Coffee Break: Armed Madhouse – Tactical Nuclear Weapons: A Deadly Temptation

The advent of nuclear weapons transformed the nature of warfare. For the first time in history, a single weapon could destroy an entire city. Yet the development of nuclear weapons did not extinguish the traditional pursuit of military advantage. Instead, military planners sought ways to incorporate these extraordinarily destructive instruments into familiar concepts of battlefield operations, deterrence, and victory.

Tactical nuclear weapons emerged from this effort. Designed for employment against military targets rather than the destruction of cities, they promised to make nuclear firepower available for limited military purposes. Their comparatively low yields, diverse delivery systems, and battlefield missions appeared to offer a means of exploiting nuclear superiority without necessarily precipitating a general nuclear war.

Precision-guided conventional weapons, fears of nuclear escalation, and the growing taboo against nuclear employment undermined the rationale for tactical nuclear weapons. Their deployment declined substantially toward the end of the Cold War and in its aftermath. Yet interest in low-yield nuclear weapons has revived, supported by theories of managed escalation. This article examines the transformation of their rationale, from instruments of battlefield destruction to speculative mechanisms of escalation control, and the dangerous assumption that making nuclear war more manageable in theory can make the world safer in practice.

What Are Tactical Nuclear Weapons?

The distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons is less clear than their names suggest. Strategic nuclear weapons are generally intended to destroy an adversary’s military infrastructure, industrial capacity, or population centers, or to threaten such destruction as a means of deterrence. Tactical nuclear weapons, also called non-strategic nuclear weapons, are intended for more limited military purposes, such as attacking troop concentrations, military installations, airfields, or naval forces. Their classification depends primarily on their intended missions, delivery systems, and operational doctrine rather than their explosive yield alone.

The explosive power of nuclear weapons is conventionally expressed in kilotons (thousands of tons) or megatons (millions of tons) of TNT equivalent. The bomb that destroyed Hiroshima had an estimated yield of approximately 15 kilotons. Modern tactical nuclear weapons encompass a wide range of yields, from less than one kiloton to tens of kilotons. Some are more powerful than the weapons used against Japan in 1945. Their range of delivery extends from tens of kilometers in a bombing strike to intercontinental, as a low-yield warhead carried by a submarine-launched ballistic missile.

Unlike conventional explosives, nuclear detonations produce several distinct destructive effects. Blast overpressure can demolish structures and destroy equipment over substantial areas. Intense thermal radiation causes fires and burns, while prompt ionizing radiation can incapacitate or kill exposed personnel. Nuclear detonations may also generate considerable radioactive fallout, contaminating terrain and threatening populations, sometimes far beyond the immediate blast area. The relative importance of these effects depends on weapon yield, burst altitude, terrain, weather, and other circumstances. Even a comparatively small nuclear explosion can produce destruction extending well beyond its intended military target.

During the Cold War, the United States and Soviet Union developed an extraordinary assortment of tactical nuclear weapons. These included artillery shells, short-range ballistic missiles, gravity bombs, nuclear depth charges, torpedoes, and even nuclear air-defense weapons. Some were intended to compensate for perceived conventional military disadvantages, while others promised to destroy concentrated enemy formations or installations with fewer weapons than would otherwise be required.

Most of these specialized systems disappeared from American inventories following the Cold War. Today’s American non-strategic nuclear arsenal consists principally of aircraft-delivered B61 gravity bombs. The modernized B61-12 incorporates selectable yields and a guided tail assembly that improves delivery accuracy. The United States has also deployed the W76-2, a low-yield warhead carried by Trident submarine-launched ballistic missiles. Although the Trident is a strategic delivery system, the W76-2 is intended to provide a limited nuclear response option.

Russia retains a broad range of non-strategic nuclear capabilities, associated with aircraft, land-based missiles, and naval delivery systems. These weapons figure prominently in Russian nuclear doctrine and in Western assessments of Russian military capabilities. Other nuclear powers possess weapons and delivery systems potentially suitable for limited nuclear employment, although their inventories, operational roles, and deployment arrangements are often less clearly understood.

The diversity of these systems illustrates a fundamental problem with the tactical designation. A nuclear weapon may be intended for a limited battlefield mission, but its effects and consequences are not necessarily limited. A low-yield warhead launched from a strategic submarine may be indistinguishable in flight from a much more destructive weapon. A nuclear attack against a military installation may cause extensive civilian casualties or radioactive contamination. Most importantly, the adversary receiving a nuclear strike is under no obligation to regard it as a limited tactical strike because the attacker intended it that way. The distinction between tactical and strategic nuclear weapons therefore describes their intended employment more reliably than it predicts the consequences of their use.

The Declining Military Utility of Nuclear Battlefield Weapons

The original military rationale for tactical nuclear weapons rested on their ability to destroy targets that conventional weapons could attack only with great difficulty or enormous expenditures of ammunition. Nuclear explosives compensated for poor accuracy by extending destruction over a large area. A single nuclear detonation could accomplish what might otherwise require hundreds or thousands of conventional bombs or artillery shells.

The development of precision-guided conventional weapons has substantially weakened this advantage. Modern missiles, guided bombs, and artillery projectiles can destroy individual vehicles, fortified positions, bridges, and military installations without devastating the surrounding area. Improved surveillance and targeting systems have further increased the effectiveness of conventional attacks. The destructive power of nuclear weapons remains unparalleled, but their extraordinary area effects are no longer necessary for many missions that once appeared to justify their use.

Indeed, the extensive destructive effects of nuclear weapons can become a military disadvantage. Contemporary forces increasingly rely on mobility, dispersion, concealment, and decentralized operations. Instead of presenting large concentrations of troops and equipment suitable for nuclear attack, they may be distributed across extensive areas, intermingled with civilian populations, or concealed among numerous potential targets. The ability to destroy everything within a substantial radius offers little advantage when the enemy’s forces are dispersed and their precise locations remain uncertain.

Nuclear weapons also introduce serious complications for the forces employing them. Radioactive fallout can contaminate territory that attacking forces intend to occupy or traverse. Nuclear detonations can damage transportation networks, communications facilities, and other infrastructure needed for subsequent military operations. Depending on the circumstances, electromagnetic effects and other consequences may interfere with friendly equipment and command systems. Nuclear firepower can therefore obstruct the exploitation of whatever immediate battlefield advantage it produces.

A comparable problem has contributed to the declining military appeal of chemical and biological weapons. Like nuclear weapons, these instruments promise extensive destructive or incapacitating effects, but their employment creates serious problems of discrimination, predictability, and operational control. Chemical agents can endanger friendly forces, require protective equipment, and contaminate operational areas. Biological agents present even greater uncertainties because their effects may be delayed, difficult to confine geographically, and potentially capable of spreading beyond the intended target population. Improvements in conventional precision weapons have further reduced the attraction of these indiscriminate alternatives. International prohibitions and the powerful stigma attached to chemical and biological warfare have reinforced their exclusion from legitimate military practice. The parallel is not exact, but all three categories illustrate the limitations of weapons whose extensive effects can become liabilities rather than advantages.

Reducing the nuclear explosive yield does not eliminate these problems. Lower-yield weapons can reduce the extent of destruction from an individual detonation, but they also sacrifice some of the area effects that originally distinguished nuclear weapons from conventional explosives. Where precision conventional weapons can accomplish the mission, nuclear employment introduces extraordinary political and strategic risks without necessarily providing a corresponding military advantage. As conventional capabilities have improved, the range of circumstances in which such advantages might plausibly exist has narrowed, even as the potential strategic consequences of nuclear employment remain immense.

Korea: The First Test of Nuclear Restraint

The Korean War provided the first major test of the military utility of nuclear weapons after Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The United States possessed overwhelming nuclear superiority, while North Korea and China had no nuclear arsenals of their own. Nevertheless, the Truman administration declined to employ atomic weapons, despite major battlefield reverses following Chinese intervention in late 1950.

Nuclear employment was seriously considered. General Douglas MacArthur advocated expanding the war into China and sought authority to attack military targets with atomic bombs. Yet American officials questioned whether suitable targets existed in sufficient concentration to make nuclear attacks decisive. A November 1950 State Department assessment concluded that atomic weapons were unlikely to determine the outcome of the fighting and warned that their use might provoke Soviet intervention and alienate Asian populations. MacArthur’s conflict with President Truman over military strategy and civilian control culminated in the general’s dismissal in April 1951.

Nuclear options remained under consideration during the Eisenhower administration. In 1953, Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles discussed the possibility of using atomic weapons to break the military stalemate in Korea. They also expressed frustration with the emerging taboo against nuclear employment. Whether American nuclear threats materially contributed to the July 1953 armistice remains disputed.

The Korean experience revealed an important contradiction at the outset of the nuclear age. Although nuclear weapons offered overwhelming destructive power against an adversary lacking comparable capabilities, their military usefulness was constrained by targeting limitations and the danger of expanding the conflict. The weapons could inflict extraordinary destruction without necessarily achieving the political objectives for which the war was being fought. Truman’s decision reflected a fundamental distinction between winning a military engagement and preserving the larger strategic interests of the United States.

Vietnam: A Test of Nuclear Battlefield Utility

During the Vietnam War, American conventional military superiority failed to produce decisive results against an adversary relying heavily on dispersed forces, infiltration, and protracted warfare. The United States possessed an overwhelming nuclear advantage, raising the question of whether tactical nuclear weapons might accomplish what conventional firepower could not.

In 1967, a group of scientists associated with JASON, an advisory organization serving the Department of Defense, completed a study entitled Tactical Nuclear Weapons in Southeast Asia. Its authors included prominent physicists Freeman Dyson and Steven Weinberg. The study examined the targets available, the probable effectiveness of nuclear attacks, and the vulnerability of American forces to possible nuclear retaliation.

The findings were discouraging. Communist forces generally operated in dispersed formations, limiting the value of nuclear area effects. Supply routes extended across difficult terrain and could be repaired, bypassed, or replaced. Nuclear attacks might temporarily interrupt movement, but sustained interdiction of a distributed logistical system would be difficult. The extensive destruction produced by individual detonations did not necessarily translate into lasting military advantage.

The study also identified a dangerous asymmetry. American forces depended on relatively concentrated bases, ports, airfields, and logistical installations. These facilities presented attractive nuclear targets. Even if the United States had an overwhelming nuclear advantage in Southeast Asia, the introduction of nuclear warfare could create incentives for China or the Soviet Union to provide comparable capabilities to North Vietnam. American forces could consequently become more vulnerable as a result of introducing weapons intended to strengthen their position.

The political implications were equally troubling. A contemporaneous CIA assessment considered the consequences of American nuclear employment against Chinese forces intervening in Vietnam. It anticipated widespread international revulsion, damage to American alliances, and serious erosion of the inhibition against nuclear warfare. Breaking the nuclear taboo could also weaken American efforts to discourage other countries from acquiring nuclear weapons.

The Vietnam analysis thus exposed two distinct problems. Tactical nuclear weapons offered limited advantages against dispersed forces and resilient logistical systems, while their introduction threatened to transform a conventional conflict into a confrontation with much broader strategic consequences. The possession of overwhelming nuclear firepower did not provide a practical means of compelling political victory in Vietnam.

Iran: The Contemporary Coercive Nuclear Temptation

Iran presents a different military problem, but a comparable strategic dilemma. Its nuclear research and development infrastructure includes hardened and deeply buried facilities that pose substantial challenges for conventional attack. The extraordinary destructive power of nuclear weapons could appear attractive to planners seeking to eliminate facilities that conventional weapons might fail to destroy.

The United States and Israel have already conducted conventional attacks against Iranian nuclear and military infrastructure in 2025 and 2026. The extent to which these operations have permanently degraded Iran’s nuclear capabilities remains uncertain. Damage to enrichment facilities does not necessarily establish the destruction of enriched uranium inventories, specialized equipment, scientific knowledge, or the capacity to reconstruct a nuclear program. International inspectors have faced restrictions on their ability to verify the status of Iranian nuclear material and facilities.

A hypothetical nuclear attack against a deeply buried installation might achieve greater physical destruction than a conventional strike. But even complete destruction of a particular facility would not necessarily eliminate Iran’s technical capabilities or secure an enduring political settlement. Scientific knowledge cannot be destroyed by bombing, and surviving personnel, equipment, or materials could support eventual reconstruction.

Nuclear employment would also introduce consequences extending far beyond the immediate target. Civilian casualties, radioactive contamination, regional reactions, and international condemnation could outweigh the military value of the destruction achieved. Worse, the attack might strengthen Iranian determination to acquire a nuclear deterrent, transforming an effort to prevent proliferation into an incentive for it.

The Iranian case therefore raises a fundamental question. If the strategic objective is to prevent the emergence of an Iranian nuclear arsenal, would nuclear employment advance that objective, or would it increase the determination of Iran and other threatened states to acquire nuclear weapons of their own?

The Illusion of Nuclear Shock

A separate justification for nuclear employment rests on its presumed psychological impact. The unprecedented destruction of even a limited nuclear attack might supposedly shock an adversary into capitulation, producing political results disproportionate to the number of weapons employed. This assumption confuses destructive power with political coercion. Governments do not necessarily respond to devastating attacks by accepting the demands of their attackers. They may instead interpret extraordinary destruction as evidence that their survival is threatened, making resistance more urgent and compromise more difficult.

The historical record provides ample reason for skepticism. Extensive conventional bombing did not compel North Vietnam to abandon its war aims. Nor did the enormous destruction inflicted on numerous countries during the Second World War consistently produce immediate political capitulation. The Japanese surrender following the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki occurred in circumstances that also included Soviet entry into the war, making simple conclusions about the independent coercive effects of nuclear destruction problematic.

Nuclear shock could certainly influence political decisions. But its effects would depend on the adversary’s objectives, leadership, domestic circumstances, and perceptions of future danger. It cannot be assumed to produce submission rather than intensified resistance.

The Limits of Nuclear Monopoly

The possession of nuclear weapons also does not deprive a non-nuclear adversary of the ability to retaliate. Conventional missiles, drones, attacks on regional military installations, disruption of transportation and energy infrastructure, and other asymmetric measures may remain available even after a devastating nuclear strike. The initiating state might therefore achieve overwhelming local destruction without establishing control over the subsequent conflict. Nuclear superiority would not necessarily prevent continued resistance, regional escalation, or political and economic disruption.

The longer-term consequences could be still more damaging. Nuclear employment against a non-nuclear adversary would demonstrate that abstaining from nuclear acquisition does not guarantee protection from nuclear attack. Other governments might conclude that an independent nuclear deterrent is essential to national survival. A military action intended to eliminate a nuclear threat could thereby contribute to the proliferation of additional nuclear threats.

The experiences of Korea, Vietnam, and the contemporary Iranian confrontation differ greatly in their military circumstances. Yet all three illuminate the same limitation of nuclear superiority: the ability to inflict extraordinary destruction does not guarantee an equivalent ability to dictate political outcomes. Nuclear weapons can eliminate targets, but they cannot eliminate the strategic consequences of their employment.

The Rationale of Incremental Nuclear Deterrence

As the battlefield utility of tactical nuclear weapons diminished, a different justification for limited nuclear capabilities gained prominence. Rather than emphasizing their ability to destroy military targets, proponents increasingly argued that such weapons could strengthen deterrence by providing credible responses to limited nuclear attacks. Nuclear weapons were no longer being justified primarily by what they could accomplish on the battlefield, but by how their availability might influence an adversary’s decisions.

This reasoning rests on a perceived gap in conventional nuclear deterrence. Suppose an adversary employed a relatively low-yield nuclear weapon during a regional conflict, hoping to shock its opponent into accepting unfavorable terms. Would the United States credibly threaten massive nuclear retaliation, potentially precipitating a general nuclear war, in response to a limited attack? If the adversary doubted that such retaliation would occur, it might regard limited nuclear employment as a manageable risk.

The 2018 American Nuclear Posture Review explicitly advanced this argument. It warned that Russia might mistakenly believe limited nuclear escalation could produce a favorable outcome without provoking an unacceptable American response. The proposed remedy was to expand the range of credible nuclear response options, thereby eliminating any perceived advantage from limited nuclear employment.

The most conspicuous manifestation of this policy was the W76-2 low-yield warhead, deployed aboard Trident ballistic missile submarines beginning in 2019. By modifying an existing submarine-launched warhead, the United States acquired a comparatively low-yield nuclear option deliverable by a highly survivable strategic platform. The 2022 Nuclear Posture Review retained this capability, affirming its intended contribution to deterring limited nuclear use.

The use of a strategic delivery system for the W76-2 introduces an additional danger. An adversary detecting a Trident missile launch cannot determine whether it carries a low-yield W76-2 warhead or a much more destructive strategic weapon. The attempt to provide a limited nuclear response option thus introduces the possibility that a supposedly controlled escalation could be mistaken for the beginning of a strategic nuclear attack.

The underlying logic is an extension of the Cold War doctrine of flexible response. Rather than confronting an adversary with a choice between capitulation and massive retaliation, a nuclear power seeks to establish a graduated range of responses. A limited nuclear attack could supposedly be answered with a proportionate nuclear response, demonstrating resolve while avoiding immediate escalation to general nuclear warfare.

The argument has superficial appeal. Deterrence depends partly on an adversary’s belief that threatened retaliation will actually occur. A threat of disproportionate destruction might be less credible than one involving a smaller, more selective response. Providing additional options could therefore discourage an adversary from initiating nuclear employment in the expectation that its opponent would hesitate to retaliate.

But this rationale depends on several uncertain assumptions. The adversary must recognize the available response options, believe that they would be employed under the anticipated circumstances, and calculate that the consequences would outweigh the prospective benefits of its own nuclear action. The deterring state must also correctly interpret the adversary’s objectives and willingness to accept risk. None of these conditions can be established merely by deploying an additional nuclear weapon.

A further difficulty arises from the assumption that escalation can be conducted in approximately symmetrical increments. A limited nuclear attack is presumed to invite a limited nuclear response, which the original attacker will recognize as proportionate and therefore refrain from answering with a larger attack. Yet adversaries may assign very different significance to the targets struck, the weapons employed, and the political circumstances surrounding their use. A response regarded as measured by one side may be perceived as intolerable escalation by the other.

This is the fallacy of escalatory symmetry. Nuclear exchanges do not occur according to a mutually accepted scale of proportionality. Each participant evaluates the conflict according to its own objectives, vulnerabilities, fears, and perceptions of the opponent’s intentions. The possession of additional low-yield weapons does not ensure that these perceptions will converge.

The danger is compounded by differences in nuclear doctrine. Russia’s November 2024 nuclear doctrine statement explicitly reserves the right to employ nuclear weapons in response to conventional aggression posing a critical threat to Russian or Belarusian sovereignty or territorial integrity. Paragraph 19 of the doctrine identifies the detection of ballistic missiles launched against Russia or its allies, attacks involving weapons of mass destruction against Russian forces, and attacks disabling critical nuclear-response infrastructure as circumstances permitting nuclear employment. The doctrine does not require a proportionate response or distinguish between low-yield and high-yield nuclear attacks. Although the decision remains with the Russian president, an American nuclear response regarded as limited and controlled in Washington could therefore be interpreted in Moscow as justification for substantially greater retaliation.

The revival of incremental nuclear deterrence thus substitutes a speculative theory of adversary deterrence for the earlier rationale of tactical battlefield utility. Its promised benefit is not greater military effectiveness, but more credible threats and more manageable escalation. Whether the additional options actually improve security depends on the validity of assumptions about adversary perceptions and reactions that cannot be reliably tested in advance.

The Escalation Ladder

Limited nuclear employment can initiate an escalatory ratchet, driving participants progressively upward on the escalation ladder. Each side interprets its own attacks as necessary responses to aggression while treating the opponent’s retaliation as further evidence of hostile intentions. Merely matching the previous attack may appear insufficient to restore deterrence, creating pressure for a more powerful response.

The process need not involve deliberate efforts to initiate general nuclear war. Both participants might seek to avoid catastrophe while nevertheless concluding that failure to retaliate forcefully would invite additional attacks. Domestic political pressures, military losses, uncertainty about the adversary’s intentions, and fears of appearing vulnerable could reinforce this tendency. The escalation ratchet makes retreat increasingly difficult, even as the potential consequences of further escalation become more catastrophic.

The danger is intensified by the absence of a mutually accepted escalation ladder. Nuclear powers do not necessarily assign the same significance to particular targets, weapon yields, or forms of retaliation. Nor can they be expected to agree on the point at which a limited nuclear exchange becomes a strategic nuclear war. Each successive attack may therefore be interpreted as exceeding the bounds of the previous exchange, even when its initiator considers it proportionate.

Nuclear wargaming exercises have demonstrated the plausibility of this escalatory mechanism. A National Research Council review described RAND simulations in which an American limited nuclear strike, intended to restore deterrence, was interpreted by the opposing side as the initiation of nuclear war, provoking general nuclear retaliation. Other simulated encounters produced restraint or de-escalation. More recent exercises conducted by the Center for a New American Security found that limited nuclear exchanges could continue through successive rounds of retaliation without necessarily escalating to general nuclear war. These results do not establish that uncontrolled escalation is inevitable. They demonstrate that nuclear employment can initiate reciprocal reactions that neither participant can reliably predict or control.

Breaking the Nuclear Taboo

Nuclear weapons have not been employed in warfare since the destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945. During the intervening eight decades, the world has experienced numerous major wars, including conflicts involving nuclear powers, without another nuclear detonation in combat. This remarkable record cannot be attributed solely to nuclear deterrence. A powerful political and moral inhibition against nuclear employment has also developed, commonly described as the nuclear taboo.

The taboo is not a formal prohibition universally accepted by nuclear powers. Rather, it is a widely recognized norm that treats nuclear weapons as fundamentally different from conventional armaments. Their extraordinary destructive effects, potential for indiscriminate casualties, and association with catastrophic escalation have made their employment politically unacceptable under circumstances in which conventional military force remains permissible. The restraint demonstrated during the Korean and Vietnam wars helped establish and reinforce this distinction.

The employment of even a single tactical nuclear weapon would break this eight-decade precedent. Although the immediate international reaction might include widespread condemnation, the demonstration that nuclear weapons can again be used in warfare could weaken the expectation of continued non-use. If the initiating state achieved an apparent military or political advantage without suffering catastrophic retaliation, other nuclear powers might become more willing to contemplate similar actions. Limited nuclear employment could gradually become another accepted instrument of military coercion.

The consequences for nuclear proliferation would be particularly serious. The international nonproliferation regime rests partly on the expectation that states can maintain their security without acquiring independent nuclear arsenals. Nuclear attacks against non-nuclear adversaries would undermine that expectation. Governments facing threats from nuclear-armed neighbors might conclude that international agreements, diplomatic assurances, and conventional defenses provide inadequate protection against nuclear coercion.

Israel illustrates a particularly dangerous version of this problem. Its widely acknowledged but officially undeclared nuclear arsenal provides a regional nuclear monopoly. Yet Israel’s geographic compactness, concentrated population, and exposed infrastructure make it exceptionally vulnerable to nuclear attack. The emergence of additional nuclear-armed states in the Middle East would therefore pose a serious threat to Israeli security.

Israeli nuclear employment against a non-nuclear regional adversary could accelerate regional proliferation of nuclear weapons. Other governments might interpret the attack as evidence that only an independent nuclear deterrent can provide reliable protection. A nuclear strike intended to eliminate a security threat could consequently encourage the proliferation of weapons capable of threatening Israel’s own survival. Extensive Israeli civil-defense preparations against conventional missiles would not suffice to counter the vastly greater dangers associated with nuclear attack and radioactive fallout.

The weakening of the nuclear taboo could also have cumulative effects beyond the region in which the first renewed nuclear attack occurred. States that had previously regarded nuclear employment as politically unthinkable might begin incorporating limited nuclear options into their military planning. As more governments prepared for such contingencies, the threshold separating conventional warfare from nuclear warfare could progressively erode.

The strategic significance of tactical nuclear weapons therefore extends far beyond their immediate military effects. A weapon employed to secure a temporary advantage in one conflict could weaken restraints that protect every nuclear power from future nuclear attack. The initiating state might achieve its immediate objective while contributing to a more dangerous international security environment in which its own vulnerability is substantially increased.

Conclusion

The history of tactical nuclear weapons reveals a remarkable transformation. Originally developed to compensate for the limitations of conventional military forces, they have acquired a new rationale as instruments of incremental deterrence and escalation control. As their comparative battlefield utility has diminished, their justification has shifted increasingly toward unverified assumptions about adversary behavior and the controllability of nuclear escalation.

The underlying contradiction remains unresolved. The proposed remedy for the danger of nuclear escalation is to introduce additional opportunities for nuclear escalation. Yet the ability to initiate a limited nuclear attack does not confer the ability to control the adversary’s response. The consequences could include escalating retaliation, catastrophic destruction, and the erosion of the restraints that have prevented nuclear warfare for eight decades.

The revival of tactical nuclear weapons illustrates a broader pathology of military planning: the pursuit of additional capabilities without sufficient demonstration that they advance the security objectives they are intended to serve. The potentially catastrophic consequences of failure are subordinated to speculative benefits, and the acquisition of additional nuclear options is mistaken for an improvement in national security. The deadly temptation is to mistake the ability to conduct a limited nuclear strike for the ability to conduct a limited nuclear war.