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.”
Carmen M. Reinhart is Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank Group. Assuming this role on June 15, 2020, Reinhart provides thought leadership for the institution at an unprecedented time of crisis. She also manages the Bank’s Development Economics Department. She is on public service leave from Harvard Kennedy School, where she is the Minos A. Zombanakis Professor of the International Financial System. Previously, she was Senior Policy Advisor and Deputy Director at the International Monetary Fund and held positions as Chief Economist and Vice President at the investment bank Bear Stearns. She also serves in the Advisory Panels of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York and the International Monetary Fund. Reinhart has been listed among Bloomberg Markets Most Influential 50 in Finance, Foreign Policy’s Top 100 Global Thinkers, and Thompson Reuters' The World's Most Influential Scientific Minds. In 2018 she was awarded the King Juan Carlos Prize in Economics and NABE’s Adam Smith Award, among others. She holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University.
The event is sponsored by the Economic Diplomacy Initiative, a collaboration between the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and the Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business and Government at the Harvard Kennedy School.