwhile each party, America and USSR, spent up to 50 Mio Dollar THE DAY for nuclear armarment.
On May the 26th 1972 Nixon and Breschnew subscribed SALT I which declared a disarmament in few sections. The first step to a détente.
100 warheads were needed to destroy the other side. To this time, there were 40000. Everyone more than 100 times harder than Hiroshima!
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