Managing Risks in a Multipolar Nuclear World

Humanity faces three catastrophic, if not existential, threats—a pandemic, climate change, and nuclear war. In 2020, the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has precipitated a global disruption, while the harbingers of climate change have been manifest in unprecedented extreme weather, wildfires, and polar melting. In contrast, the nuclear threat does not similarly command attention through disruption of our daily lives. Yet a nuclear event would be a global game changer—and the risks of that have risen to their highest level since the Cuban Missile Crisis.

In his latest book, Managing Nuclear Risks, Dr. Litwak, critically assesses the heightened risks across the three major nuclear categories: relations among the existing nuclear-weapon states, the possible proliferation of nuclear weapons to additional states, and nuclear terrorism.

Robert S. Litwak is senior vice president and director of international security studies at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars. Dr. Litwak is also a consultant to the Los Alamos National Laboratory. He served on the National Security Council staff as director for nonproliferation in the first Clinton administration. He was an adjunct professor in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and has held visiting fellowships at Harvard University's Center for International Affairs, the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the Russian Academy of Sciences, and Oxford University. Dr. Litwak is author of Rogue States and U.S Foreign Policy and Outlier States: American Strategies to Change, Contain, or Engage Regimes. He is a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.