BY ALBERT J. MAURONI
In the debate over low-yield nukes, opposing camps are largely talking past each other. Here are some thoughts about why they remain necessary.
Michael Krepon recently published an article in Defense One in which he called the potential development and employment of tactical nuclear weapons “unwise” and strategically unsound. His argument includes several statements that illustrate the yawning chasm between arms control experts and military planners today when it comes to the subject of the utility of nuclear weapons. As is often the case, he uses illustrations and questionable statements that date to the Cold War to discuss the contemporary challenge of nuclear modernization. Here are some thoughts as to why tactical nuclear weapons are being advanced as a valid, contemporary — and necessary — defense capability.
Krepon states that “the U.S. Army reached the conclusion that it’s folly to use tactical nuclear weapons in a land battle.” That’s not quite true – President George H.W. Bush decided that the U.S. Army should give up its tactical nuclear weapons in 1991, in part due to concerns from NATO allies as to their deployment in Europe and in part due to Congressional political views at the time. But the idea that the U.S. Army thought that “tactical nuclear weapons get in the way of U.S. soldiers” is belayed by decades of field manuals, operational plans, and leadership testimony supporting the offensive use of nuclear weapons and continued interest today by the U.S. Army in supporting nuclear weapons planning. If the U.S. Army were allowed to develop tactical nuclear weapons, I’m very sure its leadership would do so.
Much of this debate is unnecessarily confused by the very term “tactical.” Many serious people, to include advocates of the DoD nuclear enterprise, claim that there is no such thing as tactical nuclear weapons. Gen. John Hyten, commander of U.S. Strategic Command, has said, “I think every nuclear weapon that is employed is strategic.” And of course, the impact of any nuclear weapon is felt at the strategic level of national leadership, but certainly the offensive use of nuclear weapons, delivered by “short-range” military systems (within a theater of operations) to achieve limited operational (military) goals is the very purpose of tactical nuclear weapons. The State Department at the least understands that “non-strategic nuclear weapons” – the formal name for tactical nuclear weapons – are a category distinct from strategic nuclear forces, and acts accordingly.
http://www.defenseone.com/ideas/2017/10/why-tactical-nuclear-weapons-are-still-thing/141540/?oref=d-dontmiss
