Here we go with incorporating absurd Russophobia into White House foreign policy. Russia wasn't the first country to engage in such cyber activities; the US has been developing these capabilities and executing them for years now. Exploiting the current Russian interference fears to justify the desired expansion of these cyber warfare/manipulation tactics is all this is about. The US intelligence communities want to crack down on information leaks (hence targeting Wikileaks) and further develop their capabilities to target foreign countries to better manipulate their domestic politics (if not our own).
What would you propose the US do in regards to 2016 then?
I don't necessarily favor retaliation in cyberspace over anything else. I just want something that will get Russia to stop with the least amount of disruption (in addition to hardening our own defenses). But doing nothing is just absolutely not something I could personally agree with, and I'm not particularly favorable towards war or other acts of aggression either.
There are several factors that influence my perception of the current situation.
1. Russia's existing government - dominated by nationalist conservatives and Putin-allied oligarchs - is the direct consequence of America's rather shameless meddling in Russian domestic politics in the 1990s. Acts within history reverberate through time and have consequences. The result of Clinton's government intervening so brazenly to support Yelzin gave rise to Putin and his government. It also helped to spoil potentially improved relations between America and Russia post-Cold War. America's violation of a verbal agreement not to expand the boundaries of NATO past the former Iron Curtain also contributed to unnecessarily heightened tensions between America and Russia. Now, that doesn't mean Russia is some innocent angel that just sits by doing nothing; but we must acknowledge our role in creating our existing situation.
2. The Russophobia of the #Resistance is helping the Deep State, composed of an intelligence community and "national security" officials that still retain an interventionist, hawkish foreign policy stance, to regain credibility lost from its involvement in the Iraq War debacle and subsequent failed or harmful interventions. The Left never did a good job holding these officials accountable, whether it's for Iraq or Libya, but they were at least largely suspicious of their proclamations. Now, they're treated like the wise agents in an internal war with the Trump Administration. This has and will continue to allow them to vastly expand their powers, such as Bolton desires, under the guise of retaliating or at least defending against Russian and other foreign cyber attacks.
3. America already has an extensive cybersecurity system. We were the ones who initiated the use of social media and other manipulation of public thought via the internet to promote American interests abroad. That's not to mention our use of NGOs to promote similar interests as well. America is certainly not behind Russia or anyone else when it comes to these capabilities; we are the pioneers of it.
Basically, the way I see it is that the Russiaphobia stemming from the 2016 election has been fanned in order to promote the interests of the National Security and intelligence apparatus and increase popular support for their increased power, reach, and interventions abroad. They'll use it to target information leakers and invest in most social media manipulation programs and campaigns. And the public will either support it or look the other way because it'll be defended as a necessary defense mechanism against Russia.
Yet, interestingly, Russia's influence on the election was negligible at best. The notion of them throwing it for Trump is absurd. What's more damning and deserves far greater attention are the voter suppression tactics employed by Republicans (which receive far less attention than Russian interference), Republican gerrymandering of districts to ensure Congressional dominance, and a deeply flawed electoral system that allows a Presidential candidate to win by 3 million votes, yet lose the election.
1. Don't forget how American vulture capitalism helped damage Russia during the same period, too. But at the same time, should our guilt and the worthlessness of our word mean that we should just let Russia take apart nations like Lithuania or Estonia so long as they don't roll in tanks until the very end?
2. This perhaps the part that bothers me the most. As one of my favorite webcomics says, "The enemy of my enemy is my enemy's enemy. No more, no less." Treating Clapper or the like as credible makes me sick, and I think it's a terrible idea that damages the credibility of the anti-Trump movement. But at the same time, I do not think it's all just jumping at shadows. Again, this puts us in a tough bind, with no clearly good directions to go.
3. As with many things 'cyber' our government is much, much better at dishing it out than defending against it. It looks to me like the US goverment spent years deliberately weakening 'the internet' against attacks of all sorts, to make it's own job easier. There's a certain poetic justice to it. But that still doesn't make it a good thing.
I see a lot of different groups on the anti-Russia bandwagon, all fighting over the direction it will go. Once again, it's a very tough call. Many groups are using it as an excuse to push things in their preferred (and terrible) directions. But we do need to move away from the flaming garbage dump that is the Trump administration, and Russia is a rival that poses some threat to the United States. (And not just our empire, even if much of the threat is originally of our own making.)
I'm not sure Russia's influence really was that negligible. Trump's win was a combination of many factors, and close enoug that ANY of them may have been decisive. I also strongly suspect that what Russian interference we can see and prove is but the tip of the iceberg. (That's how these things tend to go.)
And what Russia did or didn't do, the fact remains that the Trump & Kids Circus tried to conspire with people they believed were connected to the Russian government to win the election. That they were stupid about it and that it probably did them no good is beside the point. Trying to get a gun to go murder someone is attempted murder, even if you get the wrong bullets and are too stupid to work the safety. It's still attempted murder! Likewise, Trump tried to conspire with Russia (and looks guilty as all hell).
Again, this puts us in a tough position. A true good defense would be a much more educated, cynical, and involved public, plus adopting real security for the internet (totally rebuilding it, effectively). But those in charge (Trump and anti-Trump) will never do this - they all depend upon an ignorant, easily manipulated electorate. And the government and the corporations that pull strings love the insecure internet; I wouldn't trust any of them to properly secure it anyway!
I think Trump needs to be fully investigated, and that a fair investigation will almost certainly destroy his administration, if not put him in jail. I think we need to secure our whole election system. (Paper ballots! Verifiable paper trail the whole way, still compatible with secret voting.) End the ability of anyone, Republican, Russia or anyone else, to tamper with voter rolls. (And end as much GOP voter suppresion as possible while we're at it.)
I do think Russia tried to hit us with a sophisticated but subtle attack. While they will be far from the last to do so, and there's lots of space to argue about how effective it was, the fact remains that we have been struck a grevious blow with the election of Trump. Self-inflicted or attempted assssination doesn't matter so much as preventing similar attempts in the future and hopefully recovering from this one.
I'm not opitimistic though. If I had to put money down, I'd say we're going to fail. On all counts.
