By Stephen Kinzer, The Boston Globe
REAL ENEMIES ARE a threat to any country, but imagined enemies can be even more dangerous. They sap resources, provoke needless conflicts, and divert attention from true challenges. The United States has constructed such a fantasy by turning Russia into an enemy.

After traveling to Russia for more than 30 years as a “citizen diplomat,” Sharon Tennison isn’t buying the war propaganda intended to demonize Putin and cast us back into a Cold War. Originally a nurse in San Francisco, she has traveled in Russia more extensively than most citizens of that country, taking fellow Americans there to see for themselves, finding future entrepreneurs to bring to the US on scouting trips, spreading the idea of Rotary International, speaking widely in both countries, writing an astonishing memoir called The Power of Impossible Ideas.