[gozur88]

>If you look at the list of target nations they include non-nuclear countries (Syria, Iran, etc).

US policy is to respond to non-nuclear WMD attacks with nuclear weapons, and it's a good policy. Because otherwise we would need to develop and maintain large stocks of chemical and biological weapons if the policy was to respond to WMD with the same kind of WMD.

[dragonwriter]

> US policy is to respond to non-nuclear WMD attacks with nuclear weapons

Source? Every policy statement I've seen neither requires a WMD attack to trigger a nuclear response nor commits to respond to WMD attacks with a nuclear response, and in the occasions when US forces have been targeted by non-conventional weapons it has not responded with nuclear weapons.

It seems to me US policy is to generally not to rule in or out the use of nuclear weapons in advance, and to use them if and when it feels the specific circumstances warrant it.

(Though the most recent Nuclear Posture Review [0] both adopted a goal of reaching a state where the use could adopt a “sole use” policy, and explicitly stated a policy of of neither using nor threatening to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-armed states that are parties to an in compliance with the Non-Proliferation Treaty, the former of which would completely and the latter of which does generally conflict with use of nuclear weapons as a general deterrent for non-nuclear WMD attacks.)

[0] https://www.defense.gov/Portals/1/features/defenseReviews/NP... see page ix

[gozur88]

https://www.armscontrol.org/print/1184

>The strategy suggests that the United States might retaliate with a nuclear strike in response to a nuclear, chemical, or biological attack on the United States, U.S. troops, or friends and allies. “The United States will continue to make clear that it reserves the right to respond with overwhelming force—including through resort to all our options—to the use of WMD,” the strategy warns. Previous administrations have made similar statements at various times despite a long-standing policy not to use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear-weapon states unless they attack the United States in alliance with a nuclear-weapon state.

>Neither the threat to act pre-emptively nor to possibly react to a chemical or biological attack with nuclear weapons are novel, but the Bush administration has more openly and frequently discussed these options than its predecessors and has now set them out as official policy.

Sure, that's not the same thing as saying "we will definitely nuke you if you gas us", but you're never going to see something like that in writing because it removes the option of not doing it.

[jwtadvice]

Right, you've just reaffirmed what the parent poster said.

The US reserves the right to use it's nuclear weapons in this way. But in no way is this the unique, most important, or most manifest reservation of nuclear force. Nor is the US bound by policy that it will respond to WMDs this way.

This passage says "We don't rule it out."

It's not accurate to round that up to a representation of policy. The parent responded to this characterization quite well.

[jwtadvice]

That is not the US policy.

The US policy is to use the threat of overwhelming force, nuclear and non-nuclear, for leverage in interstate conflict whatever that conflict may be and whether or not that conflict is a threat to the United States or its persons or just the outcomes it is interested in.

It's possible that nuclear forces could be used in a scenario like you suggest, but to round that up to policy is inaccurate and it is misleading.