ABSTRACT
While most public discussion and writing on nuclear warfare in recent years has been focused on ‘strategic’ weapons, and a great deal of information about these weapons is widely accessible, much less attention has been given to another kind of warfare – ‘tactical’ nuclear warfare – for which a large array of nuclear weapons has been built. These weapons are less known to the public than strategic weapons, which is surprising in view of the increasing attention being focused on them. According to some writers, the most important criterion for classification is the range of the delivery systems, therefore tactical nuclear weapons are considered all to be weapons that are employable in a theatre of operations but which could not or would not be used against the USA or the USSR. The signing of the NATO treaty in 1949 marked the completion of the second major component of US strategy.
