Atomic Bomb Inventory

Atomic Bomb InventoryPlot is cumulative, the number along the left hand edge is the worldwide total.The blue area is the US stockpile, the red area is the Russian stockpile.The thick line along the top is everyone else.

I'm slowly making my way through Command and Control by Eric Schlosser. Back in the 1950's the US Military was actually afraid Russia / Stalin might start another war. Since we didn't want to support an army big enough to counter an attack by a Russian army (on account of big armies are expensive), we opted to build up our stockpile of atom bombs so we could have a big stick to threaten them with, i.e. if you attack Europe we will obliterate your country. And since Russia had developed their own atom bomb, they weren't going to the let the US have a bigger stick, so they built up their arsenal and that's how we ended up with a zillion atom bombs.