How was the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union analogous to the Prisoner's Dilemma?
A)Both sides ended up with fewer weapons than they wanted but still had enough to defend themselves from the other.
B)Each side kept quiet about the number of nuclear weapons it had,so that it could more easily defect.
C)Both sides provided evidence of nuclear weapons and cooperated in creating an arms agreement.
D)The United States provided evidence of nuclear weapons,while the Soviet Union remained quiet and thus defected instead of cooperating.
E)Collectively each side would have been better off if both had fewer weapons,but each side had an incentive to defect.

Question

Quizplus · Accepted Answer

The nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union was analogous to the Prisoner's Dilemma because both sides had an incentive to defect and pursue their own interests by increasing their stockpile of nuclear weapons, even though collectively both sides would have been better off with fewer weapons. Similar to the Prisoner's Dilemma, both sides ended up with more weapons than they needed to defend themselves, leading to the possibility of mutually assured destruction.

How Was the Nuclear Arms Race Between the United States