This is the Cato Daily Podcast for Monday, February 5th, 2018.

I'm Caleb Brown.

A new Department of Defense report ordered by the White House argues that low-yield nuclear weapons for targeting smaller areas

should be a more substantial part of the nuclear arsenal. But that thinking assumes

that the relative size of nuclear weapons used in war is really a hair that can be split. Cato Institute

Policy analyst Eric Gomez comments on the new report. Well nuclear weapons are

pretty useful at deterring nuclear attacks on your homeland, but that's sort of it.

That is the absolute most valuable thing they are useful for, but for extending deterrence

to our allies, preventing them from being taken over, for example,

the US likes to do that, but it's kind of unclear whether or not that is a credible threat,

like would we actually risk our own country and an enemy retaliation

for the sake of a country somewhere else?

So if there were a nuclear or non-nuclear attack on one of our allies, it's not clear that the United States would be willing

to do for the second time in human history use a nuclear weapon in order to protect someone that isn't the United States.

That's right. So a lot of what U.S. nuclear strategy is about is trying to make that credible,

right, trying to make the adversary believe that you would.

And for the sake of that you would.

And for the sake of that, we developed things during the Cold War, things like low-yield nuclear

weapons that would be more easy to use and not inflict as much damage.

And we would station nuclear weapons and troops abroad

in other countries to serve as a trip wire

should those countries be attacked.

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