Why Ukraine-Russia conflict matters to Nebraska
OMAHA, Neb. (WOWT) - Nebraska has a stake in the Russia-Ukraine conflict.
“I like to tell people outside of Omaha that we’re not the center of nowhere, but we’re the center of everywhere,” said Dr. Gina Ligon, director of the National Counterterrorism, Innovation, Technology, and Education Center at UNO.
Ligon says those attacks are of high concern to NCITE, a Department of Homeland Security Center of Excellence.
While the world focuses on images of Russian tanks rolling along the border with Ukraine, she says the Heartland should not lose sight of Putin’s ongoing “irregular warfare” and “targeted misinformation campaigns.”
“How are extremists gonna use this narrative to mobilize what kind of misinformation is already out there from both sides to turn us against each other about this?” Ligon said. “And of course the cyberattacks on things that are important to keeping Nebraska going, banks, hospitals, power grids. It’s negative seventeen here today so if that were to go out and we were to lose heat, how would that impact us?”
Dr. Lana Obradovic is an associate professor of political science and director of the Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence at the University of Nebraska-Omaha. Currently researching and leading international projects in Sarajevo, she says we will feel an immediate impact.
As home to U.S. Strategic Command, Nebraskans should understand the severity of any conflict involving two nuclear states.
“I have a lot of sympathy and support for anyone who is working at the U.S. Strategic Command today and any day for that matter,” Obradovic said. “Peace is their mission, after all. They’re the ones who are on the front lines today and every day when it comes to standing up and sending the message to our adversaries, be it China or Russia or Iran.”
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