From the 1950s up through the early 1990s, the specter of nuclear war cast a shadow over the world like a giant, gloomy mushroom tattoo. Hollywood and our own morbid imaginations came up with any number of scenarios that would wipe out humanity in a series of blinding flashes: robots, Russian and American policies of mutually assured destruction. But Kubrick was probably closest when he imagined the nuclear era as a game of poker between cocky, absent-minded lunatics. Only he probably didn't go far enough. After all, he could have never imagined ...
During the Cold War, American and Soviet military leaders temporarily forgot why nuclear bombing yourself was a bad idea. The "nuclear weapons tests" conducted on home soil were officially for research purposes. In reality, each explosion was the military equivalent of punching your fist into your open hand and pointing at the guy whose ass is totally grass.
Anyone close enough to wonder why it was suddenly so windy and blinding were told the explosions were being set off at a safe distance. For instance, Area 51, the army base in the middle of the Nevada desert (where conspiracy theorists believe the Army is reverse-engineering UFOs), was actually one of the most active nuclear test sites in the world. Russia was able to set off their weapons in the similarly desolate region of the country known as "the part that's not Moscow."
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