The dangerous new nuclear arms race

- YouTube

Is the world entering a new, dangerous nuclear era? China is expanding its stockpile of nuclear warheads at an alarming rate. Russia continues to rattle its nuclear saber in Ukraine. Even US allies are publicly and privately questioning whether they need their own nuclear deterrent.

On GZERO World with Ian Bremmer and Admiral James Stavridis, former Supreme Allied Commander of NATO, discuss the growing nuclear threat and what we can do to stop it. With new existential threats like AI and bioweapons, the question now isn’t just who gets the bomb. It’s whether systems designed to prevent catastrophe still work in a world where the weapons (and the rules) are changing. The good news is we aren’t yet at crisis point. Stravridis says the best way to counter the growing nuclear risk is to reopen arms limitation talks, modernize military tech and to reinvest in strong alliances, to prevent Russia and China from drawing even closer together.

“People are less trusting of the US as a nuclear umbrella,” Stavridis says, “If nations like Iran and North Korea can obtain nuclear weapons, which one has and the other has been very close, other countries start to think maybe it looks pretty good to get one.”

GZERO World with Ian Bremmer, the award-winning weekly global affairs series, airs nationwide on US public television stations (check local listings).

New digital episodes of GZERO World are released every Monday on YouTube. Don't miss an episode: subscribe to GZERO's YouTube channel and turn on notifications (🔔).

More from GZERO Media

Palestinian children look at rubble following Israeli forces' withdrawal from the area, after Israel and Hamas agreed on the Gaza ceasefire, in Khan Younis, in the southern Gaza Strip, October 10, 2025.
REUTERS/Ramadan Abed

Israel approved the Gaza ceasefire deal on Friday morning, bringing the ceasefire officially into effect. The Israeli military must withdraw its forces to an agreed perimeter inside Gaza within 24 hours, and Hamas has 72 hours to return the hostages.

- YouTube

French President Emmanuel Macron is scrambling to pull France out of a deepening political free fall that’s already toppled five prime ministers in two years. Tomorrow he’ll try again—and this time, says Eurasia Group’s Mujtaba Rahman, the fifth pick might finally stick.

In these photos, emergency units carry out rescue work after a Russian attack in Ternopil and Prikarpattia oblasts on December 13, 2024. A large-scale Russian missile attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure left half of the consumers in the Ternopil region without electricity, the Ternopil Regional State Administration reported.
U.S. President Donald Trump takes part in a welcoming ceremony with China's President Xi Jinping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, November 9, 2017.
REUTERS/Damir Sagolj

China has implemented broad new restrictions on exports of rare earth and other critical minerals vital for semiconductors, the auto industry, and military technology, of which it controls 70% of the global supply.