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Surprise Nuclear Strike? Here's How We'll Figure Out Who Did It (sciencemag.org)
sciencehabit writes: Many experts believe that a nuclear attack on U.S. soil is more likely than ever; a bomb set off in a city street is seen as the most likely scenario. The conceivable need to unmask a perpetrator, and mount an effective response, is propelling the emerging area of post-detonation forensics. Scientists are devising new sensors, manufacturing artificial fallout to hone analytical techniques, and studying how the glass formed in the furnace of an atomic blast would vary depending on the nature of the bomb and the city where it detonated. Discreet Oculus, a sensor array that would collect data during a nuclear attack on a U.S. city, was tested in the first exercise of its kind last summer.
Time to Google something called the "Cold War" I think...
As someone who was alive when the cold war was going on, I can tell you that the Cold War did not include small independent states, it was a stand-off between the major nuclear powers and the use of missile and bomber delivered weapons. It involved two large countries who knew they had everything to lose by starting a nuclear war. A nuclear attack would garner a nuclear response.
The modern environment includes dirty weapons delivered in a suitcase, by groups that know a nuclear response is impossible. They have little to lose in such an attack, and much to gain. So yes, the chances of a nuclear attack on US soil are greater now.