PRESS CONFERENCE
Ankit Panda, the Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace

11:00-12:00 Tuesday, July 8, 2025
Language: The speech and Q & A will be in English.

Will Japan Go Nuclear? Asia's Changing Security Environment

The day may come when Japan, the world's only target of atomic attack, will seek to acquire a nuclear arsenal of its own. Once seen as unthinkable, such an outcome is now being talked about as never before, and not just in Japan. Calls to acquire atomic weapons are appearing in Germany, South Korea and other longtime U.S. allies, as doubts have arisen about the intentions of nuclear-armed powers like China, Russia and North Korea -- and about the reliability of the American nuclear umbrella.

To talk with us about the possibility of a new era of nuclear proliferation, and the geo-political situation in the world and East Asia more broadly, the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan is pleased to welcome Ankit Panda. The Stanton Senior Fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, Panda is a leading scholar on these issues. His research interests include nuclear strategy, escalation, missiles and missile defense, space security, and U.S. alliances. He is the author of The New Nuclear Age: At the Precipice of Armageddon (Polity, 2025), Indo-Pacific Missile Arsenals: Avoiding Spirals and Mitigating Risks (Carnegie, 2023), and Kim Jong Un and the Bomb: Survival and Deterrence in North Korea (Hurst/Oxford, 2020). Panda is co-editor of New Approaches to Verifying and Monitoring North Korea's Nuclear Arsenal (Carnegie, 2021).

Panda's analysis on North Korean nuclear capabilities has been sought by the United Nations, the U.S. Strategic Command and the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Strategic Forces. Now he has kindly agreed to share his thinking with members of the foreign press in Japan, as we face a new era that could one day soon lead us to a nuclear-armed Japan, South Korea and even Taiwan. Please come to hear what is sure to be a thought-provoking and informative discussion.

How to attend: 
Please register at front@fccj.or.jp with your name, the name of your media outlet, and FCCJ membership number. Doors open 15 minutes before the event.

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Professional Activities Committee