Chapotraphouse

I don't think they would drop a nuke completely unannounced. We would see news about new weapons capabilities, a new precision tactical bomb, possibly not even called a nuclear weapon. It's the old suitcase nuke from Cold War fiction made real. It would be stressed that the bomb is highly contained, tactical, precise, and controllable. This to front run any panic it may cause once detonated. Of course it's a lie. It's just a standard low yield nuke with a brand and marketing. It would be deployed the same as any other bomb. The idea would be to set off a baby nuke, minimizing fallout, and then sending some robots in to assess, followed by troops. This was pretty much the RAND strategy when they were advocating for usage of nukes in common warfare, minus the robots and concern for radiation.