Thread by @russianforces

There seems to be quite a bit of confusion about 'tactical' nuclear weapons, their potential use, 'lower nuclear threshold,' etc. That's my strong impression from the kinds of questions that I've been getting. I don't claim to have all answers, but here is my take 1/

'Tactical' is a misnomer, of course. Nuclear weapon is a nuclear weapon. It's not the yield or the range of the delivery vehicle that counts. It's the mission. 'Tactical' normally means a weapon that is used to achieve a 'tactical' military goal 2/

Say, to stop an advancing tank column or to attack an aircraft carrier group. 'Strategic' would mean a weapon/mission that is intended to change the strategic outcome of a war. (It is a bit more complicated, but I hope my colleagues will forgive me) 3/

In that sense, the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombs were definitely strategic, although they were rather small by today's standards. Yes, some weapons are 'better' for some missions - one would not use an ICBM to attack tank columns ... 4/

... and one would not try a take out an ICBM silo with a 8-kt warhead (this is the low-yield Trident warhead). But the line is rather blurry. To complicate things, some weapons are called strategic because they are covered by strategic arms reduction treaties, like New START 5/

Yes, Russia has nuclear weapons that 'tactical' in the New START sense. Some of them are probably fairly low-yield - @nukestrat and @mattkorda suggest that some are in the 10-kt region. And some are delivered by short-range missiles or aircraft. See thebulletin.org/premium/2022-0… 5/

The thing is, it doesn't matter. First, there are no conceivable military missions for those 'tactical' nuclear weapons in this war. There are no tank columns or aircraft carriers to attack. There is no way Russia can obtain a military advantage by using nuclear weapons 6/

Any use of nuclear weapons would be strategic (strictly speaking, this may not be the case in all conflicts, but it's certainly the case in this war). Either in the Hiroshima/Nagasaki sense - directly attacking cities to break the opponent or as a show of resolve to do so 7/

It wouldn't matter if such a strike is delivered by a (nominally 'tactical') Iskander missile or, say, by a long-range ALCM launched from a (nominally 'strategic') Tu-95MS bomber. And what certainly wouldn't matter is the weapon's yield 8/

The idea that a low-yield weapon is somehow easier to use probably comes from the notion that if you want to take out, say, an airfield then you might hesitate to do with a nuclear weapon if weapons in your arsenal are so powerful that they will destroy the town nearby 9/

But this logic assumes that there is a valid military mission there to begin with, that taking out that airfield will improve your military position. It might indeed, but probably not dramatically so. It's just one airfield. There are others 10/

To achieve a militarily significant result you would have to use a lot of weapons against a lot of targets. Would you want to chase each artillery battery with a nuclear warhead? This is what it might take 11/

Not that this scenario is entirely inconceivable, but I would think that the threshold for this kind of use of nuclear weapons is very high. One alternative would be to attack the infrastructure - command centers, transportation nodes, etc. 12/

But these are not, strictly speaking, 'tactical' targets and going after them would amount to attacking civilians. And it would still take a fair number of weapons (which also miss, malfunction, etc. - see recent attack on Odessa) 13/

Which brings me back to my point - the only way nuclear weapons could be used in this war is to kill a lot of people or to show resolve to do so

https://twitter.com/russianforces/status/1501968703331655682?s=20&t=eDB3go-OHOBD4KcQ2br89A

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I hope that all this means that the threshold for a use of nuclear weapons against Ukraine is truly very high. As it should be. The fact that some weapons are 'tactical' and/or have a low yield does not necessarily make them more 'usable' in the context of this war 15/

But that does not mean that we are out of the woods yet. A very high threshold may end up not being high enough. And there are other pathways that could bring us to a nuclear confrontation. As I said before, it will take caution, courage, and wisdom to avoid getting there 16/16