The term arms race in its original usage describes a competition between two or more parties for military supremacy. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation.

Examples of Arms Races

• The period preceding World War I, when Germany, Britain, France and Italy were competing to build the most powerful dreadnoughts. Lewis Fry Richardson made an arms race model, trying to retrodict World War I, where he showed how two countries would go to war if more money was spent in the arms race than in trade.
• At the geopolitical level of the 20th century, the United States and the Soviet Union developed more and better nuclear weapons during the Cold War (see: nuclear arms race). Immediately after World War II, the United States was behind the Soviet Union in the area of intermediate range missiles, but they managed to catch up with the help of German scientists. The Soviet Union committed their command economy to the arms race and, with the deployment of the SS-18 in the late 1970s, achieved first strike parity. However, the strain of competition against the great spending power of the United States created enormous economic problems during Mikhail Gorbachev's attempt at konversiya, the transition to a consumer based, mixed economy, and hastened the collapse of The Soviet Union. Because the two powers were competing with one another instead of aiming for a predefined goal, both nations soon acquired a huge capacity for overkill.

Other uses

More generically, the term "arms race" is used to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors. An Evolutionary arms races is a system where two populations are evolving in order to continuously one-up members of the other population. For example, A Predator / Prey arms-race involves predators evolving more effective means to catch prey while their prey evolves more effective means of evasion. This is related to the Red Queen effect, where two populations are co-evolving to overcome one another but are failing to make absolute progress.

In technology, there are close analogues to the arms races between parasites and hosts, such as the arms race between computer virus writers and anti-virus software writers, or spammers against Internet Service Providers and E-mail software writers.

See also

• Cold War
• Missile Technology Control Regime

Literature

• Richard J. Barnet: Der amerikanische Rüstungswahn. Rowohlt, Reinbek 1984, ISBN 3-499-11450-X (German)
• Jürgen Bruhn: Der Kalte Krieg oder: Die Totrüstung der Sowjetunion. Focus, Gießen 1995, ISBN 3-88349-434-8 (German)

•  • [ e] The Cold War
Participants: NATO Warsaw Pact Non-Aligned Movement People's Republic of China
1940s	Yalta Conference • Potsdam Conference • Gouzenko Affair • Iran crisis • Chinese Civil War • Greek Civil War • Restatement of Policy on Germany • Truman Doctrine • Marshall Plan • Communist takeover in Czechoslovakia • Tito-Stalin split • Berlin Blockade
1950s	Korean War • First Indochina War • Iranian Coup • Guatemalan Coup • Uprising of 1953 in East Germany • First Taiwan Strait Crisis • Poznań 1956 protests • Hungarian Revolution of 1956 • Suez Crisis • Sputnik crisis • Second Taiwan Strait Crisis • Cuban Revolution
1960s	Congo Crisis • Sino-Soviet split • U-2 Crisis of 1960 • Bay of Pigs Invasion • Cuban Missile Crisis • Berlin Wall • Vietnam War • U.S. Invasion of Dominican Republic • South African Border War • Overthrow of Sukarno • Bangkok Declaration • Laotian Civil War • Greek military junta of 1967-1974 • Prague Spring • Dtente • Sino-Soviet border conflict
1970s	Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty • Cambodian Civil War • Ping Pong Diplomacy • Four Power Agreement on Berlin • 1972 Nixon visit to China • Chilean coup of 1973 • Yom Kippur War • Strategic Arms Limitation Talks • Angolan Civil War • Mozambican Civil War • Ogaden War • Sino-Vietnamese War • Iranian Revolution
1980s	Soviet war in Afghanistan • Polish Solidarity Movement • Central American Crisis • Able Archer 83 • Strategic Defense Initiative • Invasion of Grenada • Fall of the Berlin Wall • Revolutions of 1989
1990s	Dissolution of the USSR
See also	Bricker Amendment • Glasnost • Iron Curtain • McCarthyism • Operation Condor • Operation Gladio • Perestroika • Soviet espionage in US
Establishments	Central Intelligence Agency • Comecon • European Community • KGB • Stasi
Races	Arms race • Nuclear arms race • Space Race
Ideologies	Capitalism • Communism • Stalinism • Maoism
Foreign policy	Brezhnev Doctrine • Ulbricht Doctrine • Carter Doctrine • Containment • Domino Theory • Eisenhower Doctrine • Johnson Doctrine • Kennedy Doctrine • Nixon Doctrine • Ostpolitik • Peaceful coexistence • Reagan Doctrine • Rollback • Truman Doctrine • Marshall Plan
Timeline of events