“It would be a total disaster,” one senior military strategist said to me when the issue came up anew around the JPMorgan and Sony attacks. “Imagine a company takes out a big server in Russia or North Korea,” the official went on. “The Russians or the Koreans see it as a state-sponsored attack. So they escalate…” Before the first meeting on the confrontation is held in the Situation Room, a full-scale conflict ensues, all for a retaliatory strike the president was never so much as consulted about.
