You should really, really learn about the history of US involvement in the Iranian government before you state that. Like how we helped overthrow the democratically elected Prime Minister in 1953, to ensure we put in place a guy who was friendly to Great Brittan and the US. (Operation AJAX)

Can almost trace a line from that to the 1979 embassy hostage crisis, and the problems we have with Iran today.

Why do you think the CIA kept Operation Ajax a secret from the American public until 1992?

“Put one of your cronies at the top of another country’s government”

Do you mean US meddling in Iran in 1953 or the other way around today?

Why do you think the CIA kept Operation Ajax a secret from the American public until 1992?

;)

It wasn’t until 2017 that Britain released documents on their part in Operation Boot.

And you think they kept it secret just for fun?

You think that if the American and British publics were told in 1953 "We're gonna go overthrow another country's government and install a brutal dictatorship because their democratic government is threatening BP's profit margins", the public would've given them a thumbs up?

Oh no. No fun intended.

I just wasn’t able to get what OP meant without that clarification.

In the framework outlined by Micheal Hayden in his blackhat keynote, offensive attacks like disabling missile batteries or power grids are acts of war, but espionage and intelligence gathering are on the table as what nation states just sort of do when idle.

Does Micheal Hayden consider firing missiles at another country an act of war?

Which country fired missiles at us again?

The cyber attack was a response to an Iranian missile attack on Saudi oil production facilities, in which 19 missiles struck the facility, injuring an unknown number of the 200 people who were present.

I'm not saying that the US should be stanning Saudi Arabia, but it seems inappropriate to hem and haw about what is and isn't an "act of war" when actual literal missiles blew up actual literal people.

Missiles not shot at us, not proven to have been from Iran, in a conflict we're not part of.

And the issue is that cyber attacks _are_ real attacks. Power outages like you've seen in Egypt and Venezuela kill people. These cyber attacks destroyed missiles. The stuxnet attack did 10s to 100s of millions of dollars to a uranium production facility. To pretend that flipping a switch to launch a missile and and flipping a switch to launch a virus to destroy the same target is somehow different is a false dichotomy, and contrary to published US policy.

Banks, heavy industry, big pharma are literally buying candidates for the government. Yet russia using trolls and leaking some emails is the biggest problem with elections... sounds like correct priorities.

At least banks and industry are in the country that they are trying to control. I don't know how to tell you that secret outside influence is more harmful than honest (if disproportionate) inside influence.

Corporations hold no allegiance to any flag (well unless chinese :) ) they only serve their own interest.

'The secret outside influence' on usa is negligible scarecrow used to put fear in people, so they pay attention to scary putin instead of focusing on who really runs the country. Honestly how much influance do you think russia had on last election?

The interest of an American corporation is definitionally beneficial to at least some Americans, namely themselves.

The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans.

As for how much influence Russia had, read the Mueller report. Volume One is full of examples.

Corporate influence is bad, sure, but corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have. Avengers: Endgame, the most expensive movie ever made, cost about as much as one F35 fighter jet, of which the USAF has purchased 1,783 units. When a state decides to use popular media for public influence, they can wield multiple orders of magnitude more influence than any of the world's great media monopolies can.

We are talking about Multinational Mega corps that hide most of the money outside of US. They are an entities with a flag sticker attached to forehead.

>The interest of an American corporation is definitionally beneficial to at least some Americans

Benefit of few at cost of majority of the nation, thats good???

>The interest of a Russian dictator is untied to the interests of any Americans. It is as you say "beneficial to at least some Americans".

>corporations have nowhere near the amount of resources to bear on influence operations as states have.

And that's why they pay even lower corporate taxes now, the biggest players skip paying taxes altogether through loophole that somehow no one wants to ever fix. Its common knowledge that Apples, Googles, Facebooks and other Amazons pay laughable amounts. And with tax breaks and incentives the are getting more money then they pay[1] in its nature its beyond grotesque.

Lockheed martin selling jets to Saudis so they can claim a new better jets need to be developed. Directly working against interest of the state so they can milk the middle case even more. That is literally selling arms to both sides so neither will win so you can stuff your pockets with blood money indefinitely.

Correct me if I am wrong but it seems that what you are saying is that state is this big monolithic structure that holds vast amounts of power. It has power over corporation as it can pass laws, and it controls the biggest army in the world. True, but in reality all of it controlled through 'handful' of politicians elected via popularity contest ergo if you have enough money you will buy yourself a ticket in. And who provides the money? Interest groups, lobbyists via more or less opaque means (superPACs or dark money pools).

So you can claim that the puppet is the biggest and strongest but its on strings and groups that holds those strings are in control. And no matter what puppet will dance as its told to no matter what.

[1] https://www.cbsnews.com/news/2018-taxes-some-of-americas-big...