Nuclear Battlefield Germany 1950-63 US Army Vehicles during the Early Cold War in West Germany In the event of an attack by the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union, the use of nuclear weapons was part of the defensive concept of the Western alliance, comprising NATO and the USA. From the early 1950s rearmament began, particularly in the area of nuclear weapons, to compensate for NATO's conventional inferiority and to act as a deterrent. The 7th US Army in West Germany received its first nuclear-missile artillery as early as 1954. This was done as part of a strategic nuclear doctrine of ''massive retaliation'' in the event of an attack by the Warsaw Pact on Western Europe. At the same time, conventional troops of the 7th US Army were reinforced.