2007-11-07 12:04:36 · 13 answers · asked by Anonymous in Politics & Government ➔ Military
America was at the time at war with, and competing with, Germany and Japan, but Germany was the primary nuclear competetor.
2007-11-07 12:11:51 · answer #1 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Nazi Germany was the most obvious competitor, even though we learned after the war they weren't anywhere close to actually building a working bomb. No one knows for sure how close Japan was to building a bomb, but based on what I've read their bomb never progressed past being a laboratory study. Oh, and the bomb was actually developed during the Roosevelt administration.
Read Richard Rhodes' book "The Making of the Atomic Bomb." It's long but a great read.
2007-11-07 20:24:06 · answer #2 · answered by subnutty 2 · 2⤊ 0⤋
Germany. The Allies believed that Germany was
close to build a nuclear weapon. And while they
actually did research on this field it was never a
priority research like in the U.S. But their know-
ledge came in handy to complete our first bombs.
2007-11-07 20:23:48 · answer #3 · answered by Alex S 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The obvious competition was Nazi Germany. It was later found that they weren't very close to developing a bomb. Ironically, some of the people who built the US program had been forced to flee Nazi Germany! This set the German program behind for lack of top minds.
2007-11-07 20:13:40 · answer #4 · answered by Robert S 4 · 2⤊ 0⤋
This was an extension from the WWII Germany science. As humans the science was intriging (just like some work on DNA now) but used it before completely understanding it.
2007-11-07 20:09:39 · answer #5 · answered by rance42 5 · 1⤊ 0⤋
The "Bomb" was developed in secret during the Eisenhower administration, and Harry Truman only learned of the project, after he became President. The bomb was designed for use against Germany, however, as history shows it was used against Japan. Given the fact that the estimated casualties for American soldiers if they invaded mainland Japan were close to One Million, the bomb proved an effective end to the war, minimizing....not maximizing the loss of life. If American casualties were at 1,000,000, what would enemy casualties have been ?
2007-11-07 20:18:33 · answer #6 · answered by Mark J 3 · 0⤊ 3⤋
Nazi Germany
Imperial Japan
Soviet Union
2007-11-07 20:26:44 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋
If you mean the first ATOMIC bomb, the competition was actually Germany. If you mean the first THERMONUCLEAR bomb, it was the Soviet Union.
2007-11-07 22:30:17 · answer #8 · answered by npk 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Well Japan in WWII and the former USSR a distant fourth.
2007-11-07 20:12:08 · answer #9 · answered by sparkles 6 · 0⤊ 2⤋
Germany.... learn at least a bit of history.....
2007-11-07 20:37:16 · answer #10 · answered by lordkelvin 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋