How would you define an Arms Race? (Ex. Between the Soviet Union and the US)

Question

anonymous · Answer

an Arms Race? What are you talking about? :P

anonymous · Answer

The phrase arms race, in its original usage, is a competition between two or more parties to have the best armed forces. Each party competes to produce larger numbers of weapons, greater armies, or superior military technology in a technological escalation.
International conflict specialist Theresa Clair Smith, defines the term as "the participation of two or more nation-states in apparently competitive or interactive increases in quantity or quality of war material and/or persons under arms."
Nowadays the term is mostly used to describe any competition where there is no absolute goal, only the relative goal of staying ahead of the other competitors, essentially the goal of proving to be "better".

anonymous · Answer

Thank you so much! This really clarifies it for me.