The Pros And Cons Of The Atomic Bomb

According to shmoop.com, there were 1.9 billion soldiers deployed and 72 million total deaths during World War 2. Although much of the war was fought by the soldiers, there was also almost a completely different war going on between physicists. There was an arms race to see who would be first to build the atomic bomb. The main countries who were a part of this war of physics was Germany, Great Britain, the Soviet Union, and the United States. Germany hit a road block and fell behind the other countries. Great Britain ended up joining the United States efforts. It was then a race between the United States and the Soviet Union. Neither country knew how far the other country was in their research. That is, without the help of a Soviet spy named

Klaus Fuchs was still helping and adding his input into the Manhattan Project, which in itself was benefitting the United States. One arguing against Fuchs’s decision to spy, may bring up the fact that it took the Soviets only four years to test the next atomic bomb. As stated before, it is estimated that Fuchs’s information helped to speed up the Soviet research by around 2 years. The argument may say that six years compared to four years does not make much of a difference. If the time period had been longer for the Soviets to make their bomb, then there may have been fear of the United States taking advantage of the fact that they are the only country with a bomb but neither four or even six years would be enough for that to happen. Therefore, the argument against Fuchs’s decision would be was it really worth it? Yes, I still strongly believe that Fuchs made the right decision. At the time Klaus Fuchs had no idea how long it would take the Soviet Union to build the bomb and how much his information would help. In this case, the ends cannot justify the means. He made his best decision based on the information he knew and what he