Shell, which is the replica of the biggest detonated Soviet nuclear bomb AN-602 (Tsar-Bomb), is on display in Moscow, Russia, August 31, 2015. The shell is part of an exhibition organized by the state nuclear corporation Rosatom. (Photo by Maxim Zmeyev/Reuters)

“A fter the former Soviet Union conducted its first nuclear test in August 1949, the US reevaluated its postwar defense policies. With the US monopoly on atomic weapons broken, military and political leaders chose to diversify the American stockpile by developing thermonuclear and tactical nuclear weapons. One of the more interesting concepts to come out of this period was atomic artillery, which was successfully tested at the Nevada Proving Grounds (now the Nevada Test Site) in May 1953”. – Alan Carr. Photo: Atomic Annie at work during the Upshot-Knothole test series, 1953. (Photo by Los Alamos National Laboratory/US Army)

US marines watch the mushroom cloud from an atomic explosion rise above the Yucca flats, Nevada during a US nuclear weapons test. (Photo by Keystone/Getty Images). USA, 1945