OTOH nuclear weapons decay and we're rapidly losing the tacit knowledge required to make new ones (at least here in the US). If the Test Ban stays in place and is enforced, it may only be a few more decades until we as a species would have to do another Manhattan Project to rebuild them. This takes about 4 years of concerted effort within military and industry, and the only shortcut is the tacit knowledge that nuclear weapons designers can pass on. Maybe WW3 will actually be an "aw hell no" response to some country trying to develop nukes after they're we've lost them.
I'm not sure if you've been reading up on the latest news - but both Russia and the US have been developing and deploying hypersonic nuclear armed missiles. ...capable of circumventing any ABM platforms and delivering precision low-yield nuclear weapons without early warning detection anywhere in the world.
They're totally removing the need for ballistic missiles. These are armageddon weapons because they can be launched without detection, delivered across the world in tens of minutes, and target enemy nuclear silos before they can even launch.
It reminds me of the Hunt For Red October. They're made to start a war.
We have the ability to model nuclear explosions and desings in supercomputer simulations. I don't think it would be difficult to re-engineer nuclear warheads, even if all the original engineers are dead.
