When the evidence of the Russian government’s direct involvement became obvious in October, President Obama made it clear that the US would consider a 'proportional response.'
“The president has talked before about the significant capabilities that the U.S. government has to both defend our systems in the United States but also carry out offensive operations in other countries.”
If the US has already taken any retaliatory action, it hasn’t been made public. The exact nature of that US response was always in question. Russia broke into public and private facilities and attempted to not only sway the outcome of a presidential election, but sought to damage the United States reputation with allies and opponents alike.
On Thursday, President Obama renewed his threat to take action against Russia.
The president discussed the potential for American retaliation with Steve Inskeep of NPR for an interview to air on Friday morning. “I think there is no doubt that when any foreign government tries to impact the integrity of our election,” Mr. Obama said, “we need to take action. And we will — at the time and place of our choosing.”
But what form could this retaliation take? It would be difficult to affect the outcome of a Russian election, as those elections already have a foregone conclusion. Could it be something directed against the Russian military? Against industry?
Does retaliation to a cyber attack even have to be cyber?
The president definitely wants whatever action is taken to have an impact for the Russian government … to be something that’s more than just a token gesture.
"We have been working hard to make sure that what we do is proportional, that what we do is meaningful," he told NPR.
One thing is clear: Any action that is going to be taken needs to be taken before President Obama leaves office. As of Thursday, members of Trump’s campaign seemed to accept that the Russians had been behind the hacks, but Trump himself was still casting doubt about the intelligence reports.
The President was also clearly upset about the sudden reluctance of Republican legislators to support the analysis of the intelligence agencies.
"My view is that this is not a partisan issue, and part of what we should be doing is to try to take it out of election season and move it into governing season," Obama told NPR. "The irony of all this, of course, is that for most of my presidency, there's been a pretty sizable wing of the Republican Party that has consistently criticized me for not being tough enough on Russia."
Besides the source of the hacking, there was another area in which the president was confident—that the information stolen in the hacks had an impact on the election.
"There's no doubt that it contributed to an atmosphere in which the only focus for weeks at a time, months at a time were Hillary's emails, the Clinton Foundation, political gossip surrounding the DNC," he told NPR. "Elections can always turn out differently. You never know which factors are going to make a difference. But I have no doubt that it had some impact, just based on the coverage."