By FLOYD RUDMIN is Professor of Social & Community Psychology at the University of Tromsø in Norway. It is easy to see why Russia would perceive these events as another super-power preparing to attack Russia. It is perfectly predictable that Russia would react in ways to defends itself, no matter what the costs. It is mental manipulation by historical trigger-words to claim that Putin is “Hitler”, or that Stalin’s “Red Army” again threatens Europe. Because Americans know nothing of Russian history and have no national experience of foreign invasion, they cannot escape the confines of their own Cold War rhetoric. They cannot imagine history seen from a Russian perspective. Europeans, however, know the horror of war on their own territory, and well remember their own history of attacking Russia. In this crisis, it is the European nations who need to stand up and shake the super-power awake before an incident turns into conventional war turns into missile war turns into nuclear war. Those transitions could take 30 minutes. At this moment in human history, the world community has more pressing priorities than re-enacting our historical nightmares. Thanks to Soraya Sepahpour-Ulrich for sharing.
Posted on: Sat, 29 Mar 2014 23:33:57 +0000
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