Assessing Nuclear Threats in the 21st Century
Abstract: The war in Ukraine, the India-Pakistan conflict in May 2025, and military competitions in Northeast Asia have raised the alarm about ‘nuclear threats.’ But how should decisionmakers and citizens distinguish serious nuclear threats that demand countervailing action, from nuclear threats that are mere noise aiming to manipulate nuclear anxiety without a serious threat? The less precise our nuclear discourse, the more fear nuclear manipulators can elicit. The challenge, or imperative, is to judge correctly in real time whether and when a decisionmaker is really on the verge of ordering nuclear detonations.
George Perkovich is the Japan Chair for a World Without Nuclear Weapons and a senior fellow in the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Nuclear Policy Program. He works primarily on nuclear deterrence, nonproliferation, and disarmament issues, and is leading a study on nuclear signaling in the 21st century. He is co-author of the forthcoming Rethinking A Political Approach to Nuclear Disarmament.
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