Page 386 - (DK) Smithsinian - Military History: The Definitive Visual Guide to the Objects of Warfare

384 KEY STRUCTURE KEY DEVELOPMENT

GE 1945–PRESENT SHELTER THE COLD WAR ERA
NUCLEAR

Away from the cataclysmic center
of a nuclear explosion, people
The end of World War II witnessed the emergence of the Soviet Union
sheltering in deep underground
bunkers would have a chance of
and the US as global superpowers, and their ideological hostility was
survival. But the ensuing radioactive
to define international politics for the remainder of the 20th century.
fallout would force survivors to
periods, requiring supplies of
uncontaminated food, water,
and recyclable air.
made especially dangerous by the advent of nuclear
the blast from the first hydrogen explosion was
A remain underground for extended The enmity between these two superpowers was invented the hydrogen bomb in the mid-1950s:
measured at 10.4 megatons, 450 times more
weapons. The US, the first of the two nations to
THE NUCLEAR to devastating effect against the Japanese cities of bomber aircraft, but their vulnerability to air-
develop an atomic bomb, used its nuclear supremacy powerful than the bomb dropped on Nagasaki.
Nuclear weapons were initially carried in
Hiroshima (see pp.378–79) and Nagasaki in 1945; it
lost its lead in 1949, however, when the Soviet Union defense systems soon became apparent. The
developed its own atomic bomb. This marked the
solution was to supplement the use of bombers
beginning of an arms race, as the two superpowers
with ballistic missiles, which were difficult to
intercept. They could be fired from concealed
developed ever-more powerful weapons and more
▲ This nuclear bunker was built in complex and accurate delivery systems. Scientists concrete silos and had the range to hit population
Moscow in 1956, anticipating the
fear of an all-out nuclear conflict.

KEY EVENTS
1945–1955
◼ August 6, 1945 A US B-29
aircraft drops an atomic bomb
on Hiroshima, marking a new
era of nuclear warfare.
◼ May 22, 1947 President
Harry S. Truman commits the US
to providing military assistance to
any nation threatened by Communist
aggression. This becomes known
as the Truman Doctrine.
◼ April 4, 1949 The North
Atlantic Treaty Organization
(NATO) is formed, to provide
a military bulwark against the
Soviet Union.

◼ November 1, 1952 The US
carries out the first successful test of
a hydrogen bomb, on the Eniwetok
atoll in the Pacific. The Soviet Union
follows suit in 1953.

◼ May 14, 1955 The Warsaw Pact
is agreed, a mutual defense treaty
between the Soviet Union and the
Communist states of eastern Europe.

▶ A US NUCLEAR
TEST, NEVADA
US troops watch the mushroom
cloud of an atomic explosion while
on a field exercise in Nevada, in
November 1951. They are just
6 miles (9.5km) from the explosion.