Non-deliverable nuclear bombs.

[Willowz]

I was wondering why didn't both America and the USSR stop at non-deliverable nuclear bombs? I mean if making decisions based solely on game theory was the only way to insure safety by deterrence, then we should all be dead by now. Anyway, who was the first at creating deliverable bombs? Seemingly the cold war could have stopped right there.

[Astronuc]

What does one mean by non-deliverable? The original bombs were deliverable - by B29.

But then it got complicated. The US and USSR both recruited (or coerced) rocket scientists from Germany (as well as their own) - the guys (e.g., Werner von Braun) who did V2.

Post WWII, the various powers began developing longer range bombers and jet aircraft. By the 1950's, thermonuclear weapons were being developed. The motivation to develop nuclear propelled rockets was the heavy mass of the original nuclear weapons. Also in parallel, was the development of nuclear submarines that could stay underwater for longer periods, and get close to the shores of adversarial nations.

The space program and commercial electronics spurred the development of smaller solid state electronics components, so that helped with the minaturization of nuclear weapons, so that by the 60's, chemical rockets could launch the biggest thermonuclear systems.

The US and USSR had arsenals of bombers (e.g., B36, B47, B52, B58, the B1 and now B2), land-based ICBMs and submarine-based SLBMs. They managed to keep up with each other, and maintained a stand-off.

They certainly could have delivered smaller systems at selected targets, but they didn't.

[Willowz]

Thanks Astronuc for that outline. I think I was confusing things a bit. What I simply meant was that the bombs would not be used to attack any nations, but this defeats the purpose of creating the bomb in the first place. Overall it's tantamount to saying that the bombs should never be used or have been built in the first place.

[twistedspark]

Both sides realized this, but could never develope a degree of trust between them to stop thinking that the "other guys might develop a new system of delivery that would allow them to destroy us before we could react."
Hence the arms race could only be stopped by either war, or the economic failure of one or more sides.

[Astronuc]

Thanks Astronuc for that outline. I think I was confusing things a bit. What I simply meant was that the bombs would not be used to attack any nations, but this defeats the purpose of creating the bomb in the first place. Overall it's tantamount to saying that the bombs should never be used or have been built in the first place.
Well - had the world not been at war, and had the communist systems evolved more along the lines of socialism or socialist democracy in W. Europe, the arms race might not have occurred. However, world history is a history of adversarial conflicts among nations or groups.

. . . Hence the arms race could only be stopped by either war, or the economic failure of one or more sides. It was the economic failure of the Soviet Union that lead to an abrupt change.

[Jobrag]

Watch Dr Strangelove the insanity (and the logic) of MAD comes clear.

[Willowz]

This must be the best of all possible worlds.