KrantzA Nuclear weapon is any weapon that gets its destructive power from thetransformation of matter in atoms into energy. They include missiles, bombs,artillery shells, mines and torpedoes. Another name for nuclear weapons areAtomic bombs or Hydrogen bombs. The United States was the first country to everuse a Nuclear weapon in battle against Japan.The major arguments for a test ban was first proposed in the 1950s. Today, however, the stopping of radioactive fallout and the superpower arms raceare still in negotiation. Nations have sought to limit the testing of nuclearweapons to protect people and the environment from nuclear radiation and to slowthe development of nuclear weapons. In 1963, Great Britain, the Soviet Union,and the United States negotiated the first test limitation treaty, the LimitedTest Ban Treaty. The Treatys signers agreed not to test nuclear weapons inthe atmosphere, in outer space, or underwater. The only testing that wasallowed was underground testing.Attempts to control the number of nuclear weapons in the world beganabout 1970. The Strategic Arms Limitation Talks(SALT) was a convention held bythe United States and the Soviet Union to limit the numbers in nuclear weapons. In 1982, the United States and the Soviet Union began the Strategic ArmsReduction Talks(START). Unlike the SALT talks, these were aimed at the numberof nuclear weapons each country could obtain. Then there was another treatysigned in 1987 which was called the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces(INF). This treaty called for the dismantling of ground-launched nuclear missiles.A major obstacle to controlling nuclear weapons has been a lack of trustbetween the two principal powers; the United States and the Soviet Union. Therelationship has improved though in the late 1980s after President Gorbachevintroduced the principles of glasnost and perestroika to the Soviet PoliticalSystem. In 1989 and 1990, democratic reforms spread spread acr...
