Arms Race
At a glance:
- Series: Magill’s Guide to Military History
- Categories: Diplomacy, International Relations, Foreign Affairs, Military History
- Subcategories: Ships, Naval History, Nuclear Weapons, Power, Radiation, Cold War
- Curriculum: Worldwide
A competitive increase in the quality or quantity of weapons of war by opposing nations in peacetime, with the intention of gaining a military advantage and using that advantage to establish a sphere of political influence or to facilitate military conquests. Though the origins of humankind’s occupation with finding more efficient means of destroying enemies have been lost in the haze of prehistory, the first contemporary reference to an arms race did not occur until the late nineteenth century, when France and Russia strove to eclipse Britain’s naval superiority. Germany’s...
[The entire page is 265 words long]
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