Whenever I see things like this I think it's so cool, but it's always followed by this weird feeling that lasts a few hours where all I can think about is, "What have we done?" Why does destruction come to easy to us? Why has it always been a prioirty?
Being able to destroy everyone else is what prevents them from destroying us. Something I think about and feel bad about is the "nuclear sponge". Why do we have a bunch of ICBMs in the midwest? So that if someone wants to nuke NYC, they have to nuke the Great Plains first, or face total destruction. Makes nuclear war that much more expensive. Of course, it's kind of an outdated assumption that that alone would be eno…
Rather, the silo fields were dispersed to get out of range of sub launched missiles or soviet ICBMs that would go over the N pole, which is why some of them are very close to the Mexican border in NM (like the Titan IIs around Roswell). Of course, potential modern Russian ICBMs that have the range to go over the South Pole negate this defense and also any midrange ABM interception possibilities.
I also suspect that silo locations were an early example of Congressional pork. Or, just located next to exiting SAC bases for logistical reasons, like Beale AFB in northern California.