Malcolm Nance - The Plot to Hack America

With this election, Vladimir Putin, the former director of Russia’s intelligence agency, sees the election of Donald Trump as the fastest way to destabilize the United States, damage its economy, as well as fracture both the European Union and NATO. These events, which start with the election of Trump, would allow Russia to become the strongest of the world’s three Superpowers and reorder the globe with a dominant Russia at the helm.

For the purposes of this analysis we will refer to the Russian operation as LUCKY-7. Seven is the international calling code for Russia. To pull off such an enormous political warfare operation successfully would require at least seven phases. The number is not only a universal symbol of luck, but it is also consistent with Russian superstition and harnesses the iconography of the seven sacraments in the Russian Orthodox Church.

To conduct an operation at this level would require a level of organization far greater than any had been done before anywhere in the world. A political and cyber mission of this magnitude would require every component of the Russian cyber and intelligence arsenal. The mission would seem daunting at first, until one recognizes that it would simply resemble a Kompromat-style political warfare operation, but with far greater delicacy.

The 2011 treatment of Trump by President Obama at the White House correspondents’ dinner sent him out in humiliation. A powerful man like Trump would need to be handled carefully, like all of those old East German academics Putin recruited to infiltrate West Germany. They were all the same: Full of themselves and possessing an unquenchable thirst for recognition and fortune. For the Spymaster-in-Chief it must surely have flickered across Putin’s mind that this was an asset that could be recruited, groomed, and handled. To what end originally, we may never know. But it would not hurt to have a powerful, rich, American blow-hard who could inspire the common man in one’s pocket. This was a man who enjoyed being a showman on the wrestling entertainment circuit, who had a wildly-popular show in which he behaved exactly like a Russian oligarch. To the FSB spies it must have been especially enticing to use their skills for the spy-in-chief to bring this man into a position of favor; a man like this in the White House could be very helpful indeed. But that would take a great measure of work, care, and feeding. Trump would need to first feel at home with Russia. The runway for this approach would require the first word of the MICE recruitment strategy be dangled before his eyes, and to which he was particularly susceptible: Money. The FSB could easily arrange for a billionaire wanting to earn money in Russia to meet the Kremlin’s own mutli-billionaires. Like all intelligence operations, it comes down to a Go-No Go decision by a top spy. It would involve so little effort that Putin would have to think, why not?

The first objective for the covert operations officers of the FSB’s SVR division to meet the goals initiated by Vladimir Putin would be to bring the selected candidate into a position of favor in the American media. With almost minimal effort the Russian state could harness its own global media machine and collect strategic intelligence, in an effort to determine faults in the opponent’s policies in advance. Additionally, acquisition of the Clinton opposition research would be the highest priority. This research would not only give insight into the candidate from the opponent’s perspective, but would also be able to contribute to the overall assessment as to the suitability of the preferred candidate to meet Moscow’s goals. For an old spy, all information is good information. Information from other Republicans or Democrats could help LUCKY-7 adjust their strategy and deploy new tactics as needed. All dimensions of political and intelligence knowledge that could help meet the Kremlin’s goals would be of value, when the stakes for Russia are so high. The effusive praise that Donald Trump heaps upon Putin and the Kremlin may have been seemingly innocent in his eyes, but to the spymaster and the LUCKY-7 operations team, every utterance, every positive commentary, would put Russian objectives in a position of dominance over current and potentially future US policy.

Putin would have a clear motive to push for Trump to be the vessel to attack their mutual enemy: Hillary Clinton, and by extension, President Barack Obama’s policies. Trump’s spy General Flynn himself noted how he perceived that Putin does not respect American leadership and apparently changed his policy to suit that disdain. It would be well within Putin’s interest to take advantage of his now well-honed political and information warfare apparatus to show his preference and steer Trump to do his bidding.

Applying the Russian global media and information warfare structure to attack the critics of his campaign would be the first step, and there is no greater threat to Putin’s policies than Hillary Clinton. The objectives of LUCKY-7 would be to focus all efforts of the Russian cyberwarfare information operations directorates to damage her election by stealing as much internal information as possible and smacking her with a full scale Kompromat operation. If the materials existed, they would be judiciously released. If not, then the forgery masters of the FSB would be able to produce whatever dirt would be necessary.

The deep personal animosity between Clinton and Putin is long and sordid, but a few events between them are noteworthy. In March 2014, former Secretary Clinton gave a speech at the Boys and Girls Club annual fundraiser where she compared Putin’s actions seizing Crimea to the actions of Hitler and the Nazi party:

Now if this sounds familiar, it’s what Hitler did back in the ’30s… All the Germans that were… the ethnic Germans, the Germans by ancestry who were in places like Czechoslovakia and Romania and other places, Hitler kept saying they’re not being treated right. I must go and protect my people and that’s what’s gotten everybody so nervous. 1

Putin responded to these comments to French TV March 4, 2014, dripping with sexism and disdain he claimed her comments was not befitting a woman.

It’s better not to argue with women… But Ms. Clinton has never been too graceful in her statements. Still, we always met afterwards and had cordial conversations at various international events. I think even in this case we could reach an agreement. When people push boundaries too far, it’s not because they are strong but because they are weak. But maybe weakness is not the worst quality for a woman. 2

Clinton was having none of it. She apparently had Putin’s number and understood what CNN Masha Gessen noted when she said “[Putin] sees himself as someone who doesn’t mince words and who gets into verbal fights, as well as knife fights. And in fact Russians see him like that.” 3

So Clinton gave him a knife fight but using a verbal putdown that even Russian women could understand.

“He is very difficult to read personally,” she said. “He is always looking for advantage. So he will try to put you ill at ease. He will even throw an insult your way. He will look bored and dismissive. He’ll do all of that.”

“I have a lot of experience with people acting like that,” she said. “Go back to elementary school. I’ve seen all of that, so I’m not impressed by it.” 4