Senior U.S. advisers wanted President Barack Obama to accuse Russia of carrying out an “act of war” over purported Russian attempts to influence the U.S. election, NBC News reports.
Classifying the Russian meddling attempts as acts of war carries significant consequences for how the U.S. would have to respond if the reported hacks continue.
“I think declaring something an act of war, let’s face it, is the ultimate red line,” Ret. Adm. James Stavridis told NBC.
Obama instead reportedly told Russian President Vladimir Putin to “cut it out” on the sidelines of the September G20 conference in China. The farthest Obama went was using the official “red phone” communication system to tell Putin that any attempt to interfere on Election Day would be considered “armed conflict” under international law.
“International law, including the law for armed conflict, applies to actions in cyberspace,” the message reportedly said. “We will hold Russia to those standards.” Obama said his message was successful because there was no effort by Russia to change the election results.
The U.S. currently does not have a definition for a cyber act of war, which senior pentagon official Thomas Atkin confirmed to reporters in June.
Obama’s White House indicated in 2011 that a cyber strike that shuts down a U.S. power grid could be considered an act of war, which could face a kinetic military strike from the U.S. in response.
Obama was reportedly aware of Russian efforts to breach U.S. political parties as early as 2015, but refused to act on the intelligence for fear of disrupting his efforts to negotiate with Russia over the Syrian civil war.
“Everyone agreed you had to push back at the Russians and push back hard. But it didn’t happen,” a senior Department of State official lamented to TheNYT. Without any response from the White house, Russia reportedly continued its hacking campaign.
The attacks became more brazen after repeated attempts to hack U.S. critical infrastructure, U.S. companies, and other U.S. unclassified government systems. The U.S. tried twice to negotiate a ceasefire in Syria, but both efforts dramatically failed.
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