The intercontinental ballistic missile

technology

The delivery system that made the whole confrontation what it was, because it removed time. A ballistic missile fired between continents leaves the atmosphere, coasts through space on an unpowered arc and re-enters over the target; a full-range intercontinental trajectory takes roughly half an hour from launch to impact, and there is no phase of it during which it can be recalled or intercepted by any means available in the period. Bombers could be launched, held and turned around; missiles could not. Three engineering changes turned the missile from a fragile prestige object into the backbone of both arsenals. Solid propellant replaced cryogenic liquids that had to be loaded shortly before launch, cutting reaction time from hours to minutes. Hardened underground silos replaced surface pads, so that a missile had to be hit almost precisely to be destroyed. And inertial guidance improved to the point where accuracy became a strategic variable in its own right, because a missile accurate enough to destroy a silo threatens the other side's retaliatory force rather than its cities — which is the technical route by which improved accuracy made the relationship less stable rather than more.

A technology is not a place. Drawing it on a map would assert something about the world that no stored fact supports.