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.”
Biography
Hutham S. Olayan is a former member of the Belfer Center's International Council.
Olayan is vice chair of the Corporate Board of The Olayan Group, a private international investor that also has commercial operations in the Middle East.
Ms. Olayan has been a director of the Group since 1981. She led the Group’s investment activity in the Americas for more than 30 years, most recently as president and CEO of Olayan America and other US affiliates of the Group.
Ms. Olayan retired as CEO at the end of 2017. She assumed her new role as vice chair of the board in 2018.
Ms. Olayan has been a director of Morgan Stanley since 2006 and a director of IBM since 2016. She also serves on the Executive Advisory Board of General Atlantic.
In the non-profit sector, Ms. Olayan serves on the boards of the Peter G. Peterson Institute for International Economics, Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center, and The MasterCard Foundation
Last Updated: