Tactical Nuclear Weapons
How smaller, battlefield-designed nuclear weapons lower the threshold for nuclear use and create some of the most dangerous gaps in arms control.
What Are Tactical Nuclear Weapons?
Tactical nuclear weapons (also called non-strategic or theater nuclear weapons) are designed for battlefield use rather than strategic targets like cities or military command centers. They are typically smaller in yield (from a fraction of a kiloton to tens of kilotons) and shorter in range than strategic weapons. They include artillery shells, short-range missiles, gravity bombs, depth charges, and nuclear landmines.
Russia maintains the world's largest tactical nuclear arsenal, estimated at roughly 1,000-2,000 weapons. These weapons are central to Russian military doctrine, which envisions their use to offset NATO's conventional military superiority, a concept sometimes called 'escalate to de-escalate.' Pakistan has developed the Nasr tactical missile specifically to counter India's conventional military advantage. The US maintains roughly 100 B61 nuclear gravity bombs in Europe as part of NATO's nuclear sharing arrangements.