Welcome to Nukesletter
Nukesletter is a free newsletter written by me, Ankit Panda, the Stanton senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. I have a more than a decade of experience writing on international security matters with a focus on all things nuclear weapons. I currently live in Washington, D.C., and recently authored a book on the fast-changing global nuclear order. You can order it here.
In this newsletter, my goal will be to help you understand the fast-changing contours of the global nuclear order. I’ll also strive to draw on my expertise to simplify and explain some of the more arcane and technical topics around nuclear weapons.
Who Are You?
My writing has appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Foreign Affairs, and elsewhere. In 2020, my first book, ‘Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea’ was published by Hurst Publishers and Oxford University Press. My second book, ‘The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon’, is out in 2025, courtesy of Polity. Before joining the Carnegie Endowment, I was an adjunct senior fellow at the Federation of American Scientists. I’ve also consulted for various organizations and governments—mostly on matters related to nuclear weapons, arms control, defense, and international security.
I’m editor-at-large at The Diplomat, where I’ve been hosting the Asia Geopolitics podcast since 2014, and a contributing editor at War on the Rocks, where I host the paywalled podcast Thinking the Unthinkable With Ankit Panda. (My first Substack newsletter was written for The Diplomat.) I used to maintain a high-volume Twitter feed—for better and worse—at @nktpnd. I now favor BlueSky at @nktpnd.bsky.social. Many of the ideas in this newsletter will likely germinate on my BlueSky feed.
My full professional biography is available here and my personal website is here. Views expressed in this newsletter are exclusively my own.
What If I Notice an Error?
This newsletter is self-edited, which will mean a lower standard of typographic accuracy than I’d otherwise prefer. Please forgive typos in advance.
If I misstate a fact or you otherwise differ in good faith with my analysis, please do reach out to me directly. I am hoping to feature trenchant reader commentary in subsequent newsletter issues to hopefully encourage something of a community.
