<P> The strategic importance of the bomb, and its even more powerful fusion - based successors, did not become fully apparent until the United States lost its monopoly on the weapon in the post-war era . The Soviet Union developed and tested their first fire weapon in 1949, based partially on information obtained from Soviet espionage in the United States . Competition between the two superpowers played a large part in the development of the Cold War . The strategic implications of such a massively destructive weapon still reverberate in the 21st century . </P> <P> There was also a German nuclear energy project, including talk of an atomic weapon . This failed for a variety of reasons, most notably German Antisemitism . Half of continental theoretical physicists--including Einstein, Bohr, Enrico Fermi, and Oppenheimer--who did much of their early study and research in Germany, were either Jewish or, in the case of Enrico Fermi, married to a Jew . Erwin Schrödinger had also left Germany for political reasons . When they left Germany, the only leading nuclear physicist left in Germany was Heisenberg, who apparently dragged his feet on the project, or at best lacked the high morale that characterized the Los Alamos work . He made some faulty calculations suggesting that the Germans would need significantly more heavy water than was necessary . Otto Hahn, the physical chemist who had the central part in the original discovery of fission, was another key figure in the project . The project was doomed due to insufficient resources . </P> <P> The Empire of Japan was also developing an atomic Bomb, however, it floundered due to lack of resources despite gaining interest from the government . </P> <P> The collaboration between the British and the Americans led to the 1958 US - UK Mutual Defence Agreement between the two nations, whereby American nuclear weapons technology was adapted for British use . </P>

The role of technology during the civil war