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.”
Presidents, policy makers, and military commanders depend upon timely and accurate intelligence to inform and shape their decisions in a world of ambiguity, hostile actors, and disinformation. The savviest leaders in the private sector do the same.
Businesses today are facing increasingly complex threats to infrastructure, finances, and information. Because the government is not always able to share classified information about these threats, private sector companies have started to create their own in-house intelligence capabilities.
Please join the Intelligence Project for a lunch discussion with Paul Kolbe on how businesses use intelligence collection and analysis to make important decisions and support their global operations.
Mr. Kolbe leads BP’s Global Intelligence and Analysis team supporting threat warning, risk mitigation, and crisis response. His team provides geo-political threat intelligence, strategic cyber intelligence and business intelligence for BP leadership, security networks, and global business units. Prior to joining BP, Mr. Kolbe served 25 years as an operations officer in the CIA. He was a member of the Senior Intelligence Service, and is a recipient of the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal. Mr. Kolbe served in Russia, the Balkans, Indonesia, East Germany, Zimbabwe, and Austria. In course of his career, he served as station chief and in a variety of senior operational leadership and training roles.
