Why has response been so tepid?

Fact: Russia has subjected the United States to a sustained cyberattack intended to influence the most recent presidential election, sow chaos and undermine American trust in its democratic institutions.

Fact: Potential sanctions against Russia — much more severe than those already in place after the invasion of Ukraine — have been overwhelmingly approved by Congress but have not been exercised by the Trump administration.

Fact: The United Kingdom, a key U.S. ally, has come to the conclusion that Russia is responsible for a nerve agent attack on civilians living in the U.K.

Opinion: The current administration’s response both to the cyberattack and the nerve agent assault has been tepid, at best. History may judge it in much harsher terms.

Why?

Set aside, if you can, all of the questions about coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, the Steele dossier and the Muelller investigation, this is a crazy scenario.

The cyberattack is undeniable. The British accusations about the nerve agent attack are credible. And Congress has given the president the tools to take action.

But nothing happens. Why?

The conclusions are just as unsettling as they are inescapable.

In the interest of full disclosure, allow me to admit to some bias here.

Over the past 20 years, I have traveled to the former Soviet Union on numerous occasions to work on independent press development projects in the former republics of the U.S.S.R.

I’ve watched as the pendulum has swung back and forth from democracy and openness to totalitarianism and opacity. I’ve watched friends and colleagues struggle with self-censorship, government harassment and outright repression.

In 2003 or 2004, an editor who had taken part in training seminars in Uzbekistan found himself being badgered by officials there. His intent, he told me, was to produce in his home country a newspaper like the one you hold in your hands. That led to a visit from the powers in charge, ostensibly to check his tax records.

But when the officials left, the editor, Ozod Soliev, was suddenly struck ill — most likely by a nerve agent less powerful than the one used this month in the U.K. — and had to be hospitalized. He recovered, but he had to leave his country to preserve his life.

In 2007, an editor who had taken part in my seminars was shot dead by the Uzbek secret police. Alisher Saipov was based in Osh, Kyrgyzstan, and was publishing an Uzbek language newspaper that irritated the government of the country next door.

That government took action, and Alisher was silenced.

In 2009, sent to Kyrgyzstan to assess the journalism education potential of the American University of Central Asia, I was deported upon arrival in Bishkek and informed that I am now on a blacklist. Chances are I won’t be allowed to enter not just Kyrgyzstan but also Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, Kazakhstan, Armenia, Belarus and Russia.

What put me on the blacklist? In 2005, I had traveled twice to Belarus — the last remaining dictatorship in Europe — to work with independent newspaper publishers there.

My charge, as always, was to help them figure out a way to become sustainable while maintaining their editorial independence from government, political parties and oligarchs.

But that was too much of a threat.

So, you see, this is personal.

I know from first-hand experience what bad actors these guys can be. I know from first-hand experience the damage they’ve done to their own people.

So when Russia starts jerking the U.S. election process around, when it undermines our democracy and adds to the polarization of our electorate, when it is implicated in assassinations on the soil of a U.S. ally, when Congress puts in place the tools for significant retaliation and the Trump administration does nothing, I take it personally.

So would my friends Ozod and Alisher and several dozen others scattered across the post-Soviet map.

I’ll leave it up to you to figure out why this administration is paralyzed in the face of an undeniable threat.

I have my own answer. But I’ll leave it up to you.