Balance of Terror

"Balance of Terror", written by Paul Schneider and directed by Vincent McEveety, is the fourteenth episode of the first season of the original science fiction television series, Star Trek, that first aired on December 15, 1966. It was repeated on August 3, 1967. The episode is a science-fiction version of a submarine film; writer Paul Schneider drew on the film The Enemy Below, casting the Enterprise as the American destroyer and the Romulan vessel as the German submarine.

The phrase "balance of terror" is usually, but not invariably, used in reference to the nuclear arms race between the United States and the Soviet Union during the Cold War.