Single Integrated Operational Plan
The Single Integrated Operational Plan (SIOP) was the United States' general plan for nuclear war from 1961 to 2003. The SIOP gave the President of the United States a range of targeting options, and described launch procedures and target sets against which nuclear weapons would be launched. The plan integrated the capabilities of the nuclear triad of strategic bombers, land-based intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBM), and sea-based submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBM). The SIOP was a highly classified document, and was one of the most secret and sensitive issues in U.S. national security policy.
Montage of submerged submarine launch to the reentry of the multiple independently targetable reentry vehicles of a Trident missile
Atlas, a first-generation ICBM
A deputy's launch keyswitch in an old Minuteman ICBM launch control center. The commander's key was too far away to be turned by the same person.
E-6 Mercury
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a military conflict or prepared political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conventional warfare, nuclear warfare can produce destruction in a much shorter time and can have a long-lasting radiological result. A major nuclear exchange would likely have long-term effects, primarily from the fallout released, and could also lead to secondary effects, such as "nuclear winter", nuclear famine, and societal collapse. A global thermonuclear war with Cold War-era stockpiles, or even with the current smaller stockpiles, may lead to various scenarios including the extinction of the human species.
The mushroom cloud over Hiroshima following the detonation of the Little Boy nuclear bomb on 6 August 1945. The atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki remain the first and only wartime uses of nuclear weapons in history.
Mushroom cloud from the atomic explosion over Nagasaki rising 18,000 m (59,000 ft) into the air on the morning of August 9, 1945.
A photograph of Sumiteru Taniguchi's back injuries taken in January 1946 by a U.S. Marine photographer
Hypocenter of Atomic bomb in Nagasaki