50 years ago, NATO doctrine was the use of tactical nuclear weapons, but only in response to being overrun. The idea being that a Soviet invasion of Europe was an existential threat. We either do this or all die.
But these guidelines were documented and well-known.
There's a good case to be made for the use of tactical nuclear weapons at some extreme case, the nature of that case might vary. But it is very important to make sure everybody knows what conditions have to be met for this to happen.
We have many more weapons that are much more dangerous than tactical nukes. If we want to isolate them because of the fear of escalation, that's fine. If we want to include them in the mix of options that's fine too. But what we can't do is keep potential adversaries in the dark and then spring them on them. That's because the problem with nuclear weapons is their unlimited ability to quickly escalate destruction. That's the much more severe problem to deal with than what kind of guts make up a particular delivery system.
> But what we can't do is keep potential adversaries in the dark and then spring them on them.
That seems like a very good strategy if you want to use nukes as a deterrent. I don't think this follows if you are planning on actually using them.
> That's because the problem with nuclear weapons is their unlimited ability to quickly escalate destruction.
This is tempered quite a bit by the target's economic ability. South Africa doesn't have an "unlimited ability to quickly escalate". Neither does Pakistan or North Korea. Those countries do have nukes, but they are so poor, it's just not plausible they have many, or particularly high yield ones at that.
Your point does hold for the US, Russia and China, though.
Last time I checked South Africa got rid of their nukes in 1989 and has yet to deviate from the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty it acceded to in 1991. It also recently ratified the Treaty for the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons. Do you know something we don't?
This is a bit of a special case, though. The decision to relinquish the nuclear weapons was directly a consequence of the end of the apartheid regime. In a sense, the apartheid government didn't give up it's weapons, so much as it knew that it's days were numbered and it didn't trust the next regime with the weapons.
> Last time I checked South Africa got rid of their nukes in 1989
You probably know better than I do.
I tend to believe that once countries get nukes, they don't tend to give them up, but I could certainly believe that South Africa doesn't have any anymore.
Fortunately (in this case), knowledge and technology isn't permanent - it takes a lot of work to maintain. Unless they have secretly trained scientists and engineers, and maintain secret facilities for most of the supply chain, they've probably lost the ability to make a nuclear weapon by now.
While many states do explore what is called 'nuclear hedging' where they remain non-nuclear but conduct research and development to shorten the potential time of their nuclear breakout (a contemporary example being Iran), South Africa is definitely not a part of this club as their rhetoric and supporting actions simply do not align with this strategy.
>I tend to believe that once countries get nukes, they don't tend to give them up
Well of course not. It's the nation state equivalent of being able to defend yourself with lethal force. It means that anyone who is an existential threat to you must reckon with the fact that you can be an existential threat to them if sufficiently backed into a corner. No nation is going to give that up.
So the only reason to use tactical nukes are if you're going to use them an extreme case, or you're going to slaughter innocent citizens of a perceived enemy country in a surprise attack.
But that only gets you one free surprise use. After that the world knows your intent and capabilities. So you'd still have to be prepared for an all out nuclear war.
So it seems like if the president cares anything about self preservation, then nuclear weapons would only be used as a deterrent.
Tactical nukes are those that one uses against military targets. Of course, they kill over some radius, but it's not a given that they would affect civilians.
Sadly I can't find a non-JSTOR link[1] but there is an argument out there about the general value of maintaining a "nuclear taboo" in preventing escalation of the type you're talking about. The idea being that even if you can do more destruction with conventional weapons, anchoring some emotional weight around nukes maintains momentum behind nuclear disarmament and discourages nuclear armed nations from going to war with each other.
Yeah, there's a lot more to this topic. I had to drastically simplify in order to make it into a reasonable-sized HN comment.
What we're seeing is a breakdown of the bipolar world. At the same time, we're seeing the potential for massive destruction from a number of new attack vectors, and smaller and smaller actors are capable of wielding them. And warfare itself has changed from army-on-army to desultory, infinitely-lived affairs many times done using proxies and fake information.
That changes a lot. The _message_ of using tactical nukes may very well be more important to control than the actual use of them.
The idea of "tactical" nuclear weapons needs to go away. Nuclear weapons are strategic by their very nature. In my opinion, any use of nuclear weapons at all should result in a full strategic nuclear response against the offending country. Otherwise there is no credible disincentive against using nukes in casual warfare.
I commented elsewhere, but the US inventory is being upgraded such that many (currently) strategic weapons can also technically be used as tactical. Lower dial-a-yields, variable fuzes, and higher precision guidance all add up to more tactical use.
MAD goes out the window once the missiles are up. The whole point of a credible second strike is to discourage a first strike. However this isn't subgame perfect... which means players should want to strike first, breaking MAD.
It's also the type of thing that can spark discussion, much like how basically any factual question you ask in everyday conversation could also be easily searched for.
But these guidelines were documented and well-known.
There's a good case to be made for the use of tactical nuclear weapons at some extreme case, the nature of that case might vary. But it is very important to make sure everybody knows what conditions have to be met for this to happen.
We have many more weapons that are much more dangerous than tactical nukes. If we want to isolate them because of the fear of escalation, that's fine. If we want to include them in the mix of options that's fine too. But what we can't do is keep potential adversaries in the dark and then spring them on them. That's because the problem with nuclear weapons is their unlimited ability to quickly escalate destruction. That's the much more severe problem to deal with than what kind of guts make up a particular delivery system.