1953-1962
With the onset of the Khrushchev "thaw" the threat of global war has receded - especially it was typical for the end of 1950, which culminated in Khrushchev's visit to the United States. However, in the same period accounted Events June 17, 1953 in East Germany, the events of 1956 in Poland, anti-communist revolt in Hungary, the Suez crisis.
In response to the numerical increase in the Soviet bomber aircraft in 1950, the U.S. created around large cities a fairly strong layered defense system by the use of aircraft interceptors, antiaircraft artillery and missiles, surface-to-air missiles. But at the core still standing construction of a huge armada of nuclear bombers, which was intended to crush the defensive lines of the USSR - as it was considered impossible to provide effective and reliable protection of such a vast territory.
This approach is firmly rooted in the strategic plans of the U.S. - it was considered that the reasons for particular concern is not until U.S. strategic forces might exceed its total capacity of the Soviet Armed Forces. Moreover - according to U.S. strategists, the Soviet economy, destroyed during the war, was hardly able to create an adequate counterforce potential.
However, the Soviet Union quickly created its own strategic aircraft and tested in 1957, an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM), R-7, capable of reaching U.S. territory. Since 1959, the Soviet Union has begun mass production of ICBMs. (In 1958, his first ICBM Atlas experienced and the U.S.). Since mid-1950 in the U.S. are beginning to realize that in the event of nuclear war, the USSR would be able to retaliate kontrtsennostny attack on American cities. Therefore, since the late 1950's military experts agree that total nuclear war with the USSR, the U.S. becomes impossible.
The scandal over the American spy plane U-2 (1960) led to a new aggravation of relations between the USSR and the U.S., the peak of which came the Berlin crisis of 1961 and the Cuban Missile Crisis (1962).