Educating Conservatives: Would drone strikes on their cyber war facilities be an appropriate response to the Russian attacks on our election?

Reaper (the drone formerly known as Predator). Photo Credit: Wikipedia Commons

Someone on Quora asks: 

Would drone strikes on their cyber war facilities be an appropriate response to the Russian attacks on our election?

No. Sending armed Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) over Russian territory and firing, say, Hellfire missiles at the Internet Research Agency’s headquarters in St. Petersburg (the former Leningrad) would be, don’t you know, an act of war.

Seriously, dude. What are you thinking?

Okay, let’s say that a future President (not Donald Trump or Mike Pence) decides that the proper response to Russia’s interference in our elections is what amounts to a conventional air strike, albeit using drones.

First, let’s look at the graphics of this. Imagine, if you will, Russia’s state-controlled media beaming pictures of the burning IRA building wherever it may be in St. Petersburg. Chances are that the drone strike would be a “no warning” strike (because then Russia’s air defense net would be hard-pressed to defend Russian territory), so in addition to a burning shell of a building, you’ll also have dead bodies.

I seriously doubt that you have read any Russian history, but I assure you that if there is one thing that will cause the average Russian citizen to get pissed off at the U.S. is an actual act of aggression against the Motherland (Rodina). So basically what we’d be looking at is the U.S. carrying out the 21st Century version of Pearl Harbor or September 11 against Russia.

Second, it is doubtful that the U.S. armed forces would go along with such a hare-brained idea. Unless Russia were to, say, shoot down a U.S. manned plane over Syria or sink a U.S. warship on the high seas, no sane commander is going to support a military strike against a rival regional power, much less one that is a nuclear weapon club charter member.

I’m not a national security expert, but I’ve always heard that any reaction to a foreign power’s unfriendly actions should be proportional and appropriate.

Drone strikes against Russia are neither proportional or appropriate.