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.”
Paul Hollingsworth will draw on his time on the National Security Council staff and 27 years in the CIA to discuss the interplay between policy and intelligence, including how it works in both theory and in practice.
Mr. Hollingsworth has been the intelligence advisor on Eurasia for BP since September 2014. He previously served for 27 years in a variety of capacities in the Central Intelligence Agency, including overseas assignments in Russia and Greece and a domestic assignment at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. For the final two years of his government career he was the Special Assistant to the President and Senior Director for Intelligence Programs on the National Security Council staff at the White House.
He has a B.A. in Catholic theology from Georgetown University and an M.A. and a Ph.D. in Byzantine and Medieval Slavic Studies from the University of California (Berkeley).