From your LA Times link ... added some references to illustrate this sweeping change already took hold under the Democratic Obama administration.  Creating a fool's world ... using mini-nukes to deter cyber warfare??? Recall the introduction by US-Israel to strike the centrifuges at the Natanz plant in Iran. The hegemon and its dwindling number of allies in an unstable world. The Stuxnet worm succeeded to infiltrate industrial equipment compromised by Siemens build controller.

"Stuxnet 0.5 could spread only by infecting Step 7 project files--the files used to program Siemens PLCs."  

Source: An Unprecedented Look at Stuxnet, the World's First Digital Weapon | Wired - Nov. 2014 | .

The Trump administration outlined sweeping changes in U.S. nuclear strategy Friday, calling for two new types of nuclear weapons and warning for the first time that in "extreme circumstances" the U.S. could use nuclear weapons in response to non-nuclear attacks on infrastructure and civilians.

The strategy, described in a 75-page review released by the Pentagon, constitutes one of the most significant revisions of U.S. nuclear strategy since the Cold War, one aimed at aggressively countering nuclear-armed Russia and North Korea as well as terrorist groups seeking to acquire nuclear arms.

By clarifying potential scenarios when the president might authorize a nuclear attack, officials said, the U.S. was seeking to deter adversaries from conducting large-scale cyber warfare and other non-nuclear but potentially devastating attacks on the U.S. and its allies, a controversial idea that critics said could make nuclear war more likely.

"We must look reality in the eye and see the world as it is, not as we wish it to be," Defense Secretary James N. Mattis said in a statement accompanying the report. "Given the range of potential adversaries, their capabilities and strategic objectives, this review calls for a flexible, tailored nuclear deterrent strategy."

"In no way does this approach lower the nuclear threshold," Mattis wrote. "Rather, by convincing adversaries that even limited use of nuclear weapons will be more costly than they can tolerate, it in fact raises that threshold."  

○ The US as nuclear rogue state. Part I and II by Sirocco - Aug. 2005
○ Obama Russian Reset: Pre-emptive Nuclear Strike Capability
○ UK's PM Theresa May: The Radiant Lady

'Sapere aude'