During the 1930s, as the conquests of Germany and Japan enveloped much of Europe and Asia, the Utah Construction Company undertook a variety of military projects. By the time the United States entered World War II in late 1941, the company was deeply involved in military construction in the Pacific Islands, as well as shipbuilding along the West Coast. World War II ended in 1945 with the emergence of two super powers-the United States and the Soviet Union-which held conflicting ideologies. The wartime alliance between these nations rapidly dissolved, and countries around the world polarized into two antagonistic blocs. Since World War II had ended with the United States employing the newly-developed atomic bomb, both super-powers scrambled to develop nuclear weapons for what seemed the next inevitable conflict. The Utah Construction Company mined and processed uranium for the Atomic Energy Commission and contracted with the Department of Defense to build military housing, hospitals, airstrips, missile silos, and command centers. As hostilities increased in Southeast Asia, the company built an airstrip and facilities in Thailand, used by the United States and its allies in the Vietnam War. Only gradually did political leaders on both sides of the world fully realize the disastrous results of nuclear war and devise a balance of power to replace a balance of terror. Nuclear arms, in the hands of major and stable nations, became viewed as ensuring relative peace rather than preparation for a "limited" nuclear war.