The history of nuclear arms control between the U.S. and Russia has always been the basis of global safety, and it is still crucial to the planet. This history dates back to the very first nuclear test in Los Alamos, New Mexico, conducted in 1945 during the Manhattan Project. The whole world was changed as a result of the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, which killed more than 100,000 people and caused Japan to capitulate. Actually, they had become the criteria for the new period, in which such atrocities as war crimes were hardly conceivable.
The Soviet Union reacted quickly to its nuclear test in Kazakhstan, which shocked American intelligence, and set out to battle to produce ever more lethal weapons. Hydrogen bombs hundreds of times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb were detonated by the United States in the early 1950s, soon followed by the Soviets. These displays of technology attested to technological superiority, but so did a history of medical exposure to radioactive poison and risk from testing sites.
When the nuclear arms race grew fierce, it had to be controlled. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) was established in Vienna to promote civilian nuclear science and monitor nuclear installations, but applications for the military never lagged far behind the intellect. The Soviet 1957 test of an intercontinental ballistic missile, followed by the Sputnik 1 launch, infuriated American leaders and created NASA and even more zeal for the development of missiles.
Nuclear testing became commonplace by the late 1950s. The United States, the Soviet Union, and the nd United Kingdom exploded over a hundred bombs within a single year. France and numerous other nations soon joined them, bringing security to a more complicated world. The 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis brought the world to the brink of nuclear war when Soviet missiles were found in Cuba by American spies. Following thirteen sleepless nights, there was mutual comprehension to pull back missiles and establish a direct telephone link between Washington and Moscow, an umbilical cord to the handling of future crises.
This brush with disaster created arms control. The Limited Test Ban Treaty restricted nuclear explosions in the air, outer space, and the oceans, which was a manifestation of fear of fallout. The 1968 Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) is a cornerstone of arms control into which the overwhelming majority of states entered into renouncing nuclear weapons, though the next five—India, Israel, North Korea, Pakistan, and South Sudan—were out of reach of the regime.
Détente and milestone treaties were felt during the 1970s. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks (SALT) produced SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile (ABM) Treaty that limited missile silos and submarine-launched missiles. The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, however, ended it all, suspended SALT II negotiations, and prompted the U.S. to boycott the Moscow Olympics.
The Reagan administration first expanded the nuclear capability of the United States but subsequently went on to introduce sweeping proposals like the zero option and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI), a plan to deploy a shield of missiles in space. They surprised Soviet leaders and resulted in summits close to removing offensive nuclear weapons, although disagreements on missile defense prevented full-fledged agreements from being signed.
But all continued. The Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty abolished whole classes of ground-based missiles and implemented strict verification practices. The fall of the Berlin Wall and the Soviet Union provided a window for the Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty (START), which demanded deep reductions in nuclear arms.
New difficulties arose in the post-Cold War period as well. Ukraine, Belarus, and Kazakhstan, the former Soviet countries, were left with nuclear weapons, but Russia had declared that it would give up its nuclear arsenal and join the NPT as a non-nuclear signatory. The U.S. pledged billions to finance denuclearization. Nevertheless, the situation was such that the political and technological challenges impacted the attempts to proceed with the reduction of arsenals under START II and other agreements.
At the beginning of the 2000s, the U.S. pulled out of the ABM Treaty and started to make missile defense systems to protect against threats coming from rogue states, which were seen as dubious by Russia. The cooperative initiatives, such as the early-warning centers, never became a reality. On the other hand, the issue of arms control was still at the top of the agenda despite the failures. The Strategic Offensive Reductions Treaty (SORT) or the Moscow Treaty limited both countries from making further cuts, although it was criticized by all for its shortcomings.
The Obama administration exuded a slightly different emphasis, which was clearly reflected in the New START treaty that had binding restrictions on intercontinental nuclear missiles as its main characteristic. Apart from that, these two superpowers were still facing various tensions, such as regional conflicts and political competition, which were testing the extent of their cooperation. On the other hand, the Trump administration sent withdrawal notifications for the INF Treaty as well as the Treaty on Open Skies, citing compliance issues.
The Biden administration, most recently, only a few days before the expiry of New START, negotiated with Russia to extend it for another five years and preserve the only remaining limit on their strategic stockpiles. The nuclear arms control history between the U.S. and Russia is a witness to the fears of the competition going out of control, and the occasional, but very limited, instances of cooperation, even on the verge of nuclear war.