As Russia flounders on the battlefields of Ukraine, the once-unthinkable possibility of nuclear weapons use is now on the rise, as President Vladimir Putin’s options for victory narrow. Tactical nuclear weapons have not been part of strategic thinking since the end of the Cold War in 1991. What are these weapons and what would be the significance of their use?Tactical nuclear warheads were created to give military commanders more flexibility on the battlefield. In the mid-1950s, as more powerful thermonuclear bombs were being built and tested, military planners thought that smaller weapons with a shorter range would be more useful in “tactical” or military situations.Modern warheads have a variable “dial-up” yield, meaning an operator can specify its explosive power, and a tactical weapon would be anywhere from a fraction of a kiloton to 50kt in strength. For a sense of scale, the weapon that destroyed Hiroshima was roughly 15kt. A single kiloton is equivalent in power to a thousand tons of TNT, a high explosive.
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