MAD DAWN

How technology transformed strategic thinking and military doctrine from the Cold War to the current day

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From the earliest days of the Cold War, the USA and USSR had nuclear weapons but only one means of delivering a strike - longrange strategic bombers. As the conflict progressed, technological advances changed that. Throughout the 1950s, both superpowers began developing Intercontinental Ballistic Missiles (ICBMs) armed with nuclear warheads which they stored underground in protective silos. In some cases, these missiles had several warheads and were known as Multiple Independent Re-Entrant Vehicles (MIRVS). In addition, both sides also developed Submarine Launched Ballistic Missiles (SLBM) that were harder to track and target because they operated beneath the oceans' surface. Between them, the bombers, ICBMs and SLBMS formed what came to be known as the nuclear triad: a joined-up, combined-forces land, sea and air strategy that mirrored the approach to conventional warfare. The difference, however, was that this was not a strategy designed to win a war, it was designed to prevent one.