Yahoo breach illustrates Trump must confront Moscow over hacking

The Trump administration has discovered yet another significant gap between desire and reality. Two days ago, The Justice Department laid criminal charges against four men (including Russian spies) related to the 2014 hack of Yahoo! user accounts, proving that restarting Washington-Moscow relations might be difficult, if not impossible. The accusations reveal new details about the targets and the information that was stolen, but more importantly, they shed light on the shortcomings of the administration’s current geopolitical strategy.

One of President Trump’s most essential foreign policy components is his desire to restart U.S. relations with Russia. However, these ambitions keep hitting reality’s brick wall: Russia’s alleged infiltration of the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) email systems, its claimed attempts to influence the US elections, the ties between Trump’s campaign team and Russian officials, and the recent WikiLeaks publication that reveals the Intelligence Community’s (IC) arsenal of hacking tools – a leak which is claimed to have been facilitated by the Russians – are only the publically known examples.

{mosads}All these incidents demonstrate that Moscow is playing a completely different game than Washington. Trump would like to see Russia as America’s most important alley, allowing them form a counter-China axis, but in reality, it seems that Moscow views Washington rather than Beijing as its main challenge.

Even more disturbing is how Washington is reacting to Moscow’s successful attempts to reshape the international theater. Moscow has mastered the use of soft-power techniques to promote its strategic interest, especially those related to the cyber domain. It conducts not only cyber espionage (i.e., information gathering), but also actively works to influence its rivals in an unprecedented ways. Interfering with internal affairs such as democratic elections is probably their most ambitious effort, but they have also attacked US firms in a successful attempt to create a new form of economic warfare, and have embarrassed the US in front of the international community by revealing its spying activities.

It is safe to assume that the IC conducts sophisticated operations of its own beneath the surface. The current administration needs to understand, however, that it is losing the battle of public perception. The U.S. looks too vulnerable to Russia’s cyber activities, and is moving reactively to Moscow’s efforts. The Yahoo! hack occurred three years before the Justice Department made its accusations; the infiltration of the DNC’s systems took place at least a year and a half (probably earlier) before the Grizzly Steppe report was published. Washington is moving too little and far too late.

While Russia’s cyber success isn’t this administration’s fault, Trump’s silence when it comes to responding on Moscow’s activities is troubling. The U.S. cannot allow itself to be led by its rivals. That was Trump’s main criticism of the Obama administration’s foreign policy, after all. Russian President Vladimir Putin has correctly identified this vulnerability and persistently acts to exploit it.

Washington must take the lead, create a new deterrence equation, and make it public, instead in sufficing with clandestine operations. The geopolitical theater is shifting, and many actors – from US allies to non-state adversaries – are observing this battle, waiting to adjust their own strategies based on its outcome. The road to “making America great again” is requires global leadership and drawing the necessary strategic redlines. Charging or deporting Russian spies is not enough. Trump must understand that he cannot have his cake and eat it too – and he must make Putin understand that as well.

The irony here is that Trump has the personality and attitude to set these new game rules, as he has already proven that for him no cow is holy. However, he is still reluctant to confront Moscow, despite the growing number of officials who now agree with UN Ambassador Nikki Haley that “the United States should never trust Russia.” The IC may be the most important tool this administration has to firmly draw out America’s new strategic equation.

Shay Hershkovitz, Ph.D., is chief strategy officer at Wikistrat, Inc. and a political science professor at Tel Aviv University specializing in intelligence studies. He is also a former IDF intelligence officer whose book, “Aman Comes To Light,” deals with the history of the Israeli intelligence community.

The views expressed by contributors are their own and are not the views of The Hill.