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.”
Major General (res.) Yaakov Amidror, retired as National Security Advisor to the Prime Minister of Israel and the Head of the National Security Council. Following his retirement, he joined the BESA Center as the Anne and Greg Rosshandler Senior Fellow.
Major General Yaakov Amidror served with the Israel Defense Forces for 36 years (1966-2002). During his long military career, General Amidror was Commander of the IDF Military Colleges, military Secretary to the Minister of Defense, Director of the Intelligence Analysis Division (responsible for annual National Intelligence Assessment) in IDF Military Intelligence, Head of a large scale technology project, Intelligence Chief of the Northern Command, and Head of the “Devil’s Advocate” branch of Military Intelligence. Since retiring from the armed forces, General Amidror has published Reflections on Army and Security (Hebrew); and Intelligence, Theory and Practice (Hebrew), along with journal articles on strategy and intelligence matters.