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.”
POSTPONED: This event was postponed from an earlier date due to weather.
Pulitzer-prize winning, veteran journalist R. Jeffrey Smith has just completed a two-year investigation into the global effort to control nuclear weapons and the materials that could be used to make them. With colleagues at the Center for Public Integrity in Washington, he published thirty articles about the risks posed by inadequately secured nuclear material around the world (the articles appeared in publications ranging from The Washington Post to Foreign Policy, from Stars and Stripes to NBC News). At this seminar, Smith will distill the lessons he believes should be drawn from setbacks in the continuing U.S. campaign to control one of the world’s most serious threats.