The Tomahawk was deployed with nuclear warheads, in several variants, between 1983–2010 or 2013 [0]. As far as I can tell, only the ground-launched variants were consistently advertised as non-nuclear, and that was to comply with the bilateral treaty obligations of the INF [1]—and there was a ground-launched nuclear Tomahawk, too [2], which was destroyed in 1991 when the INF treaty came into effect.
I don't think that there was ever a *unilateral* US aversion to these things. We've fielded large numbers [3] of nuclear-warhead cruise missiles—air-, sea-, and ground-launched, spanning much of the Cold war. We're currently developing a new one right now [4].
Ugh, I was clearly wrong about the Tomahawk, and I don't know why I thought so. It's probably not a believable story for the adversary, so such self-inhibition cannot yield any strategic results anyways.
I don't think that there was ever a *unilateral* US aversion to these things. We've fielded large numbers [3] of nuclear-warhead cruise missiles—air-, sea-, and ground-launched, spanning much of the Cold war. We're currently developing a new one right now [4].
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomahawk_(missile_family)#Vari...
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intermediate-Range_Nuclear_For...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BGM-109G_Gryphon
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Nuclear_cruise_missil... ("Category: Nuclear cruise missiles of the United States")
[4] https://news.usni.org/2024/06/06/report-to-congress-to-on-nu... ("Report to Congress on Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile")