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 annual Robert S. McNamara Lecture on War and Peace will be presented by former Secretary of Defense William Perry on Thursday, February 24 at 7:30 pm at the John F. Kennedy Jr. Forum. Perry, widely recognized as one of the "wise men" of American national security policy in this generation, will deliver a lecture titled "Have we reached the nuclear tipping point?"