Yup. I've been saying that for 20 something years. Although I don't agree with our conventional forces being reduced, 1000's of nuclear bombs has always been overkill and enough to kill this planet and possibly Mars (kidding).
We only need 200 nuclear bombs or less on our Tridents and bombers and land-based ICBM's to make China and Russia keep their distance. I know this, because I am an Aviation Sailor of the "Cold War" and dealt with the Soviets every overseas deployment shadowing and chasing us about, and all being on edge. The problem is with the Islamists who don't really care about MAD and survival and who look forward to DYING for their poli/religous insane cult.
Those are the people we need to worry about. Still, if we have 200 viable nukes on multi delivery systems, and the Islamists attacked tomorrow with a nuke, they would be glass (nuke isotopes have a signature and can be traced and they know that), and it would only take a few eliminate them, with about a couple hundred left over to kill China and Russia if they want to jump in, which they won't. China and Russia actually WANT to maintain their new found standard of living, unlike the suicidal Islamists, not to mention I believe they actually care about their children unlike the murderous Muslims.
Think it through. We need only enough strategic and tactical nukes to destroy our Islamist enemies. Our Trident subs have their target packages and everyone in the World knows this, but no one knows where they are on any given day.
The president doesn't even know where they are at any given moment. He relies on the Admirals and Generals to tell him if he needs to push the button. Even the Admirals couldn't tell you the exact coordinates of a Trident this moment. They would have to go through the chain at DOD/NSA and others to find the exact latitude and longitude of our Tridents. Nothing has changed since Bambi soiled our Oval Office. Happy thoughts.
2000, 1000, 500, or 200 hundred nuclear explosions? The entire world would crash even if 5 nukes went off. Think about the economical repercussions.
So, we're okay as far as nukes, if only 200 (think! how many major cities could go 1,000,000 degrees). The problem is about reducing our conventional forces and not being able to project American power when needed in regional conflicts and how that can lead to a major conventional war. THAT is my worry. And that would also have terrible economic consequences around the globe.
Bottom line: I am confident that even if we only had 100 high-yield nukes, that America is safe from nuclear destruction, other than the Islamo-facists setting off nukes on our soil by clandestine means. But again, isotopes can tell you where the fuel came from. You nuke guys tell me if I'm wrong about that.
Second, if you were going to nuke another country, you would use plenty of your nukes to target their nuke sites, so most of their nukes won’t ever be used. You won’t be left with 200 nukes after an attack, if that is all you have.
That blowing up a few nukes, even on big cities, will end civilization is an old KGB myth. Back then, the commies were trying to convince our people that all we had to do was destroy all our nukes, and the peace loving communists would be so impressed by our peaceful ways of love, that they will spontaneously disarm, too, and we will all hug each other and spend the rest of our days eating granola together.
Instead, a nuclear war is quite doable, especially for a dictator. Japanese and German cities were totally destroyed after World War II; a few years later, they had been rebuilt. A dictator has only to be ruthless and evil enough, and this will seem like a viable option to him. The likes of Hitler, Stalin, Mao, perhaps even Assad, would not have any compunction whatever. Not to mention the crazy Islamists.
That is why you can never have enough nukes.
And if they manage to destroy some of our nuclear forces? The entire point to our huge stocks was that russia and china couldn’t fool themselves into believing a first strike could prevent us from retaliating, or that they could come out a winner.