Does anyone know if our carriers typically carry tactical nuclear weapons?
If so are they under local command or require the CINC to authorize release? Does anyone know US policy about an identifiable nation, like China, attacking? Is this automatically considered an act of war requiring (a) A heavy military response? (b) An automatin declaration of war by Congress?
Of course it would be considered an “act of war” but as you lose on the non nuclear level in the Pacific theatre, you lose your abiity to project power there and moving up the escalation chain quickly gets you to a point where nuclear weapons may be taking out our allies or our own cities. You don’t want to get to that point.