I have argued before in these blogs that Russian President
Vladimir Putin has repeatedly outplayed and outfoxed President Obama, especially
in the Ukraine and in Syria. His latest move, deciding not to retaliate after
Obama expelled a number of Russian diplomats, is a classic and brilliant move –
once again completely outmaneuvering Obama and his national security team, and
making Obama look petty and weak. Putin has consistently played a very weak
hand brilliantly, and Russia continues to punch way above its weight. The recently concluded cease fire in Syria,
negotiated without any American participation, shows just how far we have been
pushed out of that arena. Not that perhaps it wouldn’t be better for us to get
out of that arena, but certainly not to be seen to be pushed out.
Obama once argued that his first foreign policy rule was “not
to do dumb stuff”. Expelling a couple of
dozen Russian diplomats in his last weeks in office over alleged Russian
hacking seems to me to fit squarely into the “dumb stuff” category. Does anyone think this step will make any difference
at all to the Russian (or Chinese, or mafia) hackers?
Common sense might tell any thinking person, after years of
the government and major corporation being hacked repeatedly by everyone in
sight, including teenagers in their family bedrooms, that perhaps a better
approach would be to put some real money into developing computer systems that
were not so easily hacked. If we can afford to spend almost $400 billion for a fleet
of new F-35 fighter plane, or build new submarines at around $2.4 billion apiece,
might we not find a little spare change somewhere to fund a really robust
research effort to harden our computer systems before some enemy hacks them and
brings down the entire economy? Obama had eight years to do that, and it would
probably be far more effective than kicking out a few diplomats.
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