North Korea has a successful nuclear weapons program now. The nuclear club has officially widened. United States, Russia, China, France, United Kingdom, India, Pakistan, Israel, and now North Korea. Iran could become a new member.
I shudder, as I step into the void of cold hard impact calculus.
Now we have two scenarios that would change the history of the world drastically forever. N- denotes Nuclear countries:
Nuclear war in Asia- China(N)/ North Korea(N) vs. South Korea, Japan (N, can make them within a year if they needed to, and US would give them nukes if needed, but moral issues are extremely interesting for the Japanese), Taiwan (possible N), US(Largest amount of Nukes in the world)
In that scenario world destruction is basically immediate, because China can nuke US, US turn China into a parking lot, and the radiation destroys the environment even faster than Bush currently is. The one wild card in this scenario is Russia, with its huge nuclear capability and its bargaining power in all the countries in the scenario. A India-Pakistan conflict is also a huge part of the impact calculus here.
Nuclear war in the Middle East- Iran (N)/ Syria/ All Terrorists vs. Israel (N), US (N)
This scenario is vastly more complicated. Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Jordan, Pakistan. China. Russia. What will they do. I'm not even going to speculate. Fortunately, I have no deep understanding of such intricate power politics in the Middle East. Gladly. But anyway,
Because of the massive globalization of the world, countries' decisions impact the entire world, rather than just their region.
The current state of the world revolves around 3 hotspots, the Middle East, China-North Korea-Taiwan, and India-Pakistan. Middle East is permanently hot. the others flare up, scaring the world until some sort of return to status quo is reached. Until recently, it could not be believed that the three could be so thoroughly interconnected.
Read "Executive Orders" by Tom Clancy to see how closely related the 3 areas are.
Iran and China are only separated by Afghanistan, where our soldiers just happen to be. Pakistan borders both Iran and China. India has often been involved in border skirmishes with China. North Korea has shared nuclear and missile technology with Iran. Russia is deeply involved in all 3 areas, each for different reasons.
What all this shows is the makings of a massive power struggle in Asia, especially with populations skyrocketing and extremism with it. Add nuclear weapons to the mix, 50 years from now Asia, and quite possibly the world, might not be recognizable to the people of 2006.
But luckily for all our leaders, they'll be dead- from natural causes- by then, so they won't have to deal with it! Oh wait, my generation will. Thanks, we really appreciate it. You're previous generation gave you the Cold War, and now you've given us this. Gratias tibi ago.