ares
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The question is, does that response ensure that the enemy's second strike capability is eliminated or minimized?
Depends on which country we are talking about.
In case of USA, Russia ..which have massive nuclear strike assets on land, sea and in the air in upwards of Defcon 3 situations. Such a strike will have no effect at all, on enemies second strike capabilities.
In case of countries like China(and in near future India), which have huge land area and sizable portion of nuclear assets deployed at sea, such a strike will only minimize the enemy nuclear response.
But for countries like Pakistan, which has limited land mass(to deploy nukes) and no sea based, air based strike capability (Nuclear bombers which are in the air for indefinite periods like US B-52s). Such a pre-emptive strike can very well eliminate the country's strike capabilities.
The "other" countries have abandoned this concept, because they rely totally on all-out strikes. With hundreds of nuclear weapons ready for launching, nobody cares for step-wise escalation because the adversary might escalate things a bit too quickly.
Other countries have abandoned the tactical nukes, because
1) You are handing over a nuclear weapon to a common soldiers, who in the heat of battle might use it as per his own accord, without a go ahead from higher ups leading to full scale nuclear war.
2) And because you can not gauge the enemy response.. whether enemy will treat tactical nuclear strike against its forces on tactical level or if he will choose to respond on strategic level.
Pakistan and India are in the same position as USA and USSR were in the early cold-war era. As both countries progress in developing more survivable nuclear weapons and reliable and fast command and controls, the focus of deployment of nuclear weapons will shift from SRBMs to canisterized and mobile IRBMs, SLBMs/SLCMs and ALCMs, ensuring immediate retaliation so that both countries avoid misadventures in future.
Pakistan and India are not exactly following the footsteps of USA and USSR.
See USA unlike Pakistan ensured its second strike capabilities will survive Soviet pre-emptive strikes by introducing SLBMs and long range/endurance nuclear bomber before it decided to introduce battlefield nukes in 60s.