US May Sanction Russia, China After Hastily Blaming Them for Hacks

In mid-July, the Obama Administration publicly announced that they weren’t going to “publicly blame” China for the OPM hack, despite saying, publicly, that they believe China did it.

This was because there was no good evidence for China having done it. Indeed, the FBI mentioned them as a possibility, leading media outlets to treat that as an allegation, leading Congress to declare that as proof China did it, leading other media outlets to say Congress confirmed the story, and so on. By the end of July, despite not “publicly blaming” China, US officials were openly talking about “revenge” against them.

Shortly thereafter, a hack against the Pentagon’s unclassified email system happened, and the entire process was repeated again, only this time it was Russia who wasn’t formally blamed, who no evidence existed to really prove was behind it, and who the US was still mad at.

Fast forward another month, and we are at the present, with US officials now talking up the possibility of announcing sanctions against both Russia and China over these “cyber-attacks,” which again, they have not offered any public evidence were committed by either nation.

While officials treat this as a totally consequence-free option, the reality is that the sanctions are almost certain to provoke retaliatory sanctions, and tit-for-tat moves that will worsen relations and harm trade. And again, all this to “punish” people we really shouldn’t be so sure did it in the first place.

13 thoughts on “US May Sanction Russia, China After Hastily Blaming Them for Hacks”

  1. China and Russia could give two Sh*ts about this. This is a dying empire grasping at straws and is totally disgusted in how they will not bend to their will. Actually, China and Russia should galvanize the world community to place sanctions on DC and Saudi Arabia for their war crimes against Yemen.

    1. Are they going to sanction Israel also? She is the number two or three country
      hacking the USA seriously enough to be so listed by the FBI and NSA.

  2. Sanctions are effective when the target has something the initiator wants to sell/buy.
    US leadership is down to outrageously expensive, largely unproven, military hardware and CIA/NSA compromised IT. Russian and China both have domestic ability to produce what they need or alternative sources to buy from. Airbus wins again.
    Americans project their own weaknesses on others. It is actually possible to live a full life without his/hers granite sinks in a bathroom as big as a living room. There was life before 4G networks. A surprising number of the world's population is not pre-occupied with having more stuff than their neighbor.

    1. As far as military hardware is concerned, neither China nor Russia can produce modern high-tech equipment. China might well be able to buy from Europe, the world's only source of such hardware outside the US, but Russia certainly will not as long as Putin is in power and his successors have won back the confidence of European leaders.

      1. Assuming the statement, "As far as military hardware is concerned, neither China nor Russia can produce modern high-tech equipment" was correct", whom does Russia and China need to fight with this high tech gear? The US high tech gear hasn't achieved anything very much in recent memory (Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya). If anything, recent history has proven that military force very expensive and ineffective at achieving meaningful goals.
        The US will not be invading either Russia or China anytime soon.

  3. The US will sanction Russia and China, and then make up some crazy explanation as to why. And, as we’ve seen with Iraq and Iran, they’ll keep the sanctions in place long after the reason makes no sense anymore. With Iraq, the sanctions morphed into a need for regime change even after inspectors weren’t finding WMD programs. And Iran was just told the sanctions have to last 10 to 15 years after they gave up their imaginary nuke weapons program. What this really is of course is just open economic warfare on the rest of the world.

  4. I doubt if it will bother China particularly, which is no doubt what the US government wants, but it will further damage Russia, particularly if Putin falls (one again!) into the trap of counter-sanctions. As for punishing people for things they didn't do, Mr Ditz is a fervent advocate of punishing Ukraine for Victoria Nuland's wrongdoing.

    1. Nazi occupied Ukraine IS Victoria Nuland's wrongdoing. Any sane human being should be a fervent advocate of defeating fascism and any one who truly cares about the Ukrainian people will speak out against a regime that oppresses them and there brothers in Novorossiya.

  5. WE would never do a thing like that.
    1 – We are the good guys
    2 – If this continues we might be obliged to line everyone up and tap their knuckles with a ruler.

  6. Well let's see who are the biggest hackers CIA NSA US inc. Seems nuts that the president would sanction ourselves.

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