Tactical Nuclear Weapons Explained – Carl Graham

During the Cold War, these limited-yield weapons were used to meet military challenges for which NATO and the Soviet Union had no conventional response. Leaving weapons in storage, deploying them on battlefields and air bases, or pairing them with delivery systems (loaded on aircraft or placed on artillery shells, for example) sent a strong message about being serious about which a crisis or conflict was taken by either party. This is the psychology of escalation that Putin is currently employing, but it is more applicable to a Cold War world with two distinct blocs and controlled information than to today's multipolar, interconnected world.

Although the idea of ​​using a nuclear weapon to destroy a tank formation seems almost inconceivable today, the doctrine behind these weapons was developed by tacticians with living memories of two world wars and millions of casualties inflicted by conventional and unconventional weapons. For someone who learned to hide near the missile fields of Montana, Wyoming, or North Dakota, nuclear war was anything but unthinkable. Enormous intellectual capital was devoted to formulating plans and doctrines to not only survive, but ultimately prevail in a Cold War nuclear conflict.

Who has tactical nuclear weapons and why?

First, a caveat: All of these numbers are open to debate and even questionable at the unclassified level, as nations guard this information closely. But they provide orders of magnitude for useful comparisons. The Center for Strategic and International Studies has compiled data consistent with the numbers and capabilities presented below, accompanied here by important caveats.

The question of “who has what” perfectly illustrates why the term “tactical nuclear weapon” is no longer useful. It is estimated that there are more than 12,000 nuclear weapons in the nine declared and undeclared nuclear states. The United States is currently reducing its stocks. French and Israeli stocks are relatively stable. And China, India, North Korea, Pakistan and the United Kingdom, as well as perhaps Russia, would increase their stocks.

Of more than 12,000 weapons, a little less than 20 percent can be classified as non-strategic or tactical based on their size, scope and/or delivery mechanisms. Russia has by far the most tactical system nuclear weapons with more than 1,500. The United States has 100 stored in Europe, and probably more on the American continent. India, Pakistan, North Korea and Israel are estimated to have slightly less than 500 of them. But Israel, India, North Korea and Pakistan certainly do not view their “tactical” weapons as a means to achieve tactical goals. Weapons exist to advance the strategic objectives of regime survival or the threat of inflicting unacceptable sanctions on potential adversaries.

So, depending on where you are, weapons with similar characteristics can be either tactical or strategic. The defining characteristic lies in the objective, not the weapon. A nuclear state's doctrine will define how it intends to translate means into ends, but it is the ends that determine whether a military action is tactical, operational, or strategic.

Unfortunately, nuclear doctrine is not always clear. All nuclear states intentionally maintain some level of ambiguity in their statements about when and how they would use their nuclear arsenals to sow doubt in a potential adversary's cost/benefit calculations and give it room to maneuver by crisis case. China and India, for example, have formulated so-called no-first-use doctrines. Truly, it's anyone's guess whether they would honor their “no first use” requirement. rhetoric in an existential crisis. Russia explicitly states that it will use nuclear weapons to achieve its war aims or to protect its sovereignty if threatened. Israel does not recognize its weapons, and even less its doctrine.

U.S. nuclear doctrine is outlined by the Department of Defense in periodic nuclear posture reviews, the latest of which was published in 2022. It describes the role of nuclear weapons in U.S. policy as deterring strategic attacks, assuring allies and partners and achieve American objectives in the event of deterrence. failed. The underlying theme is a strategy of deterrence: having an arsenal powerful enough and durable enough to deter any potential adversary from using nuclear weapons or other weapons of mass destruction against the United States or its allies. As simple as it may seem, it is a policy that has evolved over the decades, just as technologies and adversaries have evolved.

Low-yield nuclear weapons used for limited purposes are not necessarily seen as part of a ladder of escalation leading to all-out nuclear war between major powers. If the use – or even the threat of use – of such weapons enables decisive victory or deters decisive defeat, they could even be considered de-escalation. This is certainly part of Russia's provocative strategy. It has an explicit “escalation to deescalate” strategy that seeks to end the fighting on its terms by threatening action – including nuclear – whose consequences are unpredictable.

But no one really knows how or how quickly things could degenerate once the taboo on the use of nuclear weapons is lifted. Command and control failures could result in unauthorized use. Misinterpreted intentions could lead to further escalation. Other regional nuclear powers might view the use of nuclear weapons by a superpower as a green light to resolve their own local conflicts using the same means. In today's connected world, it is difficult to envisage a scenario in which nuclear weapons, regardless of their size, could be used for limited purposes and would not have significant strategic effects on all people involved, and even on many of those who are not.

Is a nuclear weapon really tactical?

Would a tactical nuclear weapon even be be effective if used to achieve tactical ends, i.e. on the battlefield? It depends on the battlefield. Will friendly troops be forced to cross a contaminated zone? How would civilians and civilian infrastructure be affected? There are certainly cases where a small nuclear explosion could destroy a target more quickly and more effectively than masses of conventional weapons and personnel. But despite any temporary tactical gain, its use would send a strategic message to the adversary and the world. But such a message will almost certainly provoke a strategic response, whether from the military or other elements of national power. Not necessarily a similar response, but designed to have strategic impacts. So yes, nuclear weapons can have tactical effects. But these effects will be overshadowed by much greater strategic benefits.

War, it has been said, is politics by other means. Whether nuclear weapons or any other type of weapon, the tactical or strategic nature of these means depends on the objectives a nation is trying to achieve and not on the damage it is trying to cause. Any nuclear detonation in a war environment would likely serve strategic objectives and would almost certainly result in strategic consequences. The term “tactical nuclear weapon” will almost certainly continue to be used, but should be seen only as a reference to size and range, not to desired results.