(Henry Kissinger, for instance, made his reputation by preaching this lunatic doctrine in his first book, Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy.) In other words, as with the Iskander-M, the intended target might assume the worst in a crisis, leading to the early use of nuclear weapons. And don’t forget Pakistan, which is developing its own short-range “tactical” nuclear missiles, increasing the risk of the quick escalation of any future Indo-Pakistani confrontation to a nuclear exchange. (To put such “regional” dangers in perspective, a local nuclear war in South Asia could cause a global nuclear winter and, according to one study , possibly kill a billion people worldwide, thanks to crop failures and the like.) As a result, the next president will have to grapple with nuclear weapons issues -- and possible nuclear crises -- in a way unknown since the Cold War era.

Source: Huffington Post November 06, 2016 18:55 UTC