I wrote about the concept of impunity back in August.
I was talking in terms of American politics, but there’s a bigger kind of impunity, nuclear impunity, which Russia is now attempting to deploy.
The idea is that once you have a nuclear weapon you are immune to criticism. You can do whatever you want, kill whomever you want, because if you’re pushed to the brink, you can destroy the world.
North Korea is well known for this. The Kim dynasty can destroy their economy, starve their people, commit all kinds of crimes but South Korea writes it off because they have nukes. North Koreans are now several inches shorter than the people to their south. They suffer from chronic malnutrition. They live in a geographic prison, and no one will help them escape, because the Kims have nukes.
We can’t have effective nuclear non-proliferation with this kind of impunity. It’s too tempting. We know Israel has nukes. We just don’t say so. We know India and Pakistan both have nukes. We’re scared of Iran getting nukes because they might use them against Israel.
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