Face Off: Nuclear Anarchy?
The nuclear age began in secrecy and scientific ambition.
The story is familiar, but its implications have never left us. A bomb created in a moment of wartime urgency became the foundation of a global order defined by terror and deterrence. But what happens when that global order breaks down?
Today, the old nuclear order is fracturing. Arms control is dead. China quietly expands its arsenal. Russia threatens nuclear use. And the United States embarks on a $1.7 trillion modernization program. And AI is on the rise.
Face-Off: Nuclear Anarchy? is a new podcast tracing the arc of nuclear danger from the Manhattan Project to today. Over eight episodes, we take you inside a Soviet nuclear submarine, a classified nuclear war game, a Ukrainian missile factory, and a missile themed stadium show in North Korea. We talk to the most important voices and power brokers: a Hiroshima bomb survivor, a former deputy Secretary of State, a U.S. nuclear treaty negotiator, the former foreign minister of Ukraine, and more.
Episodes of Face-Off: Nuclear Anarchy? drop every Tuesday in October and November 2026.
About Face Off: Nuclear Anarchy?
Face-Off is an award-winning podcast originally focused on US-China geopolitical competition.
Season 4, Nuclear Anarchy?, marks a bold pivot: eight episodes tracing the arc of nuclear danger from the Manhattan Project to the shattering of the nonproliferation order today.
Episodes of Face-Off: Nuclear Anarchy? drop every Tuesday in October and November 2026.
About the Hosts
Hosted by JANE PERLEZ, Pulitzer Prize-Winning Journalist
Jane Perlez spent four decades as a foreign correspondent at The New York Times, serving as bureau chief in Beijing, Islamabad, Nairobi, and Warsaw.
She is currently a fellow at the Belfer Center, where Face-Off is produced.
Featuring MATTHEW BUNN, Professor at the Harvard Kennedy School
Matthew Bunn is the James R. Schlesinger Professor of the Practice of Energy, National Security, and Foreign Policy at Harvard Kennedy School, and Co-Principal Investigator of the Project on Managing the Atom at the Belfer Center. A leading voice on nuclear security, nonproliferation, and arms control, Bunn previously advised the White House Office of
Science and Technology Policy.
About Each Episode
Episode 1: The New Nuclear Age: No Limits, No Treaties The world is drifting into a less constrained nuclear era as the old arms control architecture collapses. Jane Perlez and New York Times Correspondent David Sanger explore what comes next.
Episode 2: The Race to Build the Bomb To understand the world we live in now, we must understand how it began. Nuclear Historian Alex Wellerstein takes Jane Perlez back to the bomb's origins and the global order it created.
Episode 3: Thirteen Days on the Brink In October 1962, Washington and Moscow confronted each other over Soviet missiles in Cuba—the moment the world came closest to nuclear war. Jane and Harvard Professor Frederik Logevall examine what prevented catastrophe.
Episode 4: The Age of Arms Control There was a time when nuclear powers negotiated to slow the arms race and reduce catastrophic risk. Rose Gottemoeller, US Negotiator for the New START Treaty, discusses how these agreements are forged and what their collapse means.
Episode 5: Ukraine's Lost Deterrent When Ukraine gave up its nuclear arsenal in 1994 for security guarantees, it made a bet on the post-Cold War order. Jane Perlez speaks with former Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba about disarmament, betrayal, and consequences.
Episode 6: The Outliers Iran and North Korea challenge the nonproliferation order in fundamentally different ways. Jane Perlez explores both cases with Wendy Sherman, US Negotiator for the JCPOA.
Episode 7: China's Rapid Escalation China is building up its nuclear forces at unprecedented speed, largely hidden from public view. Chinese Nuclear Expert Tong Zhao joins Jane Perlez to examine one of the era's most consequential strategic shifts.
Episode 8: Today's Dangerous Dance with the Atom As confidence in the old order collapses, more countries have the technical capacity to build nuclear weapons. Francesca Giovannini, Executive Director of Harvard's Managing the Atom project, explores what a more crowded nuclear world means.