Weapons technology in the two nuclear ages

Abstract

Since the invention of nuclear weapons in 1945, there have been two distinct nuclear ages. The first was marked by technological and quantitative competition between two superpowers, which were radically different and ideologically irreconcilable. As nuclear weapons spread to a modest number of additional states during this period (in a process of “horizontal” proliferation), the first nuclear age was marked generally by a rapid increase in the number of nuclear weapons – “vertical” proliferation – as well as by continuing improvement in the design of both warheads and the vehicles used to deliver them. The total number of nuclear weapons deployed worldwide began to decrease during the closing years of the first nuclear age, but vertical deproliferation only accelerated during the second nuclear age, which began on December 25, 1991 with the fall of the Soviet Union. The second nuclear age, however, also has been notable for continuing horizontal proliferation. The number of states that possess nuclear weapons has steadily increased, and there is little reason to believe that the trend will soon reverse. In the current nuclear age, moreover, improvement in warhead and delivery-vehicle design has been modest. Such technologies have improved at a leisurely pace, whereas the rate of technological advancement in these areas was frenetic during the first nuclear age. The two superpowers of the first nuclear age were different in almost every respect. The United States was a wealthy society, which had traditionally been reluctant to involve itself deeply in European affairs. Although it had occasionally fought European powers (as in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the naval Quasi-War with France, and the Spanish–American War), not until 1917 did the United States, which by then had the world’s largest economy, become involved in an effort to shape profoundly the strategic environment in Europe. Even thereafter, during the interwar period, Washington remained a reluctant participant in great-power gamesmanship. In the aftermath of World War II, however, the United States took on the role of protector of the western European democracies as a matter of perceived necessity.