To the Editor:

“December 7th, 1941 ... the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked ...” These of course, the words of Franklin Delano Roosevelt in asking Congress for a declaration of war against the Empire of Japan.

As I reflect on this 2022 Pearl Harbor Day, I am wondering to what degree the average American recognizes existential threats to our nation when they are not so sudden, and not so obviously deliberate.

Case in point: The threat from the Russians to the US and its interests is far more dire than just their imperial designs on Eastern Europe. Instead of focusing all our venom on Russia for its actions in Ukraine, Americans would do well to remember Russia’s long game for the undermining of our republic and its influence in Europe.

Let’s go back to 2016. Many remember that Russia’s meddling in our Presidential Election was in favor of a Trump victory. But fewer remember that their strategy was not so overt as to hack into actual voting systems, but rather to steal and strategically release damaging information and create false identities for the dissemination of outlandish conspiracies meant to divide, confuse, and alarm Americans.

What Vladimir Putin surely saw in Trump was a like-minded authoritarian. And what he’d hoped for a Trump presidency was stronger US/Russian cooperation on geopolitical aims, and against common enemies. This new duo of course, would be less democratic and less humanitarian in its world goals and strategies.

It is worthy of note on this day, that such a partnership (if it had developed) would be very anti-UN and anti-NATO. These being the institutions installed in the wake of that very war (and Cold War struggle) that began for us in 1941.

So as you commemorate this Pearl Harbor Day, please also remember that if Americans continue to grow more divided, confused, and alarmed, the Russians are surely winning. This is not only bad news for us, but also for every other nation and people who still see the US as a beacon of hope for the world.

Randi Allen Kiely

Newtown