What an odd situation, where we can applaud "the transparency" (and I do, honestly) while the US is also simultaneously cheerfully delivering a public reminder that "we have more than enough to absolutely annihilate anyone and everyone... so don't fuck with us."
Most of the stockpile remains or grows solely due to senators from colorado, Wyoming and montana who host the ground based strategic nuclear arsenal. Force reduction would mean lost jobs and revenue.
At least the transparency can start a discussion hopefully.
Probably not. The US nuclear triad is very well known and doesn’t rely on exact numbers. It isn’t like Russia would think “maybe they decommissioned all their SSBN nuclear subs and we are in the clear” until they saw the yearly numbers. The point is that we already have plenty enough to obliterate any nation on earth in either a first or second strike. The arms reduction treaties and transparency have always been to reassure war hawks that we still have plenty to kill everyone, so we don’t need to spend money making more and risk an accident.
If you want to saber rattle, you test new systems like hypersonic missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads. Or you perform “military exercises” to show how capable and/or stealthy your nuclear subs and bombers are.
Not necessarily. That's the entire point of US American nuclear weapons.
Edit: Unexplained downvotes are hopefully for my unclear wording. MAD is the doctrine of the US, but other places have doctrines ranging from "don't disturb our geopolitical sacred cow" to "escalation in armed conflict." Obviously there's reason to wonder whether everyone, pushed hard enough, would resort to nuclear weapons (an important consideration before putting an enemy on 'death ground'), but having stated policy that the weapons are not on the table is better than a stated policy that use would be justified “… also in the case of aggression against the Russian Federation with the use of conventional weapons, when the very existence of the state is put under threat”, as Putin signed in 2020.
