Current war is between Russia and Ukraine.
NOT between Russia and other countries.
Let's supposed somebody starts hacking Russian satellites. Kremlin says it's highly likely was done by Europe/USA (even if it's Ukraine) and respond in kind. By hacking theirs. What if it doesn't stop at mutual hacking? both USA and Russia armed forces have ASAT weapons. What next?
So:
1. Russia begins a war of aggression in a neighbouring state
2. Other nearby states join a defensive pact in response
3. Russia begins jamming civilian satellites in reprisal
But somehow this is Russia defending itself? Something doesn't add up here.
Russia's grand strategy is to foster domestic unrest and civil strife in other countries and leverage them as proxies. Their ground warfare game is mediocre, but they excel in information and electronic warfare.
US imposed individual sanctions and explicitly named hackers from the GRU after the DOD investigated 2016 election hacking, effectively authorizing their arrest if stepping on western soil. This will be handled diplomatically through the State Dept. first. There is little incentive to starting a war with Russia I don't think.
A physically violent and currently-attacking-us Russia, spying on the communications of the US President*, is _not_ a good thing. This is a very clear military threat.
This may have been true decades ago when a different polity existed there and conditions in general were quite different. I see no evidence that this is true today. Occasionally Russian politicians might rattle the saber, but that's mostly for domestic political reasons, like it is in every other nation on Earth including USA. Just as USA society is not a monolith, neither is Russia society. Russian military interests are specific to particular nations like Ukraine and Syria where they also have economic interests. The main thing they want from USA is something they have in common with a number or other nations: please stop the sanctions and related economic aggression.
I'm sure anyone here could come up with a variety of USA war media articles or presentations criticizing the conduct of the Russian state in one way or another. In every such article I've read, Russia is held to a standard that USA hasn't met since the start of the Philippine-American War at the latest, and in some cases since the Pilgrims landed. I'd like to think that such articles insult their readers' intelligence.
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