The overarching question imparting urgency to this exploration is: Can U.S.-Russian contention in cyberspace cause the two nuclear superpowers to stumble into war? In considering this question we were constantly reminded of recent comments by a prominent U.S. arms control expert: At least as dangerous as the risk of an actual cyberattack, he observed, is cyber operations’ “blurring of the line between peace and war.” Or, as Nye wrote, “in the cyber realm, the difference between a weapon and a non-weapon may come down to a single line of code, or simply the intent of a computer program’s user.”
Under what conditions do nuclear-aspiring states comply with demands to terminate their weapons ambitions? Existing theories of proliferation assume that nuclear choices are voluntary and that coercion is incidental to preventing the spread of nuclear weapons. In this Project on Managing the Atom Seminar, Gene Gerzhoy will challenge these claims by presenting a theory of coercive nonproliferation and testing its predictions against evidence from notable cases of nuclear reversal.