I was on team total disarmament for a long time, but now I think very clear no-first-strike policies, limited arsenals, no automated controls, and clear, transparent, and multifactor launch decision chains are the way to go. Nukes are terrifying, but I think it's pretty clear that they have also put a lid on major international conflict. We're not putting the genie back in the bottle... so we may as well put the bottle in a bulletproof glass cage and keep it under heavy guard.

They've put the lid on direct military superpower conflict, so far, with some very close calls.

But there's been plenty of indirect superpower conflict, and in the last couple of decades this has moved into disinfo/infowar and direct cyberwar.

You might think this is less dangerous. But instead of ruined smoking cities you end up with governments run by foreign interests which are hostile to their own populations, supported by extravagant disinfo efforts designed to create confusion, paranoia, fear, and distrust.

That genie is going to be even harder to put back in its bottle.

Even if you can trace a direct line from "nukes preventing global conventional war" to our current mess of misinformation and cyberwar, is taking the lid off a hot war between China and the US (for example) the better alternative?

Lots of nasty viruses are literally inside bulletproof cages and under heavy guard inside high level biocontainment facilities, but there have still been instances where they've gotten out of the lab. (This is not a reference to SARS-CoV-2.)

Any time you're relying on humans not to do something that technically can be done, over a long enough period of time, someone eventually will probably do it. Disarmament puts much larger barriers in place than locking them up and putting walls of red tape around them.

What is the alternative though? Disarm completely except for North Korea and probably China and never knowing for sure that everyone else has totally disarmed?

I think we need to bring nukes right to the front of public consciousness so we can at least have the debate and make some sane policies. I've often wondered if a scheduled, highly public test would shock people into action.

Multilateral disarmament treaties similar to the SALT treaties with the USSR? Maybe at the UN level rather than simply administered by individual countries?

I'm not disagreeing with that in principle, but practically speaking North Korea is not going to cooperate and I doubt there's enough trust between the other nuclear powers for a full disarmament treaty. The second best, and more realistic, option is to make everything very public and transparent... which is really just MAD, but with smaller arsenals.

That sounds like a good way to get a major city nuked.

We already have enough conventional weapons to bomb NK back into the Stone Age, should it be necessary. I'm not sure which other countries you're referring to that are not trustworthy diplomatically, but, IIRC, there are only a handful who have nuclear capability (China, Russia, Israel?, Iran?), and those can be dealt with using existing satellite monitoring capabilities to detect nuclear buildup, and treaty monitoring.

I would much rather reduce arsenals to zero or near zero levels than risk having Jericho happen in my backyard.

So has NK allegedly, at least enough for Seoul and parts near the border in SK.

Sounds good, except that it will never happen.