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.”
The Chinese Communist Party has made innovation a national priority. Chinese economic growth may persist for the near to medium term even if China does not succeed in generating wholly new technologies, but the character of China as a trading partner or strategic competitor will depend in part on whether China innovates. Barriers to innovation in the civilian sphere should not be mistaken for impediments to military innovation. In addition, comparisons with the Japanese case illuminate the different contributions of culture, factor endowments, and political systems to innovative capacity.
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