Coup de grâce Coup de grâce A coup de grâce (; French for "blow of mercy") is a death blow to end the suffering of a severely wounded person or animal. It may be a mercy killing of civilians or soldiers, friends or enemies, with or without the sufferer's consent. Examples of "coup de grâce" include shooting the heart or head (typically the back of the skull) of a wounded, but still living, person during an execution or by humanely killing a suffering, mortally wounded soldier, in war, for whom medical aid is not available. In pre-firearms eras the wounded were finished with
The enemy of my enemy is my friend supported undemocratic regimes, such as Mobutu Sese Seko in Zaire, Suharto in Indonesia, and Augusto Pinochet in Chile. The support provided by the Soviet Union towards nations with overtly anti-Communist governments, such as Gamal Abdul Nasser in Egypt, in order to oppose American influence, is another example of "the enemy of my enemy is my friend" as policy on an international scale. The Soviets also backed India to counter both the pro-American Pakistani government and the People's Republic of China (following the Sino-Soviet split), despite the fact that India had a democratic government. Similarly, China, following the split, lent support