The President is a pretty smart guy

President Obama announced sanctions today against Russia in retaliation for their assorted cyber attacks on US interests, specifically the hacks directed against various components of the electoral system as well as an apparently policy of intimidation directed against US officials in Russia itself.

The details of the sanctions are honestly fairly unimportant, despite being the most severe actions against Russia since the Cold War, on the scale of world powers, they are still basically slaps on the wrist meant for the public rather than to truly inconvenience Russia, and in fact, they really aren't directed against Russia at all in a way, I'll get to that in a minute.

First, I should address an issue that came up in the 2012 presidential election, when Mitt Romney referred to Russia as a major geopolitical foe, he was roundly mocked for a Cold War era mentality that had no place in the 21st century, turns out he may not have been as wrong as thought, and for that if nothing else, might deserve an apology, still deserved to lose the election though.

I think the problem is Vladimir Putin, he is ex-KGB and, as many Russian leaders seem to do, appears to have gotten progressively more cartoonishly villainous as the years go by, he combines a desire to return to the days of the USSR with the ability to take any and all opposition extremely personally.

It is this last point I think that lead to the interference in our election particularly, while it is incredibly obvious that The Toddler would be sympathetic to Russian interests, I think what mainly prompted it was the Obama administrations interference with Russian efforts in Ukraine and Syria, among other places.

The efforts against our election certainly warranted a response, but like I said, no one really expects anything to change policy wise based on it, it's a fact that even now, Russia is more than capable of ignoring anything less than military action if they wish. Though it might have been satisfying for Obama to tweek Putin before he leaves office, there was another goal, and that one was to screw with The Toddler. In pursuing action against Russia Obama is actually laying the groundwork for inter party cooperation against The Toddler's agenda, whatever it ends up being.

Whether or not the President-elect is actually on the Kremlins payroll is beside the point, he has made it clear that he has no interest in working against Putin anywhere in the world, and he welcomed Russian meddling in the election, the thing is, people notice this shit, his loyalists don't give a damn of course, but there is a hard core of Cold War era hawks still in Congress right now who grew up fearing the Red Menace. People like Lindsey Graham or John McCain. This faction may find common ground with Democrats against policies that benefit Russia but they will face a tough decision: Work across the aisle to defend against what they feel is a true existential threat, or keep their support among the "grass roots" on the Republican side. The GOP leadership, such as it is, is very likely to turn savagely on anyone who breaks ranks with the Presidents agenda for any reason, and if the hawkish faction does find itself out in the cold after working against Russia, it just might find itself finding common ground with the Democrats on some other things.

Obama accomplished another goal too by driving a wedge between Russia and The Toddler, he will find himself taking power during a time when Putin is pretty pissed at the USA, and I suspect Putin is a man to spread blame around, but even if he doesn't, The Toddler will find himself needing to reverse the sanctions and restore the previous status quo which he may not be able to do as effectively as he might like, particularly if his party splinters a bit as I discussed above. If he can't undo Obama's actions, or worse, finds himself unable to prevent Congress from imposing more sanctions, then he is unlikely to remain on Putin's Christmas gift list for very long.

It's small stuff, and I imagine there were many other reasons for the President to act like he did, but there is every possibility that a few months down the line we will be exceedingly grateful that he did so