Tactical nukes could lead to unintended consequences

Burns made the remarks in an interview while commenting on reports that US President Donald Trump is ready to unveil a nuclear weapons policy.
 
On Thursday, the Trump administration announced that it prepares to unveil its review of the US nuclear posture, while more experts have warned that developing a new type of nuclear weapons to meet the president's demands would trigger an arms race.
 
"The idea of developing these tactical nuclear weapons which is what they are. Nuclear weapons are used in theater of operations, and the persuasive allure of this idea is that they are small, they are confined, they are used in battlefield conditions and they don’t risk threatening civilian populations," Burns said. 
 
With their limited strength, the new weapons would address one of Trump’s major concerns. Trump has said that Washington’s current nuclear weapons are so huge that no adversary believes they will ever be used against them.
 
"The problem is that nuclear technology and threshold once it’s crossed, it leads to unintended consequences. Amongst them are the radioactive fallouts. How we control it, etc.," Burns noted.
 
"And then more important than anything else is: Does it trigger the nuclear arms race? Right now, it has been kept confined by the fact that use of nuclear weapon is so unimaginable and is so existential from the point of view that if a country has to use it, it’s because of they feel that the very vitality and life is in danger," the analyst observed.
 
It is worth noting that a low-yield weapon by today’s standards has an explosive power of 20 kilotons or less of TNT. That is roughly the same blast as the two bombs US dropped on the Japanese cities Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. They were about 15 and 20 kilotons respectively.
 
"We don’t have these conditions in world events right now, so at the present time nuclear weapons are simply not considered as practical or proper," Burns concluded. 
 
The draft leaked on Thursday called low-yield bombs “supplements” and argues that developing a large enough arsenal of these weapons serves as a deterrent against Russia and other countries.
 
The review would also call for developing a new submarine-launched missile to deliver the low-yield warheads and a sea-launched cruise missile in the long-run.
 
The US is also considering upgrading its fleet of long-range strategic bombers such as B-2 and B-52 to deploy its arsenal of more than 7,000 nuclear warheads to any target around the world.
 
The upgrade is predicted to cost the US over $1 trillion over the next 30 years.