1. The President should address the nation before the election and use the bully pulpit to make the nation aware that an operation has been run against the United States by a hostile intelligence agency, and that the security of the system is paramount. He should allow the law enforcement and intelligence agencies of the United States to assist any and all state and local organizations to use the maximum resources of the nation to ensure the integrity of the election.
2. The Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Cyber Command should be directed to create a temporary joint public-private partnership, a Priority Infrastructure Cyber Security Cooperative (PICSC), in order to rapidly disseminate detected threats and solutions that will be available industry wide and without cost in order to stop emergent hacks. We require a central organization where anyone who has been hacked can report the incident for analysis. Many cyber security experts believe that we need an international Hackers Defense Network in order to allow academics, researchers, and intelligence agencies to work together to correctly identify, analyze, and score attacks with a single common standard.
3. The administration should make clear that the United States will respond to this attack at a time and place of its choosing. The target should be chosen by U.S. cyber command. If we do not communicate our intent to punish any further meddling, it will occur again. The argument that Russia will attack our infrastructure with a cyber disruption is no reason to allow them to damage our freedom to choose our government without retribution.
4. National recognition and awareness of the enormity and fully-integrated propaganda that emanates from the Russian state entities Russia Today, Sputnik News and other state disinformation agencies. These agencies should be called out for generating centralized propaganda and influencing our electorate through carefully-timed “conspiracy theory” releases that work to our detriment.
Where the candidates themselves stand is revealing as well. When discussing response to Russian cyberwarfare Hillary Clinton spoke about the attack and stated “As president, I will make it clear that the United States will treat cyberattacks just like any other attack… We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses.”3
On the other hand, Donald Trump seems to admire Russia’s capacity to hurt our nation through cyberespionage. Apart from that, there is little evidence that Trump knows or cares about cyberwarfare. In a fluff interview conducted by General Michael Flynn, Trump was asked about cyber war. He gave a peculiarly ignorant answer:
Well that’s it, and, you know cyber is becoming so big today. It’s becoming something that a number of years ago, a short number of years ago, wasn’t even a word. And now the cyber is so big. And, you know, you look at what they’re doing with the internet, how they’re taking recruiting people through the internet. And part of it is the psychology because so many people think they’re winning. And, you know, there’s a whole big thing. Even today’s psychology, where CNN came out with a big poll, their big poll came out today that Trump is winning. It’s good psychology.4
However, despite the evidence the hacks benefitted him, Trump went on Larry King’s interview program that was aired on Russia Today television. When asked, he noted that the hacks were inappropriate, but pled ignorance and tried to pin the blame onto the Democrats, saying, “Maybe the Democrats are putting that out—who knows… I don’t know who hacked. You tell me: Who hacked?”5
Just because Russia now has money, resources, and military technology does not mean that they will ever see America as equals. I believe Donald Trump when he says that Russia has no respect for the United States or its leadership. Russia, like both Trump and Putin, suffers from an inferiority complex that makes them strive to best everyone and talk big beyond their ability to control the results. To them smack talk and chest puffing is enough to make them believe that they are the biggest ape in the jungle. However, when attacked and challenged America has always rallied to its flag and responded as a nation. It would be vitally important for Putin to disable this greatest American strength before endeavoring onto any further adventures. That unity and national will has been critically damaged by Trump as well, only to Russia’s benefit.
The key to unraveling the objectives of LUCKY-7 is to accept that Russia is not an ally but is strategic opponent who views America’s standing as an obstacle to its own greatness. Should the chicanery of the 2016 election go without response, America would become target number one for Kompromat at even the lowest level elections. Future hacking and political releases would directly affect U.S. policy and could disable the processes that keep us safe. Politicians from both sides of the aisle could find themselves at risk of political blackmail or they may entertain troll opinions generated by another nation. Russia believes that they have now perfected the tool by which America could be brought down by revealing to the world how easily we are manipulated through propaganda to the point that our own governmental functions cease to work. China will jump into the game with both feet should Lucky-7 be successful. Imagine two global cyber wars being waged secretly against America and our political establishment incapable of passing a law or allocating funds to stop it because the legislators have already been influenced by a foreign power.
The Next Attack
The Russian ability to launch an attack with a “weapon of Mass Disruption” has yet to occur, but could come at a time of Russia’s choosing. Should the Kremlin game out that the time is right to politically and economically destabilize America and finally topple it from being the shining city on the capitalist hill to collapsing under its own ignorance and faith in a parlor tricking, reality show con man, then a massive hack on election day is well within its capability. The Lucky-7 Information Warfare Management Cell doesn’t need to get into the electronic voting machines. The Russian IWMC and its Lucky-7 operations team just needs to change just one column of electoral tallies in one state just long enough to make the tens of millions of Trump voters finally believe that the election was being stolen by Hillary Clinton. No matter what the evidence, no matter who will ask for calm, they won’t believe anything other than treachery because Donald Trump has convinced a third of the American electorate that the entire American electoral system has always been corrupt. The greatest danger now is that any outcome other than the election of Donald Trump will not be accepted and demands for a new election and rejection of the result will cripple the nation in ways not seen since 1860 secession. It could lead some states to suggest just that should the outcome be not to their liking. At that point the prospect of a second American civil war is not only viable, but likely.
The Russian use of cyber weapons to perform criminal acts and damage our electoral process was intended to remove faith in America itself. Along with Donald Trump’s claims that the election will be rigged, they have achieved this goal. Due to their meddling, activities which were considered routine politics in America are now suspect. Politics itself is under fire, due to the combination of hacking and demagoguery.
Though we have yet to see an actual disruption that matters in the lives of the average American citizen, one can be sure that it will come at a time where, once recognized, the only alternative to the attack may be a real war.
Endnotes
Chapter 1
1. Biddle, Sam. “Contrary to DNC Claim, Hacked Data Contains a Ton of Personal Donor Information.” Gawker. Gawker Media, 17 June 2016. Web. 29 Aug. 2016. www.gawker.com/contrary-to-dnc-claim-hacked-data-contains-a-ton-of-pe-1782132678