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.”
1 People
- Faculty
- Administrator, U.S. Agency for International Development (2021-present)
- United States Ambassador to the United Nations (2013-2017)
- Anna Lindh Professor of the Practice of Global Leadership and Public Policy, Harvard Kennedy School (on-leave)
- William D. Zabel ’61 Professor of Practice in Human Rights, Harvard Law School (on-leave)
Samantha Power