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.”
Panelists Include:
Dr. Mansoor Ahmed is a non-resident senior fellow at the Center for International Strategic Studies in Islamabad, Pakistan as well as a project associate and visiting fellow with the Third Nuclear Age Project at the University of Leicester. He is a former Stanton Nuclear Security junior faculty fellow (2015-16) and postdoctoral research fellow (2016-18) with the International Security Program and Managing the Atom project at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center. He also served as a lecturer in the Department of Defense and Strategic Studies, Quaid-i-Azam University, Islamabad, from 2011-2015.
Dr. Mayumi Fukushima is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the Project on Managing the Atom and the International Security Program. Her research interests include international security alliances, nuclear nonproliferation, and international security in East Asia. Her research has been published in International Affairs, The National Interest, and The American Interest, among others, and it has been supported by various organizations including the Stanton Foundation, the Smith Richardson Foundation, and the Murata Science Foundation. She was recently a postdoctoral Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow with the RAND Corporation in 2020-21 and a Smith Richardson Foundation predoctoral fellow at Yale University's International Security Studies Program in 2018-19. She earned a Ph.D. in political science from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2020. Prior to her Ph.D. training, she served as a fast-track career diplomat (deputy director) at the Japanese Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
Dr. Steven E. Miller is Director of the International Security Program, Editor-in-Chief of the quarterly journal, International Security and also co-editor of the International Security Program's book series, Belfer Center Studies in International Security (which is published by the MIT Press). Previously, he was Senior Research Fellow at the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI) and taught Defense and Arms Control Studies in the Department of Political Science at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Miller is a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, where he is a member of their Committee on International Security Studies (CISS). He received a Ph.D. in international relations from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy.