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.”
Dr. Sameer Bhalotra is the Co-Founder and CEO of StackRox. He serves as co-chair of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) Cyber Policy Task Force for the 45th Presidency, and is affiliated with Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) and UC Berkeley's Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity (CLTC). He previously worked in cybersecurity on the National security Council staff at the White House, Cybersecurity & Technology Lead for the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, and in various roles in the intelligence community. Sameer graduated from Harvard University with a BA in Physics and from Stanford University with a PhD in Applied Physics.