This weekend, Michael Morell, the former acting director of the CIA<\/span>, was asked about the intelligence community\u2019s findings that Russia interfered in the presidential election. His answer was unequivocal: The country isn\u2019t grasping the magnitude of the story,\u00a0he told\u00a0The Cipher Brief<\/em><\/a>.\u00a0\u201cTo me, and this is to me not an overstatement, this is the political equivalent of\u00a09\/11.\u201d<\/p>\n Morell\u2019s comments went even further than what members of Congress\u2014mostly Democrats\u2014have been saying for months: that the Russian-directed cyberattacks are an unprecedented attack on American\u00a0democracy.<\/p>\n In the heat of moment, it\u2019s easy to lose sight of the context around the Russian hacking operation. In spite of the distinctive 21st-century flavor of the digital intrusions, the data breaches that affected Democrats are just a modern example of routine country-on-country spying. What sets them apart, though, is the high profile of their mark\u2014an American presidential election\u2014and the hackers\u2019 willingness to leak stolen information to influence voters\u2019 opinions. Altogether, it\u2019s perhaps one of the greatest examples of a successful espionage operation in\u00a0history.<\/p>\n It\u2019s useful to think of the operation as two distinct parts, says Vince Houghton, the International Spy Museum\u2019s historian and curator. The first part\u2014intrusions into the computer systems of the Democratic National Committee and the personal email of Hillary Clinton\u2019s senior campaign manager, John Podesta\u2014was intelligence-gathering, plain and simple. It\u2019s the sort of activity that every spy agency in the world engages in on a routine basis. Once, this required rifling through others\u2019 mail; later, as technology progressed, it involved tapping phones, and now, it can be done with\u00a0a well-crafted phishing email<\/a>.<\/p>\n The second part can be thought of as an enormous, state-on-state\u00a0doxing<\/a>operation. Instead of sitting on the information stolen from the Democrats and using it to inform its policy positions and predict the U.S.<\/span> government\u2019s moves and motives, the Kremlin appears to have gone one (giant) step further, releasing that information into the wild. The U.S.<\/span> intelligence community\u00a0has determined<\/a>that publishing hacked documents through WikiLeaks, DCLeaks.com, and Guccifer 2.0 is \u201cconsistent with the methods and motivations of Russian-directed efforts.\u201d This week,\u00a0NBC<\/span> News<\/a><\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0ABC<\/span> News<\/a><\/em>\u00a0reported that Russian President Vladimir Putin was personally involved in directing the\u00a0operation.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n This is where things start to wander into uncharted territory, according to Houghton and Gordon Corera, the BBC<\/span>\u2019s security correspondent and the author of the espionage-history book,\u00a0Cyberspies<\/em>.\u00a0The release of the surreptitiously gathered information, either to tip an election in one direction or just to sow disorder, is novel\u2014especially in the context of American elections. During the 2008 and 2012 cycles, political campaigns\u00a0came under cyberattack<\/a>, but if anything was stolen, it was never shared with the\u00a0public.<\/p>\n Despite the unique nature of this intervention, the 2016 cyberattacks square with Russian intelligence techniques reaching as far back as the Cold War. It\u2019s an evolution of the Soviet Union\u2019s \u201cactive measures,\u201d a tactic favored by the KGB<\/span> that involved covertly spreading politically damaging fictions in order to seed discord in an enemy. Houghton pointed to an example: Operation INFEKTION<\/span>,\u00a0a Soviet misinformation campaign<\/a>\u00a0in the 1980s that claimed the U.S.<\/span> Army had created the AIDS<\/span> virus at a research facility in Maryland. The Soviet Union pushed the story particularly hard in Africa, where AIDS<\/span> epidemics had broken out in several countries, and where the Kremlin was wrestling with the U.S.<\/span> for\u00a0influence.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing, essentially, is a long-running, old, traditional struggle, perhaps being conducted in new ways with new technology,\u201d said John Hughes-Wilson, a former British intelligence officer and the author of\u00a0The Secret State<\/em>,\u00a0a history of espionage. \u201cDo you not think the CIA<\/span> is working hard\u2014I bloody well hope they are, actually\u2014to try and do stuff in Russia? I mean, why do you guys pay your taxpayer\u00a0dollars?\u201d<\/p>\n Given the CIA<\/span>\u2019s history, it\u2019s not a stretch to assume that the agency is regularly taking covert action overseas, including around elections. Shortly after the CIA<\/span> was established in 1947, its agents poured money, propaganda, and even threats into Italy during its national elections, for example, in order to keep communist-aligned politicians from coming to power. In 1953, the CIA<\/span> teamed up with its British counterpart, MI6<\/span>, to overthrow Iranian Prime minister Mohammed Mossadegh and reinstate the Shah, who had been pushed out of power. And in the years since, it\u2019s\u00a0intervened repeatedly<\/a>\u00a0in other countries\u2019\u00a0affairs.<\/p>\n Part of the reason Russia\u2019s alleged meddling this year seems so shocking is because the tables have turned. \u201cWe\u2019ve bought and sold elections in the past,\u201d says Houghton. \u201cBut now it\u2019s happening to us, and, as an American, that\u2019s different to\u00a0me.\u201d<\/p>\n Even if Russia did aim to help Trump win the election, it\u2019s not clear how big a role the publication of the stolen documents played in swaying voters. But the intrusions certainly created confusion and chaos, and that may be just as useful to the Kremlin. Internal fractionalization could distract the U.S.<\/span> and allow Russia to act even more boldly on the international stage without fearing American\u00a0repercussions.<\/p>\n \u201cHere, you have an information campaign that\u2019s now pitting the CIA<\/span> against the FBI<\/span>, Democrats against Republicans, even Republicans against Republicans. This is perfection. Perfection!\u201d exclaimed Houghton. \u201cIt\u2019s just right out of the\u00a0playbook.\u201d<\/p>\n At this point, there\u2019s no indication (beyond\u00a0unsubstantiated claims<\/a>\u00a0from outgoing Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid) that the Trump campaign coordinated with Russia, even if it benefited from its actions. The details about Russia\u2019s aims aren\u2019t entirely clear, because the CIA<\/span> has found itself\u00a0at odds with the FBI<\/span><\/a>\u00a0over its assessment that the Kremlin tried to help Trump\u00a0out.<\/p>\n One of the key elements of the CIA<\/span>\u2019s determination\u2014the claim that\u00a0the Republican National Committee was hacked, too<\/a>, but that Russian leaders chose not to leak any of that information\u2014is\u00a0beginning to look more likely<\/a>. If it turns out to be true, the Trump administration may find itself in a bind going forward. Reince Priebus, who will be Trump\u2019s chief of staff, has been the chairman of the RNC<\/span> for six years. Internal RNC<\/span> communications and documents could contain embarrassing details that could hurt Priebus\u2014and which could be held over the administration\u2019s heads as blackmail once it\u2019s in the White\u00a0House.<\/p>\n More information about the cyberattacks is forthcoming: President Obama\u00a0ordered a review<\/a>\u00a0of election-related hacking last week, and Congress is\u00a0launching multiple investigations<\/a>\u00a0into the developments as\u00a0well.<\/p>\n Unless the probes turn up obvious evidence of collusion between Trump\u2019s team and the Russian hackers, it\u2019s unlikely the president-elect will face any repercussions. The reviews will, however, help inform how high-profile cyberattacks will be treated in the future. President Obama reportedly chose not to respond forcefully to Russian hacking, preferring instead to rebuke Putin in private on the sidelines of at a Group of 20 summit in China,\u00a0The New York Times<\/em>\u00a0reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n So far, it appears that Russia has gotten away with meddling in a U.S.<\/span> election. That may send a message to other countries that the U.S.<\/span> won\u2019t lash out after it comes under cyberattack if it\u2019s not politically convenient to do so. But it may also be that the U.S.<\/span> government just chose not to retaliate in a public\u00a0way.<\/p>\n \u201cU.S.<\/span> officials I\u2019ve spoken to are cautious of responding \u2018in kind,\u2019 for instance by revealing embarrassing details of where Russian officials place their dirty money,\u201d wrote Corera, the security correspondent, in an email. \u201cThe fear is that doing this might establish a new norm that this kind of activity is now fair\u00a0game.\u201d<\/p>\n The uncertainty surrounding cyberwar norms has a lot to do with how new the phenomenon is. Houghton compared it to the advent of nuclear weapons, when members of Congress struggled to grasp the impact the nuclear age would have on diplomacy and war. Eventually, Houghton said, we\u2019ll look back on 2016 to try and understand the beginnings of the an era defined by online warfare. \u201cThis is going to be something that we\u2019ll study for a long time,\u201d he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n