> it seems like the best move would be to have far fewer nukes than everybody thinks you do.

I don't believe that this is possible if even one nation has a moderately competent intelligence agency. They may not have all the details, but if they have any economic data at all, their analysts can likely napkin-math to within 10% of the actual number. Any actual espionage would just further refine it.

Hell, that's why there's fluoride in the drinking water... just so some Soviet spy couldn't figure out how many we had from fluoride numbers alone.