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.”
A talk by MEI Senior Fellow Rami Khouri, Director, Issam-Fares Institute for Public Policy, American University of Beirut.
Rami George Khouriis a Palestinian-Jordanian and U.S. citizen whose family resides in Beirut, Amman, and Nazareth. He is director of the Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American University of Beirut. His journalistic work includes writing books and an internationally syndicated column, and he also serves as editor at large of the Beirut-based Daily Starnewspaper.
He spent the 2001–2002 academic year as a Nieman Journalism Fellow at Harvard University and was appointed a member of the Brookings Institution Task Force on US Relations with the Islamic World. He is a research associate at the Program on the Analysis and Resolution of Conflict at the Maxwell School, Syracuse University (NY, USA), a Fellow of the Palestinian Academic Society for the Study of International Affairs (Jerusalem), and a member of the Leadership Council of the Harvard University Divinity School. He also serves on the board of the Center for Contemporary Arab Studies at Georgetown University.
He was executive editor of theDaily Starnewspaper in 2003–2005, and before that had been editor-in-chief of theJordan Timesfor seven years, when he also wrote for many years from Amman, Jordan for leading international publications, including theFinancial Times, theBoston Globe, and theWashington Post. For 18 years he was general manager of Al Kutba, Publishers, in Amman, and in recent years served as a consultant to the Jordanian tourism ministry on biblical archaeological sites. He has hosted programs on archaeology, history, and current public affairs onJordan TelevisionandRadio Jordan. He often comments on Mideast issues in the international media and lectures frequently at conferences and universities throughout the world.
He has BA and MSc degrees respectively in political science and mass communications from Syracuse University.