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.”
Neta C. Crawford is the Montague Burton Professor of International Relations at University of Oxford. Prior to that she was Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science at Boston University. In addition to The Pentagon, Climate Change, and War (MIT Press, 2022) Crawford is the author of Accountability for Killing: Moral Responsibility for Collateral Damage in America’s Post-9/11 Wars (Oxford University Press, 2013); Argument and Change in World Politics: Ethics, Decolonization and Humanitarian Intervention (Cambridge University Press, 2002) winner of a 2003 award from the American Political Science Association; and the co-editor of How Sanctions Work: Lessons from South Africa (1999). Her first book, Soviet Military Aircraft (Lexington Books), was published in 1987. Crawford has also authored dozens of scholarly articles in academic journals and books. These include articles in International Organization; International Security; Ethics & International Affairs; Journal of Political Philosophy; International Relations; Orbis; Naval War College Review; Perspectives on Politics; and Critical Studies on Security. She has served on the editorial board of the American Political Science Review and is currently on the editorial boards of several journals, including International Theory. In her undergraduate education at Brown University, Crawford devised an independent concentration, The War System and Alternatives to Militarism, which she completed with honors. Her graduate education was at MIT. She has had post-doctoral fellowships and visiting scholar fellowships at Harvard University, Brown University, and the University of Southern California.
Crawford has written op-eds that have appeared in newspapers, including the Boston Globe; Washington Post; Los Angeles Times; Christian Science Monitor; Newsday; The Providence Journal; and the Huffington Post. She has given invited lectures at many colleges and universities
Crawford is a founder and co-director of the Costs of War Project, found at costsofwar.org. She also contributes analysis for the project on U.S. spending on post-9/11 wars, and on civilian casualties in Iraq, Pakistan, and Afghanistan. She has testified before a special hearing in the U.S. Congress on the war in Afghanistan, and for the Massachusetts State Legislature, for a hearing on the costs of war.