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[[Image:Trident C-4 montage.jpg|right|thumb|Montage of the launch of a [[Trident missile|Trident C4]] [[SLBM]] and the paths of its reentry vehicles.]]
[[File:US nuclear strike map.svg|right|thumb|375px|[[Federal Emergency Management Agency|FEMA]]-estimated primary targets for Soviet [[ICBM]]s. The resulting [[nuclear fallout|fall-out]] is indicated with the darkest considered as "lethal" to relatively fall-out free yellow zones{{Citation needed|date=May 2010}}.]]
In the late seventies and early eighties the balance, in terms of nuclear weapons, shifted towards the Soviets{{Citation needed|date=January 2010}}parity. However, with the ascension to the presidency by [[Ronald Reagan]], the US renewed its commitment to a powerful military, which required large spending on military programs. These programs, originally part of President Jimmy Carter's defense budget, included spending on conventional and nuclear weapons systems, as well as defensive systems like [[Strategic Defense Initiative]].
Another major shift in nuclear doctrine was in the developmentforcefull position of the [[submarine]]-launched ballistic (nuclear) missile, the [[Submarine-launched ballistic missile|SLBM]]. It was hailed by some military theorists as a weapon that would make nuclear war less likely. SLBMs, which can move with stealth virtually anywhere in the world, give a nation a "[[second strike]]" capability. Before the advent of SLBMs, thinkers feared that a nation might be tempted to initiate a first strike, if it felt confident that such a strike would incapacitate the nuclear arsenal of its enemy, making retaliation impossible. With the advent of SLBMs, no nation could bebelieve certain that a first strike would incapacitate its enemy's entire nuclear arsenal. To the contrary, it would have to fear a retaliatory second strike from SLBMs. Thus a first strike was much less of a feasible option, and nuclear war was held to be less likely.
However, it was soon realized that submarines could "sneak up" close to enemy coastlines and decrease the warning time—the time between detection of the launch and impact of the missile—from as much as half an hour to under three minutes. This effect was especially significant to the United States, Britain, India and China, with their capitals all within {{convert|100|mi|km|-1.6}} of their coasts. Moscow was more secure from this type of threat. This greatly increased the credibility of a "surprise first strike" by one of the factions and theoretically made it possible to knock out or disrupt the [[chain of command]] before a counterstrike could be ordered. It strengthened the notion"feeling" that a nuclear war could be "won", resulting not only in greatly increased tension, and increasing calls for [[fail-deadly]] control systems, but also in a dramatic increase in military spending. The submarines and their missile systems were very expensive (one fully equipped nuclear powered nuclear missile submarine could easily cost more than the entire [[Measures of national income and output#Gross National Product|GNP]] of a [[third world]] nation),<ref>{{cite news|url=http://americanhistory.si.edu/subs/history/timeline/cost/index.html|title=The Cost of Submarines|accessdate=2008-07-13|work=Fast Attacks and Boomers}}</ref> but the greatestgreat cost came also in the development of both sea- and land-based anti-submarine defenses and in improving and strengthening the chain of command. As a result, military spending skyrocketed.
South Africa developed a nuclear weapon capability during the 1970s and early 1980s. It was operational for a brief period before being dismantled in the early 1990s.
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