Terrorism under state authority

On international trade, drone attacks, and the dupes who keep defending the indefensible

The allegation that the Kremlin attempted to sabotage airplanes traveling between Europe and the United States is morally shocking. Yet it can scarcely be called "surprising", considering the barbaric way it has made war on Ukraine and the lengths to which it has gone to use asymmetrical means to achieve its ends, in part by threatening Ukraine's friends and allies.

■ By any rational assessment, Russia should have long ago become a productive and peaceful member of the fraternity of nations. It has enormous natural wealth and a historical reputation of scientific achievement, both of which ought to have positioned it well to benefit from trade and peaceful cooperation.

■ But instead, its government has acted not just with belligerence but with reckless, callous hostility to human welfare. And yet there are dupes, tools, and willing agents of that evil who applaud what they choose to see and defend what they should not.

■ There is nothing laudable or admirable about a government that relentlessly terrorizes its neighbors. There is nothing defensible about a regime that literally tries to set fire to global trade. There is nothing friendly or agreeable about a nation that tries to stoke violence to undermine democracy. It's evil. And anyone who seeks power by promising to give in to those tactics should be kept far away from authority in any country that wants to remain free.