[Photo:  The NYPost  /  zumapress.com]

The question will remain whether the U.S. acted too slowly - and then, perhaps, with not enough force.

The Obama administration struck back at Russia on Thursday for its efforts to influence the 2016 election. In a sweeping set of announcements, the United States ejected 35 Russian intelligence operatives from the U.S. and imposed sanctions on Russia’s 2 leading intelligence services, including 4 top officers of the military intelligence unit the White House believes ordered the attacks on the Democratic National Committee and other political organizations.

The U.S. is also expected to release evidence linking the cyberattacks to computer systems used by Russian intelligence. Taken together, the actions would amount to the strongest American response ever taken to a state-sponsored cyberattack aimed at our country.

Trump’s Next Move.    The sanctions were intended to box in President-elect Donald Trump, who has consistently cast doubt that the Russian government had anything to do with the hacking of the DNC or other political institutions. Mr. Trump will now have to decide whether to lift the sanctions on the Russian intelligence agencies when he takes office next month, with Republicans in Congress among those calling for a public investigation into Russia’s actions. Should Mr. Trump do so, it would require him to effectively reject the findings of his intelligence agencies.

The Obama administration is planning to release a detailed “joint analytic report” from the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security that is clearly based in part on intelligence gathered by the National Security Agency. A more detailed report on the intelligence, ordered by President Obama, will be published in the next 3 weeks, though much of the detail is expected to remain classified.

Impact of Sanctions.    Despite the fanfare and political repercussions surrounding the announcement, it’s not clear how much real effect the sanctions may have, although they go well beyond the modest sanctions imposed against North Korea for its attack on Sony Pictures Entertainment 2 years ago. Starting in March 2014, the United States and its Western allies levied sanctions against broad sectors of the Russian economy and blacklisted dozens of people, some of them close friends of President Vladimir V. Putin, after the Russian annexation of Crimea and its activities to destabilize Ukraine. Mr. Trump suggested in an interview with The NYTimes earlier this year that he believed those sanctions were useless, and left open the possibility he might lift them.

Mr. Obama and his staff have debated for months when and how to impose what they call “proportionate” sanctions for the remarkable set of events that took place during the election, as well as how much of them to announce publicly. Several officials, including VP Joseph Biden Jr., have suggested that there may also be a covert response, one that would be obvious to Mr. Putin but not to the public.

While that may prove satisfying, many outside experts have said that unless the public response is strong enough to impose a real cost on Mr. Putin, his government and his vast intelligence apparatus, it might not deter further activity.

Specifics of the Sanctions.    Today’s sanctions were immediately imposed on 4 Russian intelligence officials: Igor Valentinovich Korobov, current chief of a military intelligence agency, the GRU, and 3 deputies. GRU officials rarely travel to the United States, or keep their assets here, so the effects may be largely symbolic.

The administration also put sanctions on 3 companies and organizations that it said supported the hacking operations: the Special Technologies Center, a signals intelligence operation in St. Petersburg; Zor Security,aka Esage Lab; and, the Autonomous non-commercial Organization Professional Association of Designers of Data Processing Systems, which reportedly is a group that provided special training for the hacking.

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