2Much misinformation has been published by those who support, as well as those who are against, the continued deployment of nuclear weapons as instruments of deterrence. This book provides an apolitical description of strategic nuclear weapons, how they are designed, how they work, and how they are assigned to different targets in the event of conflict.

As well as a Workshop Manual, this book would be a guide to public understanding expressed in a dispassionate and factual manner for information which many people find hard or impossible to obtain. Nuclear weapons do exist, and they cannot be wished away, and because of that, an entirely fact-based and balanced account is helpful to those who seek to understand this emotively sensitive subject delivered as a seminal reference.

This book incorporates a balance of cutaway diagrams, images of hardware and test equipment, facilities and delivery systems, and traces the evolution of nuclear weapons over the past 70 years, with the emphasis on strategic nuclear delivery systems today.