President Obama Punishes Russia, at Last
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While it is definitely too late, and may also be too little, there should be no doubt about the correctness of President Obama’s decision to retaliate against Russia for hacking American computers and trying to influence the 2016 presidential election.
It would have been irresponsible for him to leave office next month and allow President Vladimir Putin to think that he could with impunity try to undermine American democracy. That would have been a particularly dangerous legacy given President-elect Donald Trump’s alarming affinity for Mr. Putin and stubborn refusal to accept the conclusion of American intelligence agencies that Russia’s cyberattacks were aimed at helping him and hurting Hillary Clinton. The president-elect told reporters dismissively before Mr. Obama’s decision was announced that Americans should “get on with our lives” and forget about the hacking scandal. So much for that wishful thought.
Mr. Obama’s action was slow in coming, and until Thursday his only public response, a weak one, had been to “name and shame” the Russians by identifying them as the culprits behind the cyberattacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations and to warn the Kremlin against future interference.
His latest response shows real teeth, chiefly in the form of sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services, the F.S.B. and GRU, including four top officers of the military intelligence unit who the White House believes ordered those attacks. Mr. Obama also placed sanctions against a number of other individuals and companies, such as the Special Technology Center, which conducts signal intelligence.
Mr. Obama also expelled 35 Russian intelligence operatives and barred Russian diplomats from using two recreational compounds in the United States. The White House said this action was specifically in response to a two-year pattern of harassment of American diplomats in Russia by Kremlin security personnel.
Mr. Obama should have retaliated against this treatment a long time ago; still, the expulsion adds to the severity of the American response and directly affects Russian citizens, whereas the travel bans and asset freezes imposed by the sanctions may not. Russian intelligence officials rarely travel to the United States or stash their assets here. Sanctions imposed by the United States and Europe over Russia’s annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine have been in place for two years, yet it is debatable how much effect they have had on Mr. Putin. There is thus a legitimate question about whether Mr. Obama’s penalties will be sufficient.
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