Truly Tactical Use of Nuclear Weapons

During the last few days of WWII, the invasion plans for Japan were re-drawn to include 12 or so atomic bombs dropped to soften up the defenses. Macarthur wanted to use them against China in the Korean War. Several USAF officers requested permission to drop three atomic bombs on North Vietnamese communist forces in 1954. The Eisenhower Administration, in fact, supported the conventionalization of nuclear arms as a means of reducing military spending.

Yet each time, permission was not granted for the use of atomic weapons on the battlefield. As hydrogen bombs grew smaller, the emphasis shifted to Mutually Assured Destruction and the use of nuclear arms strategically. Since then, nuclear warfare has, in the public consciousness, become synonymous with MAD.

So how can we get a world where low-yield fission weapons are used, if not routinely, then far more regularly than IOTL? Where France, for example, doesn't think twice about glassing Communist insurgents in Indochina, or the Soviet Union begins the invasion of Afghanistan with a <10 kt strike on Afghan military formations? And what would the effects on international politics be if standard military doctrine for every capable power involves the use of tactical nuclear arms?
 
No WWII would do it, once a major conflict starts they will end up like Chemical weapons and not be used

Effect would be a lot more respect and circumspection when lesser countries deal with the great powers
 
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So how can we get a world where low-yield fission weapons are used, if not routinely, then far more regularly than IOTL? Where France, for example, doesn't think twice about glassing Communist insurgents in Indochina, or the Soviet Union begins the invasion of Afghanistan with a <10 kt strike on Afghan military formations? And what would the effects on international politics be if standard military doctrine for every capable power involves the use of tactical nuclear arms?

Given the effects of nuclear explosions - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_nuclear_explosions - why would we want to create such a world?
 
Where, in the autumn of 1945, was the Us going to find a dozen nukes? They had already used the two they had on-hand at Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Even if you assume that doesn't happen in an invasion timeline, they're still 10 short.
Downfall had two phases, one was scheduled for May 1946, that is when nukes would be used

Also OTL the Manhattan project was not running full blast once the war was ended, they slowed down.
 
very interesting world....probably more brutal, but insurgencies are less sucessful.....after all, no one wants to order miniature suns for delivery above their heads....
I could see a reunified America friendly Vietnam, a completely subdued USSR Afghanistan, a united Korea, and Iraq a glowing hole in the ground.....assuming, of course, the gulf war isn't butterflied away (I'm assuming it is)....
and, depending on whether a butterfly net is in place, a glowing hole in the ground where Kabul would be
 
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