Provoking Russia?

These days, it looks more and more like the Regressive Left *wants* war with Russia. They are openly and blatantly threatening Russia with acts of war. In the past it was limited mostly to drone strikes and rebel troop movements in Syria, but now they are threatening Russia directly, according to this snippet from NBC News:

The Obama administration is contemplating an unprecedented cyber covert action against Russia in retaliation for alleged Russian interference in the American presidential election, U.S. intelligence officials told NBC News.

Current and former officials with direct knowledge of the situation say the CIA has been asked to deliver options to the White House for a wide-ranging "clandestine" cyber operation designed to harass and "embarrass" the Kremlin leadership.

For one thing, releasing this in a press conference with reporters from major news organizations doesn't really help with the clandestineness of an operation like this. If Russia KNOWS you're going to penetrate their networks, along with you accusing them of fiddling with the general election, they're going to respond in kind, and both sides will escalate to full-on war.

This leads one to conclude that you're actively provoking them into war, so the current administration can influence the outcome of the election. Since Joe Biden said that the function of this operation is to "send Vladimir Putin a message", it may be true.