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.”
A seminar with Francis Ghiles.
Francis Ghilès is a trilingual (English, French and Spanish) political scientist who through eighteen years with The Financial Times reporting on international capital markets and North Africa has built up extensive experience and high level contacts throughout the Western Mediterranean, the UK, the USA and Japan. He is now based at the Barcelona Center for International Affairs (CIDOB) where he analyses emerging security, political, economic and energy trends in the region and connects them to European, US and North African policy priorities.
This event is being co-sponsored by the Center for International Development and the Joan Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy.