![Fat man](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/c2/Fat_man.jpg)
A strategic nuclear weapon (SNW) refers to a
nuclear weapon
A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions ( thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bom ...
that is designed to be used on targets often in settled territory far from the
battlefield
A battlefield, battleground, or field of battle is the location of a present or historic battle involving ground warfare. It is commonly understood to be limited to the point of contact between opposing forces, though battles may involve troops ...
as part of a
strategic plan
Strategic planning is an organization's process of defining its strategy or direction, and making decisions on allocating its resources to attain strategic goals.
It may also extend to control mechanisms for guiding the implementation of the s ...
, such as
military base
A military base is a facility directly owned and operated by or for the military or one of its branches that shelters military equipment and personnel, and facilitates training and operations. A military base always provides accommodations for ...
s,
military
A military, also known collectively as armed forces, is a heavily armed, highly organized force primarily intended for warfare. It is typically authorized and maintained by a sovereign state, with its members identifiable by their distinct ...
command center
A command center (often called a war room) is any place that is used to provide centralized command for some purpose.
While frequently considered to be a military facility, these can be used in many other cases by governments or businesses ...
s,
arms industries,
transport
Transport (in British English), or transportation (in American English), is the intentional movement of humans, animals, and goods from one location to another. Modes of transport include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline, an ...
ation,
economic
An economy is an area of the Production (economics), production, Distribution (economics), distribution and trade, as well as Consumption (economics), consumption of Goods (economics), goods and Service (economics), services. In general, it is ...
, and
energy
In physics, energy (from Ancient Greek: ἐνέργεια, ''enérgeia'', “activity”) is the quantitative property that is transferred to a body or to a physical system, recognizable in the performance of work and in the form of heat a ...
infrastructure
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and priv ...
, and heavily populated areas such as
cities
A city is a human settlement of notable size.Goodall, B. (1987) ''The Penguin Dictionary of Human Geography''. London: Penguin.Kuper, A. and Kuper, J., eds (1996) ''The Social Science Encyclopedia''. 2nd edition. London: Routledge. It can be def ...
and
town
A town is a human settlement. Towns are generally larger than villages and smaller than cities, though the criteria to distinguish between them vary considerably in different parts of the world.
Origin and use
The word "town" shares an ori ...
s, which often contain such targets.
It is in contrast to a
tactical nuclear weapon
A tactical nuclear weapon (TNW) or non-strategic nuclear weapon (NSNW) is a nuclear weapon that is designed to be used on a battlefield in military situations, mostly with friendly forces in proximity and perhaps even on contested friendly territo ...
, which is designed for use in battle as part of an attack with and often near friendly
conventional forces, possibly on contested friendly territory.
Premise
Strategic nuclear weapons generally have significantly larger yields, and typically starting from 100
kiloton
TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a t ...
s up to destructive yields in the low megaton range for use especially in the enemy nations interior far from friendly forces to maximize damage, especially to buried hard targets, like a missile silo or wide area targets like a large bomber or naval base. However, yields can overlap, and many weapons such as the variable yield
B61 nuclear bomb
The B61 nuclear bomb is the primary thermonuclear gravity bomb in the United States Enduring Stockpile following the end of the Cold War. It is a low to intermediate-yield strategic and tactical nuclear weapon featuring a two-stage radiation imp ...
which could be used at low power by a fighter-bomber in an interdiction strike or at high yield dropped by a strategic bomber against an enemy submarine pen. The
W89
The W89 was an American thermonuclear warhead design intended for use on the AGM-131 SRAM II air to ground nuclear missile and the UUM-125 Sea Lance anti-submarine missile.
What was to become the W89 design was awarded to the Lawrence Livermore ...
200 kiloton (0.2 MT) warhead armed both the tactical
Sea Lance area effect anti-submarine weapon for use far out at sea and the
strategic bomber
A strategic bomber is a medium- to long-range penetration bomber aircraft designed to drop large amounts of air-to-ground weaponry onto a distant target for the purposes of debilitating the enemy's capacity to wage war. Unlike tactical bombers, ...
launched
SRAM II stand off missile designed for use in the Soviet Union's interior. Indeed, the
strategic attacks on Hiroshima and Nagasaki utilized weapons of between 10 and 20 kilotons, but that was because the "
Little Boy
"Little Boy" was the type of atomic bomb dropped on the Japanese city of Hiroshima on 6 August 1945 during World War II, making it the first nuclear weapon used in warfare. The bomb was dropped by the Boeing B-29 Superfortress ''Enola Gay'' p ...
" and "
Fat Man
"Fat Man" (also known as Mark III) is the codename for the type of nuclear bomb the United States detonated over the Japanese city of Nagasaki on 9 August 1945. It was the second of the only two nuclear weapons ever used in warfare, the fir ...
" bombs were the most destructive and indeed only nuclear weapons then available. There is no precise definition of the "strategic" category for either range nor
yield.
The yield of tactical nuclear weapons is generally lower than that of strategic nuclear weapons, but larger ones are still very powerful, and some variable-yield warheads serve in both roles. Modern tactical nuclear warheads have yields up to the tens or potentially hundreds of kilotons, several times that of those used in the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Strategic thinking under the
Eisenhower administration
Dwight D. Eisenhower's tenure as the 34th president of the United States began with his first inauguration on January 20, 1953, and ended on January 20, 1961. Eisenhower, a Republican from Kansas, took office following a landslide victory ov ...
and
Secretary of State John Foster Dulles
John Foster Dulles (, ; February 25, 1888 – May 24, 1959) was an American diplomat, lawyer, and Republican Party politician. He served as United States Secretary of State under President Dwight D. Eisenhower from 1953 to 1959 and was briefly ...
was that of
massive retaliation
Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
Strategy
In the event of a ...
in the face of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
's nuclear arsenal. The two superpowers developed many of the most destructive deployed thermonuclear weapons. Every bit of destructive power that could be delivered to the enemy's interior was considered advantageous in maintaining deterrence and would become the basis of the US strategic arsenal.
Flexible response
Flexible response was a defense strategy implemented by John F. Kennedy in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of Dwight Eisenhower's New Look and its policy of massive retaliation. Flexible response calls for mutual deter ...
was a
defense
Defense or defence may refer to:
Tactical, martial, and political acts or groups
* Defense (military), forces primarily intended for warfare
* Civil defense, the organizing of civilians to deal with emergencies or enemy attacks
* Defense industr ...
strategy
Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...
first implemented by
John F. Kennedy
John Fitzgerald Kennedy (May 29, 1917 – November 22, 1963), often referred to by his initials JFK and the nickname Jack, was an American politician who served as the 35th president of the United States from 1961 until his assassination ...
in 1961 to address the Kennedy administration's skepticism of the policy of
massive retaliation
Massive retaliation, also known as a massive response or massive deterrence, is a military doctrine and nuclear strategy in which a state commits itself to retaliate in much greater force in the event of an attack.
Strategy
In the event of a ...
in the face of strike options limited to total war during the
Cuban Missile Crisis
The Cuban Missile Crisis, also known as the October Crisis (of 1962) ( es, Crisis de Octubre) in Cuba, the Caribbean Crisis () in Russia, or the Missile Scare, was a 35-day (16 October – 20 November 1962) confrontation between the United S ...
. That, along with cost, increasingly-accurate targeting, multiple warheads per delivery vehicle, and a desire for greater flexibility in targeting especially with respect to increasing sensitivity to
collateral damage
Collateral damage is any death, injury, or other damage inflicted that is an incidental result of an activity. Originally coined by military operations, it is now also used in non-military contexts.
Since the development of precision guided ...
in some scenarios, began the trend to reducing individual warhead yields in strategic weapon systems.
Strategic missiles and bombers are assigned preplanned targets including enemy airfields, radars, and surface to air defenses; but the strategic mission was to eliminate the enemy nation's national defenses to allow following strategic bombers and missiles to more penetrate and threaten in force the enemy nation's strategic forces, command, population, and economy more realistically, rather than targeting purely military assets in nearly real time using tactical weapons, with range and yield optimized for this type of time-sensitive attack mission often near friendly forces.
Early ICBMs had an unfavorable
circular error probable
In the military science of ballistics, circular error probable (CEP) (also circular error probability or circle of equal probability) is a measure of a weapon system's precision. It is defined as the radius of a circle, centered on the mean, wh ...
(CEP); the strategic missiles and, in some conditions, bomber had low targeting accuracy. Additionally, much early Cold War strategic asset construction was above-ground soft targets or minimally-hardened such as airfields, pre-nuclear command and control installations, defensive infrastructure, and even ICBM bases. When every missile carried only one poorly-guided warhead designing systems with massive warhead yields to cause a huge damage footprint, with the possibility of potentially destroying several nearby soft targets of opportunity and increasing the likelihood that the primary target was within the overlap of CEP and destruction circle the highest possible yield warhead for the missile was considered an advantage. The enemy being targeted a continent away was a low ratio of side effects to friendly areas, which contrasted the potential damage to enemy assets. As navigation technology improved the accuracy and many missiles and nearly all bombers were equipped with multiple nuclear warheads the trend was to reduce warhead yield both for weight and to give more flexibility in targeting with respect to collateral damage, target hardening also created a situation in which even a very large warhead with excellent targeting would still destroy only one target, gaining no advantage to its large weight and expense, as opposed to several smaller
MIRV
A multiple independently targetable reentry vehicle (MIRV) is an exoatmospheric ballistic missile payload containing several warheads, each capable of being aimed to hit a different target. The concept is almost invariably associated with i ...
s.
A feature of strategic nuclear weapons, especially in the transcontinental nature of the
Cold War
The Cold War is a term commonly used to refer to a period of geopolitical tension between the United States and the Soviet Union and their respective allies, the Western Bloc and the Eastern Bloc. The term '' cold war'' is used because the ...
, with continent-spanning superpowers that are oceans apart, is the greater range of their delivery apparatus, such as
ICBMs
An intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) is a ballistic missile with a range greater than , primarily designed for nuclear weapons delivery (delivering one or more thermonuclear warheads). Conventional, chemical, and biological weapons ...
, giving them the ability to threaten the enemy's
command and control
Command and control (abbr. C2) is a "set of organizational and technical attributes and processes ... hatemploys human, physical, and information resources to solve problems and accomplish missions" to achieve the goals of an organization or en ...
structure and national infrastructure even though they were based many thousands of miles away in friendly territory. ICBMs with nuclear warheads are the primary strategic nuclear weapons, and short-range missiles are tactical. In addition, while tactical weapons are designed to meet battlefield objectives without destroying nearby friendly forces, one main purpose of strategic weapons is deterrence under the theory of
mutually assured destruction
Mutual assured destruction (MAD) is a doctrine of military strategy and national security policy which posits that a full-scale use of nuclear weapons by an attacker on a nuclear-armed defender with second-strike capabilities would cause the ...
. In the case of two small bordering nations, a strategic weapon could have a quite short range and still be designed or intended for strategic targeting. Specifically, on the
Korean Peninsula
Korea ( ko, 한국, or , ) is a peninsular region in East Asia. Since 1945, it has been divided at or near the 38th parallel, with North Korea (Democratic People's Republic of Korea) comprising its northern half and South Korea (Republic o ...
, with a nuclear-armed
North Korea
North Korea, officially the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the northern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and shares borders with China and Russia to the north, at the Yalu River, Y ...
facing off against an
NPT-compliant
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
there have been calls to request a return US-owned short range low yield nuclear weapons, nomenclatured as tactical by the US military, to provide a local strategic deterrent to the North's growing domestically produced nuclear arsenal and delivery systems.
After the Cold War, the tactical nuclear weapon stockpiles of NATO and Russia were greatly reduced. Highly-accurate strategic missiles like the
Trident II
A trident is a three- pronged spear. It is used for spear fishing and historically as a polearm.
The trident is the weapon of Poseidon, or Neptune, the God of the Sea in classical mythology. The trident may occasionally be held by other marine ...
can also be used in substrategic, tactical strikes.
De-escalation strikes
According to several reports, including by the
Carnegie Endowment for International Peace
The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP) is a nonpartisan international affairs think tank headquartered in Washington D.C. with operations in Europe, South and East Asia, and the Middle East as well as the United States. Founded in ...
and
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The ''Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists'' is a nonprofit organization concerning science and global security issues resulting from accelerating technological advances that have negative consequences for humanity. The ''Bulletin'' publishes conte ...
, as a result of the effectiveness and acceptability of
USAF
The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Sign ...
use of
precision munitions with little collateral damage in the
Kosovo conflict
The Kosovo War was an armed conflict in Kosovo that started 28 February 1998 and lasted until 11 June 1999. It was fought by the forces of the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia (i.e. Serbia and Montenegro), which controlled Kosovo before the war ...
in what amounted to strategic destruction once only possible with nuclear weapons or massive bombing,
Vladimir Putin
Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin; (born 7 October 1952) is a Russian politician and former intelligence officer who holds the office of president of Russia. Putin has served continuously as president or prime minister since 1999: as prime min ...
, then-secretary of
Security Council of Russia
The Security Council of the Russian Federation (SCRF or Sovbez; russian: Совет безопасности Российской Федерации (СБРФ), Sovet bezopasnosti Rossiyskoy Federatsii (SBRF)) is a constitutional consultative bo ...
, formulated a concept (''"escalate to de-escalate"'') of using both tactical and strategic nuclear threats and strikes to de-escalate or cause an enemy to disengage from a conventional conflict threatening what Russia considers a strategic interest. The lowered threshold for use of nuclear weapons by Russia is disputed by other experts.
List of strategic nuclear weapons
*
Mark 14 nuclear bomb
The Mark 14 nuclear bomb was a 1950s strategic thermonuclear weapon, the first solid-fuel staged hydrogen bomb. It was an experimental design, and only five units were produced in early 1954. It was tested in April 1954 during the Castle Union ...
*
Mark 15 nuclear bomb
The Mark 15 nuclear bomb, or Mk-15, was a 1950s American thermonuclear bomb, the first relatively lightweight () thermonuclear bomb created by the United States.
A total of 1,200 Mark 15 bombs were produced from 1955 to 1957. There were thre ...
*
Mark 16 nuclear bomb The Mark 16 nuclear bomb was a large thermonuclear bomb (hydrogen bomb), based on the design of the Ivy Mike, the first thermonuclear device ever test fired. The Mark 16 is more properly designated TX-16/EC-16 as it only existed in Experimental/E ...
*
Mark 17 nuclear bomb
The Mark 17 and Mark 24 were the first mass-produced hydrogen bombs deployed by the United States. The two differed in their "primary" stages. They entered service in 1954, and were phased out by 1957.
Design and development
Design and develop ...
*
Mark 21 nuclear bomb
The Mark 21 nuclear bomb was a United States thermonuclear gravity bomb first produced in 1955. It was based on the TX 21 "Shrimp" prototype that had been detonated during the Castle Bravo test in March 1954. While most of the Operation Castle t ...
*
Mark 24 nuclear bomb The Mark 24 nuclear bomb was an American thermonuclear bomb design, based on the third American thermonuclear bomb test, Castle Yankee. The Mark 24 bomb was tied as the largest weight and size nuclear bomb ever deployed by the United States, with ...
*
B41 nuclear bomb
The B-41 (also known as Mk-41) was a thermonuclear weapon deployed by the United States Strategic Air Command in the early 1960s. It was the most powerful nuclear bomb ever developed by the United States, with a maximum yield of . The B-41 was ...
*
B61 nuclear bomb
The B61 nuclear bomb is the primary thermonuclear gravity bomb in the United States Enduring Stockpile following the end of the Cold War. It is a low to intermediate-yield strategic and tactical nuclear weapon featuring a two-stage radiation imp ...
except Mod-4 and Mod-10
References
{{Reflist
Nuclear Files – Carlucci Report
Nuclear warfare
Nuclear weapons