For the first time in half a century, the world is drifting into a nuclear era with fewer constraints and more danger. The old arms control architecture is gone. The United States is modernizing its arsenal, Russia is making explicit nuclear threats, and China is expanding rapidly and in secret. Each development is destabilizing on its own. Together, they make a world in which the nuclear threat risks escalating faster than diplomacy can contain it. In episode one of the series, Jane Perlez and  New York Times White House and National Security Correspondent David Sanger lay out the stakes. How did we get to a world with crumbling nuclear guardrails? And what might happen next? 

Sanger explains why nuclear weapons are back: how the Biden White House scrambled to respond to Vladimir Putin’s threats to use the nuclear option against Ukraine, what the war in Iran and North Korea’s arsenal signal to nuclear-curious nations waiting in the wings, and whether it is ever possible to wage a “limited nuclear war.” They also discuss how AI and cyberwarfare will transform the future of our arsenals. As nuclear weapons return to the public eye, we must ask: is the world inching toward another nuclear conflict?

Reading Recommendations:

New Cold Wars by David Sanger on the current global tensions.

At The Brink by William Hennigan. A brilliant series of articles by the New York Times opinion writer on the state of nuclear weapons. 

Nukesletter, an email newsletter written by noted international expert on nuclear weapons, Ankit Panda. Subscribe here to receive future issues.

Face-Off is produced and reported by Jane Perlez. Our production team is Nina Porzucki, Louise Morris, and Frank Zhou. Sound design and mixing by John Myers and Rowhome Productions.

This project is made possible by the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Managing the Atom Project. Our special guest is Professor Matthew Bunn, Faculty Chair of the Managing the Atom Project (@matthew-bunn.bsky.social).

Face-Off is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions. Rowhome's Creative Director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is Rowhome's Executive Producer.

Episode Art Image Credit: U.S. Department of Energy. Image Caption: Overseas Operation Ivy, at a height of approximately 12,000 feet, 50 miles from the detonation site.

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The nuclear age began in secrecy and scientific ambition. The story is familiar, but its implications have never left us. Face-Off: Nuclear Anarchy is an 8-part series tracing the arc of nuclear danger. 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?

This season, we take you back inside the Manhattan Project and a decimated Hiroshima in the hours after the blast. We retrace the Cuban Missile Crisis and the abandonment of the New START treaty with a Pulitzer Prize-winning historian and the State Department decision-makers in the room. We follow China’s rapid expansion, Russia’s threats, Ukraine’s lost deterrent, and the outliers challenging the world’s nuclear order.

In each episode, Pulitzer-winning journalist Jane Perlez interviews leading participants in the nuclear conversation: David Sanger, Tong Zhao, Rose Gottemoeller, Alex Wellerstein and more. Plus, Harvard Kennedy School Professor Matthew Bunn joins for a wrap-up segment to put everything in context. Episodes out every Tuesday in October & November 2026. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

This project is made possible by the Belfer Center at the Harvard Kennedy School and the Managing the Atom Project. Our special guest is Professor Matthew Bunn, Faculty Chair of the Managing the Atom Project (@matthew-bunn.bsky.social).

Face-Off is produced and reported by Jane Perlez. Our production team is Nina Porzucki, Louise Morris, and Frank Zhou. Sound design and mixing by John Myers.

Face Off is produced in partnership with Rowhome Productions. Rowhome’s Creative Director is Alex Lewis. John Myers is Rowhome’s Executive Producer.

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As this episode is published - on April 21, 2026 -  it’s far from clear which direction the war between the US and Iran is headed. Even so, America’s reputation around the world is in decline, to say the least.

Trump is unrestrained.  He’s invaded Venezuela. Started a war like no other with Iran. Soured relations with traditional US allies in Europe. And not to mention the heavy tariffs he’s imposed across the globe. 

Trump and Xi Jinping are supposed to meet in a delayed summit in Beijing this spring. What is Beijing thinking? How might China capitalize on this very rocky moment?

With so much at stake, we turn to someone who has often been at the forefront of diplomacy: Nicholas Burns, the former US Ambassador to China under President Biden.

Our conversation was recorded on April 10th, which is important to note as the news is moving fast, very fast. 

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Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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In this episode, we take you inside the Chinese internet. 

China is currently home to the world's most sophisticated, far-reaching internet censorship regime. Chinese censors are trained to comb the web for off-limits words and phrases. Offending posts often disappear into thin air. And entire US-based platforms like Google, Youtube, Instagram, and Amazon, not to mention the New York Times are all banned.

But it’s one thing to talk about the regime and another to live under it. That’s the subject of a great new book, The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet by Yi-Ling Liu.  Yi-Ling is an American reporter based in Hong Kong. 

So today on Face-Off, we hand over the mic to our Associate Producer Frank Zhou for a fascinating conversation with Yi-Ling Liu. 

Guest: Yi-Ling Liu, Writer & Editor covering AI and Chinese society

Further Reading:

The Wall Dancers: Searching for Freedom and Connection on the Chinese Internet  https://www.yi-lingliu.com/the-wall-dancers

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Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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This week: China and Iran. 

The two countries have close ties and, yet, while China initially condemned the US-Israeli war on Iran, the Chinese government has stayed mostly quiet even as the bombing continues. 

Meanwhile the Iranian government is doubling down on this friendship. As of this taping,  Iran has opened up the Strait of Hormuz to Chinese ships.

To learn more about what this all means, Jane interviews Yun Sun, a Senior Fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington where she focuses on China’s relations with other authoritarian regimes. In her most recent article in Foreign Affairs - entitled “Why China Won’t Help Iran” - she points out that China is Iran’s most important partner in the Middle East. But she questions, how important is Iran to China? 

Guest: Yun Sun, Senior Fellow & Director of the China Program, Stimson Center 

Further Reading:

Why China Won’t Help Iran by Yun Sun, Foreign Affairs: https://www.foreignaffairs.com/china/why-china-wont-help-iran

***PLEASE TAKE OUR AUDIENCE SURVEY*** It only takes a minute and will help guide the future of Face-Off: https://bit.ly/faceoffsurvey

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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In this episode, Journalist Barbara Demick talks with Jane about her latest book Daughters of the Bamboo Grove. It’s the story of Chinese twins separated as toddlers. One twin grows up with her family in rural China. The other twin is adopted by an American family in Texas. It’s a haunting, moving narrative about the harsh repercussions of the One-Child policy, and the realities of life in rural China and rural America.

Barbara and Jane know each other from their time together as reporters in China. They both lived in Beijing - Barbara the bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times, Jane the bureau chief of the New York Times. Jane thought of her as one of the bravest reporters - always fearless and open to getting the stories of real people. 

Daughters of the Bamboo Grove is another example of her excellent reporting and her unique ability to shine a light on the lives of ordinary people.

Guest: Barbara Demick, author & journalist, former bureau chief in Beijing for the Los Angeles Times 

Book Recommendations:

Daughter’s of the Bamboo Grove by Barbara Demick

*Also, we want to hear from you! We have a listener survey that takes less than a minute and we would love to hear your thoughts. Fill out the survey here: https://bit.ly/faceoffsurvey

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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We’re back! We’ll be publishing five brand new episodes of Face-Off bi-weekly starting today. In this episode, we welcome back Zhou Bo, a retired colonel in the People’s Liberation Army. 

Xi Jinping has unleashed a massive purge of the Chinese army, the biggest since the early days of Communist China. Nearly three dozen senior generals have been demoted or disappeared. Almost all have been accused of corruption. Then this past January the most senior general, General Zhang Youxia, essentially Xi Jinping's number two in the army, disappeared. 

No-one outside of China, and not many inside China, seem to know what’s going on. There's a reason the Chinese military is known as a black box. 

With Colonel Zhou, Jane discusses everything from Greenland to Taiwan to China’s military strength in the South China Sea. 

Guest: Zhou Bo, Retired Senior Colonel in the People’s Liberation Army

Book Recommendations:

Should The World Fear China by Zhou Bo

China’s Quest for Military Supremacy by Joel Wuthnow and Phillip Saunders

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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Jensen Huang built the company that powers the AI revolution—and he's playing both Washington and Beijing. The Taiwan-born Nvidia CEO holds the keys to artificial intelligence. But whose side is he really on? Inside the rise of tech's most important power broker.

Guest: Tripp Mickle  New York Times Tech Reporter

Book Recommendations 

The Thinking Machine: Jensen Huang, Nvidia and the World’s Most Coveted Microchip by Stephen Witt. 

After Steve by Tripp Mickle 

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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As Trump trashes American soft power, can China fill the void? A top Chinese academic explains why Beijing struggles to win hearts and minds and why being feared isn't the same as being loved. Plus: How American influencers are going viral in China.

Guest:  Da Wei, Professor, Tsinghua University

Book Recommendations 

Sparks: China’s Underground Historians and their Battle for the Future by Ian Johnson

Other Rivers: A Chinese Education by Peter Hessler

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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High-seas drama as Chinese warships hunt Filipino fishing boats in their own waters. Beijing is testing America's oldest Pacific ally with dangerous games of maritime chicken. With Philippine politics in flux, can Manila hold the line or will China fracture another US alliance?

Guest: Marites Vitug, Filipino Journalist & Author, editor-at-large for Rappler and chair of the Journalism for Nation Building Foundation

Reading Recommendations 

Rock Solid: How the Philippines Won Its Maritime Case Against China by Marites Vitug

The U.S. and China Are One Misstep Away From War by Chris Rosenbach and Chris Li
Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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The strangest geopolitical deal you've never heard of: Australia trades rugby league spots for an agreement not to make an agreement with China. Papua New Guinea's players get to compete Down Under and in return, China gets locked out of a strategic Pacific island. Sports diplomacy at its most serious.

Guest: Oliver Nobetau, Papua New Guinea Government Lawyer & Fellow at the Lowy Institute

Book Recommendations

Lost In Shangri-La: A True Story of Survival, Adventure and the Most Incredible Rescue Mission of World War 2 by Mitchell Zuckoff

If you are looking for other interesting books about China, do check out the China Books Review section of the Asia Society webpage at https://chinabooksreview.com/

Face-Off: The U.S. vs. China is produced in partnership with ⁠Rowhome Productions⁠.

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