Perspectives

Historical perspective

Arnold Schwarzenegger’s speech “This is an illegal war” discusses the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This invasion is an escalation of an earlier conflict, the Russo-Ukrainian war which started in 2014. However, Ukraine and Russia have a long history as two former states of the Soviet Union. 

The Soviet Union (or the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, abbreviated USSR) was a communist state that covere…

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Textual perspectives

Ronald Reagan’s speech “Tear down this wall” argues for the removal of the Berlin Wall, which separated West Germany (and, essentially, the rest of Western Europe) from East Germany and the European countries under the influence of the Soviet Union. In his speech, Reagan addresses Mikhail Gorbachev, the leader of the Soviet Union. Similarly to Schwarzenegger’s “This is an illegal war” speech, this speech also concerns Russia - or the USSR’s in Reagan’s case – political involvement in another country. 

George W. Bush’s “War on terror” speech is also similar to Schwarzenegger’s speech. Unlike Schwarzenegger, Bush’s intention in his speech is to gain national and international support for the war on terror that he declares following the 9/11 terrorist attack. In his speech, Bush also addresses the general Muslim population to tell them that the US does not condemn them as people, but only those who pervert this religion to justify violence. In a similar way, in his speech, Schwarzenegger reassures the Russian population that he has faith in their goodness, and only condemns their government…