Subway killings in Russia send a variety of messages

The subway explosions in Moscow that left at least 39 people dead are a reminder that no nation is immune to terrorism and that the amount of time that elapses after a terrorist attack is not an indicator of safety.

Six years of relative quiet were shattered in Moscow Monday when two women suicide bombers set off explosive devices they were wearing that were packed with shrapnel to do the greatest amount of damage.

We understand that people die when the spirit of independence or nationalism in a rebel movement is confronted by a sophisticated and well-armed counterinsurgency. That’s what’s been happening in the Northern Caucasus, where Russia thought it was winning the war against separatists. The declaration a few days ago by Ramzan Kadyrov, the Kremlin’s strongman governor in Chechnya, that, “We have been able to break the spine of terrorism,” was both premature and a virtual invitation to rebels to prove him wrong.

Two women proved him wrong and set off a political debate in Russia about official hubris, nonchalance and incompetence.

Terrorize and destabilize

To the extent that all terrorism is meant to destabilize the ruling government, the subway bombers may have achieved their ends. The opposition accused Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his hand-picked presidential successor, Dmitry Medvedev, of ignoring warning signs. For their part, Putin and Medvedev vowed to track down the masterminds of the attack and restore a sense of safety. That led other opposition party members to warn that Putin and Medvedev might play on the fear of people to pursue more repressive measures.

When tragedy strikes, political calculus and posturing is never far behind.

What we don’t understand is how a person — man or woman — straps on an explosive device and walks into a crowded subway station, looks around at the anonymous men and women going about the business of going to or from work and then blows up everyone in sight. How does someone become so connected to a cause and so disconnected from the rest of humanity that he or she does that?

It’s a question that every nation must ask itself because any nation, whether it has been struck by terrorists before or not — is in danger.

The United States has suffered through the greatest single terrorism attack in history, but terrorists have struck in Russia before, in Great Britain, Spain, Israel, and always in a way in which determined terrorist movements were able to kill innocent civilians by the scores or hundreds, and then go underground for years before striking again.

Every nation must remain alert, protecting itself as best it can against the next attack, without surrendering its heritage as a free society the way the suicide bomber surrenders his or her humanity.