An arms race is a competition between two or more countries for military supremacy. Each party competes to produce superior numbers of weapons, larger armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation.
Most arms races have occurred in the modern era. One of the first arms races occurred in the pre_World War I era from the 1890s to 1914 where the five great powers of Germany, Austria_Hungary, the Russian Empire, France, and the United Kingdom) were locked in an all-out military buildup, ranging from land armies, conscription, and artillery to battleships and competition between each country's mobilization speed. France reached a mobilization speed of just 3 days. At one point, it was estimated Germany could become fully war ready in only 2 days.
One significant recent example was the race to develop more and better nuclear weapons during the Cold War. Carl Sagan once famously described the Soviet Union devoted their command economy to the arms race, but were ultimately defeated by the demands on their economy of matching the United States' greater spending power.
The term "arms race" is used generically to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors. Evolutionary arms races are common occurrences, e.g. predators evolving more effective means to catch prey while their prey evolves more effective means of evasion. This is sometimes called the Red Queen effect. In addition to predators, parasites can force their hosts into an arms race.
In technology, there are close analogues of 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.
A defining characteristic of an arms race is the intention to develop more and better nuclear weapons during the Cold War (see: nuclear arms race).
The term "arms race" is used generically to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors.
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.
In fact, if the race of nuclear armaments is allowed to develop, the only apparent way in which our country could be protected from the paralyzing effects of a sudden attack is by dispersal of industries which are essential for our war effort and dispersal of the population of our major metropolitan cities.
In the war to which such an armamentsrace is likely to lead, the United States, with its agglomeration of population and industry in comparatively few metropolitan districts, will be at a disadvantage compared to the nations whose population and industry are scattered over large areas.
If the United States would be the first to release this new means of indiscriminate destruction upon mankind, she would sacrifice public support throughout the world, precipitate the race of armaments, and prejudice the possibility of reaching an international agreement on the future control of such weapons.
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