A distant drum.

UNITED States; SOVIET Union

This article discusses issues about the arms race in connection with the relations between the U.S. and the Soviet Union as of 1991. U.S. President Ronald Reagan administration had deployed nuclear missiles in Europe that could reach Moscow in minutes. It was planning to extend the arms race into space with its Strategic Defense Initiative. Meanwhile, the Soviet Union was run by old men who hadn't had a new idea in 40 years. It was continuing to deploy ever more accurate multiple-warhead missiles; and it had shot down a Korean airliner that had crossed into sensitive Soviet airspace. Then, the tide was reversed. Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev came into the picture in 1985, hit if off with Reagan, and the world began to change at a bewildering pace. In 1988, there was an improvement in East-West relations, including the signing of the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty. In 1990, the Cold War ended. There are still nearly 50,000 nuclear bombs and warheads out there, as of 1991, if one counts the arsenals of Great Britain, France, China and Israel, as well as the arsenals of the superpowers. Nuclear weapons represent such a staggering increase in destructive power compared with conventional weapons that there can be no justification for building and maintaining nuclear arsenals in the post-World War II world.