The decision to use the atomic bomb has been a matter of intense controversy. Truman decided to use the bomb against Japan.

Germany was defeated by then, but President Harry S. In an extraordinary display of scientific and industrial might, the United States made two bombs ready for use by August 1945. The British and American projects were driven by the fear of a German atomic bomb, but Germany decided in 1942 not to make a serious effort to build the bomb. The Soviet effort was small before August 1945. Britain put its own work aside and joined the Manhattan Project as a junior partner in 1943. During World War II, three countries decided to build the atomic bomb: Britain, the United States, and the Soviet Union. The nuclear age began before the Cold War. The atomic bomb and the origins of the Cold War Was the nuclear-arms race a product of Cold War tension rather than its cause? Did nuclear weapons cause the Cold War? Did they contribute to its escalation? Did they help to keep the Cold War “cold”? We should also ask how the Cold War shaped the development of atomic energy. Nuclear weapons are so central to the history of the Cold War that it can be dificult to disentangle the two. “Nuclear Weapons and the Escalation of the Cold War, 1945-1962,” in Odd Arne Westad and Melvin Leffler, eds., The Cambridge History of the Cold War, vol.

Odd arne westad the global cold war