Tactical nukes have always been problematic. One can only hope no one ever uses either these or the big guys.
My career (now retired) was in ICBMs with the Strategic Air Command when I started out. Our motto was 'Peace is our profession' ... that kind say's how we felt about it.
I loved every minute of it ... but had it easy in my field. I was an electronics/electro-mechanical systems tech guy and my first assignment was at Vandenberg AFB, where we actually launched Minuteman missiles in test programs. So it was like enlisting straight into a NASA kinda thing. I was there for nine years, then did a year at a 'real' missile wing before I decided to take my skills over to a Minuteman contractor. I always say I lived a charmed life for someone who started out as a poor country boy - LOL. Just short of forty years in the same basic field working my way upwards for the AF, Rockwell International, and the Boeing. I had a blast - pun intended.
It's quite interesting and worthwihle to read the wikipedia article on No first use. The motivations of the states become quite clear, and it does't always align with the talking points as you might expect.
Another layer of nuclear deterrence, maybe.
This, or to improve first-strike capability. Small tactical nukes carried by jets can be deployed from aircraft carriers with minimal radar/heat signitures. If a single jet can take out a an entire air base, or flash-weld enemy silo doors shut, they'd probably go a long way reduce the number of ICBMs that would surely be fired in retaliation.
I thought that headline was sensationalist at first, but the implications are actually terrifying. Though its the jet that's the real new threat. The bomb the same bomb everyone has had for decades, just shaped differently.
Using tactical nukes seems almost a further out concept than letting loose with the big bombs. To use them you would have to be in a really bad battle field situation, and then it may well be against a nuclear power, which would then be an excuse for them to use the big ones, and then what?
Another layer of nuclear deterrence, maybe.