The advent of the Cold War solidified the links between military institutions and academic science, particularly in the United States and the Soviet Union, so that even during a period of nominal peace military funding continued to expand. Funding spread to the social sciences as well as the natural sciences, and whole new fields, such as digital computing, were born of military patronage. Following the end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union, military funding of science has decreased substantially, but much of the American military-scientific complex remains in place.