But with a fraction of the nukes, which is the actual big stick part of NATO
A lot of that is because rest of NATO is under US umbrella. Not like nukes are high tech at this point. Most of Europe could get nukes real fast if they wanted, but everyone has been better served by it being to many Nuclear Powers up to this point
It took two nukes for Japan to wave the white flag. Do we really need 5,000+ nukes for anything? France has 290 and UK has 225. Thats enough to wipe one or multiple countries clean off of the map without any form of surrender.
Yes, antimissile systems will shoot down most of your missile volley, so you need to launch enough that they become overwhelmed and the few that make it through accomplish your goal.
We don’t know exactly how much “most” is, but its enough that the powers that be consider our current level of armament to be necessary.
Shooting down a nuclear icbm doesn’t really help as much as you think, if it catches it.
Not to mention the atmosphere lighting up wouldn’t be much better
