On October 10, 2025, Oppenheimer Project Founder and Co-Executive Director Charles Oppenheimer participated in a luncheon discussion as part of the Chain Reaction 2025: Mobilize. Act. Disarm. event series convened by Ploughshares. Charles was joined by Former Obama administration Deputy National Security Advisor and Pod Save the World co-host Ben Rhodes; Co-President and Co-CEO of Commonwealth Club World Affairs, former U.S. State Department senior advisor, and former Executive director of ploughshares, Philip W. Yun; and journalist and NYT bestselling author, Lesley M.M. Blume.
On October 9, 2025, Oppenheimer Project Senior Director Theo Kalionzes participated in the 2025 Outrider Nuclear Reporting Summit in Little Rock, Arkansas. There, he moderated a panel discussion called “Where nuclear energy and nuclear threats overlap.” This session sought to transcend the traditional separation of the nuclear energy and nuclear risk mitigation conversations by addressing shared security concerns, such as uranium pipeline security, the reprocessing of plutonium, the proliferation of small modular reactors, and opportunities for collaboration between these fields. He was joined by Jessica Bufford, Former IAEA officer, facilitator and expert in nuclear arms control, non-proliferation, security, and safeguards; Joyce Connery, Former chair, Defense Nuclear Facilities Safety, and former director, Nuclear Energy Policy on the White House’s National Security Council; and Cindy Vestergaard, Senior Fellow and Director, Converging Technologies and Global Security program, Stimson Center.
Trump signals interest in Putin’s proposed nuclear arms control pact extension
President Donald Trump said Russian President Vladimir Putin’s offer to voluntarily maintain the New START limits on deployed strategic nuclear weapons “sounds like a good idea.”
Kremlin welcomes Trump’s comments on arms control pact extension
President Putin reaffirmed the offer on Thursday, October 2, noting that Russia and the U.S. could use the one-year extension to work on a possible successor pact.
Beyond the Gigawatts: A Broader Agenda for Nuclear Energy Deployment
In a new report from the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, an international peace and security think tank in Washington, D.C., Carnegie scholars and industry experts lay out a new framework focusing on key challenges inhibiting a broad expansion of nuclear energy. They argue that building robust public support while tackling the challenges of fuel choice, waste management, and potential for proliferation is critical to ensuring durable and sustainable deployment.
Nuclear security expert Sébastian Philippe named MacArthur Fellow
Philippe, an assistant professor at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, has been awarded a 2025 MacArthur Fellowship by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to support his work aiming to reduce the risk associated with nuclear weapons.
Philippines prepares for nuclear new-build
The Philippine Department of Energy has released a comprehensive framework that grants the country’s first nuclear power plant priority dispatch, long-term contracting options, and incentives to accelerate the integration of nuclear energy into the power generation mix.
Podcast of the Week: Lucas
This week, I listened to the new episode of The Trialogue podcast from the Stimson Center. The Trialogue seeks to engage experts from across the political and ideological spectrum, and from every corner of the world about international relations broadly and the pivotal relationship between the United States, Russia and China in particular. In this episode, the host and Russia Program Director, Peter Slezkine, interviewed the world-renowned international relations scholar John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago. They discuss the state of play in the Middle East, East Asia, and Eastern Europe, in addition to the relationship between realism and morality, the nature of the “China threat,” and the origins of “offshore balancing.” Check out the episode here.
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