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.”
About the Speakers
Craig Spencer, MD MPH, is the Director of Global Health in Emergency Medicine at New York-Presbyterian/Columbia University Medical Center and an associate professor in the program on Forced Migration and Health at the Mailman School of Public Health. He divides his time between providing clinical care in New York and working internationally in public health. He has worked in Africa and Southeast Asia as a field epidemiologist on numerous projects examining access to medical care and human rights, including measuring mortality and maternal health in Burundi, access to legal documentation in Indonesia, community response to hepatitis E in rural Chad, and coordinating Doctors Without Borders (MSF) national epidemiological response in Guinea during the Ebola outbreak. In addition to his international public health work, Craig has provided medical care in the Caribbean, Central America, West and East Africa, and most recently abroad onboard a MSF medical search and rescue boat in the Mediterranean. Since 2019, he has served on the Board of Directors for Doctors Without Borders USA.