The Nuclear Table

As doubts grow about Washington’s commitment to European security, is Europe rethinking its reliance on the American nuclear umbrella?In this episode of The Nuclear Table, I’m joined by Emmanuelle Maitre, Senior Research Fellow at the Fondation pour la Recherche Stratégique (FRS) in France, to explore the changing transatlantic security relationship, France’s role in European nuclear deterrence, and what greater European strategic autonomy could mean for the future of European defense.

Of all the existential threats humanity faces, nuclear weapons may be the easiest one to solve, because they are a human-made political problem.Ambassador Alexander Kmentt, one of the key figures behind the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW), joins The Nuclear Table to discuss why we are already in a nuclear arms race, why deterrence is riskier than it looks, and what the failure of another NPT Review Conference means for the future of the nuclear order.The views expressed by Ambassador Kmentt are his personal views and do not represent the official position of the Austrian Foreign Ministry.

North Korea is no longer the country the international community was dealing with two decades ago. Its nuclear capabilities continue to develop, its relationship with Russia has deepened, and Pyongyang has become increasingly confident in navigating its relationships with the major powers. In this episode, Dr. Ian Fleming Zhou speaks with Michael MacArthur Bosack, founder and researcher at the Parley Policy Institute and a former U.S. military officer and diplomat who spent nearly seven years working with the United Nations Command Military Armistice Commission on the Korean Peninsula. We discuss North Korea’s nuclear status, strategic autonomy, its evolving relationships with Russia and China, the risks of misreading Pyongyang’s behaviour, and whether it is time to think beyond denuclearization toward arms control, risk reduction and a broader approach to peace on the Korean Peninsula.

China is expanding its nuclear forces but what is actually driving that change?In this episode of The Nuclear Table, I sit down with Dr Tong Zhao, Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and one of the leading experts on China's nuclear strategy, to discuss Beijing's strategic thinking, North Korea, missile defence, strategic stability, and the future of U.S.-China arms control.

In this episode of The Nuclear Table, Darya Dolzikova joins Dr. Ian Fleming Zhou to unpack the Iran-US-Israel crisis through the lens of nuclear risk, escalation, and counterproliferation. The conversation explores why military strikes rarely eliminate nuclear capability, what “being close to a bomb” actually means, the limits of sanctions and diplomacy, nuclear latency and hedging, and whether current developments could reshape how states think about deterrence and proliferation. The episode also examines the risks of targeting safeguarded nuclear facilities and what this crisis means for the future of nuclear governance and strategic stability.