It wasn’t just the number of warheads tho. It was they knew it meant they couldn’t really threaten us with their nukes.
For example, nukes are neither 100% accurate nor 100% reliable. There were targets like hardened bunkers that HAD to be destroyed in the event of a nuclear war.
So say a nuke has a 75% chance of destroying it’s intended target. How many nukes are required to get the destruction of the target to 99.998%?
Quite a few. The Soviet leadership saw our warhead numbers and they had pretty good ideas of accuracy (they’d park dedicated tracking ships near our missile tests to capture telemitry, which we did to them too)
They knew that we had the capability to end them. Not just crush their nation but also incinerate them, personally, in their “nuke proof” bunkers. Because we’d drop enough nukes on each bunker to ensure that at least one made a big hole on top of all their bunkers, and at least one other would hit inside those big holes.
As we reduce our nuclear weapons counts, I think about the things you mention here.
I also consider missile shields, and don’t like the idea we’re reducing our warheads to the point that it could become problematic.
What’s your take on that?