There is no more important responsibility of a sitting POTUS than to determine US priorities on national security matters. Since repeatedly consistent judicial precedent has firmly established the Executive Branch as the “sole organ” of American foreign policy, this duty comes as close as anything to being axiomatic to the Presidency; the public expects it…demands it.
History is filled with examples of aggressive, often contrarian Presidential leadership of the country proving critical to our readiness when the moment of truth arrived. FDR’s steadfast campaign against a powerful isolationist constituency leading up to Pearl Harbor stands out as exhibit A, but many other less famous but important cases can be cited. JFK pledged a man on the moon; LBJ brought Democrats kicking and screaming into the Civil Rights era, which would go far in bolstering US moral righteousness in global affairs; Carter refused to let Camp David fail; and Reagan stood firm against a worldwide No Nuke movement. Indeed, establishing such priorities and employing the weight of the Oval Office to pursue them defines Presidential leadership.
Today’s complex and increasingly disparate world makes possible any number of nasty calamities, but none seems more imminent than foreign cyber attacks against our infrastructure. It doesn’t take an IT engineer to appreciate both the vulnerabilities of our defenses or the determination of our foes. Election systems, power grids, communication networks, financial data, personal records… the list of soft targets goes on and on. One would assume the White House would be all hands on deck to confront what can be reasonably called a red alert situation. One would be wrong!
Far from sounding the alarm, the White House ranges from poo pooing such concerns, to accusing others who express them of ulterior partisan motives meant to harm the Republic. Trump has expressed complete confidence in the word of Putin, while attacking his intelligence agencies as partisan and unreliable. It appears any leadership in enhancing our cyber defenses is going to have to come from further down Pennsylvania Avenue.
Unfortunately, Republicans on the Hill seem as reticent as the President, denying resources and pointing to other priorities… like softening financial regulations on banks responsible for the crisis of a decade ago, and discrediting an investigation unearthing new outrages daily.
So that leaves the private sector, who presumably understands cyber calamity is very bad for business, to fill the void. The biggies, like Facebook, Microsoft and Google are all spending time and capital to identify and resolve online vulnerabilities. All are incredulous that a fully documented Russian campaign in 2016, underpinned by Mueller indictments of 12 Russians, is not being addressed by the government, even as fresh evidence mounts of similar efforts ramping up for November.
Meeting in San Francisco to pool industry insights and modeling, with government representatives absent, Silicon Valley agreed on the clear and present danger, and appears willing to act on its own. “Our government just doesn’t have a coordinated plan,” declared Alex Stanos, former chief security officer at Facebook. If that’s the pot calling the kettle black, nobody cares because all agree the situation is dire. And the players are finally beginning to play. “Bot” accounts are being targeted and removed on Twitter and Facebook. Meanwhile, Microsoft has detected hacking efforts targeting think tanks and politicians. Utilities are being warned of breaches that could compromise the nation’s power grid; new security protocols are being formulated.
Yet and still, without a more unified agenda across government agencies, it’s hard to see how preparations won’t suffer. And that kind of effort simply can’t happen without focused and determined White House leadership. Nothing is “more important than having the commander in chief, the chief executive of the United States, clearly verbally assert the threats and challenges,” said Obama official, Evelyn Farkas.
Of course Trump’s calling card is his refusal to focus. And he’s made clear time and again his inability to view any concern about foreign cyber attacks as distinct from support for Mueller’s “witch hunt”. In fact, based on his public positions, the President appears to accept foreign intrusions as merely reciprocical pay back for similar US efforts, simply par for the course within the international state of nature.
One of the worst things about this Administration is the now uniform wariness of top officials to make public statements on important issues for fear of being contradicted by a President uninformed about his own policies and unconcerned about publicly slighting his own people. This appears to be responsible for the muddled message on cyber security. So we are leaderless on perhaps the most pressing national security challenge facing the country.
Whether it’s insidious promotion of our divisions, or incipient inattention to our basic security, the President is a human Jenga toppler. When we’re laying awake in the dark, without air conditioning, wondering how long the latest blackout will last, and trying not to panic about growing disorder, it will be small comfort knowing exactly who to blame. Unsustainable. BC