From a US-China summit in Washington to a funding crisis at the IAEA, September tested the relationships and institutions that help keep nuclear risks in check. The Washington Summit kept the leader-level channel open, but key questions remain about whether this engagement can foster a stable long-term relationship between the United States and China. In our latest Pulse series, Jiang Tianjiao, Andrew Yeo and Kristy Hsu, assessed how Washington and Beijing could institutionalise dialogue, manage strategic competition, and address the concerns of regional allies and partners.

To mark the 30th anniversary of the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), we featured an exclusive interview with Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, on the Treaty’s practical role and enduring global impact. Ahead of the IAEA General Conference, John Carlson and John Tilemann warned that mounting budgetary pressures and the dependence on voluntary contributions risk undermining the agency’s critical safeguards, safety and security work.

North Korea’s expanding nuclear arsenal remains a central concern in our work on the Korean Peninsula. In his commentary, Jun Bong-geun proposed a pragmatic, phased approach to halting this expansion and considered whether a new Trump-Kim summit could bring Pyongyang back to the negotiating table.

As part of our joint project with the Toda Peace Institute, we convened senior experts in Tokyo to examine Northeast Asian threat perceptions, first-strike pressures, and practical approaches to nuclear risk reduction. Complementing this work, two new policy briefs examined critical nuclear risk reduction mechanisms in the Global South. Sanjay Mahindru detailed a formal risk review mechanism for India and C Uday Bhaskar explored how China could translate its Global Security Initiative into actionable measures for strengthening nuclear stability.

We also published five new papers from our Maritime Incidents and Escalation project, analysing the Asia-Pacific’s evolving undersea security environment, with a focus on naval capabilities, anti-submarine warfare, and the growing strategic and escalation risks associated with submarine operations.

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Following the summit meeting between President Xi Jinping and President Donald Trump in Washington DC on 24 September 2026, foreign policy experts Jiang Tianjiao, Andrew Yeo and Kristy Hsu weigh in on the prospects for a “constructive relationship of strategic stability” between the United States and China. They consider how Washington and Beijing can build a framework to institutionalise dialogue and manage strategic competition, while addressing the concerns of US allies and partners, including the implications for Taiwan and the broader regional security environment.

Marking 30 years since the adoption of the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT), Robert Floyd, Executive Secretary of the CTBTO, joins APLN for an exclusive interview on the Treaty’s practical contribution to nuclear non-proliferation and disarmament. He discusses the CTBT’s role within the NPT framework, the importance of a robust global verification system, and how monitoring data is being used across the Asia-Pacific for wider civilian applications, including tsunami early warning.

This interview was conducted by APLN Strategic Risk Reduction Fellow Hree P. Samudra and transcribed and edited by APLN Senior Policy Fellow Dr Tanvi Kulkarni.

The IAEA is facing serious fiscal challenges. John Carlson and John Tilemann show how delayed contributions from major funders, led by the United States and China, are forcing the agency to lean on voluntary extrabudgetary funding to carry out essential work on nuclear safeguards, safety and security. That shift, they warn, risks handing major donors disproportionate influence over the agency’s priorities precisely when the nuclear order is most strained. They call for full and timely payment of assessed contributions and a broader rethink of the “zero-growth” approach that has constrained international organisations for decades.

Jun Bong-geun argues that North Korea’s nuclear buildup cannot be allowed to go unchecked. He examines the Lee Jae Myung administration’s “suspension-reduction-elimination” approach, which prioritises preventing further nuclear expansion in the near-term, while retaining complete denuclearisation as the ultimate objective. For such an approach to work, however, North Korea must first be brought back to the negotiating table. Jun considers that renewed US-North Korea summit diplomacy could secure an immediate nuclear suspension, examining the concessions that Seoul and Washington would need to offer in exchange.

On 22-23 September 2026, APLN co-organised a workshop with the Toda Peace Institute in Tokyo. The policy dialogue brought together senior experts from Japan, South Korea, China, the United States, India, and Russia to examine contemporary regional threat perceptions, identify sources of first-strike pressure, and develop practical policy recommendations for strengthening the nuclear taboo and reducing nuclear risks in Northeast Asia.

In this policy brief from our Advancing Nuclear Failsafe in the Asia-Pacific project, Vice Admiral Sanjay Mahindru, former Deputy Chief of Naval Staff and INS Arihant’s first commanding officer, examines how India can manage the “Always/Never Dilemma” — ensuring that nuclear weapons remain available when properly authorised while preventing accidental, inadvertent or unauthorised use. Drawing on risk-reduction practices in other nuclear-armed states, he proposes a multilayered Nuclear Risk Review Mechanism comprising Doctrinal, Stockpile and Fail-Safe Reviews, and considers how such a mechanism could be tailored to India and contribute to regional deterrence stability.

China’s nuclear arsenal is expanding faster than any other P5 state’s, yet Beijing’s institutional contribution to nuclear risk reduction remains limited. In this policy brief, C Uday Bhaskar argues that China’s own Global Security Initiative (GSI) offers a ready-made framework to close that gap, if it moves beyond principles to operational commitments. He proposes a four-step agenda, from analytical groundwork and confidence-building measures through No First Use norm entrepreneurship to regional safety dialogues, and identifies the Kunming Forum, China’s established Track 1.5/Track 2 platform with South and Southeast Asia, as the place to test and refine these ideas before they enter state policy.

Jamie Kwong assesses why states without nuclear weapons are pursuing naval nuclear propulsion, the legal and technical challenges involved, and the non-proliferation risks associated with these programmes. Bringing Australia, South Korea and Japan into a comparative frame, Kwong looks at how safeguards and fuel choices could shape the development of these programmes, as well as the broader implications for nuclear escalation. The safeguards arrangements these countries negotiate could become reference points for how other non-nuclear-weapon states approach naval nuclear propulsion.

Jennifer Parker assesses Australia’s current and planned undersea warfare capabilities, arguing that the focus on AUKUS and nuclear-powered submarines risks obscuring more immediate capability gaps, including towed-array sonar and specialist anti-submarine warfare expertise. At the same time, Australia is building a broader suite of crewed and uncrewed undersea capabilities, pointing to a significant shift in its approach to anti-submarine warfare. Parker concludes that Australia’s comparative advantage will lie not in any single platform, but in the depth of capabilities it is assembling and its ability to integrate them with allies and partners.

Sanghoe Lee compares the non-SSN anti-submarine warfare (ASW) capabilities of the ROK Navy and Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force, arguing that the key differences lie not simply in the number of assets, but in the infrastructure and institutions supporting them. While South Korea has rapidly strengthened its ASW capabilities, Japan’s longer experience has produced a more deeply institutionalised approach spanning doctrine, intelligence, surveillance and training. Both navies face growing challenges from increasingly capable submarines and shrinking personnel pools, making the effective integration of advanced and unmanned systems into existing operations increasingly important to sustaining ASW readiness.

Dongkeun Lee explores the growing role of nuclear-powered attack submarines (SSNs) in US–China strategic competition, examining how both countries use these platforms to support maritime operations, protect carrier strike groups, and track or counter adversary nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBNs). Comparing current and next-generation US and Chinese SSNs, this paper assesses their evolving capabilities, operational reach, and fleet development, and considers how these factors could shape the future undersea balance in the Asia-Pacific.

Joel Petersson Ivre examines China’s approach to the command and control of its sea-based nuclear forces as the country expands its nuclear-powered ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) fleet and increases its nuclear submarine operations in the Asia-Pacific. He assesses the measures China has in place to prevent accidental or unauthorised nuclear use and considers how the operational demands of a larger SSBN force could affect crisis stability. His analysis highlights the tension between maintaining highly centralised control over nuclear launch authority and providing submarine commanders with sufficient autonomy to respond effectively if communication with China’s political and military leadership is disrupted.