The 3 ways Obama can retaliate against Russia

A Russian chill is in the air as the Obama administration prepares to announce steps in response to Russian cyberattacks and digital meddling in our presidential election.

The United States has lots of tools in its toolbox for retaliation and response — including financial, legal and technical means. Some steps, the public may hear about; others will be shrouded in secrecy.

But even if the response is just “proportional,” it needs to be clear, tough and biting.

Financial punishment can be in the form of sanctions, including a freeze on assets of individuals and entities in Russia. We can make it even harder for banks and other financial institutions to operate in Russia or for Russian outfits to do business overseas. The Russian economy is already suffering; more pain could be on the way.

Legal steps that the U.S. can take involve bringing criminal indictments against any Russian government hackers we can identify and tie to the hacking of the Democratic National Committee (DNC). A similar approach was used against Chinese military officials who used hacking to steal American business secretes. The only requirement is evidence. Since 17 U.S. intelligence agencies agree that Russian government hackers are behind the digital break-ins, the case should be pretty easy to prove.

{mosads}Technical counter-hacking measures will surely be used, although little public knowledge will be made about what we hit and how — for obvious reasons.

The handwringing going on inside the administration over whether or not the Russian hacking is truly an attack on America’s “critical infrastructure” seems like a bit too much quibbling for my taste. Russia messed around with a major political institution — the DNC — and likely tried to get into at least one state’s voting system.

I’m sold.

Lastly, in addition to slapping on sanctions and legal suits, President Obama should call for a 9/11-style nonpartisan commission to get to the bottom of the entire affair. Leaving it up to individual congressional committees is just putting foxes in front of henhouses. We need a major, serious, in-depth report for generations to study and dissect. Our president-elect is not likely to want a deep probe, so Obama should seek it now while he can.

Moscow is not likely to respond well to anything our current president announces regarding the cyber meddling. But Russian President Vladimir Putin should have thought of that long ago.

It’s time to own up to it and pay the price of admission.

Tara Sonenshine is a former undersecretary of State for public diplomacy and public affairs.

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