The head of the American intelligence community said Tuesday that he has approached the issue of Russia’s purported effort to influence American elections “cautiously,” and seemed to acknowledge the United States has engaged in similar behavior in the past.
“I will say there’s a history here for the Soviet Union, Russia, interfering in elections, both theirs and other people’s. There’s a history of this where they’ve influenced the outcome of our elections before,” Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said in an appearance before the Council on Foreign Relations.
Asked about Russian President Vladimir Putin’s contention that the United States has engaged in the same activity, Clapper replied, “People live in glass houses, I guess. It applies here.”
Clapper, the fourth official to helm his agency since its formation in 2005, oversees 16 components of the American intelligence community. He noted that the intelligence community issued a vague statement in September blaming Russia for certain cyberattacks that have taken place this year against the Democratic Party and affiliated entities, as well as certain document leaks, but said he was unprepared to offer anything more specific.
“Many people seem to want me to parse the words, which were already very parsed and agonized over. So I think the statement will stand for itself,” Clapper said.
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Clapper said retaliation could manifest in measures outside the virtual domain. “You have to consider things like, are we counterattacking through another nation state’s infrastructure, which poses all kinds of legal issues,” he said.
“And then of course, you have to think about the potential counter-retaliation to the retaliation you took,” Clapper added. “This applies to any nationstate, how well you can withstand any retaliation… Sometimes it’s best, perhaps, to consider other options, rather than the symmetrical.”
“The risk is, given the tremendous dependence of this nation on the cyber domain to do everything, whether it’s personal, institutional, we have to think twice I think, and be very cautious, about retaliating in a cybercontext,” he added. “The presumption that’s there’s going to be an exquisite and equally precise calculus may not be a valid one to make.”
