WASHINGTON — The question has hovered over Washington in recent days: Has President Obama, after formally accusing Russia of trying to interfere in the election, issued secret orders for the National Security Agency to conduct a retaliatory cyberstrike?
The strongest hint so far has come from Vice President Joe Biden, who either revealed US plans for a strike or engaged in one of the better bits of psychological warfare in recent times.
Taping an interview for NBC’s “Meet the Press,’’ Biden was asked whether the United States was preparing to send a message to the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. Days before, the US intelligence agencies and the Department of Homeland Security had declared that the Russian leadership was responsible for attacks on the Democratic National Committee and the leaking of stolen e-mails.
“We’re sending a message,’’ Biden told Chuck Todd, the show’s host. “We have the capacity to do it.’’
“He’ll know it,’’ Biden added. “And it will be at the time of our choosing. And under the circumstances that have the greatest impact.’’
Later, after Biden said he was not concerned that Russia could “fundamentally alter the election,’’ Todd asked whether the American public would know if the message to Putin had been sent.
“Hope not,’’ Biden responded.
His warning seems to suggest that Obama is prepared to order — or has already ordered — some kind of covert action after the stolen e-mails were published online. That would require what is known in the intelligence agencies as a finding — a presidential determination authorizing covert action.
Such a finding would allow the United States to make use of its newly developed arsenal of cyberweapons.
Biden’s statement does not exclude the possibility of a response outside the realm of cyberspace. But most of the other options under discussion in the White House involve actions that would be public, such as economic sanctions under a 2015 presidential order on responding to cyberattacks. Such sanctions have never been invoked but are well suited to cases like the presumed effort to influence the election.
Some experts, however, say they may be insufficient. James G. Stavridis, the former supreme allied commander of NATO, wrote in Foreign Policy recently that the first step could be making America’s evidence against Russia public.
“Revealing the names of the officials who authorized the cyberattacks against the United States would put Moscow in an extremely uncomfortable position,’’ wrote Stavridis, a former admiral who is now dean of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. “Ideally, the United States could reveal e-mails or conversations between Russian officials that demonstrated their intent.’’
But that would run counter to Biden’s “hope not’’ statement. Stavridis and others have advocated other steps, including knocking holes in the Kremlin’s wall of censorship so that Putin opponents could begin to conspire with one another.
“As a response to the Russian attacks on the US democratic system, this would be both proportional and distinctive,’’ Stavridis wrote. It might also be deniable — a key to any covert action approved by the president.
Many others have advocated using cybertechniques to expose Putin’s links to Russia’s oligarchs and reveal his financial holdings overseas, which are believed to be vast. But such steps would risk escalation, and advisers have warned Obama that the United States is more vulnerable than most nations.
Putin initially denied any Russian involvement in the attacks. But several days ago he said the important thing was not how e-mails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign were hacked, but what they said. Sergey Lavrov, Russian foreign minister, went further. “We did not deny this,’’ he said of the hacking. But he added the United States had offered no proof.
