American Public Reticent to Retaliate Against SolarWinds Hack As the United States moves towards developing a more comprehensive doctrine that could delineate when cyber operations do or do not justify a retaliatory response, public attitudes about these questions should remain a point of consideration. As our understanding of the damage incurred by the SolarWinds hack grows, the question remains: How will the United States respond? In reaction to the recent, widespread hack engineered by Russian intelligence, President Donald Trump and President-Elect Joe Biden have taken drastically opposing stances. On December 17, Biden condemned the hack, in which Russian operatives leveraged vulnerabilities in SolarWinds and FireEye technologies to steal information from Fortune 500 companies, the Pentagon, the Treasury, intelligence agencies, nuclear labs, and more. Biden has pledged his commitment to cybersecurity and stated his administration would “not stand idly by in the face of cyber assaults on our nation.” The United States, he said, would be “imposing substantial costs on those responsible for such malicious attacks.” Although Trump administration officials such as Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have identified Russia as the source of the hack and emphasized its gravity, Trump himself has been largely dismissive, claiming on Twitter that the events have been exaggerated in the media and declaring everything “under control.”