With a friend like this, who needs...?

The old dictum, 'Keep your friends close, your enemies closer,' is meant as shrewd counsel. Yet, Donald Trump's latest signalling to Kim Jong-un - he posted 'Kim Jong Un and I get along GREAT!' last Saturday, along with a photo of the two strongmen at the North Korea-South Korea border in 2019 - risks throwing up unintended consequences.

By ostentatiously courting his North Korean counterpart, America's 'Supreme Leader' has unsettled ally South Korea, which wonders whether the US' latest embrace of its existential adversary leaves it dangerously exposed. Trump's public order to Pete Hegseth to dial down military exercises with Seoul adds further grist to this mill. Europe has already been forced to rethink its intimacy with Washington, bruised by Trump's transactional disdain for Nato.

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Henry Kissinger once quipped, 'It may be dangerous to be America's enemy, but to be America's friend is fatal.' Trump's diplomacy drives the point home. But the truth is that earlier administrations also befriended rogue states in the name of 'strategic necessity'. Post-Cold War US indulgence of Pakistan was a case study in how closeness to Washington for natural allies could corrode rather than strengthen as a result. Trump's overtures to Kim undermine the logic of alliances. If enemies are to be hugged, friends are left wondering whether loyalty is a liability. The wisdom of proximity collapses when proximity itself becomes punishment.

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India, ironically, benefits from this counterintuitive reasoning gone mad. Its relationship with Washington has been increasingly transactional and hedged. Earlier attempts to grow closer have faltered. But, in retrospect, that distance looks prudent. India's arm's-length pragmatism may prove the healthiest posture.