page_title: Nuclear arms race
section_title: Détente
hierarchical_section_title: Nuclear arms race / Détente
caption_attribution_description: Scope and content: Pictured: Viktor M. Kukhodrev, John B. Connally, Leonid Brezhnev. Subject: Heads of State - U.S.S.R.
context_page_description: The nuclear arms race was an arms race competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War. During this very period, in addition to the American and Soviet nuclear stockpiles, other countries developed nuclear weapons, though none engaged in warhead production on nearly the same scale as the two superpowers.
context_section_description: By the 1970s, with the cold war entering its 30th year with no direct conflict between the superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union entered a period of reduced conflict, in which the two powers engaged in trade and exchanges with each other. This period was known as détente.
  This period included negotiation of a number of arms control agreements, building with the Nuclear Test Ban Treaty in the 1950s, but with significant new treaties negotiated in the 1970s.   These treaties were only partially successful.  Although both states continued to hold massive numbers of nuclear weapons and research more effective technology, the growth in number of warheads was first limited, and later, with the START I, reversed.
caption: U.S. President Richard Nixon with Soviet General Secretary Leonid Brezhnev, 1973
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