This would actually have the opposite intention I believe. Instead of Iran or North Korea wanting to develop several hundred they will now want to build several thousand as well mainly to surpass us.
If we were to announce that we only had 10 nuclear weapons, wouldn’t that actually inspire Ahmadinejad or Kim Jong-il to start bulding more? If they felt they could become a nuclear peer, wouldn’t they try???
What has the United States done beside confirm what everyone suspected; we have a sh!t-load of nukes. Right now we have over 5K that we can launch immediately. Give me a couple of days and we can have a bunch more!
Iran is struggling to attain its first nuke and you’re thinking their goal is to become a nuclear peer? Iran wants nukes so it can become the world power its government feels it should be. They do not want to just dominate the Gulf region, they want to be a world player. They also want to ensure that is Israel were to attack Iran, the response would involve a mushroom cloud. Getting a nuke will give them a seat at the 'Adult Table', so its their goal.
North Korea already has nukes but does not have the capital to produce weapons on a scale to rival the United States. So while they can develop nukes, they do not have the capability to come up to our level.
So, what have we done and why have we done it? The President has stated his goal is a nuclear free world. An admirable goal, but probably unrealistic. If the U.S. wants to continue to wear the white hat and portray ourselves as the good guy, then its beneficial to take the first step and bring these topics out into the open. We’ve now done this, the jury is still out. Let’s see what other nuclear powers do now that we’ve let the other players see what’s in our hand.
So everyone now knows we have 5113 nukes; so what? And other than the occasional ‘oopsie’ moment involving Air Force load teams, we know where they all are.
The bigger fear is how many nukes does the Former Soviet Union have and do they know what they all aire???