Jack Kennedy publishes first article as Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists editorial fellow

Jack Kennedy, PhD candidate and research associate at the Hertie School’s Centre for International Security, has published his first article as nuclear risk editorial fellow at the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

Selected for the prestigious year-long fellowship in June 2025, Kennedy will contribute quarterly pieces on nuclear risk to the Bulletin, a leading independent online publication that leverages its website, premium magazine, videos, iconic Doomsday Clock, and events to advance actionable ideas for reducing existential threats.

In his first article, titled “Washington’s neglect of South Korea’s security concerns is a proliferation problem,” Kennedy examines how US missteps and poor policy decisions in recent years – including a US ICE raid on a South Korean-operated battery plant in Georgia, tariff and investment disputes, and Washington’s selective handling of South Korean political developments under both the Trump and Biden administrations – have deepened South Korea’s sense of insecurity. He argues that these dynamics, combined with Washington’s incredible security guarantees, present a nuclear proliferation problem (in this context, the potential for South Korea to develop its own nuclear weapons programme) on the Korean Peninsula.

“A sharp and lasting change in US policy is needed,” Kennedy writes. To deflate Seoul’s nuclear ambitions,

“Washington needs not only to make its commitment to South Korean security credible, but to make clear that it respects its ally and sees it as an equal partner, not as a client state to be economically exploited or used to ‘contain’ China.”

Read the full article on the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists website.