Right. And now we have the sorts of people that we used to lock in the attic arguing for the "limited" use of tactical nukes. The problem with that is that someone always lives downwind. As long as it's not us, though, we're good, amirite?
That's not the main problem with tactical nukes. They suffer the same problem as conventional hardware, which is that you have to move it across oceans along with the troops to operate it with a navy. That's what you can't do, the boats will be at the bottom of Davey Jones Locker before they ever make their landing beach.
The only weapon that "works" given the current state of military hardwae development are intercontinental ballistic missiles. Those aren't "tactical" nukes, they're City-Killers. Hiroshima and Nagasaki on Steroids, 100X more powerful. It's all or nothing, there are no tactical nukes that can work.
I also do not agree that the planners inside the Pentagon do realize how antiquated their plans are and destined for failure. They have existed in a bubble since WWII, and the thinking remains the same as it was.
RE
First of all, we have tactical nukes forward deployed all over the world, no matter what Pentagon PR types or Sarah Fucking Snowflake says. Sometimes our idiots moving nukes get caught. See Operation Northwoods.
Also I don't think all of Pentagon decision-making is as monolithic as you think. There are plenty of modern thinking military planners whose ideas you can read. And U.S. military R&D is gaining more urgency. The U.S. will spend nearly $80 billion this year to create new weapons, armor and related gear. The extent to which they influence policy is debatable, and a lot of that is political. Now purchasing... I've already weighed in. A massive revenue transfer scheme.
Generals always fight the last war. Their names ring through history... Westmoreland, Foch, Hindenberg. Yet that's a result of rapidly changing military technology. If military technology is stable, say, in the long age of black powder and fighting sail—the lessons of the last war probably retain their validity. There are exceptions: In a world in which firearms had barely changed for a century, Napoleon consistently beat opponents who tried fighting the last war. But Napoleons are rare. Alexander, Hannibal, Caesar, Marlborough, Eugene of Savoy, and the Duke of Wellington are famous for having very effectively fought the last war.
The murderous losses of the American Civil War, the Boer War, the Russo-Japanese War, and, above all, the First World War are part of the reason “fighting the last war” has become shorthand for idiocy in military decision making. Development of the Gatling gun alone should have spelled the end of massed troop charges. Our glorious Boyz in Blue certainly showed the efficacy of these weapons at Wounded Knee.
Now we have an era of asymmetric warfare fought by non state or quasi-state actors. WTF do you do to respond? We spend a shitpot of money on cyberwarfare, and can lock Mike Pence and Lindsay Graham together in the St. Regis Honeymoon Suite to design uniforms for the new Space Force...
One can certainly make war on states, and there may be advantages to doing so when attempting to suppress terrorism. Most successful terrorists make good use of the resources states can provide; when those resources aren’t available, suppressing terror generally gets easier. States are also clear targets, while terrorists themselves are usually very hard to find. And let's not forget that who we call "terrorists" are what someone else calls, "freedom fighter."
The FSoA has pledged to “end” states that support or give shelter to terrorists. War is a way of doing that, but which requires military conquest, occupation, and organization of a successor government. It is perfectly possible to do this: we did it post WWII. But 50 years later, in 1991, when the United States invaded a state under false pretenses ostensibly to solve a problem of state supported terrorism, it left a terrorist regime in control of Iraq. Fighting the last war might have looked better under those conditions.
The nature of warfare is changing as fast os the tools, technology, and battlefields are changing. Little wonder to me that old fuckers can't keep up.