Still, the belligerent rhetoric from the likes of Begala and Blumenthal is dangerous. To bluster about Russian actions being an act of war is to suggest that the U.S. may actually have to go to war with Russia, or risk appearing too weak to defend its own sovereignty. Yet aside from Begalas comments about bombing the KGB, theres little explanation from these Democrats about what a war with Russia, a nuclear power, would look like.
Its worth contrasting the wild talk about bombing Russia with the policy of President Barack Obama: economic sanctions, the dismissal of diplomats, and potential retribution in the cyber realm. As The Washington Post reported in June, Obama in late December approved a previously undisclosed covert measure that authorized planting cyber weapons in Russias infrastructure, the digital equivalent of bombs that could be detonated if the United States found itself in an escalating exchange with Moscow. The project, which Obama approved in a covert-action finding, was still in its planning stages when Obama left office. It would be up to President Trump to decide whether to use the capability.
Cyber warfare is a murky realm, but its clear that Obamas preference was for a modulated approach that would punish Russias norm violations by reacting in kind, but stay well short of a conventional military war. He took this approach because he correctly viewed Russia as a weak state trying to compensate with norm violations, but lacking in the resources to be a real threat to American power. In 2013, Obama dismissively referred to Putin as someone who can act like a bored kid in the back of the classroom. By this judgement, Russia, with its decrepit oil-based economy (roughly the same size as Italys economy) and general lack of soft power (because Putins own actions have made Russia unpopular in Europe and many other parts of the world), is more an irritant than a major problem. So Obama opted to contain Russia rather than fight it directly.
His approach, widely derided by GOP hawks, remains the right one. To abandon it, and make common cause with McCain and Graham, would be to accept their reckless threat inflation and the foolish belief that the U.S., still bogged down in the Middle East, can afford another major conflict. Trumps coddling of Putin deserves to be criticized, and Russia ought to be punished for its election interference and prevented from doing it again. But this can be accomplished without borrowing language from Dick Cheney, of all people. Instead, Democrats should realize that their last president laid out a nuanced approach that looks more and more sensible every day.