The United States and the Soviet Union
were the first nations to have the technology for nuclear war.
For many years, the two superpowers stockpiled weapons. In
1962, the Soviets began constructing nuclear missiles in Cuba. Cuba
is an island nation less than ninety miles from Florida. The
Americans discovered the missiles and the two nations came close
to war. The Soviets dismantled the missiles and nuclear war
was avoided.
Both the Soviets and the Americans saw
the folly
of the arms race. They had been stockpiling destructive weapons
and both nations had the ability to destroy life as we know it on
our planet. In the 1970s,
the two "superpower" nations began to destroy many of their nuclear
weapons, but both still had destructive arsenals of weapons.
