Strategic and tactical nuclear weapons in politics and warfare

Abstract

After Hiroshima and Nagasaki, a nuclear weapon has not been launched for 78 years. This article presents a game-theoretic model of why a nuclear war with strategic ballistic weapons has been ruled out. However, Russia's attack on Ukraine on February 24 in 2022 has raised fears about the use of tactical nuclear weapons on the battlefield. The interpretation of the Russian military doctrine appears flexible and does not necessarily exclude the use of tactical nuclear weapons. The article shows in an analytic model why such an action is not excluded even if the United States has threatened to strike back. Then the key question is whether the US threat of a counter attack is credible.