Ankit Panda | Managed Armageddon

The world is entering a nuclear era with more players, fewer restraints, and a dangerous new confidence that escalation can be controlled. In the opening episode of Season 3, Vladimir Bobetic speaks with Ankit Panda, Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and author of The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon. Can nuclear war begin by mistake? Does the nuclear taboo truly exist if nuclear states plan for nuclear war all the time? Why do US planners still believe such a war can be won, and why might North Korea pose a more immediate danger than countries with much larger arsenals? The conversation also examines China’s nuclear expansion, the collapse of arms control, possible proliferation among US allies, and the risk that autonomous AI systems could become catalysts for a nuclear crisis.