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CRS-4
The Distinction Between Strategic and Nonstrategic
Nuclear Weapons
The distinction between strategic and nonstrategic (also known as tactical)
nuclear weapons reflects the military definitions of, on the one hand, a strategic
mission and, on the other hand, the tactical use of nuclear weapons. According to the
Department of Defense Dictionary of Military Terms,' a strategic mission is:
Directed against one or more of a selected series of enemy targets with the
purpose of progressive destruction and disintegration of the enemy's warmaking
capacity and will to make war. Targets include key manufacturing systems,
sources of raw material, critical material, stockpiles, power systems,
transportation systems, communication facilities, and other such target systems.
As opposed to tactical operations, strategic operations are designed to have a
long-range rather than immediate effect on the enemy and its military forces.
In contrast, the tactical use of nuclear weapons is defined as "the use of nuclear
weapons by land, sea, or air forces against opposing forces, supporting installations
or facilities, in support of operations that contribute to the accomplishment of a
military mission of limited scope, or in support of the military commander's scheme
of maneuver, usually limited to the area of military operations."
Definition by Observable Capabilities. During the Cold War, it was
relatively easy to distinguish between strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons
because each type had different capabilities that were better suited to the different
missions.
Definition by range of delivery vehicles. The long-range missiles and
heavy bombers deployed on U.S. territory and missiles deployed in ballistic missile
submarines had the range and destructive power to attack and destroy military,
industrial, and leadership targets central to the Soviet Union's ability to prosecute the
war. At the same time, with their large warheads and relatively limited accuracies
(at least during the earlier years of the Cold War), these weapons were not suited for
attacks associated with tactical or battlefield operations. Nonstrategic nuclear
weapons, in contrast, were not suited for strategic missions because they lacked the
range to reach targets inside the Soviet Union (or, for Soviet weapons, targets inside
the United States). But, because they were often small enough to be deployed withtroops in the field or at forward bases, the United States and Soviet Union could have
used them to attack targets in the theater of the conflict, or on the battlefield itself,
to support more limited military missions.
Even during the Cold War, however, the United States and Russia deployed
nuclear weapons that defied the standard understanding of the difference between
strategic and nonstrategic nuclear weapons. For example, both nations considered
weapons based on their own territories that could deliver warheads to the territory of
the other nation to be "strategic" because they had the range needed to reach targets1 This dictionary, and these definitions can be found on the DOD website at
[http://www.dtic.mil/doctrine/jel/doddict/index.html].
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Woolf, Amy F. Nonstrategic Nuclear Weapons, report, September 9, 2004; Washington D.C.. (https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metacrs6104/m1/7/: accessed May 21, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, UNT Digital Library, https://digital.library.unt.edu; crediting UNT Libraries Government Documents Department.