The emergence of nuclear weapons in the 1940s and their attendant delivery systems in the 1950s, resulted in a drastic strategic reorientation on the part of defense planners. The sheer destructive power of these weapons meant that an atomic war could result in the utter devastation of one or all participants. A massive nuclear surprise attack could swiftly paralyze the enemy by destroying its retaliatory forces and cities.  

The United States was able to translate its nuclear monopoly during the early 1950s into substantial diplomatic leverage.  However, as the Soviet Union swelled its nuclear arsenal and launched Sputnik, the world’s first satellite, aboard a three-stage missile, it achieved a nuclear weapon and technological parity with the United States. The mutual vulnerability of both US and Soviet nuclear forces fostered an unstable strategic relationship as each government adopted a preemptive strike, ‘use them or lose them’ posture.  The development of second-strike capabilities (hardened missile silos, submarine launched missiles) established a strategic context of mutually assured destruction (MAD), whereby neither side could confidently launch a first-strike that could completely destroy the enemy’s retaliatory nuclear forces, and would therefore be subject to a devastating riposte.  MAD ensured that both parties would be sufficiently deterred from initiating a nuclear exchange, thus restoring a measure of strategic stability.  As Lawrence Freedman suggests, “The basic axioms of the nuclear age, therefore, were soon identified: the impossibility of defence; the hopeless vulnerability of the world’s major cities; the attraction of a sudden attack; and the necessity of a capability for retaliation.”[1]

The vulnerability of strategic nuclear forces to surprise attack compelled the further development of anti-ballistic missile (ABM) defenses.  The US Army intensified work on the Nike-Zeus ABM system which was intended primarily to protect land-based strategic forces.  The introduction of ABM defenses into the strategic nuclear context reinstated the possibility of true first-strike capabilities in that a party could initiate a surprise first-strike against the enemy’s strategic forces and with a fully developed ABM system could protect against the enemy’s degraded retaliatory strike.  Similar to a dynamic being seen today with the National Missile Defense initiative, ABM development during the late 1950s was a source of concern in that it unsettled the strategic stability created by the MAD context.

[1] Lawrence Freedman, The Evolution of Nuclear Strategy (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1983), p. 44.