Russian Election Interference: US Cyber Command Could Target Oligarchs, Government Officials

U.S. Cyber Command reportedly is considering targeting Russia’s senior leadership and elites as part of a plan that could be initiated if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. election.

Some $425 million in new funding was allocated for election security in fiscal 2020 spending bills.

The Washington Post reported Wednesday the idea is to show there will be consequences if the interference is not stopped as part of an effort that began in the runup to the 2018 mid-term elections. Another possible tack would be exploiting divisions within the Russian government and hierarchy.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, however, likely would be excluded from the target list because taking action against him would be considered too provocative.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election revealed extensive operations using social media platforms to distribute disinformation and to hack into Democrats’ email. They were led by Russian military intelligence and the Internet Research Agency, which is controlled by an oligarch close to Putin. An intelligence community assessment last month indicated the Russians also intend to sow discord in 2020.

Constanze Stelzenmüller, a senior fellow for foreign policy at the Center on the United States and Europe, has told Congress Russia’s goal is to destabilize the West.

“What may be contemplated here is … not unlike individually targeted economic sanctions,” Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin, told the Post. “It’s sending credible signals to key decision-makers that they are vulnerable if they take certain adversarial actions.”

The administration has been easing restrictions on the military’s cyberoperations for the last year to improve capabilities, taking them out of the covert action area and putting them into the traditional military activities area to cut the red tape involved in approving operations. Chesney said it was time to integrate cyberoperations with more traditional forms of information warfare.

“As Russia has demonstrated, these two are increasingly inseparable in practice,” Chesney told the Post.

“The defense of our nation, the defense of our elections, is something that will be every single day for as long as I can see into the future,” Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both Cybercom and the National Security Agency, told a recent defense forum.

It is hoped the targeting efforts will influence Russian decision-making without inspiring a popular uprising.