In India and North Korea, the U.S. sees burgeoning ally and old enemy expanding WMD programs

Remember the ancient adage, “The enemy of my enemy is my friend”? Such is the case in the growing coziness between the United States and India. We had been in a frosty relationship with the South Asian nation, primarily because of our mutually supportive commitments with Pakistan—India’s next door neighbor and the biggest threat to their security. Recently, though, India and the U.S. have found each other on the same side, which is to say opposing China and Russia.

With the election of a Russophile president, the United States might be shifting policy relating to the former Soviet republic but, for the time being, both India and the U.S. officially oppose the Kremlin.

For the past couple of years, debate has stirred in New Delhi and throughout India about nuclear weapons and the ongoing hostilities with Pakistan. The controversy centers around suggestions by former defense ministry officials that India could shift away from its “no first strike” nuclear policy. The issue of nuclear weapons use is, of course, extraordinarily delicate. More so, because of the proximity of the belligerents in South Asia, which affords them more options. Rarely, for example, do we hear a nation considering out loud whether they might use smaller nuclear warheads to bolster their chances in conventional warfare, as Pakistan has.

It’s a prime example of the kind of talk that has led India to its own public grumblings. Hopefully, both sides are merely posturing for deterrent’s sake, but it’s unnerving that India has now posited a first-strike scenario as a “preemptive” possibility.

Meanwhile, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un continues his headlong stumble towards a ballistic missile that can deliver a nuclear warhead to U.S. soil. Not that he would actually use it. Power is the god Kim worships, and what he desires most is a seat at the table with Russia, China, and the U.S. Always on his mind, beneath the surface perhaps, is the creeping suspicion that he is inferior to the leaders of those nations. Inferior, maybe, to all other men on Earth.

Clearly, nuclear weapons pose many more problems than they solve. It would be much more cost-effective if, as the United Nations is proposing, they were banned worldwide. Admittedly, that is a big “if.” One can easily imagine a rogue superpower like Russia simply refusing to lay down its nuclear arms. Then, the U.S. would be faced with the unenviable prospect of supporting the U.N. against Russia. At this point, the risk of thereby expediting a third World War is too great. We’ve sunk so low in international diplomacy, that nuclear proliferation has become a peaceful choice.

My upcoming novel, ULTIMATE ERROR, is about the psychopathic mentalities that cannot but focus on the most selfish of ends. Somehow, through their pathologies, they can wholly ignore the effects of their actions on fellow human beings. Every day they remain in power brings us closer to humankind’s ULTIMATE demise.