Peaceful Coexistence
- Idea brought forth by Krushchev
- State USSR wanted to peacefully compete with USA
- USSR encouraged in their peaceful competition with their success in the space race.
- 1959 Sino-Soviet Split
- More aggressive actions begin to be taken under the cover of this idea:
- Pressure to remove troops from Berlin, 1959
- Soviet influence in the Middle East
- Cuban Missile Crisis
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The space race: Sputnik
- In 1957 the Soviets launch the first Earth-orbiting satellite named Sputnik
- About the size of a basketball any only made beeps
- People feared that atomic weapons would soon be delivered without airplanes
This gave the USSR an upper hand and they began to demand concesssions
In a speech in 1962, John F. Kennedy said in relation to Russian success so far:
"No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
"No nation which expects to be the leader of other nations can expect to stay behind in this race for space. ... We choose to go to the Moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."
ICBms and Delivery Systems
- (ICBM) Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile
- MIRVs (Multiple Independently Targeted Re-entry Vehicles)
- Nuclear submarines
- M.A.D. (Mutually Assured Destruction)
- Pre-emptive Strike
- SAC (Strategic Air Command) planes flying 24 hours a day
Summary
Due to the idea of Coexistence, the USA and Russia had to find other ways to compete. This competition was the Space Race. There were also new inventions in missile technology. This made the idea of a Pre-emptive Strike impossible because both sides were able to destroy each other in a really short period of time.