Nuclear Stability Under Strain | Strategic Stability Briefing - 12/23/25

Over the past seventy-two hours, several developments across multiple regions have quietly added pressure to the global nuclear risk environment.

In this strategic stability briefing, we examine recent events involving China, North Korea, Iran, and the broader erosion of nuclear arms-control frameworks. None of these developments, on their own, change the current DEFCON level — but taken together, they reveal conditions that make future nuclear crises more difficult to manage.

This analysis focuses on long-term risk, deterrence stability, and miscalculation, rather than short-term alarmism.

This is a sober assessment intended to inform, not to sensationalise.

We will continue monitoring how these conditions evolve in future briefings.