Many analysts feared that a nuclear conflict between the Soviet Union and the United States during the Cold War would lead to a nuclear holocaust, which would devastate the entire planet. As Kenneth Waltz, professor at the University of California, Berkeley, noted, “If the U.S. and the Soviet Union were to engage in [nuclear] war, it would be the end of civilization” (“The Cold War: A Very Short Introduction”). As such, both countries worked to avoid nuclear war, leading to the implementation of several arms control agreements and the development of nuclear deterrence.