The Trump administration and the incoming Biden administration are considering how to respond to the Russian SVR’s recently detected SolarWinds cyberattack. While President Trump appears to have avoided retaliation as of yet, the United States has abundant means of doing so.

The first point to note here is that America’s cyber forces are already far behind the Russian gates. Ironically, considering the abundance of his leaks, many of the most significant weapons in the U.S. cyberoffensive portfolio were deployed after Edward Snowden went public. But their quality and targeting versatility should not be underestimated. The National Security Agency and the Pentagon’s associated Cyber Command now have the ability to cripple every major sector of the Russian state, society, and economy. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s energy production, energy supply, financial, telecommunication, transport, military, and government networks have all been penetrated with numerous access tools. Were it so ordered, the NSA could activate one, some, or all of these tools to disrupt, manipulate, or destroy the operation of Russian services. Whether it would do so outside of total war, considering the damage to civilian interests, is rightly another matter.