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 race, arms and/or race:
“So in your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride—the temptation blithely to declare yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong, good and evil.”
—Ronald Reagan (b. 1911)
“It has been proposed that the town should adopt for its coat of arms a field verdant, with the Concord circling nine times round.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“I don’t like the idea of the black race being diluted out of existence. I like the idea of all of us being here.”
—Gwendolyn Brooks (b. 1917)