George Perkovich is the Japan chair for a world without nuclear weapons and vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, overseeing the Technology and International Affairs Program and Nuclear Policy Program. He works primarily on nuclear strategy and nonproliferation issues; cyberconflict; and new approaches to international public-private management of strategic technologies.
He is the author of the prize-winning book, India’s Nuclear Bomb (University of California Press, 1999), and co-author of, Not War, Not Peace? Motivating Pakistan to Prevent Cross-Border Terrorism (Oxford University Press, 2016). Perkovich’s short-form writing has appeared in leading international journals and newspapers. He has advised many agencies of the U.S. government, and testified before both houses of Congress. He has been a member of the National Academy of Science’s Committee on Arms Control and International Security, the Council on Foreign Relations Task Force on Nuclear Policy, and was a principal adviser to the International Commission on Nuclear Nonproliferation and Disarmament, a joint initiative of the governments of Japan and Australia. He served as a speechwriter and foreign policy adviser to Senator Joe Biden (D-Del.) from 1989-90.
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As the U S. and China develop new weapons systems and enhance their nuclear arsenals, what steps should they take to reduce the risk of nuclear conflict? George Perkovich explores a path toward de-escalation and argues that presidential-level dialogue to clarify each state's strategic perspective will be vital for reducing the risk of nuclear conflict.
U.S.-China relations have deteriorated to the point that war is a possible outcome. What strategic options exist for the next U.S. president on China? And what pathways exist towards more positive bilateral relations by 2035?
It has become difficult to imagine how Washington and Beijing might turn their relationship, which is so crucial to the future of world order, toward calmer waters. If there is to be any hope of doing so, however, policy experts need some realistic vision of what those calmer waters might look like.
Before jumping on the proliferation bandwagon, policymakers in Washington and Seoul should consider five critical questions that are being ignored today. The answers to these questions suggest that the imagined benefits of friendly proliferation do not clearly outweigh the risks.
As Russia, China, and the United States build new nuclear weapons systems, the prospects for negotiating formal arms control treaties appear dim. The Biden administration continues to explore and support new pathways to manage nuclear risks, but Moscow and Beijing have thus far refused offers to substantively engage. Please join us for a discussion of the present and future of nuclear arms control.
Great power competition between the United States and both Russia and China, the return of war and nuclear threats to Europe, and the emergence of new technologies have created a turning point in Germany. In Berlin, policymakers are discussing potential adaptations to Germany's nuclear policies.
In 1994, Ukraine relinquished Soviet nuclear weapons. Since Russia’s 2022 invasion, critics have asked– was Ukraine’s decision to denuclearize a mistake? Would nuclear weapons have deterred Russia? What lessons does the Ukraine case impart for other states that might contemplate nuclear possession?
Nuclear and nonnuclear missile capabilities are quickly spreading the Indo-Pacific. What is driving this surge, and what are the consequences for possible nuclear escalation in future crises on the Korean Peninsula and in the Taiwan Strait? Join Carnegie for an event addressing this and more.
Most nuclear states are undertaking modernization campaigns to ensure their nuclear weapons are viable for decades to come. While aimed to address a changing geostrategic environment, do these plans account for a changing geophysical environment? Are nuclear weapons vulnerable to climate change?
Carnegie India is hosting a public talk by George Perkovich on “Cyber Warfare Following the War in Ukraine” on 24 March 2023.
