All Topics  
Nuclear warfare

 
Nuclear Warfare

   Email Print
   Bookmark   Link






 

Nuclear warfare



 
 
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare refers to the strategy for fighting or deterring military conflicts and terrorism
Terrorism

Terrorism, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is the systematic use of terror, "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands." At present, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism....
 when nuclear weapons are present. The term usually refers to confrontations in which opposing sides are both armed with nuclear weapons.






Discussion
Ask a question about 'Nuclear warfare'
Start a new discussion about 'Nuclear warfare'
Answer questions from other users
Full Discussion Forum



Encyclopedia


Mk6 Titan Ii
Nuclear warfare, or atomic warfare refers to the strategy for fighting or deterring military conflicts and terrorism
Terrorism

Terrorism, according to the Merriam-Webster online dictionary, is the systematic use of terror, "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population or government into granting their demands." At present, there is no internationally agreed upon definition of terrorism....
 when nuclear weapons are present. The term usually refers to confrontations in which opposing sides are both armed with nuclear weapons. Compared to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare is much more destructive in both range coverage and extent of damage, and has long-term, severe, damaging effects that can last for decades, centuries, or even millennia after the initial attack. Nuclear war is considered to bear existential risk
Existential risk

In future studies, an existential risk is a risk that is both global and terminal . Nick Bostrom defines an existential risk as a risk "where an adverse outcome would either annihilate Earth-originating intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential." The term is frequently used in transhumanist and Singularitarian...
 for civilization on earth.

Nuclear weapons have been used offensively twice, during the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear warfares near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of President of the United States Harry S....
 by the United States of America against the Empire of Japan
Empire of Japan

The Empire of Japan was a Japanese political entity that existed during the period from the Meiji Restoration in 1868 until its defeat in World War II in 1945....
 shortly before the end of the Pacific War
Pacific War

The Pacific War was the part of World War II?and preceding conflicts?that took place in the Pacific Ocean, its islands, and in East Asia, between July 7, 1937 and August 14, 1945....
 in World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
. During the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, the United States and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
 entered a state of conflict and tension. The United States had developed nuclear weapon
Nuclear weapon

A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion....
s during World War II, and the Soviet Union detonated their first one soon after.

Types of nuclear war

The possibility of using nuclear weapons in war is usually divided into two subgroups, each with different effects and potentially fought with different types of nuclear armaments.

The first, a limited nuclear war (sometimes attack or exchange), refers to a small scale use of nuclear weapons by one or more parties. A "limited nuclear war" would most likely consist of a limited exchange between two nuclear superpowers targeting each other's military facilities, either as an attempt to pre-emptively cripple the enemy's ability to attack as a defensive measure or as a prelude to an invasion by conventional forces as an offensive measure. It will also refer to a nuclear war between minor nuclear powers, who lack the ability to deliver a decisive strike. This term would apply to any limited use of nuclear weapons, which may involve either military or civilian targets.

The second, a full-scale nuclear war, consists of large numbers of weapons used in an attack aimed at an entire country, including military, economic and civilian targets. Such an attack would seek to destroy the entire economic, social, and military infrastructure of a nation by means of an overwhelming nuclear attack.

Some Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
 strategists argued that a limited nuclear war could be possible between two heavily armed superpowers (such as the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and the Soviet Union
Soviet Union

The Union of Soviet Socialist Republics was a Constitution of the Soviet Union socialist state that existed in Eurasia from 1922 to 1991.The name is a translation of the , romanization of Russian Soyuz Sovetskikh Sotsialisticheskikh Respublik, abbreviated ????, SSSR....
) and if so several predicted that a limited war could "escalate
Conflict escalation

Conflict escalation describes the escalation of a conflict to a more destructive, confrontational, painful, or otherwise "less comfortable" level; in particular, it is concerned with how persons or forces can be controlled or subdued in conflict....
" into an all-out war. Others have called limited nuclear war "global nuclear holocaust in slow motion" arguing that once such a war took place others would be sure to follow over a period of decades, effectively rendering the planet uninhabitable in the same way that a "full-scale nuclear war" between superpowers would, only taking a much longer and more agonizing path to achieve the same result.

Even the most optimistic predictions of the effects of a major nuclear exchange foresee the death of hundreds of millions of civilians within a very short amount of time; more pessimistic predictions argue that a full-scale nuclear war could bring about the extinction of the human race
Human extinction

Human extinction is the assured end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
 or its near extinction with a handful of survivors (mainly in remote areas) reduced to a pre-medieval quality of life
Quality of life

Quality of life is the degree of well-being felt by an individual or group of people.Quality of life cannot be measured directly, however the perception of QOL is made up of of two components: the physical and the psychological....
 and life expectancy
Life expectancy

Life expectancy is the average number of years of life remaining at a given age. It is the average expected lifespan of an individual. Life expectancy is heavily dependent on the criteria used to select the group....
 for centuries after and cause permanent damage to most complex life on the planet, Earth's ecosystems, and the global climate, particularly if predictions of nuclear winter
Nuclear winter

Nuclear winter is a term that describes the predicted climate effects of Nuclear warfare. Severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or years would be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over fire targets such as city, where large amounts of smoke and soot would be injected into the Earth's...
 are accurate. It is in this latter mode that nuclear warfare is usually alluded to as a doomsday
Doomsday device

A doomsday device is a hypothetical construction — usually a weapon — which could destroy all life on the Earth, or destroy the Earth itself ....
 scenario. Such hypothesized civilization-ending nuclear wars have been a staple of the science fiction
Science fiction

Science fiction is a broad genre of fiction that often involves speculations based on current or future science or technology. Science fiction is found in books, art, television, films, games, theatre, and other media....
 literature and film genre for decades.

Either a limited or full-scale nuclear exchange could be an accidental nuclear war, in which a nuclear war is triggered unintentionally. Possible triggers for this scenario have included malfunctioning early warning devices and targeting computers, deliberate malfeasance by rogue military commanders, accidental straying of planes into enemy airspace, reactions to unannounced missile tests during tense diplomatic periods, reactions to military exercises, mistranslated or miscommunicated messages, and so forth. A number of these scenarios did actually occur during the Cold War, though none resulted in a nuclear exchange. Many such scenarios have been depicted in popular culture
Nuclear weapons in popular culture

Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age."...
, such as in the 1962 novel Fail-Safe
Fail-Safe (novel)

Fail-Safe is a novel by Eugene Burdick and Harvey Wheeler, published in 1962 in literature.The popular and critically acclaimed novel was first adapted into a Fail-Safe directed by Sidney Lumet and starring Henry Fonda, Dan O'Herlihy, and Walter Matthau....
 (released as a film in 1964) and the film Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb
Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb is an American/British black comedy film directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Peter Sellers and George C....
, also released in 1964.

History


Hiroshima to Semipalatinsk

Nagasakibomb
The United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 is the only nation to have ever used nuclear weapons during war, using two atomic bombs on the Japan
Japan

Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, People's Republic of China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south....
ese cities of Hiroshima
Hiroshima

The Japanese city of is the capital of Hiroshima Prefecture, and the largest city in the Chugoku region of western Honshu, the largest of Japan's islands....
 and Nagasaki in 1945. For more information, see Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear warfares near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of President of the United States Harry S....
.

After the bombings of Japan, it was unclear exactly what status the atomic bomb would have for international relations or military actions besides the fact that the nuclear explosions caused many side effects toward the Japanese people. It was believed that atomic weapons could offset the superior forces that the Soviet Union had in Eastern Europe, and possibly be used to pressure Soviet leader Joseph Stalin
Joseph Stalin

Joseph Stalin was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union's Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1922 until his death in 1953....
 into concessions. Despite Stalin's palpable fear of the bomb, he too was pursuing his own atomic capabilities at full speed. The Soviets believed that the Americans were unlikely to begin another world war with their limited nuclear arsenal and the Americans were not confident that they could prevent the Soviet Union from taking over Europe even if they did use nuclear weapons. As such, they were not as strong a bargaining chip as was hoped by the Americans.

Within the United States the authority to produce and develop nuclear weapons was removed from the military control of the Manhattan Project
Manhattan Project

The Manhattan Project was the project to develop the first atomic weapon during World War II; involving the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada....
 and put instead under the civilian control of the United States Atomic Energy Commission
United States Atomic Energy Commission

The United States Atomic Energy Commission was an agency of the United States government established after World War II by United States Congress to foster and control the peace time development of atomic science and technology....
, a unique move which attempted to recognize that nuclear weapons represented a special category of weapons separate from other military technology.

Convair B 36 Peacemaker
For several years after World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
, the US developed and maintained a strategic force based on the Convair B-36
Convair B-36

The Convair B-36 was a strategic bomber built by Convair and operated solely by the United States Air Force . The B-36 was the largest mass-produced piston engined aircraft ever made and had the largest wingspan in a combat aircraft ever built , although there have been larger military transports....
 bomber that would be able to attack any potential enemy from bomber bases in the US. It deployed atomic bombs around the world for potential use in conflicts. Over a period of a few years, many in the US defense community became increasingly convinced of the invincibility of the United States to a nuclear attack. Indeed, it became generally believed that the threat of nuclear war would deter any strike against the United States.

Many proposals were suggested to put all US nuclear weapons under international control—for example, by the newly formed United Nations
United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, Social change, human rights and achieving world peace....
—as an effort to deter both their usage and an arms race. However no terms could be arrived at that made either the United States or the USSR feel secure—the US was not willing to give up its atomic monopoly, and the USSR did not trust UN inspections on its soil.

On August 29, 1949 the USSR tested its first nuclear weapon at Semipalatinsk
Semipalatinsk Test Site

The Semipalatinsk Test Site was the primary testing venue for the Soviet Union's nuclear weapons. It is located on the steppe in northeast Kazakhstan , south of the valley of the Irtysh River....
 in Kazakhstan
Kazakhstan

Kazakhstan, also Kazakstan , officially the Republic of Kazakhstan, is a large Eurasian country in Central Asia and Eastern Europe. Ranked as the List of countries by area as well as the world's largest landlocked country, it has a territory of 2,727,300 km? ....
 (see also Soviet atomic bomb project
Soviet atomic bomb project

The Soviet project to develop an atomic bomb began during World War II in the Soviet Union. The USSR tested its first nuclear weapon in 1949....
). Scientists in the United States from the Manhattan Project had warned that, in time, the Soviet Union would certainly develop nuclear capabilities of its own. Nevertheless, the effect upon military thinking and planning in the US was dramatic, primarily because American military strategists had not anticipated the Soviets would "catch up" so soon. However, at this time, they had not discovered that the Russians had conducted significant espionage of the project from spies at Los Alamos, the most significant of which was done by the theoretical physicist Klaus Fuchs
Klaus Fuchs

Klaus Emil Julius Fuchs , was a German-born British theoretical physics and Atomic Spies who was convicted of supplying information from the British and American atomic bomb research to the Soviet Union during, and shortly after, World War II....
. The first Soviet bomb was more or less a deliberate copy of the Fat Man
Fat Man

Fat Man is the codename for the atomic bomb that was detonated over Nagasaki, Nagasaki, Japan, by the United States on August 9, 1945, at 11:02 a.m....
 device.

With the monopoly over nuclear technology broken, world-wide nuclear proliferation accelerated. The United Kingdom
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 tested its first independent atomic bomb in 1952, followed by France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 in 1960 and then the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
 in 1964. While much smaller than the arsenals of the USA and the USSR, Western Europe's nuclear reserves were nevertheless a significant factor in strategic planning during the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
. A top-secret white paper
White paper

A white paper is an authoritative report or guide that often addresses problems and how to solve them. White papers are used to educate readers and help people make decisions....
 produced for the British Government in 1959, compiled by the Royal Air Force
Royal Air Force

The Royal Air Force is the United Kingdom's air force, the oldest independent air force in the world. Formed on 1 April 1918, the RAF has taken a significant role in British military history ever since, playing a large part in World War II and in more recent conflicts....
, estimated that British atomic bombers were capable of destroying key cities and military targets in the Soviet Union, with an estimated 16 million deaths in the USSR (half of whom were estimated to be killed on impact and the rest fatally injured) before bomber aircraft from the United States' Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command

The Strategic Air Command was both a major command in the United States Air Force and a "specified command" in the United States Department of Defense....
 reached their targets.

1950s

Though the USSR had nuclear weapon capabilities in the beginning of the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
, the US still had an advantage in terms of bombers and weapons. In any exchange of hostilities, the US would have been capable of bombing the USSR, while the USSR would have more difficulties arranging the reverse.

The widespread introduction of jet
Jet engine

A jet engine is a reaction engine that discharges a fast moving jet of fluid to generate thrust in accordance with Isaac Newton Newton's laws of motion....
-powered interceptor aircraft
Interceptor aircraft

An interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bomber aircraft, usually relying on great speed....
 upset this balance somewhat by reducing the effectiveness of the US bomber fleet. In 1949 Curtis LeMay was placed in command of the Strategic Air Command
Strategic Air Command

The Strategic Air Command was both a major command in the United States Air Force and a "specified command" in the United States Department of Defense....
 and instituted a program to update the bomber fleet to one that was all-jet. During the early 1950s the B-47 and B-52
B-52 Stratofortress

The Boeing B-52 Stratofortress is a long-range, subsonic, jet engine, strategic bomber operated by the United States Air Force since 1955.Beginning with the successful contract bid on 5 June 1946, the B-52 went through several design steps; from a straight wing aircraft powered by six turboprop engines to the final prototype YB-52, with ei...
 were introduced, providing the ability to bomb the USSR more easily.

Before the development of a capable strategic missile force in the Soviet Union, much of the war-fighting doctrine held by western nations revolved around using a large number of smaller nuclear weapons used in a tactical role. It is debatable whether such use could be considered "limited" however, because it was believed that the US would use their own strategic weapons (mainly bombers at the time) should the USSR deploy any kind of nuclear weapon against civilian targets. Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur

General of the Army Douglas MacArthur, Order of the Bath was an United States General officer, United Nations general and Field Marshal of the Philippine Army....
, an American general, was fired by President Harry Truman, partially because he persistently requested permission to use his own discretion in deciding whether to use atomic weapons on the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
 in 1951 (as the Korean War
Korean War

The Korean War refers to a period of military conflict between North Korea and South Korea regimes, with major hostilities lasting from June 25, 1950 until the armistice signed on July 27, 1953....
 was raging).

Several scares about the increasing ability of the USSR's strategic bomber forces surfaced during the 1950s. The defensive response by the US was to deploy a fairly strong layered defense consisting of interceptor aircraft
Interceptor aircraft

An interceptor aircraft is a type of fighter aircraft designed specifically to intercept and destroy enemy aircraft, particularly bomber aircraft, usually relying on great speed....
 and anti-aircraft missiles, like the Nike
Project Nike

Project Nike was a United States Army project, proposed in May 1945 by Bell Labs, to develop a line-of-sight anti-aircraft missile system. The project delivered the United States' first operational anti-aircraft missile system in 1953, the #Nike Ajax....
, and guns, like the Skysweeper
Skysweeper

Skysweeper, technically Gun, M51, Antiaircraft, was an United States 75 mm Anti-aircraft warfare deployed in the early 1950s by both the United States Army and United States Air Force....
, near larger cities. However this was a small response compared to the construction of a huge fleet of nuclear bombers. The principal nuclear strategy was to massively penetrate the USSR. Because such a large area could not be defended against this overwhelming attack in any credible way, the USSR would lose any exchange.

This logic became ingrained in US nuclear doctrine and persisted for the duration of the Cold War
Cold War

The Cold War was the continuing state of conflict, tension and competition that existed between a number of world powers, including the United States, the Soviet Union, People's Republic of China, France, United Kingdom and those countries' respective allies from the mid-1940s to the early 1990s....
. As long as the strategic US nuclear forces could overwhelm their USSR counterparts, a Soviet preemptive strike could be averted. Moreover, the USSR could not afford to build any reasonable counterforce as the economic output of the United States was far larger than that of the Soviets, and they would be unable to achieve nuclear parity.

Soviet nuclear doctrine, however, did not match US nuclear doctrine. Soviet planning expected a large-scale nuclear exchange followed by a conventional war which itself would involve heavy use of tactical nuclear weapons. Unfortunately, US doctrine rather assumed that Soviet doctrine was similar—the mutual in Mutually Assured Destruction necessarily requiring that the other side see things in much the same way, rather than believing, as the Soviets did, that they could fight a large-scale, combined nuclear and conventional war.

A revolution in nuclear strategic thought occurred with the introduction of the intercontinental ballistic missile
Intercontinental ballistic missile

An intercontinental ballistic missile, or ICBM, is a long-range ballistic missile typically designed for nuclear weapons delivery, that is, delivering one or more nuclear weapon....
 (ICBM), which the USSR first successfully tested in August 1957. In order to deliver a warhead to a target, a missile was more cost-effective than a bomber, and enjoyed a higher survivability due to the enormous difficulty of interception of the ICBMs due to their high altitude and speed. The USSR could now afford to achieve nuclear parity with the US in terms of raw numbers, although for a time they appeared to have chosen not to.

Photos of Soviet missile sites set off a wave of panic in the US military, something the launch of Sputnik would do for the public a few months later. Politicians, notably then-US Senator
United States Senate

The United States Senate is the upper house of the Bicameralism United States Congress, the lower house being the United States House of Representatives....
 John Kennedy suggested a "missile gap
Missile gap

The missile gap was the term used in the United States for the perceived disparity between the number and power of the weapons in the U.S.S.R. and United States ballistic missile arsenals during the Cold War....
" between the Soviets and the US. The US military gave missile development programs the highest national priority, and several spy aircraft and reconnaissance satellites were designed and deployed to observe Soviet progress.

1960s

Cuban Missiles
Issues came to a head during the Cuban Missile Crisis
Cuban Missile Crisis

File:EXCOMM meeting, , 29 October 1962.jpgFile:Jupiter IRBM.jpgThe Cuban Missile Crisis was a confrontation between the United States, the Soviet Union, and Cuba that occurred in the early 1960s during the Cold War....
 in 1962. The Soviet Union placed medium range missiles miles from the US—a move considered by many as a direct response to American Jupiter missiles placed in Turkey; however, these Jupiter missiles were already somewhat obsolete. After intense negotiation, the Soviets ended up removing the missiles from Cuba and decided to institute a massive building program of their own. In exchange, the US dismantled its launch sites in Turkey, although this was done secretly and was not publicly revealed for over two decades. Khrushchev did not even reveal this part of the agreement when he came under fire by political opponents for mishandling the crisis. By the late 1960s, the number of ICBMs and warheads was so high on both sides that either the USA or USSR was capable of completely destroying the other country's infrastructure. Thus a balance of power
Balance of power in international relations

In international relations, a balance of power exists when there is parity or stability between competing forces. As a term in international law for a 'just equilibrium' between the members of the family of nations, it expresses the doctrine intended to prevent any one nation from becoming sufficiently strong so as to enable it to enforce it...
 system known as mutually assured destruction (MAD) came into being. It was thought that any full-scale exchange between the powers could not produce a victorious side and thus neither would risk initiating one.

One drawback of this doctrine was the possibility of a nuclear war occurring without either side intentionally striking first. Early warning system
Warning system

A warning system is any system of biological or technical nature deployed by an individual or group to inform of a future danger. Its purpose is to enable the deployer of the warning system to prepare for the danger and act accordingly to mitigate against or avoid it....
s are notoriously error-prone. On 78 occasions in 1979, for example, a "missile display conference" was called to evaluate detections potentially threatening to the North American continent. Some of these were trivial errors, spotted quickly. But several went to more serious levels. On September 26, 1983, Stanislav Petrov
Stanislav Petrov

Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov is a retired Russian Soviet Air Defence Forces lieutenant colonel who, according to several sources, averted a nuclear war on September 26, 1983, when he deviated from standard Soviet doctrine by positively identifying as a false alarm a missile attack warning that had been activated by a Soviet spy satellite....
 received convincing indications of a US first strike launch against the USSR but positively identified the warning as a false alarm. Though it is unclear what role Petrov's actions played in preventing a nuclear war, he has been honored by the United Nations for his actions.

Similar incidents happened many times in the US, due to failed computer chips, flights of geese, test programs, bureaucratic failures to notify early warning military personnel of legitimate launches of test or weather missiles. For many years, US strategic bombers were kept airborne on a rotating basis round the clock, until the number and severity of accidents persuaded policymakers it was not worthwhile.

1970s

By the late 1970s, citizens in the US and USSR (and indeed the entire world) had been living with MAD for about a decade. It became deeply ingrained into the popular culture. Such an exchange would have killed many millions of individuals directly and possibly induced a nuclear winter
Nuclear winter

Nuclear winter is a term that describes the predicted climate effects of Nuclear warfare. Severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or years would be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over fire targets such as city, where large amounts of smoke and soot would be injected into the Earth's...
 which could have led to the death of a large portion of humanity and certainly the collapse of global civilization.

In May 18, 1974, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 conducted its first nuclear test in the Pokhran
Pokhran

Pokhran is a city and a municipality located in Jaisalmer district in the States and territories of India of Rajasthan. It is a remote location in the Thar Desert region and served as the test site for India's first underground nuclear weapon detonate....
 test range. The name of the operation was Smiling Buddha
Smiling Buddha

The Smiling Buddha was the first nuclear testing by India on May 18, 1974 at Pokhran. It was also the first confirmed nuclear test by a nation outside the permanent five members of the United Nations Security Council having been developed and executed with no foreign help or assistance....
 and India termed the test as a "peaceful nuclear explosion".

According to the 1980 United Nations
United Nations

The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are to facilitate cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, Social change, human rights and achieving world peace....
 report General and Complete Disarmament: Comprehensive Study on Nuclear Weapons: Report of the Secretary-General, it was estimated that in total there were approximately 40,000 nuclear warheads in existence at that time with a total yield of approximately 13,000 megatons of TNT
Trinitrotoluene

Trinitrotoluene , or more specifically, 2,4,6-trinitrotoluene, is a chemical compound with the formula C6H23CH3....
. By comparison, when the volcano Mount Tambora
Mount Tambora

Mount Tambora is an active stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, on Sumbawa island, Indonesia. Sumbawa is flanked both to the north and south by oceanic crust, and Tambora was formed by the active subduction zones beneath it....
 erupted in 1815 (turning 1816 into the Year Without A Summer
Year Without a Summer

The Year Without a Summer was 1816, in which severe summer climate abnormalities destroyed crops in Northern Europe, the Northeastern United States and eastern Canada....
 due to the levels of ash expelled), it exploded with a force of roughly 1000 megatons of TNT. Many people believed that a full-scale nuclear war could result in the extinction of the human species
Human extinction

Human extinction is the assured end of the human species. Various scenarios have been discussed in science, popular culture, and religion . The breadth of this article is on existential risks....
, though not all analysts agreed on the assumptions required for these models.

The idea that any nuclear conflict would eventually escalate was a challenge for military strategists. This challenge was particularly severe for the United States and its NATO
NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949....
 allies because it was believed until the 1970s that a Soviet tank invasion of Western Europe
Europe

Europe is, conventionally, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally divided from Asia to its east by the water divide of the Ural Mountains, the Ural , the Caspian Sea, and by the Caucasus Mountains to the southeast....
 would quickly overwhelm NATO conventional forces, leading to the necessity of escalating to tactical nuclear weapons.

A number of interesting concepts were developed. Early ICBMs were inaccurate, which led to the concept of countervalue
Countervalue

Countervalue refers to the targeting of an opponent's cities and civilian populations. In contrast, counterforce refers to the targeting of an opponent's military personnel, forces and facilities....
 strikes—attacks directly on the enemy population leading to a collapse of the enemy's will to fight. However, it appears that this was the American interpretation of the Soviet stance while the Soviet strategy was never clearly anti-population. During the Cold War the USSR invested in extensive protected civilian infrastructure such as large nuclear proof bunkers and non-perishable food stores. In the US, by comparison, smaller scale civil defense
Civil defense

Civil defense, civil defence or civil protection is an effort to prepare civilians for military attack. It uses the principles of emergency operations: prevention, mitigation, preparation, response, or emergency evacuation, and recovery....
 programs were instituted starting in the 1950s where school, and other public buildings had basements stocked with non-perishable food supplies, canned water, first aid, dosimeter
Dosimeter

A dosimeter is a device used to measure an individual's exposure to a hazardous environment, particularly when the hazard is cumulative over long intervals of time, or one's bio-accumulation....
 and Geiger counter
Geiger counter

A Geiger counter, also called a Geiger-M?ller counter, is a type of particle detector that measures ionizing radiation....
 radiation measuring devices. Many of the locations were given "Fallout Shelter
Fallout shelter

A fallout shelter is an enclosed space specially designed to protect occupants from radioactive debris or nuclear fallout resulting from a nuclear explosion....
" designation signs. Also, CONELRAD Radio information systems were adopted, whereby the commercial radio sector would broadcast on two AM frequencies in the event of a CD emergency. These two frequencies can be seen on 50's vintage radios on online auction sites and museums, with many of these radios still in use on tabletops across America. Also, the occasional backyard fallout shelter was built by private individuals.

The US also made a point during this period of targeting their missiles on Soviet population centers rather than military targets. If the Soviets attacked first, then there would be no point in destroying empty missile silos that had already launched; the only thing left to hit would be cities. By contrast, if The US had gone to great lengths to protect their citizens and targeted the enemy's silos, that might have led the Russians to believe the US was planning a first strike, where they would eliminate Soviet missiles while still in their silos and be able to survive a weakened counter attack in their reinforced bunkers. In this way, both sides were (theoretically) assured that the other would not strike first, and a war without a first strike will not occur.

This strategy had one major and possibly critical flaw, soon realised by military analysts but highly underplayed by the US military: Conventional NATO
NATO

The North Atlantic Treaty Organization , also called the Atlantic Alliance, is a military alliance established by the signing of the North Atlantic Treaty on 4 April 1949....
 forces in the European theatre of war were considered to be outnumbered by similar Soviet and Warsaw Pact
Warsaw Pact

The Warsaw Pact was an organization of communist states in Central Europe and Eastern Europe. The treaty was signed in Warsaw, Poland on May 14, 1955 and official copies were made in Russian language, Polish language, Czech language and German language....
 forces, and while the western countries invested heavily in high-tech conventional weapons to counter this (partly perceived) imbalance, it was assumed that in case of a major Soviet attack (commonly perceived as the "red tanks rolling towards the North Sea
North Sea

The North Sea is a marginal sea, epeiric sea on the European continental shelf. The Dover Strait and the English Channel in the south and the Norwegian Sea in the north connect it to the Atlantic Ocean....
" scenario) that NATO, in the face of conventional defeat, would soon have no other choice but to resort to tactical nuclear strikes. Most analysts agreed that once the first nuclear exchange had occurred, escalation to global nuclear war would become almost inevitable.

As missile technology improved, the emphasis moved to counter-force strikes: ones that directly attacked the enemy's means of waging war. This was the predominant doctrine from the late 1960s onwards. Additionally the development of warheads (at least in the US) moved towards delivering a small explosive force more accurately and with a "cleaner" blast (with fewer long-lasting radioactive isotope
Isotope

Isotopes are any of the different types of atoms of the same chemical element, each having a different atomic mass . Isotopes of an element have atomic nucleus with the same number of protons but different numbers of neutron....
s). In any conflict therefore, damage would have been initially limited to military targets, there may well have been "withholds" for targets near civilian areas. The argument was that the destruction of a city would be a military advantage to the attacked. The enemy had used up weapons and a threat in the destruction while the attacked was relieved of the need to defend the city and still had their entire military potential untouched.

Only if a nuclear conflict were extended into a number of "spasm" strikes would direct strikes against civilians occur, as the more accurate weapons would be expended early; if one side were "losing", the potential for using less accurate submarine-launched missiles would occur.

The 1980s

Trident C 4 Montage
In the late Seventies and early Eighties the balance, in terms of nuclear weapons, shifted towards the Soviets. However, with the ascension to the presidency by Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan

Ronald Wilson Reagan was the List of Presidents of the United States President of the United States and the 33rd Governor of California . Born in Illinois, Reagan moved to Los Angeles, California in the 1930s, where he was an actor, president of the Screen Actors Guild , and a spokesman for General Electric ....
, the US renewed its commitment to a powerful military, which required large spending on military programs. These programs included spending on conventional and nuclear weapons systems, as well as defensive systems like Strategic Defense Initiative
Strategic Defense Initiative

The Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear weapon ballistic missiles....
.

Another major shift in nuclear doctrine was the development of the submarine
Submarine

A submarine is a watercraft capable of independent operation below water. It differs from a submersible, which has only limited underwater capability....
-launched ballistic (nuclear) missile, the SLBM
Submarine-launched ballistic missile

Submarine-launched ballistic missiles or SLBMs are ballistic missiles delivering nuclear weapons that are launched from submarines. Modern variants usually deliver multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles each of which carries a warhead and allows a single launched missile to strike several targets....
. It was hailed by some military theorists as a weapon that would make nuclear war less likely. SLBMs, which can move with stealth virtually anywhere in the world, give a nation a "second strike" capability. Before the advent of SLBMs, thinkers feared that a nation might be tempted to initiate a first strike if it felt confident that such a strike would incapacitate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy, making retaliation impossible. With the advent of SLBMs, no nation could be certain that a first strike would incapacitate its enemy's entire nuclear arsenal. To the contrary, it would have to fear a retaliatory second strike from SLBMs. Thus a first strike was much less of a feasible option, and nuclear war was held to be less likely.

However, it was soon realized that submarines could "sneak up" close to enemy coastlines and decrease the warning time—the time between detection of the launch and impact of the missile—from as much as half an hour to under three minutes. This effect was especially significant to the United States, Britain, and China, with their capitals all within of their coasts. Moscow was more secure from this type of threat. This greatly increased the credibility of a "surprise first strike" by one of the factions and theoretically made it possible to knock out or disrupt the chain of command
Chain of command

In a military context, the chain of command is the line of authority and responsibility along which orders are passed within a military unit and between different units....
 before a counterstrike could be ordered. It strengthened the notion that a nuclear war could be "won", resulting not only in greatly increased tension, and increasing calls for fail-deadly
Fail-deadly

Fail-deadly is a concept in Nuclear warfare military strategy which encourages Deterrence theory by guaranteeing an immediate, automatic and overwhelming response to an attack....
 control systems, but also in a dramatic increase in military spending. The submarines and their missile systems were very expensive (one fully equipped nuclear powered nuclear missile submarine could easily cost more than the entire GNP
Measures of national income and output

A variety of measures of national income and output are used in economics to estimate total economic activity in a country or region, including Gross Domestic Product , Gross National Product , and Net National Income ....
 of a third world
Third World

Third World is a categorical label used to describe states that are considered to be developed in terms of their economy or level of industrialization, globalization, standard of living, health, education or other criteria for 'advancements'....
 nation), but the greatest cost came in the development of both sea- and land-based anti-submarine defenses and in improving and strengthening the chain of command. As a result, military spending skyrocketed.

South Africa developed a nuclear weapon during the 1970s and early 1980s. It was operational for a brief period before being dismantled in the early 1990s.

Post-Cold War

Although the dissolution of the Soviet Union ended the Cold War and greatly reduced tensions between the United States and Russia (the Soviet Union's formal successor state), both nations remained in a "nuclear stand-off" due to the continuing presence of a significant number of warheads in both nations. Additionally, the end of the Cold War led the United States to become increasingly concerned with the development of nuclear technology by other nations outside of the former Soviet Union. In 1995, a branch of the US Strategic Command produced an outline of forward-thinking strategies in the document "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence
Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence

"Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence" is a document produced in 1995 as a "Terms of Reference" by the Policy Subcommittee of the Strategic Advisory Group of the United States Strategic Command , a branch of the United States Department of Defense....
".

The former chair of the United Nations disarmament committee states there are more than 16,000 strategic and tactical nuclear weapons ready for deployment and another 14,000 in storage. The U.S. has nearly 7,000 ready for action and 3,000 in storage and Russia has about 8,500 on hand and 11,000 in storage, he said. China
China

China is a Culture of China, an ancient civilization, and, depending on perspective, a national or multinational entity extending over a large area in East Asia....
 has 400 nuclear weapons, Britain
United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom , the UK or Britain,is a sovereign state located off the northwestern coast of continental Europe....
 400, France
France

France , officially the French Republic , is a country whose Metropolitan France is located in Western Europe and that also comprises various Overseas departments and territories of France....
 350, India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 160, and Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
 60. North Korea
North Korea

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , is a state in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula....
 is confirmed as having nuclear weapons, though it is not known how many (a common estimate is between 1 and 10). Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
 is also widely believed to have nuclear weapons
Nuclear weapons and Israel

Israel is widely believed to be the List of states with nuclear weapons in the world to develop nuclear weapons and to be one of four nuclear-armed countries not recognized as a nuclear weapons states by the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty , the others being India, Pakistan and North Korea....
. NATO has stationed 480 US nuclear weapons in Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany, and Turkey, with several other countries in pursuit of an arsenal of their own.

A key development in nuclear warfare in the 2000s has been the proliferation
Nuclear proliferation

Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "nuclear weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or NPT....
 of nuclear weapons to the developing world, with India
India

India, officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the List of countries and outlying territories by total area country by geographical area, the List of countries by population country, and the most populous liberal democracy in the world....
 and Pakistan
Pakistan

Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, is a country located in South Asia and borders Central Asia and the Middle East. It has a 1,046 kilometre coastline along the Arabian Sea and Gulf of Oman in the south, and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and People's Republic of China in th...
 both publicly testing nuclear devices and North Korea
North Korea

North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea , is a state in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula....
 conducting an underground nuclear test on October 9, 2006. The US Geological Survey measured a 4.2 magnitude earthquake in the area where the test occurred. Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
, meanwhile, has embarked on a nuclear program which, while officially for civilian purposes, has come under scrutiny by the United Nations and individual states.

Recent studies undertaken by the CIA cite the enduring India-Pakistan conflict as the most likely to escalate into nuclear war. During the Kargil War
Kargil War

The Kargil War, also known as the Kargil conflict, was an war between India and Pakistan that took place between May and July 1999 in the Kargil district of Kashmir....
 in 1999, Pakistan came close to using their nuclear weapons in case of further deterioration. In fact, Pakistan's foreign minister had even warned that they would "use any weapon in our arsenal", hinting at a nuclear strike against India; the statement was condemned by the international community with Pakistan denying it later on. It remains the only war between two declared nuclear powers. The 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff
2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff

The 2001-2002 India-Pakistan standoff was a military standoff between India and Pakistan that resulted in the amassing of troops on either side of the International Border and along the Line of Control in the region of Kashmir....
 again stoked fears of nuclear war between the two countries.

Despite these very serious threats, relations between India and Pakistan have been improving somewhat over the last few years. A bus line directly linking Indian and Pakistani administered Kashmir
Kashmir

Kashmir is the northwestern region of the Indian subcontinent. Until the mid-19th century, the term "Kashmir" referred only to the valley lying between the Great Himalayas and the Pir Panjal range; since then, it has been used for a larger area that today includes the Indian administerd state of Jammu and Kashmir consisting of the Kashmir...
 has recently been established. But with the November 26, 2008 Mumbai terror attacks, India does not rule out war with Pakistan.

Another flashpoint which has analysts worried is a possible conflict between the United States
United States

The United States of America is a Federal government constitutional republic comprising U.S. state and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its Contiguous United States and Washington, D.C., the Capital districts and territories, lie between the Pacific Ocean and Atlantic Oceans, Borders of the U...
 and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China

The People's Republic of China , commonly known as China, is the largest country in East Asia and the List of countries by population in the world with over 1.3 billion people, approximately a fifth of the world's population....
 over Taiwan
Taiwan

Taiwan is an island in East Asia. "Taiwan" is also commonly used to refer to the country governed by the Republic of China and to the ROC itself, which governs the island of Taiwan, Orchid Island and Green Island, Taiwan in the Pacific Ocean off the Taiwan coast, the Penghu islands in the Taiwan Strait, and Kinmen and the Matsu Islands...
. Although economic forces have decreased the possibility of military conflict, there remains the worry that increasing military buildup and a move toward Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence

Taiwan independence is a political movement whose goal is primarily to create an independent and sovereign Republic of Taiwan out of the lands currently governed by the Republic of China and claimed by the People's Republic of China....
 could spin out of control.

A third potential flashpoint lies in the Middle East
Middle East

File:GreaterMiddleEast1.pngThe Middle East is a region that spans southwestern Asia, western Asia, and northeastern Africa. It has no clear boundaries, often used as a synonym to Near East, in opposition to Far East....
, where Israel
Israel

Israel officially the State of Israel , is a country in the Middle East located on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Lebanon in the north, Syria in the northeast, Jordan in the east, and Egypt on the southwest, and contains geographically diverse features within its relatively small area....
 is thought to possess between one and four hundred nuclear warheads (this has never been officially confirmed by Israel; however, Mordechai Vanunu
Mordechai Vanunu

Mordechai Vanunu , born in Marrakech, Morocco on 14 October, 1954 is an Israeli former nuclear weapon technician who revealed details of Nuclear weapons and Israel to the History of British newspapers in 1986....
, the former nuclear technician on whose 1986 revelations much of the above is based, was kidnapped by Mossad
Mossad

The Mossad is the national intelligence agency of Israel. "Mossad" is the Hebrew word for institute or institution. Membership in the Mossad is very prestigious in Israeli society, and the organization is considered to rank among the most effective intelligence agencies in the world....
 agents from Italy
Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic , is a country located on the Italian Peninsula in Southern Europe and on the two largest islands in the Mediterranean Sea, Sicily and Sardinia....
, spent 18 years in detention on charges of "grave espionage", and is still forbidden to leave Israel and is subject to severe restrictions—which tends to lend credence to what he told the British Sunday Times
The Sunday Times (UK)

The Sunday Times is a Sunday broadsheet newspaper distributed in the United Kingdom. There is also a Republic of Ireland edition; contrary to a popular misconception, the Irish edition of the Sunday Times is not linked to The Irish Times newspaper, which is published Monday to Saturday in Dublin....
). It has been asserted that the submarines which Israel received from Germany
Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered to the north by the North Sea, Denmark, and the Baltic Sea; to the east by Poland and the Czech Republic; to the south by Austria and Switzerland; and to the west by France, Luxembourg, Belgium, and the Netherlands....
 have been adapted to carry missiles with nuclear warheads, so as to give Israel a Second strike
Second strike

In nuclear strategy, second strike capability is a country's assured ability to respond to a nuclear attack with powerful nuclear retaliation against the attacker....
 capacity. Israel has been involved in wars with its neighbours on numerous occasions, and its small geographic size would mean that in the event of future wars the Israeli military might have very little time to react to a future invasion or other major threat; the situation could escalate to nuclear warfare very quickly in some scenarios. In addition, the fact that Iran
Iran

Iran , officially the Islamic Republic of Iran and formerly known internationally as Persian Empire until 1935, is a country in Central Eurasia, located on the northeastern shore of the Persian Gulf and the southern shore of the Caspian Sea....
 appears to many observers to be in the process of developing a nuclear weapon has heightened fears of a nuclear conflict in the Middle East, either with Israel or with Iran's Sunni neighbours.

Potential consequences of a regional nuclear war

A study presented at the annual meeting of the American Geophysical Union
American Geophysical Union

The American Geophysical Union is a nonprofit organization of geophysicists, consisting of over 50,000 members from over 135 countries. AGU's activities are focused on the organization and dissemination of scientific information in the interdisciplinary and international field of geophysics....
 in December 2006 asserted that even a small-scale, regional nuclear war could produce as many direct fatalities as all of World War II
World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global military conflict which involved a Participants in World War II, including all of the great powers, organised into two opposing military alliances: the Allies of World War II and the Axis powers....
 and disrupt the global climate for a decade or more. In a regional nuclear conflict scenario where two opposing nations in the subtropics
Subtropics

For information on the American literary journal, see Subtropics The subtropics are the Geographical zone of the Earth immediately north and south of the tropics zone, which is bounded by the Tropic of Cancer and the Tropic of Capricorn, at latitude 23.5? north and south....
 would each use 50 Hiroshima-sized nuclear weapons (ca. 15 kiloton each) on major populated centers, the researchers estimated fatalities from 2.6 million to 16.7 million per country. Also, as much as five million tons of soot
Soot

Soot is a general term that refers to impure carbon particles resulting from the incomplete combustion of a hydrocarbon. It is more properly restricted to the product of the gas-phase combustion process but is commonly extended to include the residual pyrolyzed fuel particles such as cenospheres, charred wood, petroleum coke, etc....
 would be released, which would produce a cooling of several degrees over large areas of North America and Eurasia
Eurasia

Eurasia is a large landmass covering about 53,990,000 km? or about 10.6% of the Earth's surface . Often considered a single continent, Eurasia comprises the traditional continents of Europe and Asia, concepts which date back to classical antiquity and the borders for which are somewhat arbitrary....
, including most of the grain-growing regions. The cooling would last for years and could be "catastrophic" according to the researchers.

Sub-strategic use

The above examples envisage nuclear warfare at a strategic level, i.e. total war
Total war

Total war is a war of unlimited scope in which a belligerent engages in a mobilization of all available Factors of productions at their disposal, whether human, industrial, agricultural, military, natural, technological, or otherwise, in order to entirely destroy or render beyond use their rival's capacity to continue resistance....
. However, many nuclear powers are believed to have the ability to launch more limited engagements.

The United Kingdom has reserved the possibility of launching a sub-strategic nuclear strike against an enemy, described by its Parliamentary Defence Select Committee
Defence Select Committee

The Defence Select Committee is one of the Select Committee s of the British House of Commons, having been established in 1979. It oversees the operations of the Ministry of Defence and its associated public bodies, including the armed forces....
 as "the launch of one or a limited number of missiles against an adversary as a means of conveying a political message, warning or demonstration of resolve". This would see the deployment of strategic nuclear weapons in a very limited role rather than the battlefield exchanges of tactical nuclear weapons.

British Trident-
Trident missile

The Trident missile is a multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle submarine-launched ballistic missile designed by Lockheed Martin Space Systems in the United States which is armed with nuclear weapons and is launched from Ballistic missile submarines, nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines....
armed Vanguard class
Vanguard class submarine

The Vanguard class are the Royal Navy's current nuclear ballistic missile submarines , each armed with up to 16 Trident missile Submarine-launched ballistic missiles ....
 nuclear submarines are believed to carry some missiles for this purpose, potentially allowing a strike as low as one kiloton against a single target. Former Defence Secretary Malcolm Rifkind
Malcolm Rifkind

Sir Malcolm Leslie Rifkind Order of St Michael and St George Queen's Counsel is a United Kingdom Conservative Party politician and Member of Parliament for the constituency of Kensington and Chelsea ....
 argued that this capacity offset the reduced credibility of fullscale strategic nuclear attack following the end of the Cold War.

Commodore Tim Hare, former Director of Nuclear Policy at the British Ministry of Defence, has described it as offering the Government "an extra option in the escalatory process before it goes for an all-out strategic strike which would deliver unacceptable damage".

However, this sub-strategic capacity has been criticized as potentially increasing the acceptability of using nuclear weapons. The related consideration of new generations of limited yield battlefield nuclear weapons by the United States has also alarmed anti-nuclear groups, who believe it will make the use of nuclear weapons more acceptable.

Nuclear terrorism

Nuclear terrorism
Nuclear terrorism

Nuclear terrorism denotes the use, or threat of the use, of nuclear weapons or radiological weapons in acts of terrorism, includingattacks against facilities where radioactive materials are present....
 by non-state organizations is an unknown factor in nuclear deterrence thinking, as states possessing nuclear weapons are susceptible to retaliation in kind, but sub- or trans-state actors are not. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the possibility that former Soviet nuclear weapons might become available on the black market (so-called 'loose nukes'), while no warheads are known to be have been mislaid, it has been alleged that suitcase-size bombs
Suitcase bomb

A suitcase nuke is a nuclear weapon which uses, or is portable enough that it could use, a suitcase as its delivery method. Synonyms include suitcase bomb, backpack nuke, mini-nuke, snuke or suke....
 might be unaccounted for. A similar threat may exist via dirty bomb
Dirty bomb

The term dirty bomb is primarily used to refer to a radiological dispersal device , a speculative radiological weapon which combines radioactive material with conventional explosive material....
s.

See also

  • Atomic Age
    Atomic Age

    The Atomic Age, also known as the Atomic Era, is a phrase typically used to delineate the period of history following the detonation of the first nuclear bomb....
  • Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki
    Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

    The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki were nuclear warfares near the end of World War II against the Empire of Japan by the United States at the executive order of President of the United States Harry S....
  • Continuity of government
    Continuity of government

    Continuity of government is the principle of establishing defined procedures that allow a government to continue its essential operations in case of Nuclear warfare or other catastrophic event....
  • Deterrence theory
    Deterrence theory

    Deterrence theory is a military strategy developed during the Cold War. It is especially relevant with regard to the use of nuclear weapons, and figures prominently in current United States foreign policy regarding the development of nuclear technology in North Korea and Iran....
  • Doomsday clock
    Doomsday Clock

    The Doomsday Clock is a symbolic clock face, maintained since 1947 by the board of directors of the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists at the University of Chicago, that uses the analogy of the human species being at a time that is "minutes to midnight", wherein midnight represents "catastrophic destruction"....
  • Doomsday event
    Doomsday event

    A doomsday event is a specific occurrence which has an exceptionally destructive effect on the human race. The final outcomes of doomsday events may range from a end of civilization, to the human extinction, to the Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth, to the ultimate fate of the universe....
  • Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence
    Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence

    "Essentials of Post-Cold War Deterrence" is a document produced in 1995 as a "Terms of Reference" by the Policy Subcommittee of the Strategic Advisory Group of the United States Strategic Command , a branch of the United States Department of Defense....
  • International Court of Justice advisory opinion on the Legality of the Threat or Use of Nuclear Weapons
  • List of states with nuclear weapons
  • Mutual assured destruction
    Mutual assured destruction

    Mutually assured destruction is a doctrine of military strategy in which a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by two opposing sides would effectively result in the destruction of both the attacker and the defender....
  • No first use
    No first use

    No first use refers to a pledge or a policy by a List of states with nuclear weapons to not use nuclear weapons as a mean of warfare unless first attacked by an adversary using nuclear weapons....
     policy
  • Nuclear arms race
    Nuclear arms race

    The nuclear arms race was a competition for supremacy in nuclear warfare between the United States, the Soviet Union, and their respective allies during the Cold War....
  • Nuclear disarmament
    Nuclear disarmament

    Nuclear disarmament is the proposed dismantling of nuclear weapons.Proponents of nuclear disarmament say that it would lessen the probability of Nuclear warfare occurring, especially accidentally....
  • Nuclear holocaust
    Nuclear holocaust

    Nuclear holocaust refers to the possibility of nearly complete annhilation of human civilization by nuclear warfare. Under such a scenario, all or most of the Earth is rendered uninhabitable by nuclear weapons in future world wars....
  • Nuclear proliferation
    Nuclear proliferation

    Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "nuclear weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty or NPT....
  • Nuclear War (card game)
    Nuclear War (card game)

    Nuclear War is a card game designed by Douglas Malewicki, and originally published in 1965. It is currently published by Flying Buffalo, and has inspired several expansions....
  • Nuclear weapon
    Nuclear weapon

    A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either nuclear fission or a combination of fission and nuclear fusion....
  • Nuclear weapon design
    Nuclear weapon design

    Nuclear weapon designs are physical, chemical, and engineering arrangements that cause the physics package of a Nuclear weapons to detonate. There are three basic design types....
  • Nuclear weapons and the United States
    Nuclear weapons and the United States

    The United States was the first country in the world to develop nuclear weapons, and is the only country to have used them as Atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, during the two bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in World War II....
  • Nuclear weapons in popular culture
    Nuclear weapons in popular culture

    Since their public debut in August 1945, nuclear weapons and their potential effects have been a recurring motif in popular culture, to the extent that the decades of the Cold War are often referred to as the "atomic age."...
  • Nuclear winter
    Nuclear winter

    Nuclear winter is a term that describes the predicted climate effects of Nuclear warfare. Severely cold weather and reduced sunlight for a period of months or years would be caused by detonating large numbers of nuclear weapons, especially over fire targets such as city, where large amounts of smoke and soot would be injected into the Earth's...
  • Nuclear strategy
    Nuclear strategy

    Nuclear strategy involves the development of military doctrines and strategy for the production and use of nuclear weapons.As a sub-branch of military strategy, nuclear strategy attempts to match nuclear weapons as means to political ends....
  • Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth
    Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth

    Risks to civilization, humans and planet Earth are existential risks that could threaten humankind as a whole, have adverse consequences for the course of human civilization, or even cause the end of planet Earth....
  • Square Leg
    Square Leg

    Square Leg was a 1980 United Kingdom Ministry of Defence Civil defense exercise that assessed the effects of a Soviet Union nuclear warfare. 131 nuclear weapons were assumed to fall on Britain with a total yield of 205 megatons ....
  • Strategic Defense Initiative
    Strategic Defense Initiative

    The Strategic Defense Initiative was a proposal by U.S. President Ronald Reagan on March 23, 1983 to use ground and space-based systems to protect the United States from attack by strategic nuclear weapon ballistic missiles....
  • Strategic nuclear weapon
    Strategic nuclear weapon

    A strategic nuclear weapon refers to a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on targets as part of a strategic plan, such as nuclear missile locations, military command centers and large cities....
  • Tactical nuclear weapon
    Tactical nuclear weapon

    A tactical nuclear weapon refers to a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations. This is as opposed to strategic nuclear weapons which are designed to threaten large populations, damage the enemy's ability to wage war, or for general deterrence....
  • Weapon of mass destruction
  • World War III
    World War III

    World War III denotes a successor to World War II that would be on a global scale, with common speculation that it would likely be nuclear war and devastating in nature....


External links

  • (1979) — handbook produced by the United States Office of Technology Assessment (hosted by the Federation of American Scientists
    Federation of American Scientists

    The Federation of American Scientists is a non-profit organization formed in 1945 by scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions....
    )
  • (1987) — assessment of the effects of a major Soviet attack on the United States produced by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (hosted by the Federation of American Scientists
    Federation of American Scientists

    The Federation of American Scientists is a non-profit organization formed in 1945 by scientists from the Manhattan Project who felt that scientists, engineers and other innovators had an ethical obligation to bring their knowledge and experience to bear on critical national decisions....
    )
  • (1979/1987) — handbook produced by Oak Ridge National Laboratory
    Oak Ridge National Laboratory

    Oak Ridge National Laboratory is a multiprogram science and technology national laboratory managed for the United States Department of Energy by UT-Battelle....
     (use menu at left to navigate)
  • at HavenWorks.com
  • by Alan F. Philips, M.D.
  • Interactive Timeline of the Nuclear Age
  • DeVolpi, Alexander, Vladimir E. Minkov, Vadim A. Simonenko, and George S. Stanford. 2004. Nuclear Shadowboxing: Contemporary Threats from Cold War Weaponry, Vols. 1 and 2. Fidlar Doubleday.