Targeting Impunity

Down-sizing Russia's reckless influence

(Russian Tupolev 95MS strategic bomber under attack by Ukrainian drones.)

Impunity is “exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action.” We’ve seen it in group or workplace settings, when someone gets away with actions that bring others down. Parents know it well.

Among nations, accountability is spotty at best. Scotland’s motto is Nemo me impune lacessit (‘no one harms me with impunity’), but the prickly thistle-induced Viking yelp that alerted the Scots was the exception, not the rule.

For its role in the genesis of the First World War — sponsoring Serbian terrorists, first to order a general mobilization — Russia got off scot-free.

After shrugging off allied intervention, the Bolsheviks reassembled an empire, ignored the Versailles treaty to re-arm German militarists and allied with Hitler.