Editing Tsar Bomba (section)

== Background ==
In the late 1950s [[Cold War]], the US nuclear weapons arsenal greatly exceeded that of the USSR in quantity of weapons, total explosive yield of weapons, and the ability to deliver the weapon. In the early part of the decade, the [[Strategic Air Command]] had begun deploying nuclear-capable bombers, as well as actual weapons, to airbases hosted by US allies within striking distance of the Soviet Union, as well as deploying them on aircraft carriers and on [[medium-range ballistic missile]]s in the United Kingdom. The USSR had a credible ability to threaten American allies in Western Europe and Asia via a limited bomber and short-range missile force, had tested [[RDS-37|a multi-stage thermonuclear weapon]] in 1955, and had begun testing a [[R-7 Semyorka|prototype rocket]] for an [[intercontinental ballistic missile]] in 1957. Its leadership was well aware that the USSR's deployed nuclear forces in 1960 could not reliably and credibly threaten targets in the continental United States, and that in the event of war, the Soviet Union would struggle to reply in kind.<ref name=Chernyshev/> This in turn threatened to weaken Soviet leverage in hot-spots like Berlin, which had been the subject of Soviet and American tension since the end of [[World War II]].

Given the Soviet Union's strategic disadvantage concerning America's nuclear weapons possessions, foreign policy and [[propaganda]] considerations during the leaderships of [[Georgy Malenkov]] and [[Nikita Khrushchev]] made a response to the perceived US [[nuclear blackmail]] imperative for both international and domestic reasons. The creation of the Tsar Bomba represented part of a larger effort to maintain the [[Nuclear strategy|concept of nuclear deterrence]], and to impress (and terrify) both domestic and international audiences with the strength of the Soviet nuclear weapons program, even though the weapon itself was arguably impractical.<ref>{{cite book |last1=Зубок |first1=Владислав Мартинович |year=2011 |chapter=«Ядерная доктрина» Хрущева |editor1-last=Пер. М. Макбал |title=Неудавшаяся империя Советский Союз в холодной войне от Сталина до Горбачева|series=История сталинизма |publisher=Российская политическая энциклопедия |pages=/672 |ref=Зубок}}</ref>