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.”
Corey Hinderstein is Senior Coordinator for Nuclear Security and Nonproliferation Policy at the U.S. Department of Energy's National Nuclear Security Administration. Until February 2015, she was Vice President for International Programs at the Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), where she led efforts related to building norms, regimes and frameworks for global nuclear nonproliferation and security. Areas of focus include minimizing uses of highly enriched uranium, management and verification of nuclear fuel cycle activities internationally, improving nuclear security, and other nuclear risk reduction efforts. Hinderstein edited the book Cultivating Confidence: Verification, Monitoring, and Enforcement for a World Free of Nuclear Weapons (Nuclear Threat Initiative, 2010) and co-authored NTI’s Innovating Verification: New Tools and New Actors to Reduce Nuclear Risks report series. Prior to joining NTI, Hinderstein was deputy director and senior analyst at the Institute for Science and International Security (ISIS).
Hinderstein is currently president of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management (INMM), and a member of Women in International Security and the American Nuclear Society. She holds a bachelor's degree in government with a concentration in international relations from Clark University in Worcester, MA, where she was elected to Phi Beta Kappa.