Tactical Nuclear Weapons

Pakistan's embrace of a new generation of small, tactical nuclear weapons (TNWs), which the Obama administration considers highly vulnerable to theft or misuse, has changed the way the administration talks about Pakistani nuclearsecurity. While Obama declared early in his presidency that the United States believed Pakistan's nuclear assets were secure, administration officials will no longer repeat that line, thus wrote New York Times on the eve of US President Barack Obama’s last Nuclear Safety Summit in Washington.

“We are not apologetic about the development of the TNWs [tactical nuclear weapons] and they are here to stay,” said Khalid Ahmed Kidwai, an advisor to the so-called National Command Authority (NCA) and a longtime custodian of the country’s nuclear arsenal, according to Voice of America. On March 2, 2016, Kim Jong Un gave direction to the military to “get the nuclear warheads deployed for national defense always on standby so as to be fired at any moment,” said a report, which set security analysts and concerned nations thinking whether North Korea was embracing TNWs.

A tactical nuclear weapon (or TNW) also known as non-strategic nuclear weapon refers to a nuclear weapon which is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations. This is opposed to strategic nuclear weapons which are designed to be used against enemy cities, factories, and other larger-area targets to damage the enemy's ability to wage war. Tactical nuclear weapons were a large part of the peak nuclear weapons stockpile levels during the Cold War. Tactical weapons include not only gravity bombs and short-range missiles, but also artillery shells, land mines, depth charges, and torpedoes for anti-submarine warfare. Also in this category are nuclear armed ground-based or shipborne surface-to-air missiles (SAMs) and air-to-air missiles.

Small, two-man portable, or truck-portable, tactical weapons (sometimes misleadingly referred to as suitcase nukes), such as the Special Atomic Demolition Munition and the Davy Crockett recoilless rifle (recoilless smoothbore gun), have been developed, although the difficulty of combining sufficient yield with portability could limit their military utility. In wartime, such explosives could be used for demolishing "choke-points" to enemy offensives, such as at tunnels, narrow mountain passes, and long viaducts. Other new tactical weapons undergoing research include earth penetrating weapons which are designed to target enemy-held caves or deep-underground bunkers, writes Wikipedia.