Nuclear Warfare Policy: Cold War to Today: Part 5 - Video Version

Holding the civilian population and infrastructure of the Cold War adversary as a virtual hostage to nuclear annihilation served as the cornerstone of the nuclear doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction and countervalue targeting. This functioned as the primary means of deterrence. In the nuclear strategy and one-upmanship of the nuclear arms race starting in the 1960s was the role of civil defense to maintain civilian morale that the government paid lip service to saving their citizens lives, but more importantly determine if it could be used effectively to remove the barrier of deterrence and consider the possibility of winning a nuclear war.