The strategy is being overseen by Elbridge Colby, the Pentagon’s policy chief, who has long called for the U.S. to prepare to fight a “limited nuclear war,” reports Dave DeCamp.
Nuclear weapon test Dakota, June 26, 1956. (U.S. Dept. of Energy /Wikimedia Commons)
The Pentagon is reportedly drafting a new nuclear strategy that’s expected to emphasize the use of tactical nuclear weapons to give the president more “options” in a potential nuclear conflict.
The strategy, first reported by NBC News, is being drafted by the Pentagon’s policy chief, Elbridge Colby, who has for more than a decade called for the U.S. to develop additional capabilities to fight a “limited nuclear war.”
The idea would be to shift the U.S. nuclear strategy away from the focus on using strategic nuclear weapons to wipe out an adversary’s nuclear capabilities and focus more on the possibility of using smaller, tactical nuclear weapons in a “regional” conflict.
“If you actually want extended deterrence to be credible, you have to provide the nation’s political leadership with nuclear capabilities that common sense indicates you could actually use,” a source told NBC. “Otherwise you’re reducing our leadership’s options to extreme choices that the adversary won’t find credible.”
While the potential strategy would be carried out in the name of deterrence and preventing war, arms control advocates have strongly warned against the idea of developing more tactical nuclear weapons to prepare for a potential limited nuclear conflict over concerns that it would make nuclear war much more likely and that any nuclear exchange would likely lead to a global catastrophe.
They are discussing using nuclear weapons on Iran in strategy meetings.
Yes you read that correctly. It’s real. I’m not speculating, I know.
And it’s pure evil.
The last time a nuclear weapon was used was August 6th and 9th of 1945 on two cities in Japan, Hiroshima and…
— Former Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene?? (@FmrRepMTG) August 16, 2026
“Without a firm rejection of the option to use nuclear weapons first in a conflict, by building and fielding more tactical nuclear weapons the administration is signaling its intention to use them against enemy forces and industrial infrastructure in a conflict,” the Arms Control Association said in response to the NBC report.
The ACA said that it “strongly opposes the administration’s decision to build more tactical nuclear weapons to supplement the options that exist” and pointed to the fact that the U.S. already has at least two types of tactical nuclear weapons, including B61-12 gravity bombs, which are deployed in Europe, and the W76-2 low-yield warhead for the Trident II submarine-launched ballistic missile.
The ACA said the U.S. Navy is also “acquiring a new nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missile (SLCM-N) that may be available at the end of the decade for possible use in conflict with China.”
Breaking Defense reported that Colby announced on Aug. 5 that the Pentagon was reviewing the U.S. nuclear posture and repeatedly emphasized the term “options” in a speech he delivered that has not been made public.
Deputy Secretary of Defense Steve Feinberg swears in Colby, right, as under secretary of defense for policy, with an oath ceremony at the Pentagon on April 9, 2025. (DoD photo / U.S. Air Force Tech. Sgt. Jack Sanders / Public Domain)
Colby has been one of the leading voices in Washington’s policy circles advocating for the U.S. to prepare for limited nuclear war. In a 2015 paper for the Center for a New American Security (CNAS) titled “A Nuclear Strategy and Posture for 2030,” Colby said the U.S. “should make a special effort to develop the platforms and weapons, doctrine, planning capacity, and other capabilities needed to fight a limited nuclear war more effectively than plausible adversaries.”
He said that the ideal U.S. nuclear force is:
“One that is not only highly survivable and able to issue a devastating blow against any adversary under any scenario but that is also capable of conducting effective limited nuclear operations in a controlled fashion while maintaining the ability to escalate to full-scale war if necessary.”
Colby made a similar argument in a 2018 piece written in Foreign Affairs titled “If You Want Peace, Prepare for Nuclear War,” published just a few months after he left the first Trump administration, where he led the development of the 2018 National Defense Strategy.
“Washington’s task is clear. It must demonstrate to Moscow and Beijing that any attempt to use force against US friends and allies would likely fail and would certainly result in costs and risks well out of proportion to whatever they might gain,” Colby wrote. “This requires conventional military power, but it also means having the right strategy and weapons to fight a limited nuclear war and come out on top.”
Dave DeCamp is the news editor of Antiwar.com, follow him on Twitter @decampdave.
This article is from Antiwar.com,
The views expressed are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of Consortium News.
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Even more reason to finally consider a solution:
As unrealistic as it may appear for now-
It will be quite difficult to transfer the giant industry including all the connected «jobs», yet we must dare to work on it immediately.
There is really much to do to «repair», looking at the human made social and environmental damage in history and at present around the planet (including the oceans); let’s shift (almost in the first place) the global military budget (almost 3 trillion dollars per year) step by step within a 12 year time-frame towards regenerating nature and social balance (the other industries will follow).
Let those (military) guys and girls be «soldiers»/ stewards for a healthy planet and a socially stable society including all wonderful creatures.
That would be really great for national and global security!
And lets make them clean up all the poisoned mess/ time bombs, the military’s left or dumped about anywhere around the planet during and after past (world) wars. Dangerous work for many decades.
There is only one garden Eden, we very likely are ever able to reach ^^
The entire weapon industry (military- industrial complex) must be state owned and controlled for no monetary profit.
Just held for the really necessary defense needs. Not more than that!
And this can be probably done very well with just 10% of the present budget/ cost.
In the hands of a shareholders industry the profiting «elites» always will be looking for more profit every day and every year 24/7.
And if there is no conflict, they will create one at its «best».
They even are in for multiple conflicts, including mass murder as long as it is for their profits and power.
Again and again; always based on malicious propaganda spread by «government» agencies and allied media.
Accepting/ causing millions of civil deaths and natures destruction.
To start with, all armies on the planet could be asked to provide 9% of their personal and budget to participate in reforestation projects, instructed by corresponding biosphere specialists.
This is for the first year and unit.
These 1st forces could be called regeneration forces. And it would be a noble and important long overdue work for the sake of nature and man- kind.
11 steps to follow.
He said that the ideal U.S. nuclear force is:
“One that is not only highly survivable and able to issue a devastating blow against any adversary under any scenario but that is also capable of conducting effective limited nuclear operations in a controlled fashion while maintaining the ability to escalate to full-scale war if necessary.”
*
The term “limited nuclear operations” epitomizes another term made popular in the anti-nuclear 1980s:
“Nuclear Madness”.
Pray hard to whatever God you believe in for sane adults across the Earth (in the room) to step forward – now – to meet the challenge.
Peace.
There can be few better times than now to make supplicative recourse to the Almighty. We are living in a world where leadership across the world are reluctantly leaving aside rationality and deliberately courting expediency for their egoism, parochialism or existentialism. Suddenly, rudderless societies long habituated to secular if not also atheistic lifestyles and mundanely-anchored hopes are forced to look up to the skies if not also to the gods for near term survival if not also for ultimate salvation ! By the way, the commenter’s name : “Alatalo” here is a loose phonetic equivalent of the Arabic “Allah Ta’alah” ; this is certainly a happy coincidence, I guess at the present juncture !
‘If you want peace, prepare for nuclear war.’ This disordered thinking of a paranoid schizophrenic was common during the Cold War. Today, it is even more divorced from the realities of a multi-nodal world. One in which the economic behemoth China and Russia clearly have no intention of threatening America’s ‘friends’ and ‘allies’ (or the U.S.); provided they are not relentlessly antagonized and threatened by the moribund Empire. Cretins like Elbridge Colby relish the notion of a ‘pivot to Asia’ as a would-be lothario does a sexual conquest. But the predictable outcome of ‘limited’ nuclear confrontation with these stalwart powers will be a global holocaust. Under the Eisenhower administration there were generals who urged the president to employ nuclear weapons against China. Eisenhower’s cooler head prevailed. With the current coterie of morons, incompetents, and malevolent sociopaths helming the ship of state, all bets are off.
Excellent points. The morons are not primarily based in the USA though. The ideologically-laser-etched psychopaths are principally based within Israel under the protective if not also the political wings of NUTanyahu ! These are the same sociopathic-psychopaths who took a God-forbidden gamble on recklessly attacking I.R. Iran conventionally and by design dragged the Trump-stumpped USA into it. This same Zio-Con lunacy may lead the U.S. to nuke Iranian sites as well. With the unrestrained foray into tactical nuke productions, this would be just a matter of time !
Former Prime Minister of Canada, Pierre Trudeau referred to the movers and shakers in the Pentagon as,
The Pipsqueaks of the Pentagon.
Former President, Richard Milhouse Nixon called Trudeau an asshole.
The Collins English Dictionary… pipsqueak – a person or thing that is insignificant or contemptible
General “Buck” Turgidson, “Mr. President, I’m not saying we wouldn’t get our hair mussed, but I do say no more than 10 to 20 million killed, tops!” From the movie Dr. Strangelove.
Maybe Russia and China should make clear that anyone using a nuclear weapon of any sort would immediately be attacked with strategic nuclear weapons. This might cause the morons in Washington to realise they are not immune from the repercussions of their actions.
Ur correct, but America is now run by neocon/zionist billionaire fascists , who think they are invincible, znd anyway have their underground luxury bunkers if the worst happened. Also 50m gods chosen, look forward to the ‘End Times’
President Reagan once said:
“I can’t believe that this world can go on beyond our generation and on down to succeeding generations with this kind of weapon on both sides poised at each other without someday some fool or some maniac or some accident triggering the kind of war that is the end of the line for all of us. “
How right he was!
Our message to nuclear warmongers everywhere is that we will not tolerate such behaviour and we demand the elimination of nuclear weapons.
We must not stop until we have achieved that essential goal.
I urge everybody to get involved.
Thank you.
Reagan also referred to the former USSR as the Evil Empire.
How wrong he was… the Evil Empire was then, and still is, the USA
Politics in the U.S, where money is power and power is domination, elevates the worst possible people to leadership positions.
Now that the civilized world is done with being starved, murdered, plundered, and worse by the U.S., the maniacs who rule it are left with nothing but nuclear weapons with which to inflict their will on the rest of humanity.
If used, the result will be the opposite, but decision makers in the U.S. being incapable of conceiving of human relations in any terms other than domination and subordination, this is where we are headed.
Unless the U.S. public, despite its utter fecklessness to this point, rises up and disposes of the regime it has been ruled by since before its founding.
That would be going from big bully to super bully with lies about defenseless countries but perhaps make us super attractive in cover cyber war from unknown places and other covert way putting all of us at risk..
Oh yes! Haven’t these warmongering wankers abundantly demonstrated what Masters of Control they are?
What gets me are the scads of US adults who gleefully gobble up this shit with a spoon as their hard-ass rulers dig their children’s graves. For profit.
What do you think would happen if another nuclear power responded in kind to a city near you?
Nuclear/ Permanent War= No Elections
I remember trying to be politically involved when Obama was spending over a Trillion Dollars on ‘nuclear weapon modernization’, and was specifically saying that the goal was to make ‘nuclear weapons more useable’. This include updated new tactical nukes, with, iirc, adjustable magnitudes. So, turn the dial to set whether you want a full Hiroshima, or a half-Hiroshima.
The best luck we had trying to work the issue was actually with the TeaParty reps at the time. Maybe they were just new in town? But those were the best meetings where we could have some good conversations. The Progressives handed us to young aides who told us that Obama was in favor so they were in favor and that was that. This did not happen overnight, and it is not just the Trump folks. This has been a steady bi-partisan project for well over a decade.
We are “led” by insane idiots, elected by ignoramuses.
EXACTLY!!!
I had a professor in university, in Political Science.
When questioned as to why we have such mediocre, pathetic, corrupt politicians she stood still, looked at her students, paused and stated… “We get what we deserve”
Think of this in terms AI systems being used for threat detection and counter-attack. The whole escalation chain could run in minutes, if not seconds.
Colby is a deranged lunatic.
Anyone who can discuss the use of nuclear weapons in such a glib fashion is completely unhinged. Especially coming from the most bloody and biggest empire the world has ever seen. An empire that is the only one to ever have used atomic weapons on civilians.
Help us all!
There are no winners in nuclear war. All the simulation of limited war escalate to the unthinkable (that
these idiots apparently are thinking). Can we shit can the entire bunch? I think we have to.
Yes, trying to bluff the Russians has always been such a good idea. We all know that Putin is a moral, sensitive, humanitarian soul who would never respond to a nuclear attack. The American media has told us this for decades. :)
Playing chicken with an angry bear is not a good idea. Especially when the bear has long since decide that it doesn’t trust you. Such ‘strategies’ could lead to an opposing strategist deciding that their own first strike to remove the danger is their best course. Ruh-Roh. Waving around a loaded gun is always dangerous, because someone else might believe you are serious and shoot you first in self-defense.
Has he not read all the studies and war games reports by RAND and the Pentagon on how fast any nuclear weapons use escalates?
We have repeatedly been seeing the emergence of nepo babies like Blinken, into the national foreign policy establishment. But with the emergence of Colby into power we now approach a new low, as the levels of blind, rabid stupidity involved here are speeding us to a point where the entire world will be blown up.
And yet these are the kind of restraint-free dimwits who claim that it is IRAN who should not be allowed to own a nuclear weapon?
You assume he reads? His boss’ boss up at the top of the chain won’t read more than a 1-page memo, if that. Do you think he hired a four-eyed reader of long, boring reports for this job? Not exactly The Don’s sort of people. He hires people who could still be a wingman for picking up Playboy Centerfolds. Deep readers of reports don’t seem to be Hitman Hegseth’s choice either, to all appearances.
I suspect that functional illiteracy is more common than believed among Americans. Insert Emoticon here.
Functional illiteracy is not relevant problem for the wealthy child of a former CIA head who has attended the Groton School, then Yale and Harvard.
Problem is his upbringing has been a brainwashing in bile against the rest of the world, and his nepo connections have insulated him from actually having to prove analytical skills and insight.
Same with Blinken, and many others – there is a whole generation of these nepo babies out there who ostensibly are well travelled and well read, but in fact are totally brainwashed, and yet weilding real power and influence.
This is a little discussed but a real problem for America. And the rest of the world too. If you read the European media, they will mention who his father was, as a way of getting Europeans to buy into the idea that this man is qualified and competent, with NO assessment of what he actually says and does. In the current internet media age, selling dangerous fools like this as, qualified leaders, is all too easy.
“[T]he new nuclear earth penetrator that the United States plans to research would use a 1.2-megaton weapon. According to a simulation using software developed for the Pentagon, if one of these weapons were used against the underground nuclear facility in Esfahan, Iran, 3 million people would be killed by radiation within 2 weeks of the explosion, and 35 million people in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India would be exposed to increased levels of cancer-causing radiation.”
Source:
“Earth-Penetrating Weapons,” Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), June 6, 2005
—
“My colleagues Luke Oman and Alan Robock calculated the spread of smoke after a war between India and Pakistan [two of the smallest nuclear powers with only a few hundred weapons of about the size of the Hiroshima bomb]. It only takes about two weeks for the smoke to cover the entire Earth. And it would rise to altitudes between twenty and fifty miles above the surface. At those altitudes, it never rains. The smoke would stay there for years. This farmer [who] may be in Europe or in the United States, but many thousands of miles from Pakistan and India, is looking at the smoky sky above him and down at the crops that have died in his field from lack of light and cold temperatures. It’s estimated that in a war between India and Pakistan, we would lose ten percent to forty percent of the yields of corn, wheat and rice for years afterward because of the bad weather. The entire world only has enough food to feed the population for sixty days unless agriculture produces more food. Ira Helfand, a member of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, has estimated that one to two billion people would die after a war between India and Pakistan of starvation. And after a full-scale nuclear war, temperatures would plunge below Ice Age conditions. We would be in a nuclear winter. No crops would grow.”
Source:
Brian Toon (professor of atmospheric and oceanic science at the University of Colorado at Boulder), “I’ve Studied Nuclear War for 35 Years – You Should be Worried,” TEDxMileHigh (YouTube), Apr. 27, 2018
But it is….Iran….that we are told is so irresponsible that it should not have a nuclear weapon.
Ironic, as I have noted before in a comment on Scott Ritter’s article “If It Wants, Iran Is Days From the Bomb,” reprinted by Consortium News on July 2, 2025:
“Iran’s ‘latent deterrence’ strategy up to this point, and their potential path to securing ‘weapons of mass destruction’ in the form of nuclear and chemical weapons should they end up definitively shifting course, has been directly enabled by the proliferation of proscribed components, technologies, and expertise abroad by the United States, the United Kingdom, Israel, and other aligned states.
As early as the 1960s and into the twenty-first century, nuclear components from US-based facilities such as the Kerr-McGee Cimarron Fuel Fabrication Site in Oklahoma, the NUMEC site in Apollo, PA, and Giza Technologies in Secaucus, NJ were acquired by Israeli-affiliated actors for their nuclear weapons program with the complicity of various US officials and authorities, some of which ended up being proliferated onward to states such as apartheid South Africa, Pakistan, and both pre- and post-revolutionary Iran, according to investigators such as [Peter Stockton, acting on behalf of Rep. John Dingell on the House Energy and Commerce Committee] and Daniel Sheehan (accompanying more wide-ranging US and Israeli protection and participation in the A.Q. Khan network, detailed in sources such as David Armstrong and Joseph Trento’s ‘America and the Islamic Bomb,’ which simultaneously increases the probability of Iran being placed under Pakistan’s own nuclear umbrella should their interests sufficiently align).
Moreover, from the 1990s onward, seemingly misguided initiatives such as MI6/Mossad joint efforts to supply Iran with chemical weapons components (disclosed in Richard Tomlinson’s [and Nahum Manbar’s] case) and the Central Intelligence Agency’s ‘Operation Merlin’ to provide Iran with ostensibly misleading but readily reverse-engineerable nuclear bomb blueprints, alongside Hallibuton’s sale of nuclear technology to Iran, have likewise eased Iran’s path to potential WMD acquisition.”
Of your two quotes, the “Hiroshima Bomb” in the 2nd quote is an order of magnitude smaller than the 1.2 Mt bomb in the first quote. Hiroshima was about 15 kt, so roughly 10 times smaller than the 1.2 Mt bomb. The CIA edits wikiped, so they must be right when they say Tactical Nukes range in explosive power from below 1 kt up to 50 kt of high explosives. Some of these tactical nukes can thus be 3x Hiroshimas. So, when these people are talking about “tactical nukes” being thrown around like candy, they are quickly moving up that count to a ‘few hundred Hiroshima size bombs.’
Pleasant Dreams everyone. There’s a reason why my generation was mass marching in the streets for “No Nukes.” Younger people might want to revive that American tradition.