Using strategic to specify long-range nuclear weapons is quite common among both military members and civilians. For the first time, all of America's strategic bombers, missiles, and submarines are under one commander. Here, the report clearly uses strategic to refer to long-range nuclear weapons. On the other hand, the term is also used to define location or distance, as with strategic and tactical airlift. As opposed to tactical operations, strategic operations are designed to have a long-range, rather then immediate, effect on the enemy and its military forces.
Many words have multidefinitions.
The different definitions for strategic within a military context can be traced to the two major military theorists of the Napoleonic era, Carl von Clausewitz and de Antoine Henri de Jomini. 4 Since Clausewitz obviously never saw nuclear weapons, it appears that his theoretical perspective would prevent him from classifying any weapon, location, or distance as strategic. Jomini, on the other hand, had a more quantifiable definition. Selection of the objective point, whether offensive or defensive. The strategic fronts, lines of defense, and fronts of operations.