USA, Davis Monthan Air Force

Several hundred American B-52 Stratofortress bombers are stored for spare parts at the Davis-Monthan Air Force Base in the heart of the Arizona desert. The B-52 was conceived in 1952 to carry nuclear weapons and was used intensively as a conventional bomber during the Vietnam War and the Gulf War. An emblem of the most powerful armed force in history, it played a vital role in the “nuclear dissuasion” strategy of the United States during the Cold War. This policy, unique in history, was based on a nuclear arsenal capable of the immediate destruction of an aggressor nation at the risk of inciting a global catastrophe. It has been referred to as a balance of terror or a policy of mutually assured destruction. Since the collapse of the Communist bloc and the Gulf War, the United States has played a major role in far-flung conflicts and has sometimes bypassed its international obligations to undertake foreign ventures with neither the consent nor support of its allies.