| |  | On the Hill | | Lamwakers wonder whether NATO is ready to robustly defend a cyber attack against one if its own |  Russian President Vladimir Putin speaks to representatives of the flight crew of Russian airlines as he visits to Aeroflot Aviation School outside Moscow, Russia, Saturday, March 5, 2022. (, Sputnik, Kremlin Pool Photo via AP) | | | The other battlefield: It isn't only Russia's military might that has some U.S. lawmakers and experts concerned about what's next in the conflict with Ukraine. They're also worried about a stealthy but possibly just as damaging enemy: cyber warfare. They believe that as Russian President Vladimir Putin is pressed on the battlefield and continues to be squeezed by the sharp bite of U.S. and European sanctions, NATO's newly evolved cyber policy might not be prepared to respond. Over the past decade, NATO — like most organizations and entities — has modernized its cyber defensive posture and practices, prompting NATO to say last year that it would "weigh 'on a case-by-case basis' whether a cyberattack would trigger its Article 5 collective defense principle, which establishes that an attack against one ally is an attack against all allies," our colleagues Cat Zakrzewski and Joseph Menn reported last month. | - "We will not speculate on how serious a cyberattack would have to be in order to trigger a collective response," a NATO official told reporters month. "Any response could include diplomatic and economic sanctions, cyber measures, or even conventional forces, depending on the nature of the attack," the official added.
| | The updated policy, according to former U.S. ambassadors to NATO and experts who work closely with the organization, has come a long way since Russian-based attackers launched massive cyberattacks on Estonia over the removal of a Soviet war memorial in the small Baltic country in 2007. As it currently stands, NATO leaders were deliberately ambiguous in defining what would qualify as an Article 5 attack when revising the group's cyber policy, "so as not to create a clear-cut threshold beneath which an opponent could operate freely," said Douglas Lute, a former U.S. ambassador to NATO. But there is some concern the ambiguity might muddle a potential response to a cyberattack. | - Key quote: "If you have a catastrophic cyberattack that shuts down your [power] grids or shuts down your ability to keep your people warm in the winter or fed or what have you, we've got to figure that out. I think NATO needs to get together and have those very difficult [discussions] because it is a component of war, as I said before, and I think it needs to be viewed as such," Rep. John Katko (R-N.Y.), the top Republican on the House Homeland Security panel, told The Washington Post in an interview last week.
- "I think it's evolving. Do they have more to go? Absolutely," Katko added of NATO.
| | James Andrew Lewis, the director of the strategic technologies program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said NATO has "actually done a pretty good job of figuring out what their response would be to a significant cyber attack," Lewis said, adding that "there would have to be some equivalence with a physical attack" in order to trigger Article 5. "But NATO might not have the political consensus," Lewis added, referring to the need for the consent of all 28 members in order for any invocation of the collective defense clause. At least one NATO member, for example, "has taken a broad view suggesting a cyber operation would be an armed attack 'if it caused substantial loss of life or considerable physical or economic damage,'" Michael Schmitt, a distinguished scholar at West Point, wrote in Just Security last month. But: "The prevailing view is that … an armed attack is the 'most grave form' of a use of force. Thus, the scale and effects of any Russian cyber operations would have to be especially severe before triggering the right of individual or collective self-defense," Schmitt writes. Ivo Daalder, U.S. ambassador to NATO from 2009 to 2013, added that updates to Article 5 are irrelevant if the overall system "to act collectively in defense of NATO territory has eroded." "Although NATO has done what it needs to do in order to maintain some significant capability of defense, the system as a whole really hasn't lived with the prospect of a military or cyber attack on its territory in a credible way," Daalder said. Ukraine was admitted to NATO's Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence (CCDCOE) last week, Cyberscoop's Suzanne Smalley reports of the NATO-accredited military research institution. NATO Sec. Gen. Jens Stoltenberg said in January that CCDCOE's cyber experts "had been exchanging information with their Ukrainian counterparts 'on the current malicious cyber activities' that Ukraine was experiencing in the lead-up to Russia's invasion," per Smalley. | | But another potential setback for NATO is that it has not taken steps to acquire offensive cyber capabilities and is dependent on member states that boast them. "We need to add into our plans the way we fight offensive cyber capability because you better believe Russia is going to use it on us … But what NATO is good at is being a defensive alliance, and sometimes they're slow to pick up on we have to also be capable of offensive action," retired former NATO supreme commander and retired U.S. Air Force Gen. Philip Breedlove told The Early. What we're reading about the war: | Senate unanimously passes anti-lynching bill |  Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) speaks during a news conference about the Emmett Till Antilynching Act on Feb. 26, 2020. (J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo) | | | 'A historic first': "The Senate on Monday unanimously passed legislation that would make lynching a federal hate crime, in a historic first that comes after more than a century of failed efforts to pass such a measure," our colleague Felicia Sonmez reports. | - "The Emmett Till Antilynching Act, which was introduced by Rep. Bobby L. Rush (D-Ill.) in the House and Sens. Cory Booker (D-N.J.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.) in the Senate, now goes to President Biden for his signature."
| | |  | The campaign | | Potential 2024 candidate Tom Cotton compares Reagan and Trump in GOP speech |  Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) asks questions during Attorney General nominee Merrick Garland's confirmation hearing on February 22, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) | | | It's 2024 already: Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), a potential presidential candidate, called a bipartisan criminal justice bill meant to reduce the prison population and signed by former president Donald Trump in 2018 "the worst mistake of his tenure" in a wide-ranging speech Monday evening at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, Calif. He also attacked President Biden's handling of the withdrawal from Afghanistan and his diplomatic efforts to head off war in Ukraine. "Even now the president hesitates and falters," Cotton said. "He pats himself on the back for assembling a diplomatic coalition, which is akin to Neville Chamberlain celebrating the coalition that declared war on Germany after it invaded Poland." Cotton went on to criticize Biden for failing to ban Russian oil imports from the U.S, "which even Nancy Pelosi has called for." | | |  | At the White House | | Kamala Harris to head to Poland and Russia, urge NATO to stay united |  Vice President Harris waves as she boards Air Force Two in Oakland, Calif., on Monday, April 5, 2021. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP Photo) | | | Happening this week: "As chaos spreads in the aftermath of Russia's invasion of Ukraine, Biden is dispatching Vice President Harris to Eastern Europe on an urgent mission to reinforce Western unity, reassure allies of U.S. protection and promise aid as more than a million Ukrainian refugees flee their homes," our colleagues Cleve R. Wootson Jr., Ashley Parker and Missy Ryan report. | - "Harris will meet with leaders in Poland on Thursday and their counterparts in Romania a day later … Harris is likely to discuss with those country's leaders such issues as Poland's desire to supply fighter jets to Ukraine at a time when the U.S. is seeking to avoid anything that Moscow could construe as a direct engagement between NATO and Russia."
| White House holds energy talks with Venezuela amid Russia crisis |  Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.) listens during a Senate Foreign Relations nomination hearing on Tuesday, Feb. 8. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post) | | | Menendez isn't on board with outreach to Maduro: "The Biden White House inched closer Monday to a modest rapprochement with oil-rich Venezuela, a bitter foe due to the oppressive policies of President Nicolás Maduro, as it urgently sought ways to stave off the economic, diplomatic and political impact of soaring gas prices that nudged over $4 a gallon," our colleagues Annie Linskey, Samantha Schmidt and Ana Vanessa Herrero report. "The potential thaw arrives as the White House sent a delegation to Venezuela over the weekend to discuss energy sanctions imposed by the United States several years ago and to address the fate of American citizens who have been jailed in the country, including six oil executives from Citgo." But one top Democrat isn't happy about it. "Nicolás Maduro is a cancer to our hemisphere and we should not breathe new life into his reign of torture and murder," Sen. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, said in a statement on Monday evening. "The Biden administration's efforts to unify the entire world against a murderous tyrant in Moscow should not be undercut by propping up a dictator under investigation for crimes against humanity in Caracas." | | |  | The Data | | | Rising oil prices, visualized: "Oil prices hit their highest point in over a decade Monday as it appeared increasingly likely that Western sanctions would not spare the Russian energy industry," our colleague Aaron Gregg reports. | - "Brent crude, the international benchmark, was trading up 3.7 percent to $122 a barrel after having swelled past $130. West Texas Intermediate, the U.S. oil benchmark, was up 1.8 percent, at about $118. Oil prices have increased more than sixfold since their early pandemic low point. Not since the 2008 financial crisis have oil prices been higher."
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