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. 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".
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Famous quotes containing the words arms and/or race:
“For every parcel I stoop down to seize
I lose some other off my arms and knees,
And the whole pile is slipping, bottles, buns ...”
—Robert Frost (1874–1963)
“When at last in a race a new principle appears, an idea—that conserves it; ideas only save races.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)