Sidestepping Tactical Nuclear Weapons Limits With Strategic Bombs

Lasrick writes "Benjamin Loehrke describes the rather odd definitions of what is a 'tactical' nuclear weapon and what isn't. 'There is enough ambiguity surrounding the capabilities of tactical and strategic nuclear weapons to render the term "tactical" all but useless for arms control purposes. As the United States and Russia pursue new arms control treaties, they should drop the tactical distinction and limit the total number of all nuclear weapons — strategic, tactical, or other.'"

Re:Sure, but...

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

TFA's thesis is that there simply isn't a dividing line between 'tactical' and 'strategic' that makes your sentence meaningful.

Given the mixture of forward bases and in-air refueling that the nuclear powers certainly aren't going to give up(even if their intentions are purely conventional, being able to B-52 bits of the middle east is just too convenient) delivering a 'tactical' warhead(or 10) right down a 'strategic' target's chimney is a matter of little more than swapping some hardpoints, and the upper edge of the dial-a-yield ranges for 'tactical' devices are well into the realm of 'would ruin a population center's day' territory.

There are, certainly, some unambiguously 'strategic' weapons, of the 'bloody huge thermonuclear warhead on an ICBM' school and there are (a dwindling number of) oddball low-yield artillery shells, demolition charges, and other oddities from the heyday of nuclear optimism(for sheer weirdness, I'm fond of the 'Davy Crockett' system. Essentially a 'technical' as much beloved by ragged 3rd world armies; but with nuclear warheads...); but much of the active hardware falls into the awkward middle ground where, in order to be powerful enough to be worth the trouble of being nuclear, it could certainly bestrategic if asked, and purely because of what people expect from contemporary delivery sytems, even for boring chemical explosives, 'strategic' delivery capabilities are widespread.

Re:Is "tactical nuclear weapon" a bad word now?

[Mindcontrolled]

Pretty much that. I grew up close to the Czech border in Germany. Wasn't that much of a fun place in the 80s. Our history teacher was military reserve - he used to tell the occasional story about how they nuked our hometown during the last training exercise. Roads were prepared with access shafts to place explosives to destroy the infrastructure, should the Soviets decide to move, lots of fun stuff like that.